VOL. 14, No.1, 34-57
This article describes the results of a naturalistic inquiry undertaken to identify administrative issues concerning student services in five nursing degree programs offered by distance education in Canadian dual-mode universities. The findings present a series of dilemmas for administrators to do with student participation, available services, and extent of interaction. These dilemmas include possible heavy enrollment and the “bottleneck” in providing clinical placement, students’ need for independence and instructors’ desire for group discussion, administrative flexibility and institutional rules, complex student needs and inadequate counseling services and the need to ensure that there is appropriate program redevelopment as the student clientele for these programs changes and there is a more seamless transition between campus and distance education courses.
L’article présente les résultats d’une enquête naturaliste qui visait à identifier les enjeux administratifs liés aux services aux étudiants de cinq programmes menant à un diplôme en soins infirmiers, offerts à distance par des universités canadiennes bimodales. Les résultats placent les administrateurs face à des dilemmes en matière de participation étudiante, de services offerts et des niveaux d’interaction possibles. Au nombre de ces dilemmes, on compte l’éventualité d’un volume élevé d’inscriptions et l’engorgement subséquent des stages en clinique; le désir d’indépendance des étudiants et le désir des professeurs de discuter avec les étudiants; la souplesse administrative et les règlements des établissements; la complexité des besoins étudiants et l’insuffisance des services d’orientation; enfin, le besoin d’assurer à la fois un remaniement des programmes qui tienne compte de l’évolution de leur clientèle et une jonction plus souple entre les cours dispensés sur campus et ceux qui le sont à distance.
Given the general lack of literature on administration in distance education in dual-mode institutions, this naturalistic inquiry examined administrative issues associated with post-RN baccalaureate degree programs offered by distance education in Canada. As a basis for the study, Moore and Kearsley’s (1996) definition was used, where distance education is:
Planned learning that normally occurs in a different place from teaching and as a result requires special techniques of course design, special instructional techniques, special methods of communication by electronic and other technology, as well as special organizational and administrative arrangements. (p. 2)
The study centered on the broad two-part question: What are the issues faced by administrators of nursing degree programs offered through distance education, and what processes have they put into place to address these issues?
A naturalistic, interpretive approach to inquiry involving qualitative methods was used. Beginning with administrators from five well-established Canadian post-RN degree programs offered by distance education, individuals directly involved with administration were interviewed to gain an understanding of their organizations, the issues they faced, and how they attempted to resolve these concerns. Although these administrators formed the original participants, early in the study it became apparent that other individuals, most recommended by the original participants, would also be valuable contributors. Consequently, through a snowball selection process, a total of 28 were ultimately interviewed. In addition to the deans and directors, participants included program coordinators, faculty members, librarians, student advisors, and students.
In each case, prior information was obtained about the program, and time was spent on site to ensure that all those who were willing and available had an opportunity to participate. This aided in the triangulation of the information from each site and allowed for clarification of any anomalies. In addition, a variety of institutional documents were examined. The five programs were chosen to reflect differing provincial orientations, approaches to distance education, and numbers of students enrolled. All included a clinical component and involved some combination of print, audio-conferencing, telephone tutoring, on-site gatherings, and occasional use of other instructional technologies.
The audiotaped interviews were transcribed and returned to a sample of the participants for verification. The approved transcripts were then analyzed and clusters of topics identified that eventually formed six general categories. Finally, because the research had two major foci—issues and resolutions—in each category, the data involving issues were separated from those focused on resolutions. The administrative issues and resolutions emanating from the study were then returned to a sample of the participants from the five sites for verification. Of the categories, three dealt directly with administrative issues (faculty participation, program development and delivery, and bureaucracy) and three with student concerns. These latter three categories—student participation, student support services, and interaction—are the focus of this article.
Each category contains a number of related topics. Although participants varied in their discussion of these topics and their strategies for resolution of their issues, they all discussed these issues in some fashion.
Most issues associated with student participation related to recruiting and admitting students, dealing with distance education students as adult learners, and choosing flexibility over the institutional rules.
Recruiting and admitting students. Problems related to recruiting and admitting students to programs or registering them in courses at particular sites were expressed in terms of both too few and too many students. Having too few students had funding and pedagogical implications and frequently begged the question of whether to continue a specific class or even a particular program. For example, in one institution, enrollments were sufficiently low that closure of the program was a real possibility. Indeed, this was cited as the main issue facing administrators there. On the other hand, having too many students was a concern voiced by others, as large numbers had pedagogical as well as space implications. Furthermore, teaching to widely disparate numbers in different classrooms with, for example, three students in one classroom and 25 in another was cited as a major challenge.
At most sites, a minimal number of students was required to make it financially feasible to offer a course, and decisions about whether a particular course would be offered were based on that number. However, this often became a moot point for most participants, as it was impossible to predict the number of students who would remain registered in any given course. Even if the requisite number had indicated an interest in a course, once it began, students might not show up for class, or some would drop out after the course started. Hence, instead of the predicted five students, there might be only two.
People often referred to the small sites as “dying sites” and struggled to find solutions to deal with the problem of low numbers. In one case, it was reported, “We are trying to close some of these sites.... we decided we’re not going to admit students into the post-RN program unless there are five at a particular site.” The number five was chosen because, besides the difficulties teaching to smaller numbers through audio-teleconferencing, five seemed to be the lowest number that would make it financially feasible to keep a site active.
Participants emphasized how the ability to attract new students to post-RN programs was influenced by a number of factors, not the least of which were the external conditions affecting nursing practice. For example, the power of nursing leaders was identified as a major force influencing nurses to seek their degrees, which in turn influenced recruitment, as this participant pointed out,
We thought [one site] was going to die. And then [the hospital] got a new director of nursing who valued education, and this woman swept in and said, “We are not going to be like this anymore. All head nurses have to have their degrees and all supervisors have to have degrees. We are going to preferentially hire grads with degrees.” And all of a sudden [that site] took off and everybody was wanting to get their degrees there. So, the local leadership, and what is valued locally is important in terms of how recruitment goes.
The effect of this influence was significant for this nursing program, because if a minimal number of students could not be recruited at certain sites, decisions would need to be made about whether the course would be canceled at that site. One participant, when describing how she used journaling in her classes to get to know her students, read this excerpt from a student’s journal, which clearly illustrates how stressful the possibility of canceling classes was for students.
Oh my God! There are only two of us left at this site. There are only two of us left! The others have dropped out of the course out of fear of the assignment. That means that maybe this course will be canceled.... Then I won’t have any courses this semester. That means I don’t think I am going to be able to finish my degree!
It was clear that maintaining sites with low enrollments was a multifaceted concern with financial and pedagogical implications. On the other hand, teaching to large numbers of students in several sites was problematic in different ways. One individual, clearly concerned about students, explained:
I think it is hard to give students a good educational experience through teleconferencing.... I think a lot of us try to develop strategies for interaction and communication. But when you are teaching 100 students or 150 students? I mean, when you’ve got them in front of you it’s hard to stimulate discussion, but when you’ve got them in four different sites, its really hard to get much of a contribution from some of the sites.
In one sense, aside from the difficulties experienced when teaching to groups of students that are either too small or too large, one would expect that most distance programs should be able to accept an unlimited number of students. Indeed, most programs had no difficulty attracting students as there was generally a demand from nurses for post-RN educational opportunities.
However, this did not necessarily mean that all students who applied could be accepted. For example, clinical courses were impediments to accepting students in large numbers—so much so that they were identified as major “bottlenecks.” The concerns ranged from finding clinical opportunities to workload issues for faculty. Most schools were forced to limit enrollments based on the capacity of the community to provide adequate and appropriate clinical placements for students. This was a troublesome issue, as this individual observed, “There is a major squeeze on clinical placements and I suspect that is happening everywhere.” And another participant noted:
That’s what tends to determine the number of students we can take in—it’s the number of students we think we can actually place in Community Health.... We still can’t meet the demand in [one location]. We could have 100 students if we were willing to ... if we had the community health placements.
Similarly, as a third person put it, “That’s how many [students] we are going to take in—how many placements.... There aren’t that many [preceptors]. They just don’t exist!”
Clearly, although in terms of the theory courses most programs could accept any number of students, clinical courses were notably different. This quote reflects much of what other informants said about the challenges the clinical courses presented, and how they influenced the numbers of students they could accept:
When I think about the issues and the problems that arise for us it is largely around the practice courses. They take much more time. They take much more consideration, they require a lot more care, I think, to get students linked up in ways that they feel supported out there in agencies, and that agencies feel like we’re here to help support them too, if a problem arises.
We had a problem last time and its like—you have to be on top of that immediately, to make sure this is not going to blow up in your face. And I think a little problem in one place can sort of have a ripple effect in many others. Practice placements are really, really precious, and we can’t afford to blow them.
Students were required to participate in clinical practice courses in all the programs. Administrators who had much experience with these programs pointed out that it had always been a challenge to find innovative ways of arranging clinical experiences. Finding appropriate clinical experiences and preceptors, dealing with the extra work involved for faculty, and finding and funding faculty to teach clinical courses all caused concern for participants. One participant, who echoed the majority view on this issue, aptly captured the sentiments associated with the clinical courses and acquiring clinical placements, declaring it as a “hell of a job!”
Distance education students as adult learners. The notion that post-RN students are mature adult learners emerged as a paradox. On one hand, faculty members maintained that their attraction to the post-RN programs was based on an assumption that the students were older and mature. As this participant described it:
Folks who teach in the post-diploma do that because they like that level of learner. They really like the adult learner. It’s the experience the post-diploma student brings I think, is what captures a lot of the faculty. It’s not the distance—it’s the adult learner. Once we went distance, we all suffered the same growing pains.
On the other hand, participants indicated that, along with the attractive qualites associated with adult learners, came some unique challenges. Because of their complex lives, post-RN students also had more personal problems, were more demanding, and required more attention and time than did other students. For example, one student advisor explained it like this:
The post-RN students are often students who come back to study after quite awhile. Often their last studies go back to their diploma programs. Their needs are completely different than the other students who have transferred directly from high school, or who have transferred from another university program and have less responsibility. And just dealing and explaining to students—the post-RN students will question more. They won’t take No for an answer, you know.
Another individual noted that although she enjoyed post-RN students, she believed her most significant administrative issues were related to
Trying to keep post-RNs happy. And that’s not a small feat! Because you are dealing with professionals. You are dealing with mature students who are quite demanding. And I don’t think university administration appreciates the work that goes into counseling, and administering post-RN student files; especially distance education students.
In a similar vein, yet another participant pointed out:
The post-RNs take most of my time. They have more questions. They want to challenge the system more, and they have more problems because they are trying to work around their own workloads.... and they are the most interesting.... In most cases, they are not real happy having to come back and get a BN, because they feel they know basically what they need to know in order to work. They are the students who tend to look at the calendar and try to change the rules slightly, which is fine. They tend to try to find quicker ways of getting through than the other students do. So it’s a bit of a challenge.
Many participants raised concerns about the personal lives of their post-RN students’ and the implications these had for learners in the context of traditional universities. One participant eloquently described it this way:
As far as administrative issues, I think one main concern is the characteristics of students and their lives that come to us in this program. For the most part they are working either full time or part time, for the most part they have families, and often complex-family kinds of situations.
She went on to observe that the university needed to be responsive to the complex lives and concomitant needs of their students, saying,
We seem to have an awful lot of students that have got very, very complex living arrangements. They are in and out of relationships, so we’re against the sort of desire to keep things moving, and to live to the regulations the university sets up around students getting through in a certain period of time.... And you kind of have to give them more allowances, and give them more deferred grades, and give them more opportunities to back off and withdraw out of the course and then come back in again.
Coincidentally, whereas for the most part the assumption existed that post-RN students were older, mature, and professionally experienced adult learners, many participants recognized that this trend is changing, with students entering programs at a much younger age than in the past and with little or no experience. This feedback had been received from preceptors who were community health nurses: “These kids are so naïve. They don’t know how to go into a family, a single mom, a single parent—and dealing with the Welfare system!” Consequently, participants noted that the preceptors had to do more teaching than in the past and were concerned that the amount of work would continue to escalate.
The lack of clinical experience and relatively low level of maturity generally manifested by a younger population had particular implications for the clinical courses. Clinical courses were problematic as it was already difficult to place students, even when instructors and preceptors expected mature, experienced nurses. In addition, a younger student population had participants questioning the appropriateness of the content and delivery expectations in these programs originally established on the assumption that students would be mature adult learners.
Choosing flexibility over the rules. Believing as they did that more flexibility was required for students in distance education programs, it was often a strain for participants to conform to traditional rules and regulations. It was common practice to bend the rules and extend deadlines or give extensions in order to accommodate the students and their busy, complex lives. For instance, one individual stated, “The way I see our program here, is that we’ve got rules. And I would say the rules are carried out about 15% of the time.” It was evident that the remainder of the time many exceptions were made.
One of the individuals who described the complex lives of students questioned, “How do you support those students through this program [while] constantly being faced by institutional rules about the length of program, numbers of courses that you can withdraw from, and all that sort of thing?” She went on to elaborate:
It’s an issue within our school.... A real tendency to try and shut down the possibilities, so that we can gain some control over the situation—which I know is necessary. But it tends to affect the distance students, I think not equitably. And it’s hard to keep raising this issue, to say we need to make this rule for the on-campus continuing students, and we need to leave this rule flexible for the distance education students.
This person was worried both about the students and about the problems this issue posed for student advisors:
And that’s really a hard place for advisors to be in—to be able to distinguish between. So I think, for me, where I see us is in a very sort of specific situation right now. It’s around some of those discretionary judgments that people in those positions [make]. Those are difficult decisions for them to make.
Then, discussing the implications for her as an instructor, knowing the needs of the students on one hand, and feeling the pressure to conform to traditional routines on the other, she observed,
It is becoming increasingly difficult from a faculty perspective to justify why I am giving these extensions. There’s this push back against saying “You can’t give that many extensions, you can’t give that sort of space to these people—these people have got to finish these courses.”
And it’s kind of hard for me to understand as an individual instructor, because it’s like, I know I have these five students outstanding. I know I have to assess their work as it comes in—in January, February, March, maybe. I need to work that into my workload and trust me I can do that! So quit hassling me! But I can just feel this constant push—like, it’s not a good thing to be carrying these students.
The need to allow students more flexibility was cited as a significant challenge for new faculty members—especially for faculty who came from more traditional settings. A participant observed that people who are more experienced with distance education and know the issues handle deadlines differently:
People are more flexible with distance students. The print material identifies exactly when the assignments are due and most profs—tutors—that are dealing with distance are really good about letting students know that that’s their expectation. But they are really prepared to consider individual differences.
In addition, one tutor emphasized the need for flexibility to enable faculty to treat students as individuals. She observed, “You know the rules and regulations are there for guidelines, I think. I don’t think always they are carved in stone. And I mean, there has to be flexibility and some merit given to individual cases.”
One person, who was worried that their distance education offerings might be cut back if budget problems persisted, reflected on the importance of this flexibility not only for their students, but for their school as well saying,
In tough economic times I don’t think we are on the map. I think there are many other pressing issues that come way before distance education. And that’s a little worrisome, I think, to people. Because in so many ways, it’s where we get our flexibility in our program, because with the post-RNs you can slip out of distance and on-campus. If we lose that, I think we will lose a large portion of our population. So, it’s really important for the survival of our school that we can maintain that—that we can work within that flexibility.
As important as it was, this type of flexibility caused some administrative concerns related to keeping track of students, as one administrator identified,
It’s so difficult for us to have numbers on distance education, because so many of our students mix and match distance with on-campus. Now it’s becoming increasingly popular for everybody to do—not just summer—but to do a mix-and-match throughout the year.
Similarly, one administrator, who supported the notion of a seamless system, where students could easily transfer back and forth between campus and distance offerings, recognized the inherent problems in doing so. For example, she indicated that because distance education was funded at least partly on a cost-recovery basis whereas the campus-based program was not, there were budget implications attached to such flexibility. She also identified the lack of space to accommodate students as a major problem, as well as student eligibility for financial assistance, which is tied to Revenue Canada guidelines.
Other administrators recognized that budgetary, space, and accounting implications could arise from flexible options that allowed students to transfer back and forth between on- and off-campus programs, to drop in and out of courses and programs, and have unlimited extensions. Nevertheless, the constant pressure to conform to rules established for campus-based programs was identified as a difficult and stressful issue for instructors, advisors, and administrators.
Participants used various means to deal with issues related to recruiting and admitting students. When enrollments were too low, strategies to attract students included changing the programs themselves and marketing the programs more aggressively. Changes meant making the programs more flexible by adding more elective courses or offering courses at different times; and marketing meant promoting the programs at conferences, traveling to various sites to meet with potential students, and sending program and course information to hospitals. When high enrollments became an issue, the solutions included offering extra sessions, asking instructors to accept larger numbers of students, or requiring students to wait until the course was offered again.
Concerns with clinical courses persisted despite attempts to minimize the problems. Some administrators were dealing with it by reducing the workload for faculty who taught clinical courses by limiting the number of students in these courses. In addition, some provided extra pay for faculty who taught clinical courses. Others assigned the responsibility for coordinating clinical placements to one particular individual who acted as a liaison between students and preceptors, thereby reducing some of the work for faculty. However, although these strategies worked to some extent in terms of attracting faculty to teach the clinical courses, they did nothing to attract clinical preceptors themselves and therefore did not improve clinical placement prospects for students. In one institution, clinical preceptors were paid to take students—a controversial practice in nursing not embraced across the country. In any event, despite paying them, finding preceptors who were willing and able to work with students remained a challenge in that program and required a great deal of negotiating.
Yonge and Profetto-McGrath (1990) outlined the many administrative duties, difficulties, and unanticipated problems related to coordinating preceptor programs, noting that “negotiating placements is a major task” (p. 30). It was evident that even with financial incentives, it was difficult to convince working nurses to preceptor students. This was expected to worsen in the future with a growing population of younger, inexperienced nurses entering post-RN programs who would require more supervision and assistance from preceptors who already experience heavy demands from their work.
Most administrators recognized the unique characteristics of mature students and they attempted to structure the programs accordingly, although they were often constrained by institutional policies. There was recognition of the need to give credit for prior experience and learning and for courses taken elsewhere, offering teleconference and videoconference sessions at times that were convenient for working nurses, respecting the added demands of work and family obligations, and the need for flexibility.
The need for flexibility was being addressed on an individual level by bending the rules when particular situations arose. However, on a program level, although administrators recognized and supported the needs of distance education students, there were no formal policies and procedures in place to address their needs. For the most part, at least on an official basis, students who were enrolled in distance education courses and programs were required to adhere to conventional rules and regulations.
Berge (1998) observed that “many barriers to learning and teaching at a distance are caused by lack of access to resources and people” (p. 11). An ongoing issue was that students were not able to access courses to the extent that they expected because there was inadequate funding and/or faculty to enable all the courses to be offered simultaneously. Also remaining unresolved were curriculum issues related to the shift in student demographics and the relatively inexperienced students entering the programs. In addition to the implications for clinical courses mentioned above, at question was the relevance of courses and programs that were designed for a different type of student. There was, however, little or no indication that anything was being done to address this issue beyond recognizing the potential problems that could evolve.
Paul (1998), in two surveys of university students who were taking distance education courses, also found a changing student profile. Like Wallace (1996), he described a shift from the number of older learners for whom distance programs and services have traditionally been designed, to a growing number of younger learners who were combining distance study with classroom study to enable them to have increased flexibility in scheduling.
Sherry (1996) observed also that although we traditionally think of distance learners as mature adults, more and more younger students are involved in distance education. This may have implications for how courses are designed and presented to students and for the types of student support services that they may require.
Participants commented on the challenges associated with the provision of various student services needed to support distance education in traditional universities. One individual aptly summed up the prevailing concerns regarding student services and identified library and counseling and advising in particular:
A big issue is how do we compensate for some of the things the students don’t get that you have when you are on campus and part of the university experience? What is it that is missing? How do we try and compensate for that? You can’t make them equivalent experiences, but what can you do? ... And one of them is the whole area of the library.
They still don’t have a good orientation to how to do a search. And it makes it more difficult for the library then to respond to their search request. We can get some of the students to come in to an orientation, but some can’t come in. Even if they could, they don’t see the value of it until they are starting to do a paper.
So that whole area of support that a student on campus would get—library orientation, computer orientation, counseling services, just an orientation to the university community. If you are on-campus, you can go to public lectures we are having and all these other things they miss out on. And can you compensate for that?
Library and counseling and advising issues were the major foci of the participants’ concerns relative to student support services.
Library services. Participants unanimously deemed library services for distance education students to be of high quality in their institutions—perhaps in some ways better than for students on campus. One individual suggested that “the students that were distance got wonderful service, I think [with] the turn-around-time for getting articles out to students, and the phone line.” However, she indicated that the expectations of the students were somewhat unrealistic:
I mean the service they were getting was more supportive than the service on-campus in some ways. Because the students here, yes, they can access us, but they have to walk around and find the articles. Whereas, the distance students get them sent out. So you don’t have to walk, it just arrives. And you don’t know how long it’s taken someone to search that out for you, it just comes. Whereas, the students on campus had to walk and find that the article wasn’t there, and where was that journal? It could be anywhere in the library.
Indeed, the individual below worried that the library might be providing too much, or the wrong kind of service to students:
In fact (and we stopped this) but, not only was the library doing searches for them and sending out searches, they were also choosing the 10 best articles and sending them out, too. And so, they asked if they could stop doing this. And I was horrified to find out they were doing it at all! And [I] said, “Yes, they need to get the abstracts and figure it out for themselves, find what they want, and then request it.”
Although they expressed appreciation for library services provided for distance education students in their institutions, participants were concerned that most distance education students never have the opportunity to learn research skills or how to conduct a library search. One individual made these compelling observations:
Ideally from my point of view I would like my role to be twofold: Teaching and educating them on how to do it themselves, but also doing it for them. And the difficulty is, of course, that we don’t really have the resources to do both. And are we really doing them service by doing it all for them? Certainly not in terms of long-term life education, and that sort of thing.
Realizing at the same time, often they are struggling with holding down a job, often they have a family, and they’re trying to take these courses at the same time. And I have a lot of sympathy. And I think that the understanding has to be there, that just asking them to learn one more set of skills—and these days it’s not just print, it’s using the computer. And that’s one other whole avenue/direction of knowledge and understanding.
Furthermore, participants believed that despite attempts to prevent it, library services for these students remained marginalized in terms of funding and resources, as noted in one institution,
When I started here, it was clear that this was, you know, a little mail order outfit in the back room—that you did extremely useful work, but it was a backroom operation. And I think in practice, it still is that.
Another participant, who had been involved in distance education as an administrator and instructor for many years, contended that despite the quality of service their distance education students enjoyed, “The library ... in distance education—this is an area of major concern. And if not, it should be!” In particular, concerns were expressed with regard to inequities between distance education and campus-based students, between urban and rural students, and, most importantly, in relation to opportunities to learn the required library and research skills.
Counseling and advising. For many people in distance education, counseling and advising are the sum and substance of closing the distance between post-RN students and the universities. Participants discussed the problems of dealing with students and their unique circumstances and demands and lamented the inadequate institutional arrangements for providing these services. Most maintained that effective counseling and advising were crucial for student success. Frustration was readily apparent concerning the inability to provide the desired quality of service with limited resources, role confusion when more than one or two individuals were involved in these activities, and the lack of a reliable means to inform distance education students about the availability of support services.
One student advisor spoke of the post-RN students’ needs for support, saying,
Post-RN students need a lot of help getting registered for courses. When it comes to applying for admission, they require a lot of help getting their stuff together, their documents. And they need a lot more support.... Another thing that really requires a lot of time with post-RNs is assessing the courses that they have completed prior to admission. And they are not always university courses. They are hospital courses, [or] they may have been taken through community colleges. And that requires an awful lot of time. What also takes an awful lot of time is assessing the courses they want.
Generally, the systems for advising and counseling were described as inadequate, and large numbers of students and too few staff and were cited as “a tremendous limitation in terms of being able to work intimately with post-RNs.” Furthermore, participants also expressed frustration with respect to role confusion, because along with the administrative staff who counseled and advised students, faculty also engaged in counseling. Therefore, they were sometimes “not totally clear” about their respective responsibilities. As one person put it, “You really need to know when you are cutting your own grass or someone else’s!”
The issues arising from this study concerning student support services are consistent with the views of Paul (1998), Phillips (1998), Rodrigues (1996), and Stenerson (1998). These authors all emphasized the need for student support services, including counseling, tutoring, peer support, academic advisement, and library services. Rodrigues and Stenerson saw similarities in the needs of campus and distance students. These authors maintained that many issues related to library access and support still needed to be addressed, especially with the growing use of web-based and multimedia resources. Although the use of the technology may improve the services available, successful programs must focus on the needs of students and not the technology itself (Sherry, 1996).
Participants indicated there was room for considerable improvement in student support services in these institutions, particularly in terms of library services. Attempts were being made to develop a means to improve students’ abilities to access and learn how to use library resources, mainly by incorporating the use of technology. However, no satisfactory solution existed to deal with the fact that many students did not learn critical library skills. One institution had developed a worksheet to guide students through the process of deciding on search terms and strategies so that at least they could understand the process of doing a literature search. However, this proved an unsatisfactory approach in this participant’s estimation of how well it worked:
And the understanding then, was that every student really should at least complete the worksheet in terms of, “This is the topic, I divided it down into these issues or aspects, there are some key words, this is the time frame, etc., etc.” Trying to guide them how to structure their search strategy. Because the feeling was that we were expecting them to show some sort of analysis and thinking across the board.
It didn’t quite work out that way.... They are still lacking the ability to analyze a topic and put it into terms that one could even create a computer search. There was still a lot of interpretation being done by the librarian before they performed the search, and assistance in terms of identifying within the result of citations—identifying those. Because the question would come in, you know, “Do the search and pick out a few articles for me, and send them along.”
All of that was exacerbated by time constraints because everything, the mail, the phone, it all takes time. And they are trying to work within a fairly restricted number of weeks. So I guess my greatest concern at the moment, is how to teach library skills, and not only library skills, but research skills.
Participants expressed frustration with their powerlessness to address issues related to the library, and in particular the inequities. So inequities, although recognized, continued to exist between library services provided to distance education students and on-campus students and between distance education students who lived near universities and those who were in more remote locations.
Furthermore, participants generally had not developed satisfactory ways to provide what they considered to be adequate counseling and advising services to distance education students. Although they all had individuals assigned to advise students and they seemed to be coping, they identified a need for more resources in this area due to the growing number of students they were serving. In addition, whereas most of them historically made site visits to recruit students, which afforded them opportunities to do face-to-face advising about courses, budget cuts no longer made this a feasible option. Student advisors remarked on the loss of that opportunity for personal contact with students, although students often still came to the university campus if they felt a need. In any event, participants identified many issues related to student support services that needed to be addressed in distance education. However, they were probably so engrossed in meeting the everyday needs of students that they could not think about alternative ways of providing support services.
Although most programs involved some combination of independent study (usually print-based) and opportunities for interaction (through on-campus or on-site workshops or classes or through audio-conferencing), participants were concerned about their limited amount of interaction with individual students. Issues related to interaction tended to be linked to two main concerns: the quality of student learning without group discussion and the need to cultivate a sense of belonging to the university and socialization to the profession. In their discussions, interaction was often seen to address both issues.
Concern for group discussion. Most programs provided some opportunities for group interaction and contact with a tutor/instructor. Local study groups, audio-conferences and on-site workshops were incorporated into programs as alternatives to on-campus classes. These strategies enjoyed dubious success much of the time, as groups did not always work well together or attendance was low. Referring to teleresource centers, one participant explained,
One doesn’t know how popular or useful that was for some students. I do know groups where there were difficulties because they had to do group work. They were assigned according to the resource centers, and that was not always a popular thing. The groups did not always work well together.
Others used teleconferencing to link students with peers and instructors but as one participant commented,
We use teleconferencing to some extent.... The difficulty even with teleconferences, as you probably know, is that students who are working shift may not be able to get to them. So we’ve decreased the number of teleconferences. And we have to indicate ... whether they are mandatory or not. And if they are mandatory, it makes it more difficult for nurses working shift, so they tend not to be. So you are not introducing new material,—it’s sort of a supplement, and a discussion, and another point of contact outside of the telephone.
Participants reported a variety of concerns about audio-conferences. From one participant’s experience,
We’re structuring teleconferences so students know in advance what they are expected to do for the teleconference. And [they] can be expected to contribute in a way that they have been invited to during that period of time, to make much more efficient use of the teleconference.
There are always some technical difficulties though. There are places where the sound is very bad or the lines are bad or whatever. And it’s very frustrating for students.... We are also using, more and more, the ability to divide teleconference groups into sub-groups so they can do some work on-line, on the telephone line.... The problem is they are only an hour and you can’t do much in an hour. So how do you make use of that time more effectively? I think it still takes a lot of thinking.
An instructor who had incorporated group work into her teleconferences noted that students participated to a limited degree or were unable to attend.
Telephone tutoring also had its limitations. One tutor participant found that despite her invitation, only two thirds of her students telephoned her for advice. This is consistent with Landstrom’s (1995) findings where instructors also reported receiving few calls from students, despite the perceived need for interaction.
The tutor enjoyed the contact she did have and explained her own objective, “I thought I could be a more effective guide in their program-to challenge them to go in certain direction or get them thinking through the telephone contact. But there were certainly people who didn’t need me.” However, because students in this program had to pay their own long-distance charges, there may have been other reasons why she did not hear from some learners. This issue of cost was also identified by other participants, as were concerns about learner availability. Tutor telephone hours were set in the evening to take advantage of lower telephone rates but may have conflicted with shift work schedules. In addition, there was an underlying assumption that if students needed assistance, they would contact their instructors, and hence there was no standard expectation that instructors initiate telephone contact with students at any time.
Instructors used other means to create meaningful interactions with students such as using their communication skills effectively when marking assignments and incorporating the use of journals in their courses. Journals were seen as a way to get to know students better, develop an intimate relationship with them, and encourage creativity and reflective practice. In particular, participants emphasized the importance of providing constructive, timely feedback and demonstrating a respectful, caring attitude when interacting with students both orally and in writing. A number of instructors had received requests for e-mail contact and listservs to provide opportunities for interaction. They were also cognizant that many students did not have access to online technologies and that they would have to provide opportunities for interaction in a variety of media for the foreseeable future to accommodate both staff and students.
Need for a sense of belonging. Most participants believed that students needed some face-to-face contact and peer group interaction to help them develop a sense of belonging and to identify with the nursing program and the university. As well, this was perceived as a way to help transform perspectives and enhance professional socialization. Spending time on campus was seen as the ideal way to accomplish this.
Participants had mixed views about the importance of providing opportunities for students to have face-to-face contact with each other. One reported that she had encountered many people who
really question the whole socialization process and how you can learn anything without having a discussion.... People really do believe that nurses must really get together and have eye contact in order to be able to discuss issues of nursing.
However, she was not convinced that face-to-face contact was always necessary for socialization of post-RN students who tended to interact on a regular basis with other nurses, although she did believe that some students enjoyed coming on campus.
In another program, this belief that students appreciated coming on campus led them to incorporate more workshops and study circles in their program. Nevertheless, one person admitted that professional socialization was an area they had not attended to closely enough. Consequently, she observed that “the students do a lot of that work of the socialization and the identity building to the university, I think, largely on their own.” This was seen as an issue for on-campus programs as well, where large numbers and limited outside class interaction did little to promote professional socialization. One student described her sense of belonging in her distance education program as “I didn’t feel much like I belonged to a university. I would say I felt more like I belonged to my colleagues at work, because I would bring all my stuff and talk to them.”
This is in keeping with Edwards (1996) who discussed the traditional notion of student with a clear identity and role. He noted, “If we are a student, we are part of something, we belong to an institution. That sense of belonging is important in establishing a sense of identity” (p. 7). He went on to suggest that when participating in open or distance education the sense of identity is challenged: “The focus shifts from being a member of an institution to being an individualized learner” (p. 8).
In summary, the need for more face-to-face group activities and interaction among students and between students and teachers was echoed by most participants. The notion of peer interaction is supported by Abrami and Bures (1996) who cautioned that,
Without interaction with peers, learners at a distance have few, if any, opportunities to experience complex problem-solving in a collaborative environment. Thus they may fail to develop and refine those cognitive and interpersonal skills increasingly necessary for business and professional careers.
Similarly, Attridge and Clark (1992) identified the visibility of other nurses as role models and peer interaction as important factors affecting students’ socialization and reflective thinking. They stressed the importance of providing opportunities for this to occur in distance education programs. Concordantly, all the participants in this study indicated that some classroom sessions on campus were the ideal way to increase interaction among students and between students and instructors in order to facilitate a sense of identity to the school, transform perspectives, and enhance professional socialization. In any event, face-to-face opportunities were not available to any great extent in most programs, and where they were available, they were not mandatory.
Interaction: Resolution
Verduin and Clark (1991) discussed the importance of providing opportunities for interaction and socialization, saying, “insufficient socialization is a common criticism of distance education” (p. 100). Eastmond (1995) also wrote of the isolation and loneliness that distant learners might experience in being separated from the instructor and other students. Participants in this study identified the need for interaction in order to promote professional socialization and to identify with their universities. The variety of attempts made to achieve this are in keeping with the literature, which suggests that social interactions are facilitated when learners have personal contact.
However, as Moller and Draper (1996) observed, the central issue and concerns related to the need for networking and socialization persist. Similarly, Hatcher and Craig (1998) maintained, “The inability of participants (learners and instructors) to be in physical contact with each other is a continuing issue with distance education systems” (p. 62) and was an issue in this study.
Furthermore participants discussed the need to use technology effectively in addition to using appropriate personal oral and written communication strategies. This is in keeping with Davies (1997), who stressed that creating a “high tech/high touch” environment was critical to effective distance learning (p. 68). Similarly Dede (1996) maintained, “The most significant influence on the evolution of distance education will be not the technical development of more powerful devices, but rather the professional development of wise designers, educators and learners” (p. 34).
Sherry (1996) also suggested that the “most important factor for successful distance education is a caring, concerned teacher who is confident, experienced, at ease with the equipment, uses the media creatively, and maintains a high level of interactivity with students” (p. 5). Negroponte (1997) cited by Cassidy (1998) presented the notion that emotional sensitivity is central to forming a learning partnership between distance education teachers and students. Consistent with the views of participants in this study, Cassidy (1998) maintained that tutors must be skilled at facilitating reflective discussions over the telephone and in written form. She used the term “emotional sensitivity” as one type of support that is vital in distance education, requiring that tutors put time and thought into replies to questions and be skillful at recognizing meaning behind discussions.
In this study, it was apparent that the long-standing issue in distance education related to the need for ongoing interaction with faculty members and preceptors remained. Although most believed that having students spend time on campus was warranted, it was recognized that it was difficult to incorporate mandatory on-site activities into distance education programs. Most programs did include clinical courses where students worked with preceptors at clinical sites, although there were many unresolved problems associated with this.
Participants identified a variety of methods used to deal with the need for interaction among students and between students and instructors. Besides holding group meetings on campus, the use of technology was considered to be a way to help resolve issues related to the need of interaction. However, in situations where group audio-conferencing was used and students had opportunities for group interaction, the classroom situations were often not conducive to any real, positive interactivity. This was of particular concern when classes were very large or when the class sizes were markedly different between sites. When individual teleconferencing was available, it had proven to be relatively ineffective as well. The participation rate was low either because it was not mandatory, because students had to pay for telephone calls, or because the sessions were often held at times inconvenient for students.
Most institutions were exploring the possibility of expanding the use of computer technology. However, participants recognized that the diversity among students in terms of access to computer technology and in instructors’ abilities to use it effectively would continue to present challenges to implementing widespread or mandatory use of computers in these programs. This study supports the views of Hall (1995), who maintained that despite its current popularity, all distance learning institutions have experienced and still grapple with three fundamental problems related to the continuing cost and quality of communications. Whether it is the postal system or telecommunications systems, most communications infrastructures are not reliable or student-friendly for teacher-student interactions. This in turn contributes to the second problem of lack of timely and frequent interactions and feedback. Third, he cited the lack of adequate resources for student research as an unresolved problem. Similarly, Stenerson (1998) stated that “the technology has changed but the central issues and concerns of distance education especially in the area of superficial interpretation of course material, motivational and learning experiences and low retention rate remain” (p. 14). These may all be manifestations of little or no contact between teachers and students.
Despite the importance given to interaction, there were no requirements in these programs for instructors to initiate contact with students or to maintain it on a regular basis. Unfortunately, long-distance telephone calls may have been prohibitive for students, and toll-free telephone numbers—identified as one mechanism that could improve interaction—were not available in any of these programs except for library access. Similarly, although timely and considerate written feedback was considered essential, there were no formal expectations by administrators that instructors return assignments within a specified time.
In their responses to student issues, the administrators in this study faced a series of dilemmas. There was a need to have sufficient student numbers to be economically viable, but the requirement to provide clinical experiences tended to be a bottleneck in determining how many students could be accepted. Further, although ensuring overall adequate enrollments was essential, there were pedagogical complications if enrollments were distributed unevenly among the teleconferencing sites.
The programs were based in large part on independent study to accommodate geographically dispersed learners on shift work and so forth, but given the faculties’ pedagogical beliefs and desires to provide for group discussion as an integral aspect of learning and socialization, the use of time- and site-specific group experiences (whether audio-conferences, mandated group work, workshops, or on-campus visits) constrained learner autonomy. A further frustration was that because students could not always participate in or attend these sessions, they had to be optional, and this lowered their pedagogical significance. Ironically, the learners did not seem to have the same concerns about interaction, although their lack of participation could be attributed to a number of factors from inappropriate time schedules to long-distance cost factors.
Many participants commented on the particular characteristics of these learners. They were mature adults and brought their professional experience into their studies, which instructors appreciated, but students also demanded that, because of this background, they not be treated like junior nursing students. Further, many had complex living situations that required ongoing interventions in the administration of their programs, so maturity brought difficulties as well as benefits. In addition, there was increasing evidence of growing numbers of younger students in the program who had neither the professional experience to cope well in clinical situations nor to bring to class to address course content.
Another dilemma was that although many programs provided individualized library services that sought to meet students’ needs for materials, faculty were concerned that library process skills, from locating materials to judging the quality of specific articles, was being undermined.
A final dilemma was that administrators’ beliefs about distance education programs providing unique opportunities for students framed their desire to provide as many opportunities as students needed to be successful, but this was in conflict with the expectation that they would abide by the procedures and policies set down for campus students and programs or else constantly justify their exceptions. Instructors saw this flexibility as being within their purview, but it made administration of the programs more difficult.
In discussing how they dealt with these concerns, many administrators found themselves dealing with the immediate issues of enrollment, course numbers and student placements. They had undertaken specific initiatives but often they seemed to have neither the resources nor the time to grapple fully with the underlying dilemmas. These dilemmas are not easily resolved but they need further examination.
Many distance education administrators, regardless of their particular program, face dilemmas such as these. They arise partly because these programs are in dual mode institutions where the dominant bureaucracy is focused on campus activities. The importance of ensuring an appropriate infrastructure for distance education programs in such an organization cannot be overstressed. This requires administrators to negotiate continuously for appropriate resources and recognition for their programs and to ensure that they are linked not only through appropriate policies and procedures, but also through all the services distance education students should receive. These include appropriate registration and withdrawal procedures, as well as library, student support, and counseling services. Also, they need to ensure recognition of the faculty’s need for resources and assistance from instructional design to technical support.
Unlike campus programs where the responsibility for the course development and instruction resides with the individual academic, in distance education programs, administrators need to ensure plans for course redevelopment and provision that are more systematic. They need to be aware of changes in their learners’ needs and life circumstances and have developed a current student profile that reflects these.
Program groups need to make decisions about where instructional flexibility ends and who provides student counseling so that students’ concerns are dealt with consistently. The issues of the extent of interaction and the attached notions of socialization to the profession and the institution should be explored in programs so that faculty can decide which are the most appropriate and feasible options for their learners. However, information from learners about their desire for interaction and any hidden costs to learners should also be ascertained.
The issue of finding and retaining appropriate clinical placements will be an ongoing challenge. Finally, the move toward a seamless system where students take a combination of campus and distance education courses needs to be monitored. This is likely to be a growth area, but it will bring further stresses to systems specifically designed to work with students at a distance and where funding is dependent on student numbers.
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Joy Fraser is an associate professor and the Acting Director of the Centre for Nursing and Health Studies at Athabasca University.
Margaret Haughey is a professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies with the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.
ISSN: 0830-0445