Students registering for distance education degree-level study frequently cite flexibility as a factor influencing their choice for this mode of study, but little is known about how students manage simultaneous and/or potentially conflicting roles. This study used a self-report open-ended online survey, completed by 348 tertiary-level final-year…

Feedback alignment is key to the effectiveness of formative feedback, but often tutors can only guess whether their feedback is consistent with students' needs and expectations. This study aimed to identify areas of potential misalignment by bringing together self-reported data and feedback analysis. Two parallel surveys were conducted with 736…

This article reports two studies undertaken at The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, a vocational distance education (DE) provider, where course completion rates have risen to match those of face-to-face technical institutions. A simple model of student engagement is presented, which reflects the triality between the student, institution, and…

This study focused on the civic education course at Universitas Terbuka (UT). Its purpose was to design a new approach for the online tutorial for the course by analyzing the literature related to online and distance education and investigating participant feedback on the current offering of the course and tutorial, which is a compulsory course in…

This collaborative research project sought to determine the attributes, skills and expertise/knowledge needed by distance language teachers. The first phase of the project explored tutor perspectives using discussion groups, questionnaires, interviews and a yoked-subject technique. Statements and categories of expertise were identified, elaborated…

This article offers a narrative portrait of one family enrolled in a school of distance education in Queensland, Australia. Most of the families own or manage sheep and/or beef grazing properties, and their children receive their education by correspondence papers and daily UHF radio lessons. The students complete their school work at home with a…

This article reports a study of parents' management of the education of primary school-aged children in their care in remote and rural locations of Western Australia. It presents a theory of the ways in which these parents, in the role of home tutors, "manage" the schooling of their children in a distance education regime in isolated…

Describes the Open University's general data management and file processing system which allows it to assist selectively and efficiently the work of the tutor-counselors in their support of the individual student. (Available: School of External Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 167 Franklin Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000,…

This paper discusses the issues raised when delivering professional doctorate programmes to students at a distance. It explores the importance in doctoral study of engagement with a research community, what a "community of practice" might mean within the academic context and the problematic nature of working with students already operating within…

In distance learning provision in languages, fault correction and feedback can facilitate teacher?student dialogue. This article examines teachers' beliefs and assumptions about faults and the attitudes of both teachers and learners towards the correction process, all of which can play a key role in fostering this dialogue. Our findings are based…

This paper describes a qualitative study of asynchronous electronic conferencing by three tutorial groups on the same postgraduate course ("Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide"), forming part of an MA in Applied Linguistics (via Distance Education) at the Open University, UK. The groups varied in the degree to which…