Purpose: The purpose of this study aims to compare the academic performance and types of learning strategies used by APEL and regular entry undergraduates. It also explored the relationship between the academic performance and the types of learning strategies utilised by these two groups of undergraduate. Design/methodology/approach: This…

Software has become central to every part of modern life and supports everything from managing personal schedules to managing global supply chain systems. In creating new or updating existing software, software developers often need to incorporate new technology. When software developers learn new technology using tutorials, their experience with…

Building a sense of classroom community is essential for online courses, and various factors such as individual characteristics may influence this feeling. Therefore, this study investigated Chinese college students' sense of online classroom community by comparing students from rural and urban areas and their previous online learning experience.…

In this paper, we present and discuss an explorative study on the use of a social 360° virtual reality (360VR) for supporting case-based Problem Based Learning (case-PBL) in clinical medical education. In the context of case-PBL, we argue that our social 360VR learning space extends the design and application of cases in medical education by…

Previous research has shown that providing video recommendations to students in virtual learning environments implemented at scale positively affects student achievement. However, it is also critical to evaluate whether the treatment effects are heterogeneous, and whether they depend on contextual variables such as disadvantaged student status and…

This reflection outlines the problems associated with the Australian Government's recurrent funding policy for non-government distance education. It demonstrates the policy's inconsistencies with stated government educational policy and with commonly held expectations of fairness in a democratic society. A comparison of the current funding of…

India and China are two fast growing economies of the world and need large skill based manpower to sustain the economic growth. The existing formal higher educational system in these countries will not be able to meet the demand of the economy. The paper will try (i) to compare the development of economy and distance education in India and China…

This study aims at describing and analysing systematically an interactive learning environment designed to teach Quantum Physics, a second-year physics course. The instructional design of Quantum Physics is a combination of interactive lectures (using audience response systems), tutorials and self-study in unit blocks, carried out with small…

This study compared traditional and distance education delivery platforms (onsite, hybrid, and online) at the college level in an urban setting in terms of student success, measured by final course grades and identified predictors of student success. The study examined the role of variables (prior knowledge of mathematics, language, gender,…

Online education has emerged in the 21st century as a popular alternative to traditional education. Proponents argue that online education provides opportunities for learners that they would otherwise do without (Beard & Harper, 2002; Hay, Peltier, & Drago, 2004). Opponents (see, for example, Hay et al., 2004) have argued, however, that the loss…

This report has been prepared in direct response to the Action Plan on Adult Learning "It is always a good time to learn" (European Commission, 2007), and, more specifically, to its stated objective of increasing the opportunities for adults to achieve a qualification at least one level higher than they previously held. The document…

The experiences of Chinese learners on two e-learning programmes in China were investigated, focusing particularly on the formation of learning communities. Data were collected using a range of instruments to access the learners' perspectives in depth and detail. Archer's account of reflexivity as the mediating power between structure and agency…

Biostatistics is not universally available in colleges/universities and is thus an attractive course to offer via distance education. However, evaluation of the impact of distance education on course enrollment and student success is lacking. We evaluated an "Introduction to Biostatistics" course at Harvard University that offered the distance…

A study analyzed the prior knowledge state of two university populations: students at the Open University (OU) of the Netherlands and students at the University of Limburg (UL). Analysis of the prior knowledge state was based on an extensive analysis of the literature in relation to theories, models, and practice-based strategies about the…

Explores the faculty time and effort spent in developing and delivering a graduate course for both a distance course and a traditional classroom course. Results show that the distance course did require more time, but suggests hypotheses for future comparative analysis that time may partially depend on instructor experience and institutional…