Is Online Learning an effective type of Distance Education?

Distance Education is often associated with the current pandemic situation that the world is facing today but do you know that this form of education had started even before the internet and the COVID-19 pandemic were discovered?

We were in an era where students and teachers interact physically in a school environment, holding classes, taking assessments, awarding ceremonies and the like, year after year. This system of educating people was the most common arrangement to facilitate learning for so many centuries but who would have thought that distance education in a form of online learning could become more popular nowadays?

Distance Education existed long before the birth of cyberspace, people had been teaching – learning remotely through letter writing which was the exclusive form of communication many years ago. This means that since then, the people have been made aware that learning remotely is viable. The pandemic made online learning to be the favorable mode of education at present because of the lockdowns here and there which results to restricted physical interactions among people.

According to the G2R research team led by Imed Bouchrika, PhD,

“Online learning is relatively the newest form of distance education (Stern, n.d.), although it has been practiced for decades (OnlineSchools.org, n.d.). Often referred to as elearning, it takes place on the internet. Online education has since paved the way for a pedagogical shift in the way teachers teach and how students learn. In this mode of learning, teachers and instructors function as guides, while students become active collaborators rather than mere passive learners (Stern, n.d.).”

“One can expect steady growth in the number of students turning to online learning in the coming years”

• A report revealed that the percentage of students taking one or more online undergraduate classes increased from 15.6% in 2004 to 43.1% in 2016 (Snyder, Brey, & Dillow, 2018).
• The same report also showed that the percentage of undergraduate students taking fully online degree programs increased from 3.8% in 2008 to 10.8% in 2016.
• According to the report of Snyder, Brey, & Dillow (2018), the percentage of graduate students who took entirely online graduate (postgraduate) degree programs has increased from 6.1% in 2008 to 27.3% in 2016.
• The percentage of graduate students who take one or more online courses also increased from 16.5% in 2008 to 45.6% in 2016.
• Moreover, findings from a survey showed that in general, there are more female online higher education students than males. It was found that 65% of undergraduate and 54% of graduate online students are female (Duffin, 2019).
• Online learning also appeals to graduate students who study toward a master or doctorate degree. In a survey conducted by Learning House, Inc. and Aslanian Market Research (2018), it was found that out of 1,500 graduate online students, 86% believed that the value they obtained from their online degree equaled or exceeded what they paid for.

(Reference: https://research.com/education/online-education-statistics#TOC1)

Developments and progress on technological aspect occurred and gave birth to inventions that helped educators to be more well versed in facilitating virtual classes. Students have their own learning portals where instructional materials have been made accessible at anytime and anywhere, assignments as well as portfolio are properly assessed and evaluated efficiently. Schools and universities get to provide high quality curriculum with clear objectives and end goals to meet the needs of the learners and the society. This shows that Education is continuously evolving and adapting to digital transformation trends.

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