Support and Connectedness: The Needs of Women Distance Education Students |
VOL. 5, No. 2, 9-31
Joint survey research undertaken at the FernUniversität, West Germany, and Open University, UK, suggests that men and women students have different needs with respect to the local support provided during their distance study. Women are more regular attenders at face-to-face tutorials, and value local provision, especially the chance to interact with other students, more than men. The authors relate this to models of intellectual development of women, and argue for the importance of providing distance education suitable to women's needs.
Une recherche par sondage faite collectivement par FernUniversität, West Germany et Open University, UK suggère que les étudiants et les étudiantes ont des besoins différents concernant le support local fourni pendant leurs études à distance. Les femmes fréquentent les séminaires face-à-face plus régulièrement que les hommes, et elles estiment particulièrement l'occasion d'entrer en intéraction avec les autres étudiants. Les auteurs rapprochent ceci des modèles du développement intellectuel des femmes, et elles soulignent l'importance de fournir un enseignement à distance plus favorable aux besoins des femmes.
This paper presents some results from a comparative survey carried out among students of the West German FernUniversität (FeU) and the British Open University (OU). The authors have in other places discussed more general issues about women in these two institutions (Kirkup, 1988; von Prümmer & Rossié, 1988; von Prümmer, Kirkup, & Spronk, 1988). The study described here explored whether the different circumstances and life experiences of men and women support or conflict with their distance education studies. The incentive for the work was the under-representation of women at the FeU, where three-quarters of the student population are men. Female participation is low not only in comparison with other German universities but also in comparison with distance teaching universities in other Western countries.
In order to explore the factors hindering women's access to the FeU, or impeding their successful study, a large scale survey of men and women at the end of their first year of study was designed and carried out in 1986. The survey focussed on the conditions under which students work and study and on questions about the compatibility of distance education with other commitments.
The scope of the work was expanded when the possibility arose of a comparative survey at the OU. The OU has a consistently high female enrolment of 43% women in its undergraduate student population. This provides an interesting comparison with the FeU, and questions can be asked of women studying in a context of success as well as in a context of relative failure. A parallel survey was designed to replicate the FeU survey as closely as possible in the questions covered in the questionnaire as well as in the sample population. The OU survey was carried out in January 1988, with students who had studied their first foundation course in 1987.
The results presented in this paper focus on one particular issue, that of access to local student support services and the value students place on them. Despite organizational differences between the two institutions, the results from the two surveys show some striking similarities in the answering patterns of women in both institutions. There appears to be a pattern of preference among women for shared learning which is similar to that described by Thompson (1983) in her study of women in face-to-face adult education, and which also relates to the work of Gilligan (1982) and Belenky, Clinchy, Golberger, and Tarule (1986) on gender differences in value systems, self-concepts, and ways of thinking about the world. Women distance education students in the study were more interested than men in elements of interactive learning, and more inclined to make use of local study centres to obtain this. We suggest that our findings have policy implications for the design of local support systems for distance education students, in order to optimize the learning environment for women, and we question whether the concept of independence in distance education (Gaskell & Mills, 1989) is modelled on male learning styles. We also suggest that some of the work on feminist pedagogy (for example in the collection by Culley & Portuges, 1985) although developed for women's studies teaching, could have applicatons to other fields of learning.
The sample in both studies reflects the fact that the survey was originally designed to gather information about the situation of women and their low rate of participation in the degree programs offered by the Fern-Universität. In contrast to both conventional West German universities with ca. 40% female enrolments and the Open University in Britain with 43% female students, at the FeU women comprise only one-quarter of the total student population.
FernUniversität: Rather than choosing a random sampling procedure, which would not have yielded a sufficient number of women respondents, the whole cohort of newly registered female degree students was included in the survey. An equal number of men was selected in a stratified random sample which corresponded to the women in the main characteristics of matriculation status and subject area/degree course. The total sample size was 2,430 students.
The response rate to the questionnaire was 49%, that is 1,193 questionnaires were filled in and returned to the FernUniversität. The number of men among the respondents is slightly higher (613) than the number of women (579), and they comprise 51% of the respondents. Students are studying courses in Maths, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Economics, Education, and Social Sciences.
Open University (UK): A questionnaire was mailed to approximately 2,500 Open University students who had registered for their first foundation course in 1987. In the OU, students beginning their undergraduate studies are obliged to register for a foundation course in one of the five faculties of the University: Technology, Maths, Social Science, Science, and Arts (humanities). The sample was divided proportionately amongst all the foundation courses, and on each course roughly equal numbers of men and women were selected by random sampling procedures.
A total of 1,615 questionnaires were filled in and returned to the Open University, that is the response rate was approximately 65%. More women (871) than men (738) participated in the survey, and the proportion of women among the respondents is 54%. In order to have samples comparable in terms of subject area in the two institutions, this paper deals only with those OU students studying Maths, Technology, or Social Science, 416 male respondents and 476 female respondents.
OU students are generally older than FeU students. Nearly one-third of the latter (29%) but only 5% of the former are under 25 years of age, and nearly 1 in 10 FeU respondents (9%) and 4 in 10 OU respondents (37%) are 39 years and older. The age distribution also shows that the OU women tend to be older than the men while the FeU women tend to be younger than their male colleagues.
The concept of "household composition" was used as an indicator of the type of family situations students live in. A comparison between the two samples shows that fewer OU students live alone and significantly more of them have commitments to a partner and to children.
At the OU there are large differences between men and women students in the kind of household to which they belong. Fewer women are part of a childless couple (19%; men 28%) or a nuclear family (44%; men 48%). More women are single parents (9%; men 0.7%), and more women are single people (13%; men 10%). Overall, women students are more likely than men to be on their own, with or without children.
The gender differences at the FeU are less pronounced. An equal proportion of men (19%) and women (18%) live on their own, and slightly fewer single women live in their parental home (11%; men 13%). Fewer women live with partners as childless couples (28%; men 30%), and more women have children and live as nuclear families (32%; men 28%). With the exception of one man in the sample, only women live as single parents with a child or children (3%).
These differences may be a direct reflection of the divergent age distribution in the two studies. The average age of FeU women living with a partner and/or with their children is much lower than that of FeU men. One-half of the young women under 25 are already part of a couple (30%) or raising a family (19%). The same is true for only one-third of the young male students (childless couple: 29%, nuclear family: 5%). The data suggests that the men prefer to stay with their parents for much longer and tend to put off commitments to a partner and to a family until they are older. This is reflected in the fact that 41% of the young men under 25 years are single people living with their parents, but only 25% of the young women can be so described.
At the time of the survey the FeU maintained a total of 47 study centres, 28 of which were situated in the State of North RhineWestphalia (NRW). The uneven geographical distribution of the study centres is because education in the Federal Republic of Germany is the responsibility of the individual states (or provinces) and the FeU was established by the government of NRW as a state university.
In comparing OU and FeU provision it is useful to separate the latter into two geographic sectors in accordance with the area the university was originally set up to serve. It then becomes clear that the provision of study centres in NRW is extensive and corresponds to the density of provision by the OU in the UK.
Since only half the student population of the FeU lives in NRW, large numbers of students have limited or no access to a study centre and cannot attend seminars, tutorials, and so forth on a regular basis. The study material of the FeU is therefore designed to be self-instructing, and students are not required to visit a study centre or to have personal contacts with a "mentor" or with staff members at the main offices in Hagen. Comparatively few courses have attendance requirements such as lab sessions or voluntary day or weekend seminars.
Study centres at the FeU are intended to serve a number of functions and they do this to varying degrees. They offer information and advice about the institution and its courses and provide access to various media such as video and audiotape recorders and, in some instances, computer terminals or personal computers connected to the FeU's mainframe computer in Hagen. Study centres also are the operating base for the "mentors," the part-time tutors and counsellors of the FeU who run course-related seminars and individual or group tutorials, and they provide a venue for day or weekend seminars and for lectures by FeU professors and academic staff as well as outside experts. Lastly, but very importantly, they offer a chance for students to meet other students, either informally or in study groups.
In reality, the study centres are differentiated into three categories of student services and support. In NRW for instance, seven study centres provide only general information about the FeU and serve to facilitate contacts between students and staff or among students. The other 21 study centres also offer course-related tutorial services through "mentors" for students in introductory or lower- level courses. Five of these study centres offer additional tutorial services for advanced courses. Of the 19 study centres located out-side the State of North RhineWestphalia, 9 are simply offices which only provide a minimum of information and facilities.
For the purposes of student tutorial support, the UK is divided into 13 regions. Each region has a certain amount of autonomy over how it organizes its resources. Each region is headed by a regional Director, who, through his staff, is responsible for:
In the first year, or Foundation Course year, students are assigned a tutor/ counsellor for their course. This part-time academic is responsible for both the tutoring and counselling aspects of the student's study. The student will be a member of a tutor group of between 18–25 students, taught by the same tutor. Face-to-face group tutorials are held at local study centres roughly once a week for one and a half hours, usually in the evening. The same tutor also marks assignments and is available for consultation on the phone or in person. In special circumstances, individual tutorial sessions can be arranged. The student's end-of-year examination will also be held at a local centre.
Contact with fellow students from other regions is also encouraged by the compulsory one-week summer school attendance. However, the student is unlikely to find her/his own tutor at summer school and will instead meet a variety of staff from different specializations.
At first glance it seems that the two institutions are quite different in the way they organize their local student support services and the value they assign to these services. However, there are, in fact, many comparisons. In both institutions study centre attendance is optional, and course material is presented in such a way that it can be studied successfully without any face-to-face tutoring. However, OU foundation course students are encouraged to attend weekly local tutorials and are obliged to attend a compulsory summer school. Both institutions are centralized, with the academic course production staff and main administrative offices in Hagen and Milton Keynes. Some of the FeU study centres are staffed with part- time clerical staff and are open to students not only for specific tutorials, but also to provide access to more general facilities. To varying degrees the FeU study centres fulfill some of the functions of the OU regional offices. gives a tabulated overview of the provision of each institution.
Study Centre Use
Frequency of Attendance
A section of the questionnaire dealt with students' experience of study centres and regional provision. It included both closed and open-ended questions about the amount of use students made of study centres, any problems they had with access, what would make it easier for them to attend, and how much they valued aspects of the experience of attending.
Because the OU sample consisted of students who had just completed their first foundation course and who had been strongly encouraged to make use of study centres and tutorials they report more frequent use of these services. Half of the OU respondents (51%) attended "all or nearly all" tutorials, that is, weekly attendance at a study centre, and only a small percentage never attended. At the FeU the picture is totally different, with less than one-quarter of the respondents (24%) visiting a study centre "often, that is, at least once a month," during their first year of distance education.
If these figures are controlled for geographic area, the FeU sample falls into two distinct categories. Those FeU students living in NRW show much the same answering patterns as do the OU students, while those FeU students living outside the NRW boundaries not unexpectedly show a low frequency of study centre visits.
In both surveys, students' own estimation of how easy or difficult it is to get to a study centre corresponds to their regional distribution (Figure 2).
There are no significant differences in the geographical location of men and women students, yet women within each country seem to make more of an effort to overcome problems of distance and accessibility. This is reflected in their higher attendance rates: when only those students reporting easy access are examined (see Figure 3), significantly more women than men visited their study centre on a regular basis. Sixty-two percent of OU women compared with 48% of OU men attended every week or almost every week; 41% of FeU women and 34% of FeU men attended at least once a month (the most frequent category for FeU). In both institutions men were more likely than women never to have attended (OU: men 14%, women 9%; FeU: men 28%, women 23%).
However, this is contrasted with the fact that women have more transport problems than men. In both countries women have more restricted access to a car as an independent means of transport and must rely more on others or on public transport to get to a study centre. Eight out of ten men state that they either own a car or have unrestricted access to one (FeU 80%; OU 78%). By contrast, only 6 in 10 FeU women and 7 in 10 OU women have their own car or can get one whenever they need it (FeU 62%; OU 69%).
The following quotes illustrate the kind of transport problems students face. (All quotes are taken verbatim from open-ended student comments in the questionnaires.)
Too much time and money required for the journey to the study centre. I am handicapped and my wife has to accompany me. This means paying for two tickets. (FeU)
. depended on my husband to drive me there. He was ill and unable to do so. (OU)
Another transport-related difficulty is the safety aspect which was mentioned by women in both surveys.
After an evening seminar I would have to take the underground and commuter train from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden. At night this is an unsafe and terrifying journey for a woman to undertake. (FeU)
There is a reasonable bus and train service, but the expense and time consumed using it was too much for me to consider it. Also, the safety aspect worried me as I had no-one to travel with me and the journey would have involved waiting alone at night at City Centre bus and train stops. I much regret having to miss the tutorials as I felt they were most helpful. (OU)
In spite of the fact that women are more likely than men to be dependent on a lift with a friend or fellow student (5% of OU women in the sample compared with one man), in both studies the women have higher attendance rates.
Issues of geographical access and transport do not explain why women in both countries attend local study centres more than men. What other factors could be involved? An open-ended question asked students who attended study centres infrequently why this was so. An analysis of their responses identified the following major factors: work pressures, family commitments, and combined pressures from both areas.
Both men and women are subjected to pressures through their paid work which often requires long hours, shift work, frequent travelling, or professional changes and new expanded areas of responsibility. A large proportion of women respondents in both institutions were working full- or part-time: at the OU 77% of the women compared with 90% of the men, at the FeU 58% of the women compared with 79% of the men.
Shiftwork prevents the necessary regularity of attendance. (FeU)
My job involved being away from home, and a great deal of travelling. Tutorials were incompatible with my job and travelling (I never could be consistent). I had always just arrived home very tired, or just leaving to return to Scotland (mind on other things). (OU)
Pressures of work are by far the most common obstacle for OU men and the second most common for OU women. In the FeU survey work-related problems are also one of the main reasons given for non- attendance. They are mentioned as often by women as by men.
A major obstacle to attendance is the pressure of family and personal commitments such as taking care of children or an infirm relative, the arrival of a new baby, a house removal, and involvement in sport. Women are affected much more by all these commitments except the last. Family commitments are not only time-consuming but also lead to a loss of flexibility. Women may therefore find it extremely difficult to fit visits to a study centre into their schedules.
The mention by women of childcare as a factor preventing study centre use shows clearly that children are the responsibility of women. Good, affordable childcare is difficult to arrange.
. only attended twice. My son did not like being left alone at night. A sitter would cost ten pounds per evening. (OU)
The situation is exacerbated when the student has to rely on her husband to drive her to the study centre, which means that he cannot take care of the children while she is gone.
The study centre is 19 miles away and my husband would have to take me and pick me up. Also, I would have to arrange a babysitter. (OU)
For some students it is the overwhelming problem of juggling their studies in addition to work and family commitments which makes it difficult to attend the study centre.
. work three evenings a week until 1 a.m. During the day I have a small child to look after. If I attended tutorials it meant another evening out of the house without studying. (OU)
During the week the study centre is open while I'm at work, and on Saturdays my family needs me. (FeU)
One of the most significant findings of the research is the suggestion that barriers to attendance reinforce each other and that women are more likely to be affected by a combination of pressures. For instance, it may be more necessary for women to rely on others, often their husband, for transportation to the study centre. Yet if the husband is needed to provide transport, he cannot babysit. While transport costs are an obstacle for men and women alike, only women mention the cost of transport in conjunction with the cost of childminding.
Both men and women may be under such pressure from their paid work that they find attendance at a study centre very difficult, but only women mention their partner's work situation as an obstacle to their own attendance. Women may find it difficult to attend tutorials because their partners are not available for childcare or transport. This is the case when the husband is on shiftwork, when the child has to be taken to playgroup, and so forth.
Students were asked the following multiple choice question (OU version): "Would you have visited a study centre more often, or would it have been easier for you to visit a study centre if any of the following conditions had existed? (Code 1 = Yes, definitely; 2 = Possibly; 3 = It would have made no difference) – Provision of childcare – Different opening hours and time for tutorials – Easier to reach by road or public transport." Students' responses confirm the results of the previous questions. In each institution it was women who felt that they would have attended more often if such provision had been made. The differences are greatest with respect to childcare provision. Fourteen percent of FeU women and 12% of OU women would have found it easier to come if childcare was available. This compares with 2% of FeU men and 1.5% of OU men (see Figure 4).
When the results of this question are analyzed for students with children under 14, it is clear that children, especially babies and young children, remain the responsibility of the mothers and that fathers on the whole are unaffected by childcare responsibilities (Figure 5).
Figure 5 confirms the observation from the open-ended comments that the existing traditional parenting patterns make it more difficult for women to attend study centres.
Last year I had a pre-school child and luckily the tutorial times coincided with husband's day off and child's time at playgroup. Otherwise the provision of childcare would have been a vital factor. (OU)
With respect to household composition, it is single parents who are most affected by the lack of childcare provision. Again, there is a gender difference since the single parents among the respondents are almost exclusively women (FeU 94%; OU 89%). Only a small percentage of the FeU respondents, who are generally younger than OU students, belong to this group (women 2.6%; men 0.2%), but proportions among OU respondents are much higher (9.1% women and 0.7% men).
An example of the way that barriers reinforce each other is given in the following quote from a single parent:
The time of the evening was very inconvenient for me as a single parent. I could not arrange babysitters easily and by the time I arrived it was time for me to start back. Also getting home after was very difficult as the bus had changed to country service and meant an hour wait. (OU)
Although this student had neither a babysitter nor her own transport, the provision of either a babysitter for evening tutorials or more simply a change of tutorial time to school hours might have enabled her to attend.
Because attendance at study centres is optional in both institutions and all students face a number of barriers and discouragements to their attendance, only the well-motivated are likely to do so. The benefits of attendance need to outweigh the costs. It would follow from the previous sections of this paper that women's determination to attend a study centre despite multiple barriers is likely to be because they attach greater value to their attendance than do men. For some students the benefits gained from attendance may be instrumental, in that they are directly related to course work and in particular to assignment and examination success. For others the benefits may be more related to personal development and well-being. Our data suggest that male students are more likely to fall into the first category and female students into the second.
We presented students with a list of the following facilities available at most, although not all, study centres:
Figures 6a and 6b show the percentage of respondents in both institutions who rate any service as "very important." Women respondents value all services, except the provision of literature and audio-visual material, more than men. All students place most value on the subject tuition they receive, with OU students valuing it more than FeU students: 84% of OU women and 80% of OU men rated subject tuition "very important," compared with 70% of FeU women and 60% of FeU men. However, the biggest gender difference in both institutions is to do with the chance to meet other distance education (DE) students. In the FeU 40% of women but only 28% of men rated this as very important, and in the OU 51% of women and 37% of men did so.
This preference amongst women for involving other people in their study is seen also in response to a question which asked students what contact or support they had while they studied. Figures 7a and 7b show the responses to a simple question given to FeU students and to a more detailed version given to OU students. They show that for every category except that of discussing with colleagues at work (explained partly because we have not removed students who are unemployed) women are more likely to involve others in their learning.
Distance study can be a very socially isolated experience - more for some students than others, and more uncomfortable for some students than others. The OU survey contained the following questions about students' feelings of isolation: "Did you feel isolated during your foundation studies?... If `Yes,' was this a problem?" Roughly a quarter of the men and the same proportion of the women replied that they did feel isolated, but whereas this was a problem for only 24% of the men who felt isolated, it was a problem for 40% of the women. It was possible that the responses to this question reflect the different social roles of women, that fewer women had employment outside the home, and more were single parents. However, when the data are controlled for employment and household type, employment has no significant effect; women in employment are much more likely than men in employment to feel that their isolation is a problem. However there are differences with respect to the household types to which students belonged. Figure 8 shows the pattern of responses.
The numbers on which the percentages are based are, for some categories, very small (e.g., "other" which includes prisoners includes very few women, and single parents in the sample were almost solely women). However, the pattern suggests a very extensive experience of isolation among women in nuclear, communal and extended households, whilst men in these types of household experienced the least problems with isolation. There is little difference between the experience of single men and women, or between men and women living as couples. Figures like this are still likely to cause surprise, although they should not, since they reflect an established analysis of women's experience of family life (Bernard 1973, Oakley 1974), which suggests that many women have a strong sense of isolation within their families. For some, studying is one way of making contact with other people.
Interestingly, there is no difference between the amount of contact men and women make with their tutor. OU students were asked about this, and responses showed that men were as likely as women to attend an informal meeting with their tutor (8.0%) or exchange letters (14%), while men were slightly more likely to have telephoned their tutor (62% compared with 58% women). The gender difference occurs with respect to what students are looking for in their relationship with other students.
In both studies, other reasons given by students for why they did not attend a study centre, beyond those already discussed, fell into two broad categories: whether they felt that they needed to go there to get support of some kind, and how effective they felt that support to be. Some students expect or prefer to work in isolation. They see a study centre as a place to go when they are in difficulties with their study:
. manage quite well on my own. I only go to a study centre when there's no other way to solve a problem. (FeU)
. did not feel that I needed to. The technical content within the technology course did not cause me enough trouble to need help. (OU)
Such comments were more likely to come from men in the two samples.
Some students stopped attending a study centre because they were dissatisfied with what happened there. Their comments suggest that the basis for dissatisfaction is different for men and women, because of their different needs for support. It is possible for a tutorial to threaten the basis of a student's confidence. For example, some of the women studying technology suffered from low self-esteem and were easily intimidated by their male classmates or the tutor.
. felt that I would be unable to answer any questions put to me at the tutorials and felt that I would be made to look like a stupid female - which I am not. (OU)
Others, more often men, disliked the experience of shared discussion, feeling that it was either a distraction from study, or that their ideas were devalued by being shared with others.
. preferred to study completely on my own; I found discussions with fellow students caused me to doubt my own answers and I felt that my ideas were being "stolen." Also discussion tended to wander a long way from the subject. (OU)
And now the opposite complaint from a woman student:
The tutorial adhered rigidly to the written course material. Questions about earlier assignments or other extraneous matter elicited a hostile response especially since I could not attend on a regular basis because of my children. (FeU)
Some students need support but do not expect to find it at a study centre.
. am a member of a study group which works independently of the FernUniversität study centre. (FeU)
The OU survey contained a question about the experience of the week-long summer school which is an obligatory part of the course and, therefore, attended by many students who would normally not bother with tutorials. Students' open-ended comments demonstrate the same gender differences. The personal support and friendship of other students were frequently mentioned by women as the most important aspect of summer school.
OU study at least gave me a purpose and at times a reason to escape certain emotional confrontations. Summer school was particularly successful for meeting people in similar and often worse situations than mine giving me added incentive to continue studies. (OU)
The summer school was particularly useful, both in motivational terms and speaking to people with similar problems....The greatest achievement I found was in being able to communicate with people of different ages and different interests, and finding that they all had worthwhile opinions, whether related to the course or to their other interests. (OU)
Although there were a few men who made similar comments, in general the comments of the men reflected a much more instrumental attitude towards their study.
. do not look forward to summer school although, due to the people I have met, I have thoroughly enjoyed them (I would not attend if I had a choice). My sole aim is to obtain a degree, I have no wish to become involved with study groups and so forth (nor do I have the time). (OU)
All I wanted to do was to study for a week and catch up with any topics I found difficult, then ask the tutor for help as problems arose. Going to lectures/study groups just dampened my enthusiasm as I invariably
To have asked too many questions would have meant not much ground covered, so other students who knew the subject would be fed up. (OU)
Both the statistical data and the qualitative open-ended comments from both surveys support the notion that women in distance education, much more than men, look for the chance to share their study with others: fellow students at study centres and residential schools, friends and family.
The responses and comments described above support Gilligan's (1982) theory that men and women must be understood as developing different ways of thinking rather than simply being at different points on the same develop-mental scheme:
The wish [of men] to be alone at the top and the consequent fear that others will get too close: the wish [of women] to be at the centre of connection and the consequent fear of being too far out on the edge. These disparate fears of being stranded and being caught give rise to different portrayals of achievement and affiliation, leading to different modes of action and different ways of assessing the consequences of choice. (p. 62)
These differences described by Gilligan are present in the responses of the distance education students discussed here. The women students demonstrate a much stronger desire for connection with others during their studies. They overcome a variety of practical difficulties in order to spend time with other students and engage in shared learning. This behavior has been described elsewhere, in distance education (Faith, 1988) and in face-to-face education for mature women (Thompson, 1983). What is novel about the present study is that the same survey tools were used in two different European contexts with students studying similar content areas, demonstrating empirically that gender differences were not specific to either a particular institution or country.
It would be comforting to believe that since the work of Gilligan it is now untenable to posit psychological models of development based on studies of men, which result in a "deficit" model for women. A deficit model still often underlies arguments for women students' special needs for personal contact and support networks based on a notion that women's "isolation," because of their social role, makes them more "needy" and less "independent." Unfortunately, even some of the early work of radical feminist theorists such as Adrienne Rich's (1985) Taking Women Students Seriously, with it's stress on patriarchal oppressionimplicitly supports this model. What Gilligan argues, and what is suggested by the data here, is that this felt sense of isolation is not necessarily associated with negative personal circumstances, for example, being housebound with young children. It can, rather, emerge from a positive desire to be connected with others. It comes out of a life in which one's relationships with others and the well-being of others are a crucial part of personal development. It is a positive way of being rather than an immature state on the road to "separation" or "independence." Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) take Gilligan's work, which was originally in the domain of moral development, and apply it to an examination of Perry's (1970) stages of intellectual development. (Perry acknowledges that he based his model on researching male students only.) They argue that many women are alienated from traditional education because it doesn't take account of them as "connected knowers" who "develop procedures for gaining access to other people's knowledge. At the heart of these procedures is the capacity for empathy" (Belenky et al, 1988, p. 113). The connected knower becomes the passionate knower, "passionate knowing is the elaborated form connected knowing takes after women learn to use the self as an instrument of under-standing." (Belenky et al, 1988, p. 141). This state of passionate knowing is something desirable, a state which, although in many ways intellectually similar to the final levels of commitment described by Perry, is different in that it contains a strong sense of self related to others. This sense is developed through a process of relating to others whilst developing intellectually.
The development of the concepts of "andragogy" and "student-centred learning" have, during the 1980s, done much to move the focus of distance education debate from the production of materials to the learning processes of students. However, they have been criticized as being blind to gender (Burge, 1988; and Burge & Lenskyi, 1990) and therefore not as useful as they might be. Our empirical work supports this criticism and we suggest along with Burge and Lenskyi that other disciplines have much to learn from those pedagogic practices developed for the women's studies classroom (Klein, 1987).
In the data presented here the women's voices appear more reflective and open to the educational experience than many of the men's. It would not be educationally justifiable to encourage these women to adopt attitudes to study similar to those of their male colleagues, but in many cases the opposite would be quite in order. This leaves us with some practical issues with respect to the design of learning. The chance to engage intellectually and socially with other students is an important part of learning for women distance education students. The female "independent" learner does not enjoy or benefit from isolation. It is therefore important in designing any distance education system that effort is put into creating networks of support amongst students and the opportunity to meet. But meeting is not enough. The men and women who participated in the study wanted different things out of tutorials and residential schools, and a basic cause for dissatisfaction was that the expectations of the "other" had been met. This is especially problematic with respect to academic areas where one sex has been very much in the minority, for example, for women in technology. Ways of teaching and student interaction which had previously satisfied the majority sex may not work well for the minority, and it may be difficult for the tutor to do much about this. And yet unless something is done for the minority sex they will not find the best environment for their own intellectual development. Data such as that presented here indicates that debates about the independent learner in distance education need to take gender difference into account as a significant educational issue.
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Gill Kirkup has worked as a course developer and evaluator for the Open University UK since 1978. Her areas of interest are women's studies, women and technology, and mature women's education in general. The joint project with Christine von Prümmer is, she hopes, the beginning of more extensive European collaboration around aspects of women in distance education. Christine von Prümmer has worked as a researcher and evaluator for the West German FernUniversität since 1978. Her main area of research is the situation of women studying at a distance. She hopes that research such as the joint project with Gill Kirkup will help to make distance education a viable and enjoyable alternative for women.