ERIC Number: ED436176
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1999-Feb
Pages: 8
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
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No Comparison: Distance Education Finds a New Use for "No Significant Difference."
Lockee, Barbara B.; Burton, John K.; Cross, Lawrence H.
This paper details the origins of the media comparison study methodology, its current use as an evaluation instrument in distance education, and recommendations for more stringent discrimination between research and evaluation in the field of distance learning. The following topics are discussed: (1) the history of research in instructional technology from 1968 to the present; (2) recent research in distance learning, including the difference between evaluation and research, and weaknesses in many instructional technology studies (e.g., failing to link the study to a robust theory, poor literature review, weak treatment implementation, measurement flaws, inadequate sample size, and poor analyses) that bias the research toward not finding a statistically significant difference; and (3) evaluation versus research in distance education, focusing on appropriate uses of media comparisons for distance program evaluation, as well as alternative methods and exemplary models. (Contains 55 references.) (MES)
Descriptors: Audiovisual Instruction, Comparative Analysis, Distance Education, Educational History, Educational Media, Educational Technology, Evaluation Methods, Evaluation Problems, Evaluation Research, Higher Education, Instructional Effectiveness, Intermode Differences, Literature Reviews, Research Methodology, Research Problems, Statistical Significance
Publication Type: Information Analyses; Reports - Evaluative; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
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Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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Note: In: Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Papers Presented at the National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology [AECT] (21st, Houston, TX, February 10-14, 1999); see IR 019 753.