Staff Attitudes Towards Distance Education at the University of Zambia |
The University of Zambia operates an integrated system of distance education in which regular teaching staff teach both internal and distance students. Although lecturers are contractually obliged to teach distance students they are mainly recruited to teach internal students. It is important, therefore, to determine their acceptance of correspondence teaching, especially in a situation of staff shortages which result in high lecturer/student ratio.
This article summarizes results of a study in which a closed form questionnaire was used to elicit lecturers' opinions on various aspects of distance education at the University of Zambia. Some of the main findings are that lecturers did not have enough time to carry out their correspondence teaching responsibilities and that distance teaching was an extra burden which was not sufficiently rewarding. However, distance teaching per se was not resented, and a small but significant proportion of the respondents found it enjoyable. Also the majority thought it was fair for them to teach both internal and external students.
It is proposed in the article that in order to develop more positive attitudes towards distance teaching, lecturers need some incentives and training especially in correspondence course writing.
L'Université de la Zambie offre un système intégré d'éducation à distance dans lequel les mêmes instructeurs enseignent aux étudiants sur place et aux étudiants à distance. Bien que les enseignants soient requis par contrat d'enseigner à distance, ils sont surtout recrutés pour l'instruction sur place. Il est donc important de déterminer s'ils acceptent vraiment le principe de l'instruction par correspondance, particulièrement lorsque le manque de personnel entraîne à un rapport étudiant-enseignant élevé.
Cet article résume les résultats d'une enquête basée sur un questionnaire dont on s'est servi pour éliciter les opinions des enseignants sur les aspects variés de l'instruction à distance à l'Université de la Zambie. Il ressort de cette enquête que les instructeurs ne disposaient pas du temps nécessaire pour faire face à leur enseignement par correspondance et que cette tâche représentait un fardeau supplémentaire qui était mal récompensé. Néanmoins, cette forme d'instruction en elle-même ne les irritait pas et un petit nombre y prenaient même plaisir. De plus, la plupart d'entre eux trouvaient raisonnable d'avoir à enseigner aux deux groupes d'étudiants.
L'article suggère que pour encourager les enseignants à développer une attitude plus positive envers l'éducation à distance, il faudrait qu'ils reçoivent à la fois une récompense pour enseigner par correspondance et une formation spéciale pour écrire ces cours.
In independent Africa the University of Zambia was probably the first conventional university to establish a distance teaching wing, at the end of 1966. It operates an integrated system of distance education in which identical courses are offered to both internal and distance students by the same regular teaching staff. Thus distance teaching activities are integrated into the normal academic functions of the teaching departments. This model was adopted from the University of New England in Australia. This article describes and assesses the results of a study of distance teaching staff at the University of Zambia.
Integrated systems of distance education are thought to be less able, structurally, to carry out their basic functions effectively (Neil, 1981), such as the preparation and distribution of teaching materials, the correction of students' written and practical work, and the provision of counselling (Rumble, 1986). Also study materials in integrated systems are considered to be less carefully designed and of lower quality than those provided in autonomous distance teaching institutions.
According to Stinehart (1988), as the demand for academic courses offered by distance teaching from traditional university campuses grows, there will be a need to increase the number of faculty members required to teach at a distance. Stinehart, however, observes: "yet the literature of distance instruction is largely a chronicle of faculty resistance to teaching via instructional technology..." (p. 412). Writing on lecturer's acceptance of distance teaching in integrated models of distance education Neil (1981) states that:
Staff drawn from a `parent' institution are likely to be less than fully committed to DL (distance learning) and perhaps to retreat back into conventional departments when the problems and pressures of DL mount. Further, there is likely to be a considerable core of staff in a parent institution that is implacably opposed to DL - with all the stresses and strains that this tends to introduce. (p. 127)
The above observations derive their significance from the fact that in integrated distance learning systems lecturers are responsible for the entire teaching and assessment processes. Their attitudes to or acceptance of distance education can be crucial to the success of distance education in a given situation and therefore merit attention. The concern for this aspect of distance education among practitioners is perhaps evidenced by some studies carried out in various parts of the world, notably Australia, India, and the United States.
Clark, Soliman, & Sungaila (1984) surveyed the perceptions of external and internal teaching at the University of New England in Australia. Their study showed that most of the staff found external teaching more demanding than internal teaching. However, about one third found external teaching more enjoyable than internal; about one third were indifferent; and about one third indicated the reverse. Clark et al. concluded that enjoyment of distance teaching was related to effort and reflected the reward structure. Another significant observation was that part-time tutors found it difficult to avoid doing distance teaching properly partly because their appointments were temporary. The researchers also found that most staff saw distance students as being better prepared for university work than internal students.
Scriven (1986) surveyed staff attitudes to distance teaching in an integrated system, Brisbane College of Advanced Education in Australia. He discovered that 47% of the respondents felt that they were not given adequate time for writing distance study notes. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents felt that they were given adequate guidelines to help them prepare distance study materials. Sixty-eight percent were satisfied with the overall production quality of study materials.
Interestingly, only 25% of the respondents in Scriven's study indicated that they would avoid distance teaching if they could. Scriven also discovered that 31% of the respondents disliked marking distance students' assignments. Only 21% felt that the college's student support services were adequate. On the basis of his findings Scriven suggested that if job satisfaction had to be maintained departments would need to reduce their commitments to external studies or employ more staff.
Mani (1988) surveyed the staff perceptions/attitudes towards distance teaching at the Institute of Correspondence Education of the University of Madras in India. He discovered that only 10% of the respondents indicated that they would avoid teaching distance students if they could. Only 13% preferred teaching regular students. Mani also discovered that 40% of the respondents found teaching internal students easier and less strenuous than teaching distance students.
Noticeably 82% of the respondents in Mani's study thought that support services for distance students were not adequate. Also significant is that 40% of the teachers did not like marking assignments because "it is a time-consuming, monotonous and unrewarding job" (p. 299). The majority of the respondents, 60%, wanted teachers to be adequately trained in various areas of distance teaching. Mani proposed on the basis of his findings that "there should not be any disparity between the service conditions, salary structure and status of teachers in university departments, and institutes of distance education" (p. 300).
Stinehart (1988) studied factors influencing faculty attitudes towards distance teaching at Iowa State University, United States of America. One of the questions Stinehart sought to answer was the extent to which promotion and tenure practices supported participation in distance teaching. He stated that:
These results invite traditional research based institutions to look more carefully at how their current promotion and tenure practices do, or do not, reward participation in distance instruction. Support from the institution is an essential ingredient for increasing faculty involvement in distance teaching. (p. 415)
The above studies not only show the importance of staff perceptions of or attitudes towards distance teaching in traditional tertiary institutions offering distance learning courses but also reveal some similarities in staff perceptions and attitudes in different economic, social, and cultural environments. They therefore provide information upon which generalizations may be built about this aspect of distance education. Unfortunately no such study had been undertaken at the University of Zambia. This study was therefore intended to obtain information on the opinions of distance teaching staff at the University of Zambia.
Distance students at the University of Zambia constitute a small proportion (12–16%) of the entire student population (Siaciwena, 1988). By contrast at the University of New England, Australia, distance students constitute 60% of the total population (Smith, 1983). Undoubtedly student numbers have an effect on the status and visibility of distance education in an integrated system and can, arguably, influence the teaching staff's acceptance of or commitment to distance teaching:
The integration of external studies with internal on-campus activities at New England has been facilitated by the fact that, not only does an enrollment of 5,000 externals constitute the largest operation of its kind in Australian universities and colleges, but it also represents a large proportion of total student enrollment in 1979, about 60 per cent. (Smith, 1983, p. 200)
All teaching staff at the University of Zambia have a contractual obligation to teach distance learning when required to do so. The provision that one lecturer be recruited for every 50 distance students to ease the burden of distance teaching on those involved remains fictional (Alexander, 1975) because of the University's inability to recruit and retain both local and expatriate teaching staff. The shortage of staff in teaching departments has tended to increase the staff/student ratio as lecturers are responsible for large numbers of internal students as well.
Distance teaching necessarily requires more time and effort than does internal teaching to prepare study materials and to mark assignments. It requires that more assignments be set to make up for the lack of regular contact with students and this creates a very heavy marking load. In this situation lecturers may feel less willing to carry out their distance teaching responsibilities (Mulenga, 1987; Nyirenda & Kakanda, 1982; Siaciwena, 1983). Thus it is quite natural for lecturers in such a situation to concentrate on their internal teaching. In addition many lecturers at the University of Zambia have little knowledge of and background in extension work "and so lack motivation and commitment towards provision by correspondence" (Alexander, 1975, p.
87). Almost invariably the literature on distance education at the University of Zambia has focused on the description or identification of problems affecting the performance of the system, with less attention to the lecturers' opinions on various aspects of the distance learning courses. This is despite an earlier concern expressed by the first Director of Correspondence Studies at the University of Zambia who stated that:
It is unfortunate that members of the academic staff have not had an opportunity to discuss the development of correspondence and part-time studies in the University and the implications for the whole University of our embarking upon such an enterprise. (Hopper, 1968, p. 6)
This study was a part of the broad evaluation of distance education at the University of Zambia undertaken by the author for a doctoral thesis, between 1985 and 1988 (Siaciwena, 1988). The study was funded and supported by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom. Except for the administration of questionnaires which was done in Zambia, most of the study was conducted at the University of Wales College of Cardiff, United Kingdom.
A review of the literature pertaining to evaluational studies in distance education provided the author/researcher with ideas regarding the areas of focus. The areas and issues of focus were also identified by the researcher from practical involvement in distance education at the University of Zambia since 1977. Among the main aims of the study were
Closed-form questionnaires with spaces left for open-ended comments were distributed to all the 26 lecturers who were involved in distance teaching when the questionnaires were administered in 1986 (Siaciwena, 1988). It is acknowledged that a questionnaire is a reasonably reliable method of obtaining factual information from, as well as determining the opinions, feelings, and attitudes of people (Kerlinger, 1977, 1979; Oppenheim, 1966).
In order to achieve a fair amount of validity and reliability the questionnaire was pilot-tested. It was also assessed by various experts who included four distance educators (in the United Kingdom and Sweden) and two educationalists who had been closely associated with distance education at the University of Zambia. Necessary corrections and modifications were made.
Out of 26 lecturers to whom questionnaires were sent, 18 returned them, representing a response rate of 69.23%. This figure and the wide distribution of respondents among teaching departments were considered enough basis for generalizations to be made for the entire teaching staff at the time of research.
However, the very small size of the sample means that the validity of such generalizations may not be unquestionable. The results are presented and discussed under sub-headings as shown below.
Six question items related to the lecturers' satisfaction with or attitudes towards distance teaching consisted of attitudinal questions of "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree" (see Table 1).
As Table 1 shows, more than three quarters of the respondents, 77.8% (N = 14) in all, felt that they did not have enough time to carry out their correspondence teaching responsibilities. Nearly three quarters, 72.2% (N=13), thought that distance teaching was an extra burden in terms of time and effort. One lecturer commented that: "I think all lecturers should share in correspondence teaching to relieve those who have for many years been doing so." Interestingly the above finding is similar to that reported by Clark et al. (1984) cited above.
Clark et al. (1984) suggested that "the available evidence suggested that teaching could be improved by a variety of means including changes in the promotion criteria" (p. 84). It is noteworthy against this perspective that the majority of the University of Zambia lecturers who responded to the questionnaire, 61% (N = 11), (see Table 1) felt that distance teaching was not given due weighting when considering academic staff for promotion. One associate Professor commented that "correspondence studies at UNZA (University of Zambia) has almost always been considered the last priority - by lecturers, Heads of Department, Promotion Committees."
Given the above finding, it is surprising that only half of the respondents did not find distance teaching enjoyable (see Table 1). In fact one third, 33.4% (N = 6), found it enjoyable. This result is similar to that obtained by Clark et al. (1984) referred to above. However, over 80% of the respondents (see Table 1)
1) thought that distance teaching lecturers had as heavy an internal teaching load as those who did not teach distance students. One lecturer suggested that "specific incentives should be given to those teaching correspondence courses." Significantly, despite this result, half the lecturers who answered the questionnaire (see Table 1) felt that it was a fair system to have the same lecturers teach both internal and external students. One lecturer remarked, however, that: "It is fair to the student but not to the lecturer."
Table 2 shows that more than three quarters of the respondents, 77.8% (N =14), thought that study materials would be of better quality if they were edited by a person professionally qualified in correspondence course writing and editing. This supports Erdos' (1967) and Jenkins' (1981) contention that editors should be employed in the development of course materials:
Every correspondence course needs editing by an editor experienced in preparing work for publication, but some courses, because of the differing qualifications of writers, need reviewing by more than one person, each working upon the script for a different purpose. (Erdos, 1967, p. 25)
Nearly three quarters of the lecturer respondents, 72.2% (N = 13) in all, felt that study materials should be pre-tested, thus supporting the theory that the quality of study materials can be improved through developmental testing (Nathenson & Henderson, 1976; Rowntree, 1986; Thompson, 1987).
A weakness of the single author model revealed by the questionnaire results is that it becomes too much to leave the entire process of course writing to individual lecturers (Jenkins, 1981) who have to teach internal students as well. A total of 61.1% of the lecturers who answered the question felt that course preparation would be an easier task if teams of lecturers were involved (see Table 2). One lecturer commented that the quality of study materials "would improve with an increase in the number of academic staff involved."
The single author model of course development is associated with simple and very flexible production which is easy to alter. According to Childs (1971) some courses are sensitive to change and therefore should be structured in a manner that change can be more easily effected. This would appear to be a justification for preparing and producing study materials on an annual basis, at the University of Zambia. This system was, however, preferred by less than half, 44% (N = 8), of the respondents (see Table 2).
One of the 38.9% of the lecturers who preferred the system of preparing materials for long term use thought that it was "expensive to prepare study materials annually. There is, however, a need to review study materials after every four or five years." One of those who favoured the present system commented that "materials must be updated every year." However, the time constraint on the part of the teaching staff and the production and distribution problems described by Siaciwena (1988) tend to support the system of producing materials for long term use, rather than annually.
The limited role of lecturers in providing counselling to distance learners in an integrated model of distance education is revealed by the fact that all the respondents agreed that there was little contact between the distance students and their lecturers apart from the Residential School (see Table 3).
Half the respondents thought that Course Advisors (Counsellors) in the Department did not offer satisfactory guidance to distance learners. In contrast, however, nearly three quarters of the distance learners themselves thought that they received useful advice from their Course Advisors (Siaciwena, 1988). Table 3 also shows that two thirds of the lecturers agreed that on the whole the Department of Correspondence Studies did not seem to solve students' problems. The majority of the students, however, expressed contrary views (Siaciwena, 1988).
The contradiction between the lecturers' and the students' views on the counselling provided by the Department of Correspondence Studies may be attributed to the organizational structure which does not allow much interaction between the Course Advisors and individual lecturers. This is probably demonstrated by the fact that as many as a third of the lecturer respondents (see Table 3) were uncertain about the guidance given to distance students by the Course Advisors, a result similar to Scriven's (1986) cited above.
Radio Broadcasts at the University of Zambia are conceived, essentially, as a means of providing support to distance students. Thus they are important as a motivational factor (Perraton, 1986; Siaciwena, 1984). Table 3 shows that most of the lecturer respondents, 83.4% (N = 14), saw radio broadcasts as an important support to distance learning courses. Significantly, this result contrasts with Bates' (1984) contention that campus-based academic staff are largely unaware of the potential of radio as a teaching medium. Unfortunately, no respondent, thought that radio broadcasts were properly organized.
The success of an integrated system of distance teaching appears to be crucially dependent upon the lecturers' performance. This may be affected by their acceptance of distance teaching responsibilities. It was therefore found important and necessary to assess the lecturers' attitudes towards distance teaching at the University of Zambia. The 18 lecturers who responded to the closed form questionnaire represented all the eight departments that were offering distance learning courses in 1986 when the study was conducted. This provides a basis for generalizing about the views or opinions of the distance teaching staff at the material time.
On the basis of the questionnaire responses it can be stated that, generally, lecturers at the University of Zambia were not satisfied with distance teaching. However, it appears clear that distance teaching per se was not resented by the lecturers involved. This is probably evidenced by what can be said to be a significant proportion of those who found distance teaching enjoyable (one third of the respondents) and the number of those who indicated that it was a fair system to have the same lecturers teach both internal and external students (50%). The main source of dissatisfaction seems to be the heavy teaching load, which is largely a consequence of the shortage of staff in teaching departments, and the tendency in some departments to give distance teaching lecturers the same internal teaching load as those who do no teaching externally.
This is worsened by the lecturers' perception that distance teaching was not given due weighting when academic staff were considered for promotion. This is perhaps the most important aspect of distance teaching in an integrated model of distance education, especially considering that the majority of the lecturers were relatively junior (Siaciwena, 1988). They were a group of teaching staff still aspiring to promotion. Clark et al. (1984) discovered, for example, that most of the senior lecturers at New England, Australia, felt that they had achieved their maximum career grade and were more prepared to teach and found it more enjoyable than lecturers who still had some way to go, which could only be achieved by research:
The available evidence suggests that teaching could be improved by a variety of means, including changes in the teaching environment and organizational structure, in the promotion criteria and the provision of staff development programs related to teaching.
There is therefore a need for the University of Zambia to work out a reward system that adequately and demonstrably recognizes the lecturers' contribution to distance education. It is also clear from the questionnaire results that many lecturers would welcome assistance both from the experts and their colleagues when preparing study materials. It can be concluded on this basis that lecturers do require professional guidance and some form of training in correspondence course writing. This appears to weaken the claim that because of the academic freedom to which they are accustomed, lecturers may resist suggested alterations to their style of presenting course materials (Mulenga, 1987).
It should be of some concern to everyone involved in distance education at the University of Zambia that the performance of the Department of Correspondence Studies is rated poorly by lecturers, in terms of provision of counselling services. Arguably, the lecturers' perception of the performance of the Department of Correspondence Studies ultimately affects their attitude towards the distance education program as a whole.
However, it is of greater significance and interest that despite the differences in economic, social, cultural, and educational characteristics, the findings of this study are similar to those of Clark et al. (1984), (in Australia) cited above. It is also surprising that given the marginal or low status accorded to distance education in the University of Zambia, in general, so many lecturers were positively disposed to distance education.
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