Quality in Distance Education: Focus on On-Line Learning (review)

On the back cover of Quality in Distance Education, Russell Poulin of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications proclaims, "With the publication of this work, I hope to never again hear the phrase, 'There's just no research on distance education.'" I concur. Katrina Meyer has provided a comprehensive review of literature on Web-based learning for all who have questions about the impact of information technology on college teaching and learning.

Meyer seems well qualified to conduct this review. Since 1988 she has focused on distance education planning, policy-making, and research, first in two coordinating agencies and now as a faculty member in educational leadership at the University of North Dakota.

This ASHE-ERIC Report is carefully organized to tell readers where they will be going in the literature review, where they are, and where they have been. The work begins with an executive summary that identifies major questions guiding the review. The first chapter provides background on the growth of distance education and stakeholder interest in assessing its quality. Meyer begins each succeeding chapter by outlining concepts to be covered and ends the chapter by summarizing major points. A final section, "Conclusions," reviews the report's major findings. This organizational framework facilitates the reader's navigation through findings derived from some 300 studies as well as selecting sections of special interest. The one flaw in this well-conceived framework is that, while references are made in the first chapter and again in the conclusions to Chapters 2 through 8, the chapters are not numbered, either in the table of contents or on the title page of each chapter. This makes referring to specific sections difficult.

In keeping with her transparent organizational framework, in the opening Executive Summary, Meyer asks, "What might be the most important lesson to take from this review?" and answers: "One cannot evaluate the use of technology separately from the instructional uses made of it. . . . It is not the technology that has an effect, it is the way it is used" (p. vi). She states her intention to focus on "learning over the Web" as opposed to other modes of distance education and describes quality in student learning as "largely the result of ample interaction with the faculty, other students, and content" (p. vii). Because the Web enables interaction, in the hands of the right users, this tool can contribute powerfully to quality in student learning.

Having furnished the answers at the back of the book at the outset, Meyer first addresses the studies that compare learning outcomes resulting from Web-based instruction with those produced in face-to-face instructional settings and show, in general, no significant differences in test scores, grades, or student satisfaction. She cites the many criticisms of these studies: They are not based on theoretical frameworks and do not employ methods that distinguish quality research such as control groups, randomized assignment to treatment groups, or statistical controls. They are, in fact, primarily case studies and descriptions of individuals' experiences in using the Web in instruction—characteristic of a first stage in establishing the research base in a new field.

True to her thesis that instructional technology is only as effective as the ways in which it is used, Meyer devotes a major portion of her review to studies of the many ways that the Web can be used in instruction and to descriptions of characteristics, both positive and negative, of the major users: students, faculty, and institutions. She also compares the several sets of guidelines for effective practice in distance education that have been developed in recent years.

Meyer concludes that research on Web-based learning is in its infancy. At the end of major sections in each chapter, she suggests the kinds...