Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World: Meeting Students' Learning Needs

Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World

The Open University in the UK has been very successful; and its model of open and distance learning has been widely and closely replicated by other open universities. However, this book argues that the elite higher education systems cater to UKOU students, and subsequently do not meet the different learning needs and characteristics of students from developing countries. Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World presents evidence that students in the developing world are often ill-prepared for a mode of learning which requires a high degree of self-direction and the ability to learn, in most instances, without the presence of a teacher or fellow students. This is suggested as a major contributor to the low retention rates of most open universities in developing countries. This book: • • • •

looks at the characteristics, needs and learning approaches of students; reconsiders suitability and success of established modes of distance learning for current contexts in the developing world; explores alternative models, making greater use of flexible learning; examines what adaptations are necessary to suit shifting needs, including the move from elite to mass higher education and the effects of technical and societal changes.

Drawing upon research into students’ conceptions of, and approaches to, learning, this critical analysis of the state of open and flexible learning explores reasons for the very low graduation rates from open universities in developing countries. It is essential reading for researchers and educational developers, policy-makers, managers and administrators in open and flexible learning, as well as for students of distance education. David Kember is Professor of Learning Enhancement at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has previously held academic positions in Hong Kong, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the UK. His research interests are in student learning, adult education and lifelong learning.

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Open and Flexible Learning Series Series Editors: Fred Lockwood, A.W. (Tony) Bates and Som Naidu

Activities in Self-Instructional Texts Fred Lockwood Assessing Open and Distance Learners Chris Morgan and Meg O’Reilly Changing University Teaching Terry Evans and Daryl Nation Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Research: Themes, Methods and Impact on Practice Gráinne Conole and Martin Oliver The Costs and Economics of Open and Distance Learning Greville Rumble

Exploring Open and Distance Learning Derek Rowntree Flexible Learning in a Digital World Betty Collis and Jef Moonen Improving Your Students’ Learning Alistair Morgan Innovation in Open and Distance Learning Fred Lockwood and Anne Gooley

Delivering Digitally Alistair Inglis, Peter Ling and Vera Joosten

Integrated E-Learning: Implications for Pedagogy, Technology and Organization Wim Jochems, Jeroen van Merriënboer and Rob Koper

Delivering Learning on the Net: The Why, What and How of Online Education Martin Weller

Interactions in Online Education: Implications for Theory and Practice Charles Juwah

The Design and Production of SelfInstructional Materials Fred Lockwood

Key Terms and Issues in Open and Distance Learning Barbara Hodgson

Designing Video and Multimedia for Open and Flexible Learning Jack Koumi

The Knowledge Web: Learning and Collaborating on the Net Marc Eisenstadt and Tom Vincent

Developing Innovation in Online Learning: An Action Research Framework Maggie McPherson and Miguel Baptista Nunes

Leadership for 21st Century Learning: Global Perspectives from International Experts Donald Hanna and Colin Latchem

Learning and Teaching with Technology: Principles and Practices Som Naidu Learning and Teaching in Distance Education Edited by Som Naidu Making Materials-Based Learning Work Derek Rowntree Managing Open Systems Richard Freeman Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media John S Daniel Mobile Learning: A handbook for educators and trainers Edited by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and John Traxler Objectives, Competencies and Learning Outcomes Reginald F Melton The Open Classroom: Distance Learning In and Out of Schools Edited by Jo Bradley Online Education Using Learning Objects Edited by Rory McGreal Open and Distance Learning: Case Studies from Education, Industry and Commerce Stephen Brown Open and Flexible Learning in Vocational Education and Training Judith Calder and Ann McCollum Planning and Development in Open and Distance Learning Reg Malton Planning and Management in Distance Education Santosh Panda

Preparing Materials for Open, Distance and Flexible Learning Derek Rowntree Programme Evaluation and Quality Judith Calder Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World David Kember Reforming Open and Distance Learning Terry Evans and Daryl Nation Reusing Online Resources Alison Littlejohn Student Retention in Online, Open and Distance Learning Ormond Simpson Supporting Students in Online, Open and Distance Learning 2nd Edition, Ormond Simpson Teaching with Audio in Open and Distance Learning Derek Rowntree Teaching Through Projects Jane Henry Towards More Effective Open and Distance Learning Perc Marland Understanding Learners in Open and Distance Education Terry Evans Using Communications Media in Open and Flexible Learning Robin Mason The Virtual University Steve Ryan, Bernard Scott, Howard Freeman and Daxa Patel

Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World

Meeting students’ learning needs

David Kember

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 David Kember, except Chapter 3 © Alan Woodley, and Chapter 12 © Carmel McNaught. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kember, David. Reconsidering open and distance learning in the developing world : meeting students’ learning needs / David Kember. p. cm. — (The open and flexible learning series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–415–40139–9 (hardback) — ISBN 0–415–40140–2 (pbk.) 1. Distance education—Developing countries. 2. Open learning— Developing countries. I. Title. LC5808.D48K46 2007 371.3′5′091724—dc22 2006100818

ISBN 0-203-96654-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–40139–9 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–40140–2 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–96654–6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–40139–5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–40140–1 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–96654–9 (ebk)

Contents

List of illustrations Author and contributor biographies

xiii xv

PART I

Introduction 1 Modes of learning in post-secondary education

1 3

Scope of the book 3 Issues addressed 3 Adult education 4 Distance education 5 Open learning 6 Distance and open learning are not synonymous 7 Flexible learning 8 E-learning 8 Generalisation 9 Summary 9 2 Major themes in student learning Research literature 11 Persistence project 11 Part-time project 12 Approaches to learning 15 Models of retention 17 Students’ beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge 19 Nature of teaching and approaches to learning 21 Summary 25

11

viii Contents PART II

Open learning 3 The Open University of the United Kingdom – a British eccentricity or a model for the world?

27

29

ALAN WOODLEY

Introduction 29 An institution of its time 29 The growth of education in the UK 30 The growth of higher education in the UK 31 The education of adults 32 The conception of the Open University 35 From conception to reality 40 The Planning Committee 42 Reasons for success 48 The launch of the Open University 50 Early survival 52 The growth period 56 The future 57 Discussion 58 Postscript 60 4 Need for open entry in developing countries

61

Mass and elite higher education 61 Educational systems in developing countries 62 Open universities in developing countries 62 Open education in Hong Kong 64 Students enrolling in open universities 68 Cost of distance education 70 Summary 73 5 Other elements of openness Open learning 74 Freedom of time 74 Freedom of place 76 Freedom of choice of courses 78 Summary 79

74

Contents ix PART III

Adult learning 6 Pedagogy and andragogy

81 83

Adult learning 83 Andragogy and pedagogy 84 Andragogy as a set of continua 86 Self-determination in learning 86 Summary 89 7 Open universities expect andragogy

90

Adapting to distance education 90 Initial problems in adapting to study at a distance 90 Beliefs about teaching and learning 91 Beliefs about knowledge 93 Normative congruence 94 Compatibility between modes of teaching and learning 95 Goals of self-determination 97 Teaching incompatible with self-determining students 98 Didactic teaching to reproductive learners 98 Accepting the status quo? 100 Recognition of need for independent learners 101 Alternatives to didactic tutorials 102 Reorienting beliefs about teaching and learning 102 Summary 106 PART IV

Distance education 8 Appropriateness of the UKOU model for developing countries Students graduating from open universities 111 Interpretation of graduation rates 113 Demand for graduates 114 Demand for graduates in Hong Kong 115 Outsourcing 117 Summary 119

109 111

x Contents

9 Dual-mode universities

120

New England model 120 Flexibility of the dual-mode system 121 Summary 122 10 North American model of distance education

124

Five generations of distance education 124 Communication technologies 127 Research into the effect of media 128 Conclusion 130 11 The loneliness of the distance learner

131

Benefits of group learning 131 Integration and persistence 134 The place of human contact in distance education 135 Do distance learners want contact? 137 Collective affiliation 140 Belonging to class group 142 Tutor–student interaction 145 Sense of belonging to university 147 Freedom of course choice 148 Individualism and collectivism 150 Achievement motivation in Confucian-heritage societies 151 Conclusion 152 PART V

Flexible and e-learning 12 E-learning

155 157

CARMEL MCNAUGHT

Focus of the chapter 157 Models for distance education programmes and providers 158 A focus on technology and learning designs 162 Bridging the bandwidth divide with wireless systems 164 Summary 165 13 Flexible learning: but how flexible? Flexible learning 167

167

Contents xi

Open universities lack parents of flexible learning 168 Industrial systems 169 Examples of flexible learning 170 University of the South Pacific 170 University of Papua New Guinea 172 Hong Kong – student guidance 173 Deakin – Hong Kong – education 174 China 175 An OUHK tutor 177 Conclusion 179 14 Conclusion

181

Difficulty of adapting to distance education 182 Easing the transition 183 Towards flexible learning? 183 Blending in more face-to-face contact 184 Adapting existing structures 184 Evaluation and research 185 Helping students adapt to study at a distance 185 References Index

187 199

Illustrations

Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 8.1

Contrasting conceptions of good teaching Teachers’ beliefs about teaching Approaches to teaching Relationship between conceptions and approaches to teaching Didactic teaching The percentage of the age-group entering higher education Pedagogy and andragogy as continua Categories of self-determination Compatibility between teaching and beliefs The beliefs quadrant as a model for change Enrolments compared to graduates for the OUHK

20 22 22 23 24 31 87 88 97 103 112

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 6.1 12.1 13.1

Programmes examined in the Hong Kong sub-project Groups of students in the part-time sample Contrasting beliefs of novice and sophisticated students Relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to learning Higher education student numbers (1962–3) Enrolment of mature students by type of institution Enquiries, applications and admitted students (1971–5) Entry qualifications for the first five intakes Educational participation in developing regions Pedagogy versus andragogy Communication infrastructure in four southern African countries, the US and UK Summary of observation of the tutorials

13 14 20 23 32 34 51 51 69 85 164 178

Author and contributor biographies

David Kember My initial involvement with distance education was in my first academic position as a chemistry lecturer at the University of the South Pacific. From there I went to the University of Papua New Guinea, where I developed and taught the science component of an open entry programme preparing adult students for entry to undergraduate degrees. The next step in my journey round the world was a position at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education as an instructional designer for external courses. Then came another similar position, also in Australia, at the Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education. I next moved to what was then the Hong Kong Polytechnic. The initial work was advising on the design of study packages for programmes offered by distance education and part-time study. Educational priorities in Hong Kong changed, so I became more involved in general educational development work. For five years I ran an interinstitutional initiative known as the Action Learning Project, which offered grants and support for academics to engage in action research projects concerned with innovations in courses they taught. I am currently a professor of Learning Enhancement at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Although I am no longer actively involved with distance education, I have maintained my interest in researching into adult, distance education and part-time students. This has focused particularly on student learning, student progress, approaches to learning and the Chinese learner. Carmel McNaught In my meanderings around the globe I spent fifteen years in Zimbabwe and southern Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. During this time much of my work was with teachers and community groups in rural areas, and we used many distance education strategies – many of which needed to be robust enough to work during times of war. When I returned to Australia in the early 1990s, multimedia and the internet were beginning to impact on higher education, and I have been involved in e-learning ever since, including my current work in Hong Kong. A first degree in science and higher degrees in the social sciences have served me well in this broad career across communities, disciplines and learning technologies.

xvi Author and contribuor biographies

Alan Woodley Back in 1970 I was a young sociology graduate, fresh from the student barricades of 1968 and eager to change the world. The new Open University, with its open access policy, seemed to be a good place to start. I began as a research assistant and one of my first jobs was to evaluate whether the OU was suitable for school-leavers. I am still at the OU. Now I am a senior research fellow in the Centre for Institutional Research, and my next research project is to look at how OU courses are being used in schools to help students get into conventional universities.

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Modes of learning in post-secondary education

Scope of the book This book deals with post-secondary or higher education, which leads to the award of a formal qualification, normally a degree or diploma. Less formal courses which do not lead to degrees are outside the ambit. This excludes courses, like adult education ones, undertaken purely out of interest or pleasure. It does not deal with what is often called conventional higher education, taught principally through face-to-face classes. I do not feel particularly comfortable with the term ‘conventional’, as higher education has been through such turbulent times recently that it is hard to see any form of it as stable or conventional. However, I am sure readers will understand what is implied; so I will use the term for convenience.

Issues addressed My initial involvement with modes of post-secondary education, other than the conventional form, was at the University of the South Pacific, where it was known as extension studies. Since that time I have been through external studies, distance education, open learning, flexible learning and e-learning. Other terms have also been used. The transition through the titles is partly fashion and partly a response to technological developments. Hopefully, it should also reflect a development in practice, as knowledge of how to provide an education outside the classroom has been built up. There should also be evidence of a transition to suit changes in society over time. The more significant modes of adult, distance and open learning have each produced a substantial body of literature which defines the mode and provides a rationale or philosophy explaining its contribution to society. The literature associated with the other modes, such as flexible or e-learning, has been rather more descriptive, with less philosophical discussion of the potential impact on society. There has, though, been considerable speculation about the potential contribution which technological advances can contribute to post-secondary education.

4 Chapter 1

The aim of this book is to make a critical appraisal of whether these modes of education have fulfilled their charters. Each has started with distinct aims and specified a type of student for whom the mode was suited. Adult and open education promised to contribute to fundamental changes in society. Have these modes of education delivered these promises? Are the needs still relevant in view of changes in society since the charters were unveiled? Each of the modes of education originated in the West and their defining literature was mainly developed by Western scholars. The number of students in developing countries taking open and distance education courses must have overtaken the numbers in the original developed societies. The issues which gave rise to these modes of education in the West are not necessarily manifest in the same form in developing societies. The characteristics of typical students can also differ. How do these Western models of education suit the needs of developing countries and their students? Have adaptations in format been made to Western models the better to suit the developing context? As there have been changes in post-secondary education heralded by changes of title, societies have also been changing. This raises the pertinent question of whether the modes of education have adapted to shifting needs. This question is relevant because economic and societal developments have impinged on the original rationale for adult and open education. Before dealing with these challenging questions, it is necessary to examine the most significant modes of post-secondary education. How were they characterised? Why was the new mode seen as an advance on what had gone before? What promises were made and what outcomes were anticipated? Here the introduction is brief – sufficient simply to define and characterise the mode. In-depth examination of the questions above is left to subsequent chapters. The sequence is historical.

Adult education Formal definitions of adult education define it simply in terms of a minimum age. The Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), for example, defines an adult student as one aged twenty-five or over on entry to a course (1987, p. 29). The only point which might be discussed is the cut-off age. The CERI definition is reasonable for Western countries with mass higher education. However, in developing countries, with limited entry to conventional higher education, students denied entry to the latter years of secondary school or university tend to seek entry to other forms of post-secondary education at an earlier age. Whether they should be classified as adult students is open to debate. Beyond the rather bland definition there is a voluminous literature documenting a rich history of the movement and its aspirations for social and political change. The adult education movement developed in the train of the Industrial Revolution in the West. The labour movement believed that emancipation of the working classes could be achieved by providing a fuller education than the state was willing to give.

Post-secondary education modes of learning 5

These philosophical and political foundations of adult education were a major influence on the formation of the Open University in the United Kingdom (UKOU) and on the literature on open learning, as will be discussed in Chapter 3. The adult learning literature, and particularly the concept of andragogy, has impacted upon the literature associated with other forms of post-secondary education. This will be elaborated upon in Chapter 6.

Distance education The simplest definition of distance education I could find was from Perraton (1982, p. 4). He describes it as ‘an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and/or time from the learner’. This serves well to determine what is distance education and what is not, but does not give much idea about its nature. The definition of distance education which has probably been most widely quoted, particularly in the early literature, comes from Keegan (1986, p. 49). He lists the main elements as: •

•

• •

•

the quasi-permanent separation of teacher and learner throughout the length of the learning process; this distinguishes it from conventional, face-to-face education; the influence of an educational organisation both in the planning and preparation of learning materials and in the provision of student support services; this distinguishes it from private study and teach-yourself programmes; the use of technical media – print, audio, video or computer – to unite teacher and learner and carry the content of the course; the provision of two-way communication so that the student may benefit from or even initiate dialogue; this distinguishes it from other uses of technology in education; the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialisation purposes.

Given the diversity of courses offered at a distance, it has not been hard to point out courses which do not fit neatly within this definition. The most contentious point is possibly the fourth. Two-way communication is an ideal which many distance education courses fail to achieve. The problem is not confined to distance education, though, as far too many university courses that are taught face-to-face lack a meaningful two-way dialogue. The final element is also worth noting. It is almost certainly true that the majority of distance education students do learn as individuals. It is one of the central theses of this book, though, that distance education could make more use of off-campus

6 Chapter 1

group work than is currently the case. I also argue that there has been insufficient exploration of flexible learning modes combining distance education with face-toface learning and/or learning in groups.

Open learning Rather than attempting succinct definitions of open learning, the literature consists of a listing of aspects of openness against which courses or programmes can be assessed. Fay (1988, p. 3) puts it less kindly, describing open learning as ‘a ragbag or portmanteau term’. The list which seems to be quoted or cited most often is by Lewis and Spencer (1986). They proposed that courses be assessed on a spectrum from closed to open for each of a number of facets. The list below obviously shows the open or more desirable end of the spectrum: • • • • • • • • •

open entry; study anywhere; start any time; tutors on demand; attendance at any time; flexible sequence; negotiated objectives and content; negotiated learning method; negotiated assessment.

In Kember and Murphy (1990) we pointed out the problem with this list by showing that the progressive primary-school class, attended by David Murphy’s son, displayed far more of the aspects of openness than typical university distance education courses, which used the term open. The proponents of open universities would, no doubt, be taken aback to learn that they were lagging behind primaryschool classrooms in degrees of openness, which suggests problems with the definition. The first problem is that the final four elements in Lewis and Spencer’s (1986) list subsumes in open learning elements of student-centred learning. Studentcentred learning initiatives result from educational models or philosophies, so strive to increase freedom and student initiative within classrooms. Open learning has largely resulted from political and social pressures, so has concentrated on removing participation barriers. The two are therefore quite distinct. The second problem is that the list is over-idealistic. The first part of the list can be attributed to open learning, but practical and economic constraints mean that providing courses with all of these elements towards the open end of the spectrum is unrealistic. A more useful guide to open learning would result by pruning the list to elements of openness that are practicable and associated with removing barriers to participation, so are reasonably common. Within this book I will restrict discussion to the following four elements:

Post-secondary education modes of learning 7

• • • •

open entry; study anywhere; freedom to study at a time chosen by the student within a specified semester; a high degree of openness over the choice of courses to make up a degree programme.

At the time of the formation of the UKOU, open entry was an educational revolution. It meant that students could enrol for a degree without having the A-levels needed for conventional universities, or having results high enough to get in ahead of the rest to obtain one of the restricted number of places at university. The transition from elite to mass higher education has reduced the impact of open entry policies in the West, but they are still the major rationale for open universities in developing countries. The next two elements of openness provide the freedom to study at a time and place convenient to the student. This is important for those in full-time employment or with family-care responsibilities. Notice that I have placed conditions on the degree of openness associated with time. I am aware of a few correspondence courses which offered students the chance to start and finish at any time they wanted, but in higher education this has usually been seen as unrealistic. The final degree of openness is derived from one of the principles of adult learning or andragogy. This recognises that self-directing adult learners are capable of deciding their own learning needs. This implies that they should have a major input into designing their own courses. Individual negotiation of objectives and content, implied by Lewis and Spencer’s visualisation of open learning (1986), has not normally been seen as realistic by open universities. Instead, it has been common to offer considerable flexibility over choice and sequence of courses to make up a degree programme. There are often few restrictions on combinations of courses which can be taken, so course selection resembles a smorgasbord. It is also worth commenting on whether more openness is necessarily better. The rallying cry for open learning and the lists of elements of openness seem to imply that the more elements there are towards the open end of the spectrum, the better the course. This is not necessarily the case, though, as can be illustrated by openness to study where the student chooses. Complete openness would imply no meetings of any sort, which rules out the development of a sense of belonging and types of learning activity such as laboratory work and group discussion. It could, therefore, be argued that a compromise position often benefits the students more than full openness.

Distance and open learning are not synonymous Daniel (1999, p. 292) noted that the European Commission has introduced the term ‘open distance learning’ and that others commonly make use of the sister term ‘open and distance learning’. He believed that combining the terms had led to endemic ‘conceptual fuzziness’ in the fields.

8 Chapter 1

There has certainly been disagreement in the literature. As Daniel has noted, some people use the terms open and distance learning loosely or interchangeably or in combination, so presumably equate the two. Manwaring (1986, p. 3) and Thorpe and Grugeon (1987, p. 2) believe that distance learning is a subset of open learning. Lewis and Spencer (1986, p. 17) believe it is a misconception to equate open and distance learning and give examples of forms of education which clearly fail to meet the definition of distance education yet are widely accepted as being open in nature. My own position has been made clear by the heading to this section. I agree with Daniel (1999) and Lewis and Spencer (1986) that there is not a symbiotic relationship between distance education and open entry, the most significant of the elements of openness. Making a commitment to open entry does not oblige an institution to adopt distance education. Most adult education and continuing studies providers have open entry policies for courses taught face-to-face. Nor does distance education imply open entry in every case. Many distance teaching universities have a range of entry policies for the different types of programme they offer. These might range from completely open entry for basic courses, through minimum-age requirements or professional experience, to having a highclass undergraduate degree for entry to postgraduate degrees.

Flexible learning Moran and Myringer (1999, p. 60) define flexible learning as ‘approaches to teaching and learning which are learner-centred, free up the time, place and methods of learning and teaching, and use appropriate technologies in a networked environment’. Like the early definitions of open learning, it is akin to an advertising pitch for an educational ideal. Perhaps more useful in characterising flexible learning is the recognition that it had three parents: face-to-face teaching, distance education and technology. Flexible learning then becomes an educational system which makes appropriate use of the teaching methods enabled by the three parents to meet student needs and aims towards the ideal in the above definition. Given the three parents, it is not surprising that the greatest use of the term flexible learning has been in dual-mode institutions, which have traditionally offered parallel courses by face-to-face and distance teaching. Conventional faceto-face universities and single-mode distance teaching universities have lacked one of the parents, so have tended to use other terminology.

E-learning The term e-learning seems to have been applied to just about any form of learning which makes use of a computer. More recently the term has mainly been applied to the use of networked computers and the internet. This, of course, covers a multitude of modes of education and types of teaching.

Post-secondary education modes of learning 9

Most of the major forms of teaching and learning can be enabled or facilitated in some way by computers and the internet. Besides e-learning, there are a range of associated terms, such as: computerassisted learning, computer-enhanced learning, networked learning, virtual university, web-based learning, distributed learning, and so on. Usage depends to some extent on fashion and to some extent on factors like: • • •

if the internet is used; whether other modes of teaching are involved besides the computer; if the computers are networked.

Generalisation Formulating definitions which adequately delineate a mode of study has not been easy. Most of the modes of post-secondary education discussed in this chapter have definitions competing with those given here. Most have articles disagreeing with a particular definition and casting doubt on it by pointing out exceptions which do not neatly fit. I see no point in contributing to, or continuing, this discussion, but the existence of it is instructive. It means that there is a significant variation in forms in which the various forms of post-secondary education are offered. For distance education and open learning, my judgement is that the majority of courses conform to a similar pattern, but there are a reasonable number of outliers. It seems to me that generalisation is, therefore, reasonable and often useful. However, when generalisations are made it will always be possible to find exceptions. Finding a few exceptions to a generalisation, though, does not negate the generalisation if it applies to the majority of cases and leads to useful conclusions. With flexible learning and e-learning, the terms seem to be applied to a very diverse range of courses. This makes generalisation more difficult.

Summary This book is concerned with modes of post-secondary education, leading to degrees or diplomas, which do not require full-time attendance at a college or university. Over the years these modes of education have been addressed by a series of labels. For the purposes of this book the following characteristics are the most important. •

•

Adult education is normally defined in terms of age on entry, but more important than the definition is the philosophical literature (discussed in Chapters 6 and 7). Open learning is described as a number of facets of openness, of which the following are the most crucial:

10 Chapter 1

• • • •

•

•

open entry; study anywhere; freedom to study at a time chosen by the student within a specified semester; a high degree of openness over the choice of courses to make up a degree programme.

Distance education is most simply defined by the high degree of separation between the teacher and the students. In most cases there is also separation between learners for most of the time. Open and distance learning are not the same thing. Flexible learning consists of a mix of face-to-face and distance learning with extensive use of information and communication technologies. In the ideal, the blend is chosen to optimise student learning.

Chapter 2

Major themes in student learning

Research literature This chapter introduces a number of important concepts and findings in student learning. The book draws upon the student learning literature to make a critical analysis of current issues and practice in distance and open learning. At this stage the concepts are introduced and key findings briefly discussed. When the concepts are drawn upon in subsequent chapters, there is an expanded account of relevant findings. Student learning has not been a major topic for research in distance education. Lee, Driscoll and Nelson (2004) analysed articles published in the four most prominent distance education journals in the period 1997 to 2002. One of their classification fields was the research topic, which they analysed into six categories. Surprisingly, student learning did not even feature as a subsidiary category, let alone a main one. The main sources of information in this book are two of my own projects. Both of these gathered most of the data from developing countries; so the information is relevant to the main theme of the book. Some research drawn upon is from conventional higher education. This is far from unique to this book. Given the dearth of research specific to student learning in distance education, it is not surprising that the more general higher education literature has been widely cited in distance education journals.

Persistence project The first of the projects I draw upon was a series of studies investigating models of student persistence in distance education. Whenever anything from this series of studies is reported it is referred to as the persistence project. There are four subprojects subsumed within this. The first was an interview study with students undertaking a Matriculation Studies course at the University of Papua New Guinea. Entry to the course was restricted to those aged twenty-one or more, and who had worked for at least two years. The course was designed for adults who did not have the normal level of qualifications for university entry and it operated by a

12 Chapter 2

combination of distance education and intensive summer school courses. (More information about the course is given in Chapter 13.) The research project has been previously described (Kember, 1981). Students were interviewed, mostly face-toface, but a few by telephone. The interviews started with broad questions associated with the way in which students coped with part-time study at a distance and any difficulties encountered. Issues raised by the students were explored by more specific questions. The interviews were therefore not tightly structured so as to allow the students to raise the concerns which were important to them. Extracts from these case studies are cited in the following chapters as ‘(PNG student)’. The second sub-project was at the Tasmanian CAE in Launceston, Australia, which is now part of the University of Tasmania. The project examined the reasons cited by students for their withdrawal from distance education courses. It has been reported by Osborne, Kilpatrick and Kember (1987). The courses used multi-media study packages, and most also had tutorials and/or weekend schools. For four semesters, during the period 1983 to 1985, students who withdrew from a distance education course were sent a questionnaire who included a number of Likert scale responses related to potential reasons for withdrawal. Two open-ended questions enquired about reasons for withdrawal and about potential improvements to courses or services. Quotations are taken from responses to these open-ended questions and are cited as ‘(University of Tasmania)’. The largest of the sub-projects investigated seven distance education programmes in Hong Kong. All were available only to adult students, with three having open entry policies. The programmes all used a media package for the delivery of instruction. Print was the predominant medium, but a variety of other media, including audio and video cassettes and direct broadcast television, were also utilised. Each programme was supported by face-to-face tutorials for groups of students. In addition, four of the programmes offered telephone counselling services to answer individual student queries. One programme offered a similar service by fax. A summary of the programmes is given in Table 2.1. The offerings of the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong (OLIHK) were treated as one programme, despite the fact that data was gathered on courses in the arts, business and science, because at that time the institution offered all courses in a similar academic format. Quotations from this sub-project are indicated by ‘(Hong Kong – programme)’. Examples are ‘(Hong Kong – Student Guidance)’ and ‘(Hong Kong – OLIHK)’. In my book on the persistence study (Kember, 1995) I also drew upon work by Kennedy and Powell (1976), who presented cases taken from case notes by student counsellors from the UKOU. The students were all enrolled in degree courses offered by the UKOU. Cases from this source are referenced to the original paper.

Part-time project The second project was conducted in Hong Kong and investigated a number of issues concerning part-time students. The aim was to conduct a holistic exploration

Institutions

Hong Kong Polytechnic

Warwick University/HK Management Association

Hong Kong Polytechnic/ Taxation Institute

Hong Kong Polytechnic

Open Learning Institute of HK

ACCA/ Hong Kong Polytechnic

Deakin University/ Chinese University

Subject

Textiles

Management

Taxation

Student Guidance

Business/ Science/Arts

Law

Education

Bachelor’s degree

4 months

Open

Teaching qualification

2.5 years

4 months

6 years

Bachelor’s 1.5 years degree, must be practising student counsellor

Open

ACCA qualifying Open

Bachelor’s degree

Postgraduate diploma

Certificate

4 years

HKCEE or above 3 years 25 years of age

Entry qualification Normal duration

Master’s degree First degree or 4 years’ management experience

Certificate

Level

Table 2.1 Programmes examined in the Hong Kong sub-project

Colloquia, workshops and tutorials about every 2 weeks

4 times for 2 hours each

Tutorial every 3 weeks

Print, audio Tutorial every tapes, videotapes 4 weeks

Print

Telephone counselling

Other support

‘Group of 5’ study group

Fax service for queries – response by phone

Telephone counselling

Informal contact

Telephone counselling

A 4.5-hour Telephone session for each counselling subject

Tutorial every 4 weeks

Tutorial support

Print, direct Tutorial every broadcast TV, 2 weeks plus other media

Print

Print

Print

Print, video cassettes, practical kits

Media package

14 Chapter 2

of the student experience of part-time students. Outcomes from this project will refer to the part-time project. The sample consisted of two main groups of part-time students: novices and experienced students. The thirty-five novice interviewees were in their first year of part-time study. Another eighteen interviewees were postgraduate returners who had previously completed undergraduate degrees by full-time study. They had at least one year of part-time study experience. The interview sample contained sixteen novice and two experienced students enrolled with the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). The OUHK had an open entry policy for undergraduate courses. Most of the undergraduate students admitted would not have qualified for the very selective entry for conventional universities in Hong Kong and might have had no formal education beyond the period of compulsory schooling. At the time the OUHK operated as a conventional distance teaching university. Students were supplied with a study package containing materials in print and usually other media, too. The students were expected to work through these materials on their own. Voluntary tutorials, lasting about two hours, were held twice a month. Most of the remainder of the students were enrolled in courses taught through classroom teaching. Classes were held in the evening or at weekends and typically lasted two to three hours. Most courses had either one or two classes a week. There were also seven part-time research students in the sample of experienced students. Table 2.2 shows the number of interviewees by type of course and level of experience. Interview schedules were designed to ask for the views and feelings related to a wide range of factors impinging upon the experience of part-time study. The data were collected through conducting semi-structured face-to-face interviews with the fifty-three part-time students in the sample. The interviewees were free to choose the language used for the interviews, and most of them opted to use Cantonese. The interviews were transcribed and translated into English. The raw data were then coded with the use of NUD·IST software (Richards and Richards, 1991; QSR NUD·IST, 1997). The step allowed responses from similar questions to be grouped for further inter- and intra-analysis. Quotations from the interviews are shown as ‘(part-time – novice/experienced – institution)’. Table 2.2 Groups of students in the part-time sample

Distance education (OUHK) Conventional courses

Novice students

Experienced students

16 19

2 16 (of which 7 were research students)

Major themes in student learning 15

Approaches to learning The first student learning theme is that of students’ approaches to learning (SAL). This is a convenient starting point because outside North America there has been such a large volume of research on the topic and it has been very influential to the extent that SAL has become the dominant paradigm for research into student learning in higher education. This paradigm is the principal one followed in this book because the most useful findings about student learning in the distance education literature have come from the SAL perspective. It is notable that the few books about student learning in distance education (Evans, 1994; Morgan, 1993) have been consistent with the SAL approach. The majority of research into approaches to learning has been conducted with students in conventional higher education. It is necessary to draw upon some of the more important findings from this work. In each case, though, justification will be given for application across modes. Approaches to learning were originally characterised into dichotomous deep and surface approaches (Marton and Säljö, 1976). Since this time, intermediate approaches have been shown to operate, so contemporary characterisation is towards a spectrum with deep and surface poles (Kember, 1996, 2000). For the purpose of this book, portraying approaches to learning in terms of the poles of the continuum will be adequate. The characteristics of the deep and surface approach poles are described below. Deep approach • • •

•

A deep approach is adopted when the student is interested in the topic or the academic task. As a result there is an attempt to understand key concepts or the underlying meaning of an article. An attempt is made to relate together the concepts to make a coherent whole. A piece of writing will be logically related with an introduction and conclusion. New knowledge will be related to previous knowledge and to personal experiences.

Surface approach •

• •

An activity or assignment is undertaken because it is a set task and the course cannot be passed unless the assignment is completed. The task does not arouse interest. As a result the minimum possible time and effort are devoted to the task. There is no attempt to reach understanding of key concepts; instead, reliance is placed upon memorisation of model answers or key facts perceived as likely to appear in tests or examinations.

16 Chapter 2

• •

Coherence of the topic is not sought, so material is seen as a set of unrelated facts. Concepts are not related to personal experience, so remain as abstract theory. As a result what has been memorised is normally quickly forgotten.

Contextual influences on approaches to learning Many students have a preferred or predominant approach to learning. Approaches to learning also have a relational element (Ramsden, 1987), which means that students choose the approach seen as most appropriate for a particular assessment task, or according to their perception of the prevailing teaching and learning environment. Assessment is particularly important in influencing approach to learning as students tend to be assessment driven (Biggs, 1999; Thomas and Bain, 1984). It is therefore important that assessment is consistent with the aims of a course. Highlevel intellectual capabilities will be practised only if demanded by the form of assessment. Assessment which tests students’ ability to recall information will encourage a surface approach. Gibbs (1992, p. 9) lists the following characteristics of teaching and learning environments which tend to encourage a surface approach. • • • • • •

a heavy workload relatively high-class contact hours an excessive amount of course material a lack of opportunity to pursue subjects in depth a lack of choice over subjects and a lack of choice over the method of study a threatening and anxiety-provoking assessment system.

Biggs (1999, p. 73) identifies the following four factors as likely to encourage a deep approach. • • • •

a well-structured knowledge base an appropriate motivational context learner activity interaction with others.

Maturity and approaches to learning The relationship between age or maturity and approaches to learning is of relevance as students in open learning courses, particularly in the West, tend to be older than undergraduates in conventional universities. Harper and Kember (1986) compared approaches to learning of matched groups of internal and distance education students. Once age, gender and discipline had been controlled for, there were no significant differences by mode of study. There were, though, differences by age.

Major themes in student learning 17

Older students were more inclined to use a deep approach, display intrinsic motivation and relate ideas to personal experience. Richardson (1994) conducted a review of research into approaches to learning of mature students and found that there was consistent evidence of them being more likely to use a deep approach than younger students. He suggested three possible explanations. 1 2 3

Younger students develop a tendency to use a surface approach in the latter years at secondary school. Mature students are more inclined to be intrinsically motivated. The prior life experience of mature students encourages the use of a deep approach.

Models of retention Drop-out rates have commonly been used as an indicator of outcomes in higher education. This is particularly so in distance education, as drop-out rates are normally higher than those in conventional higher education. Chapter 4 presents evidence that drop-out rates are often particularly high in distance education courses in developing countries. In this book these high drop-out rates are interpreted as a problematic symptom. One of the major themes of the book is attempting to provide an explanation for the problem and suggesting ways in which persistence and graduation rates might be boosted. This aspect of student learning is therefore important to the themes addressed here. The most widely cited model of student attrition or retention is that of Tinto (1975, 1987). Following the work of Spady (1970, 1971), Tinto compared dropping out to suicide, drawing upon Durkheim’s (1961) theory of suicide to explain attrition. Durkheim noted that egotistical suicide could occur if individuals became isolated from society’s communities because of an inability to integrate and establish membership. The first form of integration was social integration, which occurred through interaction with other members of society and led to the formation of personal affiliations. The second was value or intellectual integration, which resulted when there was commonality in values and beliefs with those of the relevant community. Spady (1971) and subsequently Tinto (1975) saw an analogy between Durkheim’s theory of suicide and drop-out from college society. They postulated that drop-out was more likely to occur among students who differed from the prevailing values and intellectual norms of the college or were unable to establish membership of the college’s social community. Rites of passage Another sociological theory drawn upon by Tinto (1987) was Van Gannep’s theory of rites of passage (1960), which envisaged an individual’s life as a series of

18 Chapter 2

passages marked by changes in group membership or the individual’s status. He believed that rituals and ceremonies provided a mechanism to introduce the new group and assist the newcomers to become established within it. Tinto (1987) saw a parallel between Van Gannep’s stages in rites of passage and the movement of students from the high-school community to college or university. Tinto saw that the students’ ability to overcome the problems of adjustment and become incorporated into the new college community would have a major influence on whether they persisted as a member of college society. The second type of transition requires students to adapt to the conventions of college life and establish themselves within the social and intellectual community of the college. Clearly those with a conception of academic study which does not match the expectations of academia will find this transition difficult (Perry, 1970, 1988). Adaptation to distance education Tinto himself (1982) cautioned that his model had been developed with full-time on-campus study in mind. In other situations the model would need to be modified. Careful consideration is needed if the model is to be adapted for use in distance education as it suggests that contact between instructors and students, and interrelationships between students, can be valuable mechanisms for promoting integration. However, by definition, the amount of contact in distance education is considerably less than in face-to-face teaching, and in many cases there is no direct contact. The first implication is that a principal mechanism for promoting integration and persistence is normally minimised in distance education. It is not, therefore, surprising that completion rates tend to be lower than in conventional higher education. If drop-out rates are to be addressed, though, there is a need to try to establish integration or a sense of belonging for the distance learners. (This issue is addressed at length in Chapter 11.) A weaker form of social integration featured in a version of Tinto’s model reformulated for use in distance education (Kember, 1995). This envisages social integration as the extent to which distance education students are able to integrate study requirements with their commitments to work, family and social lives. Subsequent developments have shown how students make these adaptations through the three mechanisms of sacrifice, support and the negotiation of arrangements (Kember, 1999; Kember et al., 2005; Kember and Leung, 2004; Yum, Kember and Siaw, 2005). Academic integration is achieved if new students’ beliefs and values about learning are compatible with those required by the distance higher education system of instruction. In terms of Van Gannep’s stages in rites of passage, integration depends on whether students are able to make the transition from the learning culture of secondary school to those of distance and higher education. The reformulation of Tinto’s model of attrition into a model of student progress, suitable for distance education, was tested in what is referred to in this book as the

Major themes in student learning 19

student progress project. The findings of the project are synthesised in Kember (1995). (The topic of drop-out and persistence is developed further in Chapters 4, 7, 8, 11 and 13.)

Students’ beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge This section presents findings which suggest that making a rite of passage into distance education might be a major problem for many students new to the mode of study. Analysis of the interviews from the part-time project revealed insights into the students’ beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge and showed that this trilogy of beliefs had a marked impact on the students’ ability to adapt to parttime study (Kember, 2001). The large majority of the novice students held a trio of beliefs labelled ‘didactic/ reproductive’. They believed that the role of the teacher was to transmit or teach a body of knowledge. Their role as students was to absorb the knowledge decided as appropriate by the teacher or the examination authority. The outcome of the process of teaching and learning was judged by whether the students are able to reproduce the body of knowledge for the examinations and other assessment. They believed that knowledge is defined by an authority, and so is either right or wrong. Where multiple opinions exist, an authority will eventually decide which is correct. The three belief components are logically consistent. If knowledge is defined by an authority, it makes sense to ask an authority figure to pass on that knowledge. Learning then becomes a role of successfully absorbing what has been delivered. The more experienced and sophisticated students usually held a different trio of beliefs called ‘facilitative/ transformative’. Several could remember making the transition from the more naïve set of beliefs during their undergraduate degrees. The two belief sets are contrasted in Table 2.3. Good teaching An interesting and highly significant consequence of the contrasting belief sets is that they resulted in very different conceptions of what constitutes good teaching (Kember, Jenkins and Ng, 2003). Those holding the naïve belief set preferred teacher-centred forms of teaching. They wanted a lecture in which knowledge was transmitted, so they preferred didactic teaching. By contrast, those with the facilitative/transformative set of beliefs thought that didactic teaching was poor teaching. Their conception of good teaching was more student-centred. They wanted the teacher to act as a facilitator to assist them in their learning. The outcome is that the conceptions of good and poor teaching are diametrically opposite. Those with the naïve beliefs think that didactic teaching is good and student-centred teaching poor. Those with the more sophisticated beliefs think the opposite.

20 Chapter 2 Table 2.3 Contrasting beliefs of novice and sophisticated students

Teaching

Learning

Knowledge

Didactic/reproductive

Facilitative/transformative

A didactic process of transmitting knowledge

Teaching is a process of facilitating learning

The teacher is responsible for ensuring that learning takes place

The student is responsible for learning independently with guidance from the teacher

The role of the students is to absorb the material defined by the teacher

The role of the students is to reach an understanding of relevant concepts

Outcomes are judged by the students’ ability to reproduce material

The outcome is the student transforming knowledge for own purposes and context

Defined by an authority

Transformed or constructed by the individual

Knowledge and theories are right or wrong

Judgements have to be made about alternative theories based upon evidence and analysis

The beliefs held by the novice part-time students had a marked impact on how well they coped with study. The novice students at the OUHK believed that good teaching was didactic or transmissive in nature. This was radically different to the

Students’ conceptions of learning Selfdetermining

Didactic teaching

Facilitating teaching requiring active learning

Poor teaching

Good teaching Teaching requiring active learning

Didactic teaching

Reproductive

Figure 2.1 Contrasting conceptions of good teaching

Students’ perception of the quality of teaching

Major themes in student learning 21

distance education mode of study in which a teacher is not present for most of the time study takes place. (This mismatch between beliefs and mode of learning will be explored further in Chapter 7.)

Nature of teaching and approaches to learning An important influence on learning approaches is the nature of teaching. This is demonstrated time and time again in courses for new teaching assistants (TAs) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Participants are asked to complete the revised version of the Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) (Biggs, Kember and Leung, 2001), which measures the extent to which students use a deep or a surface approach. The new TAs complete the R-SPQ twice: once for their current mode of study as a research student and once for their learning approach in the undergraduate course they disliked most. Each student ends up with four scores: deep and surface approach scores for current study and deep and surface approach scores in the most hated course. Each student writes their four scores on a whiteboard. While there are individual variations, the overall pattern invariably provides a convincing demonstration that the nature of a course and the teaching in it make a dramatic difference to students’ approaches to learning. In the current study mode deep approach scores tend to be high and surface approach scores lower. However, in the most disliked course the deep approach scores fall and the surface approach scores rise, often markedly. Teachers’ beliefs about teaching More formal research-based evidence of the effect of teaching on approaches to learning – and a probable explanation for the underlying reason – comes from research into university teachers’ beliefs about teaching. There have been a number of studies which produced category schemes for conceptions of teaching. Kember (1997) reviewed thirteen studies of this nature, to produce the synthesised categorisation scheme shown in Figure 2.2. The categorisation scheme has two broad orientations, each with two subcategories of conception. Those with teacher-centred/content-oriented beliefs concentrate on transmitting a defined body of content. The other orientation is more student-centred and the teachers believe in facilitating student learning. There is an intermediate conception labelled student–teacher interaction. The five categories are portrayed as a continuum with distinct borders. This is meant to imply that a shifting in beliefs is possible and does happen in some cases. The transition between the teacher- and student-centred orientations is not an easy one to make.

22 Chapter 2

Teacher-centred/ content-oriented

Imparting information

Student-centred/ learning-oriented

Transmitting structured knowledge

Student– teacher interaction

Facilitating understanding

Intellectual development

Figure 2.2 Teachers’ beliefs about teaching

Beliefs and approaches to teaching Conceptions of teaching are important because there is a strong relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to teaching. Beliefs about teaching govern the way teaching takes place. Kember and Kwan (2000) characterised teaching approaches as a set of continua with content- and learning-centred poles. A simplified version is shown in Figure 2.3 below, which has one motivation and three strategy components. The characterisation of approaches to teaching came from the analysis of interviews with seventeen lecturers. The interviewees gave sufficient information to identify their teaching approach. Most were positioned towards the content- or learning-centred poles for the majority of the elements, so the lecturers were classified by their use of a predominant teaching approach.

TEACHING APPROACH CONTENT-CENTRED Emphasis on extrinsic motivators

LEARNING-CENTRED MOTIVATION

Motivator STRATEGY

Lecturer supplying notes, examples, handouts, library references, etc.

Instruction

More towards the whole class

Focus

Frequent tests and quizzes

Assessment

Figure 2.3 Approaches to teaching

Recognising that motivating students is part of the teaching role Lecturer encouraging students to discover knowledge Conscious attempt to deal with individual students More flexible assessment often with choices

Major themes in student learning 23

Conceptions of teaching

Approaches to teaching

Students’ approaches to learning

Figure 2.4 Relationship between conceptions and approaches to teaching

The interviewees were also asked about conceptions of teaching, and their answers made it possible to allocate them to either the teacher- or student-centred orientations above. The conceptions of teaching and approaches to teaching were then cross-classified. With just two exceptions, those holding teacher-centred beliefs employed content-centred teaching approaches, while those with studentcentred beliefs used learning-centred approaches. It is therefore possible to claim that conceptions of teaching strongly influence the approach to teaching. Figure 2.4 also includes approaches to teaching influencing students’ approaches to learning, as this part of the causal chain will be established in the following section. Effects of beliefs on approaches to learning The relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to learning was investigated by developing a questionnaire which gave a measure of the two belief orientations (Gow and Kember, 1993). Mean scores were computed for teachers in sixteen departments in two universities. These scores were then correlated with scores from the SPQ for students in these departments. The SPQ data was available by year of study. It was therefore possible to examine correlations between conceptions of teaching and final deep and surface approach scores. Correlations were also computed with the change in approach scores from enrolment to completion of the final year. Correlations are shown in Table 2.4 (Kember and Gow, 1994). The SPQ had been completed by several thousand students, but, as the conceptions of teaching data were only available by department, the N for the study was sixteen. This meant that only high correlation coefficients would be significant. In spite of this constraint, a clear relationship was established.

Table 2.4 Relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to learning Final surface approach

Change in Final deep surface approach approach

Learning oriented

– 0.61*

–0.13

0.39

0.23

Teacher centred

0.09

0.31

–0.74*

–0.79*

Note: * p <.01

Change in deep approach

24 Chapter 2

Departments in which teacher-centred beliefs predominated tended to discourage students from using a deep approach. Departments which were more inclined towards facilitating learning encouraged a deep approach at the expense of a surface approach. A similar finding at the level of the individual teacher was made by Trigwell, Prosser and Lyons (1997). Returning to the findings of the previous section, this means that those holding the naïve belief set prefer a type of teaching which tends to encourage a surface approach. This is a logical consequence of the trio of beliefs. The preference is for didactic teaching because they believe learning is about memorising a body of knowledge delivered by the teacher and reproducing it in a test or examination. This means that they will tend to employ a surface approach as it is the one which is consistent with their conceptions of learning and knowledge. Transmissive teaching Having established the nature of beliefs about and approaches to teaching and shown that they influence students’ approaches to learning, it is appropriate to examine the form of the more didactic orientation. The beliefs enshrined in the teacher-centred/content-oriented orientation are depicted in Figure 2.5. The teachers believe that their knowledge needs to be transmitted to a body of students who receive it as empty vessels. Teaching is, therefore, purely didactic. There is little or no student–teacher interaction.

Figure 2.5 Didactic teaching

Major themes in student learning 25

The cartoon obviously portrays a face-to-face teaching scenario. It is not hard, though, to visualise how those holding these beliefs teach through distance education. In the print medium the knowledge is committed to a voluminous study package with no activities or questions – essentially a conventional book. For distance education via audio-visual communication channels, the teacher gives a lecture which students are expected to listen to in their study centres or homes. It does not matter whether the communication channel is one- or two-way, as only one channel will be utilised. For e-learning, the content is contained on a series of web-pages. The interactive features of the internet are not exploited.

Summary This chapter gives a brief overview of significant research into student learning which is used in the subsequent analysis. The main themes are introduced at this point and then expanded upon at relevant points in the following chapters. The following topics have been addressed: • • • • • •

approaches to learning; contextual influences on approaches to learning; maturity and approaches to learning; the relationship between student learning and models of retention; teachers’ beliefs about teaching; students’ beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge.

Part II

Open learning

Chapter 3

The Open University of the United Kingdom – a British eccentricity or a model for the world? Alan Woodley

Introduction In the final paragraph of his Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson, an American, paid tribute to the best things about Britain: ‘What other nation in the world could have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners’ Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None of course’ (Bryson, 1996, p. 352). When looking back to the creation of an institution such as the Open University (OU) of the United Kingdom, it is good to place it in the context of the political, educational, social and economic circumstances of that time, as well as of the historical circumstances that preceded it, and this is the approach taken in this chapter. However, I would like to begin with a warning. While a partial explanation can be offered for the OU, I would contend that neither its creation nor its continuing survival was in any way inevitable. Alongside the social forces and trends that were at work, the actions of certain individuals had a great effect, not to mention a degree of serendipity. In other words, despite Bryson’s claim, the Open University may easily not have happened in the UK, and equally it may have started elsewhere, albeit in a somewhat different form. The OU, having survived since 1971 and with some 200,000 students per year, is generally considered to be a success. In this chapter I examine how it evolved from an initial idea; how it developed through a planning stage; how it came into being; and how it has adapted over time. The underlying question is whether this complex and highly evolved institution could or should be transplanted elsewhere.

An institution of its time During the latter part of the Second World War, and in the years following it, the United Kingdom set about a dramatic overhaul of its social institutions, resulting in what came to be known as the Welfare State. First came the Beveridge Report in 1942 which proposed a wide-ranging social welfare programme based on full employment. The latter was to be achieved by Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production.

30 Chapter 3

In 1946 Parliament passed the revolutionary National Insurance Act. This provided for compulsory contributions for unemployment, sickness, maternity and widows’ benefits and old-age pensions from employers and employees, with the government funding the balance. In 1948 the National Health Service Act meant that British people would be provided with free diagnosis and treatment of illness, at home or in hospital, as well as dental and ophthalmic services. Of most concern to us is the 1944 Education Act that changed the education system for secondary schools in England and Wales. This Act, commonly named after the politician Rab Butler, introduced the tripartite system of secondary education and made it free for all pupils. The tripartite system consisted of three different types of secondary school: grammar schools; secondary technical schools; and secondary modern schools. To assess which pupils should attend which school, they took an exam known as the ‘11 plus’, because it was taken at age eleven. Just how revolutionary or radical these developments were is open to debate. Historians have pointed out that while Aneurin Bevan, who drove through the National Health Service Act, was a left-wing Labour politician, Beveridge was a Liberal and Butler was a Conservative. While a case could be made that the changes came as a result of growing demand for a better life from the working people, especially after the privations of the war, it could also be claimed that they were good for capitalism. Beveridge certainly argued that the welfare institutions he proposed would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and on to the public account, but by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.

The growth of education in the UK Education, or at least mass education, was not always seen as a good thing – and this was true even for literacy. For example, the Heresy Act of 1401 decreed that if a lay person read the Bible they should be burned at the stake! It was the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, with the movement of people into towns and the creation of factories, that created the need for certain basic levels of education. Before the late nineteenth century, education in England was largely a private affair, with wealthy parents sending their children to fee-paying schools, and others using whatever local teaching was available. Under the Elementary Education Act of 1880, though, education became free from the ages of five to ten, and it was also made compulsory for that age group. The Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act of 1893 raised the school leaving age to eleven and later to thirteen. The Fisher Education Act of 1918 made secondary education compulsory up to age fourteen and gave responsibility for secondary schools to the state. Under the Act, many higher elementary schools and endowed grammar schools sought to become state-funded central schools or secondary schools. However, most

The UKOU – a model for the world? 31

children attended primary (elementary) school until age fourteen, rather than going to a separate school for secondary education. As noted above, the next major change came with the 1944 Education Act.

The growth of higher education in the UK The year 1963 is a good baseline point. It saw both the publication of the Report of the Committee on Higher Education (the Robbins Report: Robbins, 1963) and party leader Harold Wilson’s speech to the Labour Party Conference where he first outlined his plans for a new ‘University of the Air’ (Wilson, 1963a). Robbins began by noting how few people entered higher education before the Second World War. The percentage of nineteen-year-olds in full-time education (nearly all of whom were in higher education) rose from 1 per cent to just 2 per cent between 1870 and 1938. However, changes at the secondary level (4 per cent of seventeen-year-olds in full-time education in 1938 rising to 15 per cent in 1962) plus a rise in national prosperity meant that demand for higher education had increased. As Figure 3.1 shows, the percentage of the age-group that entered full-time higher education (HE) had already begun to increase prior to the Robbins Report. It had become evident to the government by 1958 that more universities were needed. Keele became a university in 1962 and approval had been given to build York, Kent, Essex, Warwick, Lancaster and East Anglia. Table 3.1 shows that the participation rates resulted in almost a third of a million students being in higher education in 1962–3. However, these figures require a detailed commentary. 9.0 8.0 University Teacher Training Further Education Total

7.0 6.0 5.0 % 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 1900

1930 Year

Figure 3.1 The percentage of the age-group entering higher education

1960

32 Chapter 3 Table 3.1 Higher education student numbers (1962–3)

Full time Part time Total

Universities

Training colleges

Other HE

Total

118,400 9,000 127,400

54,700 – 54,700

42,800 108,000 150,800

215,900 117,000 332,900

Source: Robbins (1963)

• • •

The great majority of university students were studying full time. Over 6,000 of the part-time students were postgraduates. Those at training colleges were generally doing a three-year certificate course in teaching. Other components of HE were advanced vocational courses at colleges of advanced technology and technical colleges. They were generally part-time courses that were studied one day per week or in the evenings.

Robbins felt that HE should expand because: ‘The good society desires equality of opportunity for its citizens to become not merely good producers but also good men and women’ (Robbins, 1963, p. 8). Although the expansion had already started, Robbins provided the quotation that was to become a byword for the next phase: ‘we have assumed as an axiom that courses of Higher Education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wished to do so’ (Robbins, 1963, p. 8). This set in train an even more rapid expansion. Over the following decades there were many institutional changes – colleges of advanced technology became universities, polytechnics were created then became universities, training colleges closed, etc. – and participation rates continued to climb. It is estimated that some 40 per cent of eighteen–thirtyyear-olds now have had some experience of higher education, and the current government has a target of 50 per cent. Of particular interest is that nowhere in the huge Robbins Report is there any mention of the potential for distance education or the proposed new ‘University of the Air’. The only reference to adults concerns the work of university extra-mural departments and the need for professional updating and refresher courses.

The education of adults When Cerych (1981) talked of ‘a broadly favourable historical tradition into which the Open University could be introduced’ he was referring to: certain traditions of British higher education and, in particular, so-called ‘distance education’ or ‘study at a distance’. This concept, almost unheard of in most Western European countries, had in fact been applied in Britain since the first part of the 19th century in the form of external degrees of the

The UKOU – a model for the world? 33

University of London. Moreover, British universities in general had for a long time been involved in adult education and ‘extension work’ to a much greater extent than their continental counterparts. (Cerych, 1981, pp. vii–viii) I do not have Cerych’s broad comparative overview, but I do wonder whether he exaggerated the extent to which the OU emerged out of a fertile education seed bed. •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

The External London University Degree was first offered in 1858 but it hardly offered opportunities for the masses. Even today it has only 34,000 students and they are spread over 180 countries. Very few adults in 1960 would have been in a position to take advantage of it. Many universities did indeed offer extra-mural courses but they tended to be in the liberal arts, did not lead to qualifications and were taken only by the middle classes. Historically there had been more radical innovations, such as the mechanics’ institutes, the first of which was created in 1821. They were to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men. As such, they were often funded by local industrialists on the grounds that they would ultimately benefit from having more knowledgeable and skilled employees. They targeted the skilled and the foremen rather than the common man. The Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) was founded in 1903 and is the UK’s largest voluntary provider of adult education. It aims to support the educational needs of working men and women. It has a commitment to provide access to education and learning for adults from all backgrounds, and in particular those who have previously missed out on education. By far the biggest providers of courses for adults, then and now, were the Local Education Authorities (LEAs). Their evening classes in subjects ranging from woodwork to conversational French, from yoga to car mechanics, are almost synonymous with adult education. In 1980 it was estimated that LEA adult education classes catered for some ten times more students than extra-mural and WEA courses combined. Some of these courses might lead to low-level qualifications but the great majority did not and were considered to be leisure activities. Distance or correspondence education certainly existed in the UK in the 1960s. Developed in the mid-nineteenth century in Europe (Great Britain, France and Germany) and the United States, it spread swiftly. In 1840, an English educator, Sir Isaac Pitman, successfully taught shorthand by mail and, by the 1960s, large companies such as Rapid Results and Wolsley Hall claimed to have many students taking school and technical qualifications with them. However, an interesting development was the creation of the National Extension College (NEC) by Michael Young. He was a renowned inventor of social institutions and many attribute the idea of the Open University to

74 24 2

77 12 11

Source: Woodley et al., 1987

Service Intermediate Working

Women:

Service Intermediate Working

Men:

University

70 29 1

70 18 12

AFE

35 59 6

46 31 23

NAFE

47 47 6

50 28 22

Correspondence

30 65 5

20 26 54

Residential

Type of institution

Table 3.2 Enrolment of mature students by type of institution (percentage)

51 46 3

75 15 10

EMD

49 46 5

55 20 35

WEA

39 56 5

62 22 16

LEA

19 54 27

28 28 45

Population

The UKOU – a model for the world? 35

him. The NEC offered distance education in many subjects and many levels and shortly it would begin to offer preparatory courses for the OU. A study of mature students (Woodley et al., 1987) showed that it was only the adult residential colleges that were making any significant inroads into workingclass education. However, these colleges were tiny, few in number and seemed to do little for working-class women. One in three male WEA students but very few women were in working-class jobs. I would summarise the position in 1963 as follows: • • • • •

For most people education was front-ended and finished with school, or was topped up with some part-time study at a technical college. Most adults would take no more courses. If they did, it would tend to be an evening class for leisure purposes. Adult students tended to be in non-manual jobs. People would go to university straight from school or not at all. Distance education was relatively rare, did not have a particularly good reputation and had high drop-out rates.

The conception of the Open University The idea of a ‘University of the Air’ is almost as old as broadcasting itself. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was founded in 1922 and, while working there in 1926, the educationalist and historian J. C. Stobart wrote a memo advocating a wireless university (i.e., one delivered via domestic radios). But it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that the political and social environment became conducive to the establishment of Open University. There were increased pressures at this time to improve higher and further education. On the demand side, there was a great increase in the number of eighteen-year-olds as a result of the post-war baby boom, and more of these school-leavers were well qualified. This led to a smaller proportion of applicants getting in to university. On the supply side, what was later referred to by Wilson as the ‘white heat’ of the scientific revolution was creating a need for the expansion of technological education. The Report on Scientific and Engineering Manpower of 1959 (Zuckerman, 1959) estimated that by 1970 the number of qualified scientists and engineers trained each year would have to be doubled. A second factor lay in the growing awareness of the potential of educational broadcasting. Ever since the BBC had begun broadcasting there had been educational programmes, but a scheme such as the Open University became feasible only in the early 1960s with the increase in the amount of broadcasting time available due to the creation of new channels; an improvement in the coverage and quality of the services; and a growth in the number of radios and television sets in use. The decision to create an Open University originated within the Labour Party in 1963, when they were in opposition. Harold Wilson, the leader of the party,

36 Chapter 3

announced at a rally in Glasgow that his party was working on plans for a ‘University of the Air’. Labour returned to power in 1964 and in 1965 Jennie Lee, the widow of Aneurin Bevan, was given special responsibility for supervising the development of the new university. With Lee in the chair, an advisory committee was set up and a White Paper based on the committee’s report appeared in 1966 (White Paper, 1966). A firm commitment was made to the plan in the Labour Party’s manifesto (Labour Party, 1966) and they won the general election in that year. A planning committee was then appointed to formulate detailed proposals for the new university. The committee’s report was published in January 1969 and accepted in its entirety by the government (Planning Committee, 1969). On 22 July 1969 the Open University officially received its charter and the first students began their courses in January 1971. However, the Open University that began to teach in 1971 was very different to the one outlined in Wilson’s original speech. It is worth considering these differences in some detail because it is highly likely that they were made to tailor the new institution more closely to the prevailing circumstances, and thus enhanced its chances of success. Although Harold Wilson was well abreast of developments in Britain, including the work of the NEC, he maintained that the original inspiration for his University of the Air resulted from contacts he made while travelling abroad and from foreign experiments, particularly in the USA and the USSR. Wilson appeared to have worked on the plans with little help from the Labour Party’s research department, and although the report of the party’s Study Group on Higher Education (Labour Party, 1963) proposed a University of the Air, this seems to have been included only because the group was aware of Wilson’s interest in the subject. Returning from a visit to the University of Chicago in February 1963, where he had spent time studying the work done by Encyclopaedia Britannica in producing educational films, Wilson sketched out his plans for the new university during the spring and revealed them for the first time in the Glasgow speech. He introduced the project as: ‘A dynamic programme providing facilities for home study to university and higher technical standards on the basis of a University of the Air, and of nationally organised correspondence college courses’ (Wilson, 1963b). Rather than an independent and autonomous university, Wilson envisaged the creation of an educational trust. This trust would be representative of the universities and other educational organisations, associations of teachers, the broadcasting authorities, publishers, public and private bodies, and producers capable of producing TV and other education material. It would be given state financial help and broadcasting time would be found either by allocation of a fourth TV channel, together with appropriate radio facilities, or by pre-empting time from the three existing channels (BBC2 ‘existed’ in 1963, although it did not begin broadcasting until the following year) and the fourth, when allocated. He felt that the university would cater for ‘a wide variety of potential students’ and went on to identify some of the possible beneficiaries:

The UKOU – a model for the world? 37

There are technicians and technologists who perhaps left school at 16 or 17 and who, after two or three years in industry, feel that they could qualify as graduate scientists or technologists. There are many others, perhaps in clerical occupations, who would like to acquire new skills and qualifications. There are many at all levels in industry who would desire to become qualified in their own or other fields, including those who had no facilities for taking GCE at O or A level, or other required qualifications, or housewives who might like to secure qualifications in English literature or geography or history. (Wilson, 1963b) He also envisaged a variety of teaching strategies. In general, educational programmes would be backed by the provision of textbooks and other materials related to the courses and facilities would be provided for supplemental studies at other institutions, such as technical colleges. However, correspondence courses which were not based on TV or radio programmes would also be available and in some cases special TV and radio features and courses would be used to enrich the provision already made by agencies such as the Workers’ Educational Association and university extra-mural departments. Established universities would be requested to provide examination facilities and to award external degrees and diplomas to students reaching a high enough standard in the examinations. The motivation of students would vary considerably. Some would be seeking qualifications to improve their career prospects while others would wish to study for non-vocational reasons. In the latter case, Wilson cited families intending to holiday abroad who might wish to take a winter course in a foreign language. Probably the largest category would be those who did not formally register for a course but who chose to ‘enrich themselves by a more passive participation in the educational programmes’ (Wilson, 1963b). In a speech entitled ‘Labour and the Scientific Revolution’ which he made a few weeks later at the Labour Party Conference, Wilson (1963a) emphasised that the future influence and welfare of Britain depended upon the extent to which it could come to terms with a world of rapid technological change. The four tasks facing Britain were to produce more scientists, to be more successful in keeping them in the country, to make more intelligent use of them and to organise industry so that it applied the results of scientific research more purposively. The proposed University of the Air would be relevant to these problems. However, he stressed that it was not merely seen as a means of providing more scientists and technologies. In addition it could make an immeasurable contribution to the cultural life of our country, to the enrichment of our standard of living. From these two speeches it would appear that Wilson’s main aim in proposing a University of the Air was to improve economic viability. By harnessing technological advances in the media of mass communication for educational purposes the nation could utilise its untapped talent, especially in the field of science and technology. There was also an element of social justice involved because it would provide opportunities for those who had not previously been able to take advantage

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of higher education, but there was little stress on educational egalitarianism and certainly no mention of the social class background of potential students. More cynical observers have suggested that the main reason for Wilson’s proposal was to provide electoral capital. In fairness to Wilson, his interest in such a university was aroused before he knew that he would succeed Gaitskill as leader of the party, but it is also true that he used the idea to gain maximum political benefit in the 1964 and 1966 elections. For many people, the whole idea smacked of an election gimmick. By the beginning of 1963 the Labour Party had been in opposition for eleven years and, with the knowledge that a general election had to be called by October 1964, they were certainly looking for new policies. The general idea of a University of the Air projected the dynamic image the party was trying to create and the proposals outlined by Wilson appeared to offer something to everyone. The university would provide many courses to a great variety of students and there would be technological, economic, egalitarian and cultural gains for the whole country. Other sectors of higher education would not suffer as this was to be a supplement to the overall provision and the idea of an educational trust ensured that other institutions and bodies could participate in the new scheme. However, the press reaction to Wilson’s original proposals in 1963 was almost unanimously hostile. The Spectator (11 October 1963) felt it unlikely that the scheme would ever be implemented: ‘Panaceas are . . . understandable, even permissible at party conferences but that should not lead us to take them for more than they are or to mistake the war-cry before the charge for the operational orders which will actually be implemented.’ An editorial in the Times Educational Supplement (13 September 1963) talked of socialist idealism and maintained that Wilson defeated his object by the sheer magnitude of his dream. It was doubted whether the money, the manpower or the television facilities could be found for such a venture. The Economist was the only periodical to welcome Wilson’s suggestion. During the policy formulation stage there was little support for the scheme within the Department of Education and Science. Most of the senior civil servants involved in higher education argued that resources could be better spent in other ways. There was also a more specific reason for antagonism in some quarters in that one of Jennie Lee’s first acts was to scrap proposals for a ‘College of the Air’ which the department had been working on with the BBC. At that time the project, which would have offered pre-university-level courses to adult students using broadcasting and correspondence teaching, was only awaiting final cabinet approval. Support for the Open University was also by no means unanimous within the Labour Party itself. In January 1966, for instance, there was talk of a cabinet split on the issue (Chapman, 1966). Anthony Crosland, the Education Minister, is believed to have felt that any spare money should go towards plans for raising the school leaving age and Anthony Wedgwood Benn, the Postmaster General, felt that nothing could be settled until the allocation of the fourth television channel

The UKOU – a model for the world? 39

had been decided. According to Wilson, the Treasury and successive Chancellors were also all against the scheme (Wilson interviewed in Open University, 1979). The Conservative Party made no formal policy statements concerning the new university during the early stages but debates in the Commons indicated their general stance. The university was referred to as a ‘completely bogus institution’ and an ‘unlovely centralised colossus’ and was attacked because of its cost, its organisation, the lack of research and its political origins (Hansard cited in Woodley, 1981b, p. 23). The merits of locally organised closed-circuit systems for educational television were put forward. But the only official Conservative opinion came from Sir Edward Boyle, chief opposition spokesman on education, in his response to the government’s announcement in the House that it had accepted the Planning Committee’s report and was going ahead with the project. His statement read: The report sets out a project embracing interesting experiments in the use of broadcasting for educational purposes and in the development of part-time degree courses, with both of which objectives we on these benches are very much in sympathy. But is it not a fact that this proposal comes at a time when resources for essential educational tasks are more severely stretched than any year since the war? Does the Right Honourable Gentleman really think that it makes sense for him to commit himself to funds of about an annual rate of £3.7 million as mentioned in the report, particularly as this report may well suggest techniques and innovations that could be adopted more efficiently and less expensively by existing institutions providing part-time degree courses and other forms of adult education? (quoted in Perry, 1976, p. 29) As Walter Perry, the OU’s first Vice-Chancellor, comments, this was really a very mild attack, given that Boyle was under pressure from Conservative constituency parties and from the backbenches in the House to take a strong line against the OU. His main concern was with the cost and he carefully avoided saying whether the Conservatives would support the project if they returned to power. Perry suggests that an interview which he and Peter Venables, the chairman of the Planning Committee, had previously conducted with Boyle, in which they told him of their plans for the univeristy, may have influenced his statement. Other adult educators were also highly critical of the scheme. Disappointment was expressed at not being consulted more fully by the Planning Committee and they felt that the money could be better spent on improving existing provision. They were particularly concerned by the lack of consideration given to educationally disadvantaged groups (Perry, 1976). In the broadcasting area, while an early agreement had been reached with the BBC, many of its staff were sceptical about the future of the project and there was widespread resistance to the idea of giving up peak transmission times for Open University programmes (Perry, 1976).

40 Chapter 3

Criticism of the new university, then, came from many directions and took many forms. The proposal was party-political and under-researched. The costs would be enormous, there would be little demand for places and the drop-out rate would be high. It would not help educationally disadvantaged groups. The project was so impracticable and broadcasting so limited an educational medium that the university could not produce a sizeable increase in the number of scientists and technologists. Given the level and variety of these criticisms, how did the Open University survive the policy formulation stage?

From conception to reality The Advisory Committee The Advisory Committee, chaired by Jennie Lee, felt that the new university would serve three purposes: It will contribute to the improvement of educational, cultural and professional standards generally, by making available to all who care to look and listen, scholarship of a high order. Secondly, a minority of those showing general interest will want to accept the full disciplines of study and make use of all the facilities offered . . . Thirdly, it will have much to contribute to students in many other parts of the world as well as those studying in the United Kingdom. (White Paper, 1966, p. 3) The idea of an educational trust had been discarded. The university would have its own administrative centre with a staff of between forty and fifty of professional calibre and, although in the early stages it might be necessary to operate under the aegis of an existing university, it would confer degrees in its own right. Great stress was placed on the fact that academic standards would be carefully safeguarded: ‘From the outset it must be made clear that there can be no question of offering to students a make-shift project, inferior in quality to other universities’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 3). The university would offer primarily courses leading to degrees, but professional, technical, refresher and conversion courses would also be included. The degrees would be general in nature and would normally take five years or more to complete. Intermediate qualifications could be awarded in the form of certificates, diplomas or credits. The degree courses would include ‘subjects of contemporary social, industrial and commercial importance; basic subjects like English, mathematics and the foundations of science; and a range of cultural subjects’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 5). It would be more difficult to provide courses in science and technology, with their need for practical and laboratory work, but it was felt to be important that the university should make a contribution in these areas, too. It was recognised that it would probably not be practicable for the university to offer a total of more than

The UKOU – a model for the world? 41

ten main subjects, and that some subjects might be grouped together as units of one main subject. The presentation of courses would variously involve a combination of television, radio correspondence courses, programmed instruction, tutorials and practicals, short residential courses, and study and discussions at community viewing or study centres. The main contribution of television would be ‘to bring lecturers of distinction within easy reach of everyone, to build up the corporate feeling of a University, and to illuminate the crucial steps of a course’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 6). The television time required would be at least two hours at peak viewing time on five evenings a week, with repeats during the day, early morning, late evening and at weekends. While it was hoped that other educational institutions would co-operate in the production of courses and would lend staff when needed, the Advisory Committee felt that the university would best achieve its aims by firm central control of a ‘fully integrated operation’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 7). It therefore proposed an organisational framework which involved a substantial administrative centre which would retain final responsibility for the planning and presentation of programmes and courses. The work of the central organisation would be backed up by a number of regional centres which would be responsible for ‘liaison with universities, colleges, extramural departments etc. in their areas and for making arrangements for facilities such as libraries, and viewing/listening posts’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 7). As the university’s activities would not be confined to degree work, the Advisory Committee also proposed that departmental responsibility for the OU should rest with the Department of Education and Science rather than with the University Grants Committee. No estimate of the cost of the operation was made but its costeffectiveness was emphasised as many people could be taught ‘without requiring vast capital sums to be spent on bricks and mortar’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 3). The Advisory Committee assumed that only a small proportion of students would complete a full degree course but felt that those who completed only part of a course or merely watched the television programmes would also derive great benefit from the university. It did not say anything about who the students would, or should, be, but it is clear from the following statement that entry to the university should be open to all: ‘Enrolment as a student of the University should be open to everyone on payment of a registration fee, irrespective of educational qualifications, and no formal entrance requirements should be imposed’ (White Paper, 1966, p. 6). Thus, there was a clear implication that people with few or no formal qualifications would be able to benefit from the university, although it was also recognised that it would be necessary to provide an advisory service for intending students which would help them to select suitable courses, for some of which a minimum starting level of qualifications would be advisable. Great play was made of this open access policy in the Labour Party manifesto for the March 1966 general election, where it was stated that the university would mean ‘genuine equality of opportunity for millions of people for the first time’ (Labour Party, 1966).

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The Planning Committee In September 1967 the government set up a planning committee under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Venables with the following terms of reference: ‘To work out a comprehensive plan for an Open University, as outlined in the White Paper of February 1966, A University of the Air, and to prepare a draft Charter and Statutes’ (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 1). This committee comprised a large number of respected and powerful individuals from the university, adult education, broadcasting and local authority fields. Six of the nineteen members were, or had been, vice-chancellors. The committee’s report was published in February 1969 and the proposals it contained were accepted immediately by the government. The charter, which had been drafted by the Planning Committee, was officially granted to the university on 22 July 1969. To a large extent, the Planning Committee’s report and the charter reiterate and elaborate upon points made earlier in the White Paper. However, as these two documents contain what could be termed the formal goals of the Open University, we now analyse their contents in some detail. Before proceeding with this analysis, it is important to note that we are using the terms ‘goals’ and ‘aims’ in their broadest senses. Used in a narrow sense, the goals of an institution of higher education could be defined according to whom and what were to be taught. However, we are also interested in the teaching methods to be employed, the organisational framework and the costs involved. These could be termed the ‘sub-goals’ which are designed to ensure the achievement of the main goals. The aims of the university were encapsulated in one sentence in the report: ‘In summary, therefore, the objects of the Open University are to provide opportunities, at both undergraduate and post-graduate level, of higher education to all those who, for any reason, have been or are being precluded from achieving their aims through an existing institution of higher education’ (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 5). It was the Planning Committee’s contention that there were many thousands of people in the United Kingdom who had been deprived of higher education in the past through lack of opportunity rather than lack of ability and who would wish to enrol with the Open University. Furthermore, despite the current expansion of higher education, there would continue to be large numbers of school-leavers who could not gain a place although they possessed the necessary entrance qualifications. There would also be many able people who left school at the earliest opportunity yet who realised at a later stage that they wanted or needed higher education. The committee therefore saw the need for the Open University as a continuing one throughout the foreseeable future. The results of a survey commissioned by the Committee suggested that at that time between 34,000 and 150,000 people would be interested in registering with the Open University immediately. Although the report claimed that there was a large latent demand for the Open University, like the earlier White Paper, it did not specify who the students would or should be. Nevertheless, it pointed out that there were many thousands

The UKOU – a model for the world? 43

of certificated non-graduate teachers who would wish to acquire graduate status and also that there would be ‘other significant groups of professional students interested in the University’s courses’ (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 3). The report also noted the under-representation of women in further and higher education and said that the university would have an unrivalled opportunity to rectify this longstanding imbalance. One particular group, those aged under twenty-one, were specifically excluded as it was felt that it was always preferable for young people in employment to attend sandwich courses, block-release courses or part-time dayrelease courses. (There was also a more pragmatic reason for setting the age limit at twenty-one, which was that the university did not want to enter into competition with other institutions for students of eighteen. For the university to succeed, it would need the support and co-operation of other institutions in the higher education sector.) At no point in the report is the target population referred to directly in terms of social class. However, one paragraph is worth particular attention. Having referred to the backlog of adults deprived of opportunities in the past, the report goes on to say: The University will provide first and higher degree courses for such adult students, but its work would not cease if the problem of past deficiencies were adequately dealt with. Social inequalities will not suddenly vanish, nor will all individuals suddenly mature at the same age in the same environment. The recent book All our Future by J. W. B. Douglas et al., provides timely evidence in this regard of the large number of boys and girls who have the ability to become scientists but who leave school every year at the age of fifteen. (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 3) The Planning Committee would therefore seem to have accepted that differences in educational opportunities are rooted in social inequalities. The corollary for many observers would be that any extension of educational opportunities by the Open University should be seen in terms of reducing past social inequalities. We will return to this point later. Having considered the university’s possible clientele, the report then went on to outline the organisational framework and the teaching system to be adopted by the new institution. First, the Open University would be just like all other British universities in that it would be an independent, autonomous institution which granted its own degrees. The proposed charter was modelled closely on that of the new University of Warwick, and differed significantly from it only in the statement of aims. The Open University’s charter stated: The objects of the University shall be the advancement and dissemination of learning and knowledge by teaching and research by a diversity of means such as broadcasting and technological devices appropriate to higher education, by correspondence tuition, residential courses and seminars and in other relevant

44 Chapter 3

ways, and shall be to provide education of university and professional standards for its students and to promote the educational well-being of the community generally. (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 11) These aims recognised that the Open University would use different teaching methods and would provide professional as well as university courses. The university was also given the extra duty of benefiting the community at large. An administrative structure was put forward by the Planning Committee which showed four main sections working under the direction of a vice-chancellor. However, this was not intended to be a definitive version and the university’s council and senate were to have the power to determine the particular structure as the need arose, thus allowing a large measure of flexibility within which an effective administrative pattern could emerge. Two features of the outline structure are nevertheless of particular interest. The first concerned the need for a regional organisation responsible for mediating the centralised teaching system. It was proposed that there would be regional directors, each of whom will be responsible, within his region, for the recruitment and supervision, in concert with the full-time academic staff, of a corps of parttime tutors, for the arrangement of residential vacation courses and seminars, for the development of a student counselling service, and for the establishment of local viewing centres. (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 14) The second proposal was that there should be an operational research unit (which became the Institute of Educational Technology) within the university whose duty it would be to evaluate and to seek improvements in the teaching strategies of the new institution: ‘Indeed the continuation as an integral feature of the University of experimental work particularly in relation to the learning process may eventually prove to be one of the University’s distinctive contributions to education generally’ (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 15). Having reviewed developments in several other countries, the committee concluded that the Open University should adopt a teaching strategy which involved taking an integrated systems approach to the problem of providing higher education for part-time students. While the broadcasting media could undoubtedly be used as efficient means of instruction, they would need to be supplemented by the use of other media: Direct teaching by broadcasting supported by printed literature may provide all that is required for a short course of professional refreshment. It is, however, neither practically possible nor pedagogically sound to rely on broadcasting as the principal or exclusive means of instruction in an operation designed to provide disciplined courses at university level. The serious student needs

The UKOU – a model for the world? 45

to make the facts and concepts that have been presented to him his own by using them. He must undertake regular written work some of which must be corrected so as to help him with his individual problems and errors and to permit assessment of his progress. The only method of individual instruction capable of being made available everywhere, and capable of indefinite expansion as new needs arise, is correspondence tuition, which can readily incorporate these newer techniques. (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 6) The report also made a number of detailed proposals with regard to the university’s degree structure, many of which echoed those found in the White Paper: • • • •

•

•

• •

•

•

The degree would be a general degree in the sense that it would embrace studies over a wide range of subjects. Students would be allowed a great deal of choice from among the courses offered. No formal academic qualification would be required for registration as a student. Foundation courses would be offered in Mathematics, Understanding Science, Literature and Culture, and Understanding Society (a fifth course might be added later). These courses would be as intellectually demanding as any normal first-year university course but they would also have to be appropriate for students with limited educational experience. The degree would be obtained by the accumulation of credits in individual courses, which would last for one academic year. Each foundation course would count as one credit and all students would normally be required to obtain two credits in foundation courses before proceeding to further study. The foundation courses were seen as representing lines of study. The programme of study after the foundation courses would be based on the breakdown of each line into a number of components. There would be about four components in each line and each component would be made the subject of two courses, the second being more advanced than the first. This gave a total of some thirty-six courses or forty-five if a fifth line of study was added. Six credits would be required for an ordinary degree and eight credits for an honours degree. Credits could be acquired over any number of years of study. Exceptional students could complete a degree in three years but four years should be more normal and five years the median period in practice. A student’s success would be determined by a combination of continuous assessment and final examination. In accordance with normal university practice, external examiners would be appointed for the final examinations of each course to ensure that proper academic standards were maintained. A note was made of the pressing need for degree courses for practising certified teachers and proposals concerning this would be made later.

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Proposals were also made concerning the structure of the courses themselves: •

•

•

Each course would have a substantial correspondence component. This text would form the nucleus around which an integrated sequence of radio and television programmes would be built. The programmes would be designed primarily for the benefit of students as part of the university’s integrated teaching/learning system and therefore might be of limited value to members of the general public. Students would send in assignments by post at intervals still to be determined. It was noted that to the extent that broadcasts were linked to assignments, students would have to keep abreast of them or fall behind. The university’s academic year would run from January to December.

In the postgraduate area the Planning Committee felt that the critical need was for post-experience courses. These would take the form of updating or refresher courses or courses for those who are called upon to make a significant change in their activities, such as from the scientific into the management side of industry. Postgraduate courses leading to higher degrees might be developed later. The extent to which the university could embark upon any of these courses in the early years would depend upon the availability of broadcasting time at suitable hours of the day. In the early stages Jennie Lee had insisted that the proposed fourth television channel was indispensable to the establishment of the University of the Air because residual times on other channels would not be sufficient. However, this met with great opposition, particularly from the Official Committee on Broadcasting which had been looking at the resource and financial implications of the new university while the Advisory Committee concerned itself with academic matters. The Official Committee estimated that the fourth channel would require a total capital cost of £42 million and an annual operation cost of about £18 million. Realising that insistence on the fourth channel would mean the end of the project, Lee compromised and asked Lord Goodman to negotiate with the BBC over the possible use of the BBC2 television channel instead. (Goodman was Harold Wilson’s personal solicitor and chairman of the Arts Council.) As a result of these and subsequent negotiations, the Planning Committee was able to announce that it had contracted with the BBC to provide, in the initial years of operation, all the production and transmission services of the university. Thirty-two hours per week of television broadcasting and an equal total of radio broadcasting were requested and the BBC hoped to achieve this by 1974. The initial television broadcasts were to be on BBC2 between 5.30 and 7.30 p.m. on weekday evenings, and during the day at weekends. The Planning Committee was also anxious that recordings should be made available to those unable to receive the broadcasts. To meet the university’s long-term needs it was hoped that it would possess, or command, a substantial share of a VHF radio network. This would enable the university to broadcast many more programmes by radio than it would by television

The UKOU – a model for the world? 47

at the same cost, and at times of its own choosing. In the case of television, the committee was pleased to note that the government had stated that it would take account of the needs of the Open University in determining the use of the proposed fourth television network. It was felt that the amount of broadcasting for any course and balance of use between radio and television would be determined by the needs of that course. Similarly, the length of programmes might vary, but twenty- and thirty-minute programmes were thought most likely. The four foundation courses would be transmitted every year and other courses would be offered as often as broadcasting time allowed. Each programme would be repeated at a different time of day. The programmes themselves would probably be remade after three years of transmission. In addition to the curriculum output, about twenty programmes would be devoted annually to advising students about their problems, the techniques of being a student, and the general intellectual climate of study. The committee noted that the university would need to establish close relationships with many other bodies if it was to succeed. Among others, it mentioned the Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry and the Library Association. However, the stress was on co-operation with existing agencies of further and adult education. In particular the university would rely upon such institutions for the use of their premises and for the provision of part-time staff and suitable preparatory courses. The report also mentioned the possibility of relating courses already offered by them to those of the university, possibly for credit purposes, and of making the university’s component degree courses available to such institutions. In the final section of the report, the committee attempted to estimate the cost of the Open University. It had already submitted budget proposals for 1969–70 involving total expenditure of approximately £1.75 million. This included about £900,000 capital expenditure for the purchase of premises, computing facilities and BBC equipment for the production and transmission of the university programmes. For the year 1970–1, they were working on an estimate of £3.75 million total expenditure. However, such estimates were very tentative as there were too many unknowns to make accurate forecasts. Recurrent expenditure could be divided into two components. The first of these was overheads, which would be largely, but not wholly, independent of the number of students registered. The overheads included two main items: payments to the BBC for broadcasting services; and the cost of maintaining the headquarters of the university, including salaries of the full-time staff. The figure for the BBC in a full year of operations, which would be reached in 1974–5, was put at about £1.8 million. The estimated cost of the university headquarters for a full year of operation (to be reached in 1971–2), and for up to 20,000 students, was £1.7 million. The committee therefore assumed a total overheads component of about £3.5 million when the university was fully operational. The second component was direct student costs, including, for example, the salaries of the part-time tutorial staff, the hiring and equipping of viewing centres

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and the costs of printing, packing and posting the correspondence packages. As these costs would depend upon the number of students, the pattern of development in the regions and the quality of services provided, the committee felt unable to make any estimate as to their size. Similarly, they could not estimate the income from students’ fees or from the sale of copyrighted material. However, they did point out that the cost per student would almost certainly fall below that in the established universities and that the more students the Open University had on its courses, the more cost-effective it would become. While the committee did not specify a minimum or maximum size for the university in terms of student numbers, it did make firm proposals concerning fulltime academic staff: there should be four full-time academics for each component subject, which, when a fifth foundation course was added, would make a total of eighty. The academics would have normal conditions of service and would be able to devote a significant proportion of their time to private study and research. However, most of them would be recruited on a part-time consultancy or shortterm secondment pattern. In this way special skills can be gathered by the University for its needs without making permanent appointments which could create an inflexible structure. This pattern of temporary employment will be particularly necessary in the early years of development. (Planning Committee, 1969, p. 20)

Reasons for success Not many big political ideas get this far, let alone reach fruition. How was it achieved? Certain individuals played key roles in ensuring the creation of the Open University. Prime Minister Harold Wilson was determined that the project would succeed and used his powers to overcome opposition from several ministries, the Treasury, civil servants and well-established interest groups. According to Wilson, such acts were not uncommon in British politics: ‘our political history is full of cases where the Prime Minister has a private hobby-horse and is determined to use the not inconsiderable resources of his office to get through, whatever the opposition’ (quoted in Perry, 1976, p. xi). By selecting Jennie Lee to steer the project into being, Wilson knew that he had chosen ‘a politician of steely imperious will, coupled both with tenacity and charm, who was no respecter of protocol and who would refuse to be defeated or frustrated by the scepticism about the University’ (MacArthur, 1974, p. 5). For Lee, the Open University became a personal crusade. As Wilson put it: ‘What her husband’s [Aneurin Bevan] National Health had been in the 1940s, the Open University would be in the 1960s’ (Wilson interviewed in Open University, 1979). Between 1966 and 1968 Lee worked very hard to convince opponents of the Open University about its work and practicability. She had a side table in the Stranger’s Dining Room in the House of Commons, and during these

The UKOU – a model for the world? 49

three years there was no one of any importance at all to the university’s development whom she did not entertain. Another key figure was Lord Goodman, who successfully negotiated with the BBC for transmission times and talked to possible sponsors. However, his major contribution was his work on the possible costs of the university. His estimates were accepted, but ultimately proved to be much lower than the real costs. Speaking in 1974, he said: ‘When I see the figure I mentioned and the figure it was now costing, I ought to blush with shame. [The Open University] might not have been established except for my foolish miscalculation’ (quoted in Perry, 1976, p. 20). In fact, part of the underestimate owed nothing to Goodman’s miscalculations. While the Planning Committee was talking only of overheads costs when they mentioned the figure of £3.5 million per year, this was taken by the opposition spokesman Edward Boyle and by the press to represent the total cost per year. As Perry (1976) points out, had this been known at the time, the reception of the report of the Planning Committee would almost certainly have been even less favourable than it turned out to be. As we have seen, there was little support for the Open University in the early stages. But this opposition was managed by the use of a tactic of containment. By chairing the Advisory Committee herself, and by giving it restricted terms of reference, the original idea was safeguarded by Jennie Lee. The project was deliberately insulated from debates about educational provision as a whole and hence did not have to compete with other policies being considered at the time, such as the expansion of polytechnics. This policy of isolation excluded certain groups from the debate whose co-operation would subsequently be needed for the implementation of the project. The Planning Committee served to reduce some but not all of the opposition by meeting many of those interested or involved in implementing the university. According to Hall (1975, p. 276) the key feature of this committee was its membership: By persuading an eminent group of individuals to join it, Miss Lee demonstrated that the project had some powerful support outside the DES and that it was unlikely that the university would be scrapped altogether. Under such circumstances the tactics of the opposition tended to be modified. Previous critics either became supporters or they attempted to influence the details of the scheme rather than to destroy it completely. Opposition to the Open University was therefore deflected or neutralised in a number of ways. However, possibly the major factor behind the university’s survival during these early stages was the lack of real opposition. Virtually all of those who might have successfully stopped it seem to have decided that they did not feel sufficiently strongly about it. •

Neither hostile ministers nor the Treasury appears to have pressed the Prime Minister to a show-down.

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•

• •

• •

• •

The Conservative Party did not guarantee the university’s continued existence if it came to power, but it could easily have rejected the idea instead of remaining neutral. Despite its scepticism, no serious opposition came from the Department of Education and Science. The local authorities were neutral once it was made clear that the system of grant awards to Open University students would be discretionary rather than mandatory. Similarly, the University Grants Committee was persuaded that the Open University would not impose an additional burden on its finances. Many in the higher education sector were sceptical about the Open University’s teaching methods and standards, but again there was neither a sufficiently concerted opposition nor an attempt to create one. The OU was not opposed as a competitor due to the difference in the age of entry and the lack of access to UGC funds. By the time of the Planning Committee’s report the educational press had warmed to the idea of an Open University. The adult education sector was not won over but it lacked the cohesion and power to form a successful pressure group.

To say that the Advisory and Planning committees had put the flesh on the bones of Wilson’s idea would not do them justice. They had taken his scheme and made it: •

• •

More realistic: they knew that the TV and radio components would be small so abandoned the title ‘University of the Air’. They also realised that its chances of success were greater as a full-fledged university rather than as an educational trust. More imaginative: they developed the ideas of a credit-based system and of regional support. More adventurous: they daringly opted for an open access policy.

The launch of the Open University The university boldly aimed to enrol 25,000 students in its first year. Despite relatively little advertising, there were over a hundred thousand enquiries and forty thousand applications, so the first gamble paid off (Table 3.3). Inevitably, applications dropped in the second year, but they then began to pick up again as publicity about the first graduates began to spread. The actual intakes were restricted by government funding. The OU was tapping into a large resource of people who felt that they could study at degree level but who, for various reasons, had been unable to do so. A study of the first cohort revealed that many had passed their 11 plus and had gone to grammar school but had then been guided towards teacher training colleges

The UKOU – a model for the world? 51 Table 3.3 Enquiries, applications and admitted students (1971–5) Year of study

Enquiries Applications Admitted students

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

123,556 43,444 24,220

77,722 35,182 20,501

71,757 32,046 16,895

81,392 35,011 14,976

109,858 52,537 19,823

Source: Woodley, 1981a

rather than universities. Over 40 per cent of that first intake were certificated teachers. Among those with no or very few previous qualifications there were many who had had their schooling disrupted by the Second World War and so their qualifications did not indicate their ability. Table 3.4 shows the previous educational qualifications of the first five intakes. Two A-levels was the basic requirements for entry to university at that time, so in the first year seven out of ten students either possessed those requirements or had some previous experience of higher education. There was some concern both within and outside the university that the OU had not succeeded in attracting working-class students. However, while the majority of students were in white-collar jobs, many students could be described as initially disadvantaged. For instance, a study of new undergraduates in 1975 showed that only one in three got as far as taking A-levels at school and one in five left without taking any exams at all (Woodley, 1980). Similarly, the fathers of half of all students were manual workers and a further one-quarter were in low-level whitecollar jobs. These figures were markedly better than those achieved by conventional universities and much closer to the national distribution of occupations (Woodley, 1981a). In general then, the students whom the OU attracted did not have the opportunity to enter a degree course on leaving school. However, they were also likely to have experienced a great deal of upward educational and occupational mobility between leaving school and entering the OU, which they tended to do aged between thirty-five and forty-five. Table 3.4 Entry qualifications for the first five intakes (percentage) Year of study

Two A-levels or equivalent Some, but less than two, A-levels None Source: Woodley, 1981a

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

70

63

62

65

57

23 7

28 9

29 9

26 9

32 11

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Places were offered to applicants on a first-come, first-served basis. Applicants who accepted the offer of a place on the undergraduate programme paid an initial registration fee. After three months’ study during this provisional registration period, the new students decided whether or not to pay the final registration fee, which entitled them to receive teaching materials for the rest of the first year. In the early years three out of four new students completed final registration and over eight out of ten of the finally registered students went on to gain a courses credit at the end of their first year. Therefore, six out of ten of all admitted students gained some credit at the end of the first year. Although the Advisory Committee had assumed that only a small proportion of students would complete a full degree course, graduation rates were carefully measured and studied. There were two problems – the baseline and the time period. On the first score it was decided to base the graduation rate on all finally registered new students. Obviously this gave a higher figure than if the cohort had been all provisionally registered students. Time was difficult because once a student had completed final registration they were a student for life. Therefore, the graduation rate could increase, however marginally, over a period of fifty years or more. By 1978 approximately 55 per cent of the first cohort had graduated, but this concealed wide differences. Whereas seven out of ten teachers had gained a degree, the figure for manual workers was closer to one in four. However, the manual workers had further to go because, unlike the teachers, they had not been given any credit exemptions. So one could justify waiting several more years to see whether they caught up.

Early survival The Open University weathered the early years and survived. However, many other major open and distance learning initiatives have not, and the reasons for their failure are worked out using an autopsy approach. In February 2000 the United Kingdom e-University was set up with £62 million government funding as a commercial, global e-university. In February 2004 the government withdrew its funding and, to all intents and purposes, the institution ceased to exist. The exact causes of its demise have been debated (Garrett, 2004) but failure to meet targets was the key factor. By November 2003, only 900 students had been recruited (against a target of 5,600) and many people rushed in to calculate the extremely high per-student cost. In spring 1999 the UKOU created the United States Open University (USOU). It was closed in June 2002. According to Meyer (2006), the problems afflicting USOU arose from five sources: • • •

loss of an important advocate and diminishing support from the parent institution; conflicts with the OU’s established curriculum; challenges in entering a new market;

The UKOU – a model for the world? 53

• •

lack of accreditation; problems with business planning.

However, as she acknowledges, the main problem was a new vice-chancellor faced with domestic financial problems and an overseas investment that was not generating any revenue; that is, there were very few students. The latter’s evaluation was that the project should end. There have been other high-profile failures, or at least high-profile lack of success. Garrett (2004) notes the failure of NYU Online, Scottish Knowledge and Fathom. Others, such as Universitas 21 Global and the Global University Alliance, stumble on with no evidence of particular success. The Open College and the Open Polytechnic could also be added to this list. The bottom line seems to be that you have to deliver a large number of successful students very quickly and cheaply, and these initiatives failed to do so. The OU delivered, but explaining the key elements underlying success in a complex integrated system is more difficult than finding the reasons for failure. It is akin to being asked whether the success of a bicycle is more due to the back wheel or the front wheel. We have seen that the OU achieved most of the formal aims in the report of the Planning Committee, and some of the key factors underlying the successful implementation would seem to be as follows: •

•

•

•

Walter Perry, the first vice-chancellor, and his early staff, assisted by powerful backing from Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee, ensured that the OU was created and ready to begin teaching by the time of the 1970 general election. This made it much more difficult for the new Conservative government to cancel the project. The speed of the development meant that drastic revisions of the original plans were unlikely. Staff were too busy creating courses and coping with huge numbers to consider major changes in direction. Perry, who helped formulate the aims with the Planning Committee and who served as vice-chancellor for ten years, was a major influence on the OU’s development. He was also able to recruit and retain a young, dynamic and well-qualified staff who were committed to the original aims. The support which the OU received was extensive but essentially diffuse. Unlike many other successful innovations, it did not receive powerful backing from any organised interest groups, such as employers or trade unions. However, nor was there any real opposition movement. There were many critics elsewhere in education but they spoke as individuals, and their doubts and fears were eventually proved to be groundless.

As the saying goes ‘nothing succeeds like success’, and the OU certainly very soon came to be seen as a success. Its popularity among students, their pass rates and the quality of the teaching material all served to produce a high level of support among the general public, the media, employers and so on.

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As we have seen, there was a pool of potential students who were eager to take advantage of the new educational opportunities. Large numbers of these were people who had been shunted into the second-rate HE places outside universities (see Table 3.2, above). They included certificated teachers who wanted a degree, who were given credit exemptions for their previous study, and who had experience of studying at a higher level. Another large group already had the entry qualifications for higher education but, for one reason or another, were not able to take up their places. Furthermore, these were people in their thirties or forties who were in a settled domestic situation and who had often already tried part-time study. Taken together, these were excellent first customers for the new university. While the demand for OU places was strong, it was also exaggerated. The OU continued to stress that every year it had two applicants for every place available, but this was not strictly true. Over 30 per cent of all applicants who were offered a place during that period turned it down, so roughly a third of the queue was virtual. The progress rates were also depicted in the best possible light. As I have mentioned, the baseline of finally, rather than provisionally, registered students was flattering to the OU. These were people who had applied up to fifteen months previously and had tried out the teaching system for three months. In contrast, Athabasca University, a distance university in Canada, was registering students at the moment they applied and measuring their progress from that point. Graduation rates were also carefully presented as the percentage of finally registered students gaining a degree. However, as previously noted, an ordinary degree was gained with only six credits. Eight credits were required for an honours degree – what virtually all students in conventional universities would emerge with. So when it was said that 70 per cent of teachers from the first cohort had been awarded a degree by 1978, one has to remember that most of them will have been given three credit exemptions for their teaching certificates and then achieved only three credits with the OU to gain that (ordinary) degree. Furthermore, great stress was put on the long-term nature of OU study. The message to the media was that over 55 per cent of the entire first cohort had graduated. The implication was that the second and subsequent cohorts would match this if one tracked them over enough years. In fact, the first cohort was exceptional in many ways and subsequent intakes did not match their performance. Woodley (1995) showed that graduation rates were both slowing and declining. By the time of the 1985 intake, it looked as though their graduation rate would be below 40 per cent. Two crises arose just as the OU prepared to teach its first students, and both were successfully managed. In the summer of 1970, the Conservative Party returned to power with a commitment to cutting public spending. Iain Macleod, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, had referred to the OU as ‘blithering nonsense’ and may well have cancelled the whole scheme. However, he died suddenly just a month after taking office, and Margaret Thatcher, the new Secretary of State for Education, approved a somewhat reduced budget for the OU which enabled it to go ahead. She saw the OU as a cost-effective means of coping with the increasing

The UKOU – a model for the world? 55

level of demand for HE from qualified school-leavers and instructed the university to consider ‘the contribution that it can make to the development of higher education provision in the future’ (Thatcher, 1970). The OU responded by stating that it felt its teaching system was designed for adults aged twenty-one and over and was unsuitable for school-leavers, recommending instead that certain elements could be used in conventional institutions by means of mixed-mode study schemes. Nevertheless, the government insisted that the OU should begin to admit qualified school-leavers. After protracted negotiations the OU finally admitted three experimental intakes of younger students between 1974 and 1976. In the event only one in three of the 1,300 admitted were qualified for admission to a conventional degree course and only a handful were qualified school-leavers. Added to that, the progress rates of the younger students in their first year of OU study was very poor. Furthermore, due to the lengthy nature of OU study, the evaluation of this pilot scheme took several years to complete and the full results became available only in 1980 (Woodley and McIntosh, 1980). Labour were in power from 1974 to 1979 and were supportive of the OU. Thatcher then became Conservative Prime Minister but things had moved on and the OU was firmly established. Thus, without being obviously obstructive, the OU had avoided the threat of a complete change in its clientele by the astute use of negotiation and other delaying tactics. A second crisis arose in early 1971 when, just as the first course materials were due to be delivered, there was a national postal strike. The problem was solved by using private road-transport services to deliver the materials to local study centres, where they were collected by the students. The strike came to an end shortly thereafter. If the strike had been protracted, or if trade unionists at the OU, and there were many, had insisted on solidarity with the postal workers, the university would have found it extremely difficult to run its teaching system. In the early years, when there were more would-be students than places, applicants were ranked by date of application. However, the Admissions Committee did attempt to carry out some social engineering in order admit more of those social groups that they believed the OU should be targeting. For example, those who already held a degree had a number of days added, while those in manual occupations had some subtracted. However, this process was challenged legally and had to be abandoned. The ideals were later taken up by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which realised that that there were issues concerning ethnicity, disability, gender and age, as well as social class. Consequently, previous educational qualifications were taken as a proxy measure of educational disadvantage and targets for those with prior qualifications below A-levels were set for subsequent intakes. Later still it was realised that the progress of those with no or very low qualifications was so poor that it would be unethical to attract them deliberately, so the target was shifted to those with quite low qualifications. In reality, though, very little has changed, and for many years it has been fair to say that the student population divides into thirds: those with some higher education; those with HE entry qualifications; and those with lower or no qualifications.

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The growth period By a combination of design and luck, the OU planners got a lot of things right. However, to continue to prosper they had to hold on to the good points while adapting to changing circumstances. The major changes to the OU’s system are discussed below. Foundation courses The original plan was that every undergraduate would begin by taking a foundation course. These were broad, interdisciplinary courses in Arts, Social Sciences, Maths, Science or Technology. They were big courses – nine months long – and counted as one-sixth of a bachelor’s degree. If the student held no credit exemptions, they would have to take two foundation courses. The philosophy was that these courses would start from a very low baseline that any person would cope with, but then they would accelerate quite rapidly so that the student would be at first-year university level by the end. However, in reality this was not feasible and students with little previous education struggled. Consequently, the OU started to develop preparatory courses and materials, and has latterly moved into sub-preparatory courses known as ‘openings’. Also, because many students did not want to take foundation courses, the requirement was dropped from two to one and then abandoned entirely. So now people are free to enter at any level they like. New subject areas The OU has responded to perceived demands from students and potential students. Compared to the early years, there are now many more courses related to computing and whole new teaching areas, such as Business, Law and Foreign Languages. New qualifications The OU began with a BA and a BA Honours but now it offers over one hundred different qualifications. These take the form of specialist named honours degrees and undergraduate-level certificates and diplomas. At the postgraduate level there are certificates, diplomas, masters’ degrees and doctorates. Short courses The full credit or sixty-point course was considered to be too much work for many students so much shorter courses are now available in a wide range of subjects. Some are only ten credit points.

The UKOU – a model for the world? 57

New technology The OU has moved with the times and in 2007 all students are expected to have access to a networked computer. This means that course materials can be webbased or on a CD-ROM; students can form groups using computer-conferencing; assignments can be submitted electronically; and so on. Marketing Student demand has been maintained by more aggressive and wide-ranging marketing techniques. A recent rebranding exercise has helped the OU to cast off its sixties image.

The future The OU is not a totally adaptable and successful institution, calmly proceeding upwards and onwards. In the UK we have already moved a long way towards the government target of 50 per cent of the population having experienced higher education before the age of thirty and this inevitably means that the traditional pool of OU students will diminish. Due to this, and because more and more OU students are only taking single courses, increased efforts are needed to meet each year’s enrolment targets. Failure to meet these targets leads to financial penalties from the funding councils and so now we have over eighty staff in our marketing and sales department. An accurate picture of the OU would be the swan – serene progress when viewed from above, but feet paddling furiously below the surface. Ironically, it is younger students, the bane of the OU’s early years, who may prove to be its salvation. In recent years there has been a dramatic increase, admittedly from a small base, of students aged under twenty-five. Although the OU has not done anything specifically to attract this age-group, they seem to find it increasingly appealing. Initially this was seen as a decision by well-qualified youngsters to turn away from conventional full-time university, where students were accumulating large debts as a result of student loans and are now faced with top-up fees, too. However, by far the greatest increase is among young people without the necessary HE entry qualifications, those who could not have chosen the full-time route even had they wanted to. Having identified this trend, the OU’s marketing department is beginning to target them. The Open Content Initiative, which started in late 2006, represents another major policy change for the OU. Sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation, it makes a selection of OU teaching materials available online. It covers a range of subject areas, from access to postgraduate level. By April 2008, the plan is to have over 5,000 learning hours of content available, and it will all be free of charge. The OU will not teach or accredit this learning but it will offer electronic learning support and social networking tools. Educational practitioners will be able to combine the material with material from their own sources under a flexible Creative Commons copyright licence. Obviously, this will not initially generate any revenue, but it

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could do so if the OU decides to include advertising on the web-pages. Success, at least in the short term, will be measured by how many learners the scheme attracts and whether these people are from groups that are traditionally educationally disadvantaged. The OU also hopes that many new learners will be sufficiently encouraged to register on its fee-paying courses. The OU continues to enter into collaborations and to seek out worthwhile and/or profitable new areas. For example, in the past year it has signed an accord with Manchester University which aims to combine the teaching methods of the former with the subject expertise of the latter. In October 2006 a memorandum of understanding was signed between the OU and the Trades Union Congress. The partnership is heralded as one that will both increase student recruitment and serve to widen participation. As part of the OU’s social justice agenda, more attention is being paid to developing countries, and Africa in particular is the target of several new initiatives. Brenda Gourley, the OU’s current vice-chancellor, outlined her thoughts on the future in a recent presentation entitled ‘A whole new world’. She agreed with others that ‘We are witnessing a changing paradigm in education – a paradigm ushered in by the marvels of technology but also by the changing face of the world and the expectations of its peoples’ (Gourley, 2006). She felt that the OU was still seen as a leader in the field of open learning, but this leadership would not be retained if it was taken for granted: ‘if we are to reach people where they are, wherever they are, and make learning as accessible as it is possible to be (right down to your telephone!) then we need to embrace new technologies and new media as widely as possible and a lot quicker than we are doing at the moment’ (Gourley, 2006). For Gourley, the future lies in good virtual learning environments, in student e-portfolios, in the Open Content Initiative and in other, as yet undevised, uses of new technologies, particularly the mobile phone. However, the technological havenots must not be ignored; they also have to be catered for: ‘The digital divide is one reality with which we have to engage; and we need to help people to cross that divide’ (Gourley, 2006).

Discussion There is now something of a tradition for developing countries to buy up ageing car plants in the West, to dismantle them and rebuild them in their own country, then to produce ten- or twenty-year-old models successfully for their own domestic market. That’s fine if you have workers capable of making the cars, people who want to buy them, roads on which to drive them, and so on. From my analysis of the OU’s development, I would think it unlikely that its model is quite as transportable as a car plant. As I have demonstrated, the OU was carefully, if speedily, fashioned from an original idea into an elegant, complex teaching and learning institution that fitted into the United Kingdom’s society and education system of the time. It got off to an excellent start, based on the pent-up demand from a group of highly motivated

The UKOU – a model for the world? 59

students, then continued to evolve rapidly to survive in a rapidly changing market place. To use a boxing analogy, we got in some good early punches, then we were fast on our feet. But what does this mean for the overseas use of the OU model. Well, the first question would have to be ‘Which model?’ because, as we have just noted, the OU has changed a great deal over time. However, we can consider some of the essential building blocks because several of the basics have remained unaltered. Open access Looking back to the beginning, the decision to abandon entry qualifications was probably the most radical design feature of the OU. In a sense it got away with it because the people who came forward were actually quite or very well qualified, and could cope with the rigours of the first foundation courses. Those with no or poor qualifications were generally counselled to go away and do some preparatory study. Those who persisted would probably not complete final registration or they were people whose lack of qualifications was belied by experience gained elsewhere. Student support Unlike the traditional sink-or-swim approach of correspondence colleges, OU students were offered supported open learning in the region where they lived. This took the form of tutor-marked assignments, face-to-face tutorials, phone calls, selfhelp groups, and so on. Students were therefore not on their own. Teaching methods The OU method of course production has often been referred to as the Rolls-Royce model, with its implication of high cost and high standards. Large course teams, low output, BBC broadcasts, glossy print, etc., have certainly meant that the student is getting a highly developed product. In the early days the OU was criticised for its teaching methods. Based as they seemed to be on programmed learning, behavioural objectives, tight study deadlines and computer-marked assignments, the critics accused the OU of the commodification of education. Knowledge was being transmitted to, rather than constructed by, the learner. Without getting embroiled in that argument, I would contend that those teaching methods kept many students in the system. As we move into a system of e-learning it seems that teaching methods could go in several directions. In one scenario learners might be programmed even more than in the early days. In the other, with students having access to the whole web and all other learners, they might be free to construct their own learning system.

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Postscript (by David Kember) Here I will highlight some of the points made by Alan Woodley which are particularly pertinent to the remainder of this book and its examination of how open learning has been implemented in the developing world. First, the nature of the OU students. Alan states that ‘for many years it has been fair to say that the student population divides into thirds: those with some higher education; those with HE entry qualifications; and those with lower or no qualifications’. He also notes that they are typically aged between thirty-five and forty-five. In other words, the large majority are qualified for entry to university and many have experience of higher education. They are also quite mature, which implies substantial working, and often professional, experience. By contrast, as we will see in the following chapters, the typical open university student in developing countries enrols because their countries have restricted access to senior secondary school and/or conventional higher education. To try to achieve the considerable economic benefits brought by obtaining a degree, they enrol in the only avenue open to them: degree courses offered by open universities with open access policies. These students, therefore, normally lack the qualifications needed for entry to conventional universities and have no prior experience of higher education. Since they wish to start studying for a degree soon after their conventional education is truncated, they tend to be significantly younger than OU students. This also implies less working experience, and any experience they do have is likely to be in the relatively low-level jobs available to unqualified workers in developing countries. If the developing country students can be equated to any of the OU’s students, they are perhaps closest to the trial groups of school-leavers which the OU was unenthusiastic about admitting. The school-leavers did not fare well and the trials were soon discontinued. However, it is interesting to note that enrolments of younger students at the OU are now growing, and it will be equally interesting to see how they fare. The other point which is highly relevant to my main thesis comes out very well in Alan’s chapter. This is the remarkable degree of pragmatism shown by those involved in the early stages of the OU. Since its foundation, the initial model has been progressively developed to suit changes in student needs, advances in technology, adaptations by society and changes to potential OU students brought about by the development of the higher education system. Many of the open universities around the world have failed to show similar levels of pragmatism and adaptability. The OU model has all too often been taken into a quite different context with little pragmatic adaptation to the local situation. Any differences to the model are most commonly failures to develop extensive regional support networks, or the Rolls-Royce standard, for study materials. It has also been rare to see the initial model adapted to the extent that the OU has, even though there has often been a greater reason and need to do so.

Chapter 4

Need for open entry in developing countries

Mass and elite higher education Developed countries have generally moved towards mass higher education in order to nurture a well-educated workforce capable of facilitating the transformation to a knowledge-based economy. As many as half of an age-group now enter higher education. UNESCO (1999) reported a gross enrolment ratio exceeding 50 per cent in developed countries in 1997. The gross enrolment ratio is the enrolment in the sector divided by the population at the appropriate age-group. However, the UNESCO figures tend to be somewhat on the high side due to factors like early entry, repetition and taking multiple courses. It was noticeable that gross enrolment ratios for primary education often exceed 100 per cent! The situation in developing countries, though, is quite different. Entry to conventional universities is considerably lower. The gross enrolment ratios for tertiary education in regions outside the developed world ranged from 16 per cent to 4 per cent (UNESCO, 1999). In many countries schooling is restricted, let alone university education. While the gross enrolment ratio for secondary education in developed countries was given as just over 100 per cent, in other regions the ratio ranged from 70 per cent to 25 per cent. There is, therefore, a marked distinction between developed and developing countries in terms of educational provision. In the former nearly everyone attends secondary school and close to half of an age-group go on to higher education. Developed countries can be said to have largely achieved the goals of universal primary and secondary education and mass higher education. Developing countries vary in levels of primary and secondary education, but have certainly not achieved mass higher education and most are a long way from it. For the purpose of this book I will, for convenience, use an unusual definition of developed and developing countries. I will interpret a developed country as one which has levels of participation in higher education close to half of an age-group and has therefore achieved mass higher education. Developing countries are those which have not. I will be referring to Hong Kong more than anywhere else. My definition provides an interpretation of whether Hong Kong is developed or developing. By

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economic indicators such as per capita gross national product, it has to be seen as developed. But, by region and pace-of-change, it can be seen as developing. According to my higher education criteria, it is currently making the transition from developing to developed status, as there is a rapid expansion in the numbers entering post-secondary education. This makes it an interesting case for the theses I intend to explore.

Educational systems in developing countries Most developing countries cannot afford to build up their education systems to support substantial levels of university education. Funding universities requires considerable prior investment in school-level education. Expansion of university places is conditional upon there being potential students sufficiently well educated at school level to be able to benefit from a university education. Open entry to university requires a pool of potential entrants with reasonably good levels of school education. Development of the school system requires training of an adequate number of teachers. Even if countries were able to afford to expand their educational systems, it would not necessarily be in their economic interests to do so. Having a welleducated population is of value only if they can be employed in a useful capacity. Developing countries normally have limited investments by private companies needing a workforce with degree-level education. There is undoubtedly a need for well-educated staff in the government sector, but often inadequate finance to pay them or to provide necessary equipment and facilities. Basic manufacturing and some service industries have relocated to developing countries to take advantage of lower wages. Restricting entry to higher education has the advantage of reducing pressure to increase wages, which keeps existing industry from further relocation and increases the attraction for other manufacturers to move in. As a result of these economic influences, developing countries tend to have retained elite higher education systems, and secondary education also tends to be more restricted than in the West. However, the populations of these countries are well aware of the benefits of this technological era. The best route to economic and personal advancement is usually seen as through education and qualifications. There is then a huge demand for post-secondary education which is not being met by the formal sector.

Open universities in developing countries Many developing countries have turned to open-entry institutions to meet the demand for post-secondary education which their conventional university systems have been unable to satisfy. The information given about open and distance universities in developing countries in this book will be limited to what is essential to the thesis being developed. The concentration is mainly upon an analysis of data on student learning.

Need for open entry in developing countries 63

For rich and detailed information about open and distance teaching universities in developing countries see Perraton (2000). Perraton’s book complements mine well in that it provides a wealth of factual information about the institutions. This is accompanied by a critical analysis of their achievements, challenges and weaknesses. My book attempts to build upon this by trying to account for the most fundamental of the shortcomings and by suggesting ways in which they might be overcome. Many developing countries have founded open universities which operate by distance education. In the main these fall into one of two categories. Countries with a substantial population have tended to set up single-mode open universities, to try to take advantage of the economies of scale which can accrue through offering education in this way (Dhanarajan et al., 1994; Rumble, 1986). Countries with lower population densities have tended to opt for dual-mode operations, in which a conventional university offers courses at a distance in addition to the existing face-to-face taught ones. As most of Asia has a high population density, the countries in that region mostly belong in the former category. Rapid economic growth in the region during the seventies, eighties and early nineties resulted in these open universities expanding rapidly until the Asian economic downturn in 1997 put a halt to the growth. The Asian open universities have mostly used the UKOU as a model. Perraton (2000, p. 97) observes that ‘the open university gene seems to reproduce with few mutations’. This observation is of considerable significance. The UKOU model has no doubt been followed because its revolutionary format proved to be highly successful in the UK context, to the extent that it became a paradigm for the way in which a whole generation of distance teaching was conducted (see Chapter 10). However, the remainder of this chapter will argue that the context for these developing country open universities is quite different to that of the UK. Within Asia the most significant exception to the cloning of the UKOU model has been in China. The radio and TV universities make use of broadcasting to transmit lessons to students who attend classes to receive the instruction (Ding, 1994; Wei and Tong, 1994). The Chinese mode of operation will be described further in Chapter 13, as its quite different format has been effective in terms of graduation rates. Universities offering open entry courses in the rest of the developing world are a mix of single- and dual-mode institutions, with the latter predominating. With few exceptions, though, the method of education fits with Moore and Kearsley’s (2005) open universities generation (see Chapter 10). The generation is characterised by the use of a package of course materials as the principal medium for conveying a body of knowledge to the students, who spend the bulk of their study time working as individuals. The availability and quality of tutorials and other supporting services varies considerably between institutions.

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Open education in Hong Kong The main body of student learning research evidence used in this book comes from Hong Kong. It is therefore necessary to trace the establishment of open universities and distance education there. When I started working in Hong Kong in 1987, there were a number of distance education courses, all small in scale, offered by a variety of providers. The conventional universities offered courses through their continuing studies arms, often in conjunction with overseas universities. Other overseas universities offered distance education courses without a local partner. Some of these courses had open entry policies, while others required entry qualifications. There was also a wide range of open entry courses, mostly at sub-degree level, taught face-to-face by the continuing studies departments of the existing tertiary institutions or by other continuing studies providers. The Open College of the University of East Asia (OCUEA) was offering distance education courses to Hong Kong students from its base in Macau. It had been founded by staff from the UKOU and used their course materials. Weekend tutorials were offered in Macau, and telephone tutoring was also offered from there, because the institution was not permitted to use facilities in Hong Kong. The OCUEA had an open entry policy. There had been some consideration of founding a dedicated open university in Hong Kong, but the educational establishment was initially sceptical. A panel of overseas visitors to Hong Kong believed the local public perceived distance education to be an inferior educational form. Their report, A Perspective on Education in Hong Kong (1982, p. 64) states: The introduction of a ‘university without walls’ using the mass media is an attractive idea to us but does not seem likely in the foreseeable future mainly because of a questioning of what its viability and credibility would be. These surrogate forms of higher education are seen by some as stop-gap measures to meet the rapidly expanding demand for post-secondary education, rather than being based on the principles of continuing education. The first Education Commission report (1984) recommended against setting up an open university. The home environments of potential students were not considered suitable for study. There was a perceived need to teach in both English and Chinese, which would have implied the expense of developing course materials in Chinese. Resources were also seen as a problem (Hong Kong Government, 1984, p. 74) to replicate an institution such as the UK Open University in Hong Kong would require a scale of operation of around 70,000–100,000 students if it were to be viable. However, most of the necessary technical and academic expertise required to staff such an institution could not be found in Hong Kong

Need for open entry in developing countries 65

and yet a knowledge of the needs of the territory in educational terms would be essential to success . . . With only two universities and two polytechnics in Hong Kong, the problem of securing tutoring resources would be difficult to resolve. There was, though, pressure to provide open post-secondary education. Places in the final two years of secondary school and at the conventional universities were limited. In Hong Kong there are currently seven universities funded by the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong. Only about 17 per cent of an age-group currently gain entry to one of these universities (University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, 2003), so the UGC scheme can be considered to be an elitist higher education system. As can be seen from the above quotation, there were even fewer universities when the formation of an open university in Hong Kong was being considered, so even fewer places were available. At present the school system is also highly selective and competitive as only about one-third of an age-group is able to obtain a place in form 6, for the final two years of secondary schooling (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2003). Again there were even fewer places in the 1980s. There was therefore a very substantial pool of potential students who had been unable to complete secondary schooling or gain entry to a conventional university for an institution with an open entry policy. The economy was booming, in spite of the commencement of an exodus of manufacturing to factories across the border, where labour was markedly cheaper. Unemployment hardly existed; instead, there was a demand for a well-educated labour force to work in the burgeoning service and financial sectors. This demand provided considerable incentives for obtaining a degree. Graduates had many openings which were not available to school-leavers. In Hong Kong incomes differ markedly between those in management and professional positions and unskilled workers, so this magnified the incentive. The combined demands of potential students and the economy forced the Education Commission to change its recommendation. Its second report (Hong Kong Government, 1986) accepted that there was a need for greater provision of post-secondary open education. Significantly, though, the Commission recommended against a single open university based on the UKOU. It felt this left two options: either promoting a co-operative approach among existing tertiary institutions or establishing a consortium in which existing tertiary institutions participated. The co-operative model was not favoured because of difficulties over co-ordination, administration, financing and ensuring the provision of courses in a range of subject areas while avoiding duplication. The consortium approach, modelled on the Open University Consortium of British Columbia, was therefore left as the preferred option. We have concluded that something more than the co-operation of autonomous institutions is required for an effective programme, and accordingly we recommend the consortium approach. The concept here is, in effect, half way

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between the autonomous and the co-operative models. The participating institutions would constitute a consortium for the purposes of operating this programme, but in subscribing to it the institutions would accept that the consortium was (in some sense) an authoritative body. The consortium would allocate responsibility and funds for the preparation or selection of materials, ensure compatibility of standards and deal with the allocation of resources. The consortium would need resources of its own, such as an administrative staff, its own senior academic staff, and its own counselling staff. (Hong Kong Government, 1986, p. 153) Foundation of the OLIHK An institution with the name recommended by the second Education Commission report, the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong (OLIHK), was subsequently formed in 1989. In time this was upgraded to the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). However, it was founded as an autonomous open university and has never been a consortium or a co-ordinating body. The guidelines for the Planning Committee for the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong (Report of the Planning Committee for the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong, 1989, p. 60) stated that: ‘The OLI should be regarded as a consortium of participating institutions’. The Planning Committee had ensured that the existing institutions were permitted to retain their existing offerings. This might have been seen as an inducement to co-operate, as they would not have to surrender anything. ‘The programmes offered by the OLI should in no way adversely affect the parttime, extra-mural, open or distance learning courses now being offered by the UPGC-funded institutions or the Vocational Training Council’ (p. 60). The enabling legislation for the OLIHK contained the provision for other institutions to join a consortium, but in practice none has. It is not clear whether any serious attempt was made to form a consortium. The Education Commission has often found it difficult to ensure that its recommendations are implemented. In this case, though, the recommendation to form the OLIHK was swiftly implemented, but in a form diametrically opposed to that recommended. The nature of the OLIHK (and subsequently the OUHK) can be seen from the mission statement. It is notable that this contains the two elements of open access and distance education. It has therefore modelled itself along the lines of an independent open university and followed the common assumption of these bodies that distance education is synonymous with open entry: The Open University of Hong Kong dedicates itself to providing sub-degree, degree and postgraduate courses leading to awards and qualifications principally through a system of open access and distance education, thereby making higher education available to all those aspiring to it regardless of previous qualification, gender or race. (Open University of Hong Kong, 1999a, inner cover)

Need for open entry in developing countries 67

It is possible that the greatest influence on the formulation of the OLIHK was the appointment of Don Swift as its first director. He had been the founder and director of the OCUEA. It would seem to be no coincidence that the fledgling OLIHK followed the format adopted by the OCUEA. This could be described as a parasite version of the UKOU model. The UKOU distance education format was followed by both the OLIHK and the OCUEA before it, with the most significant deviation being over course development. The OCUEA had used UKOU course materials with little or no adaptation. Initially the OLIHK used course materials from the UKOU and other overseas institutions. As time has progressed, though, there has been more effort to adapt and develop its own materials, including a significant portion in Chinese. Locally developed course materials are normally written by part-time contract writers, rather than the OUHK lecturers. Support is offered through monthly tutorials and telephone tutoring. The OLIHK and its successor the OUHK have essentially followed the UKOU distance education model, with the exception that course materials are not normally developed by course teams of its own academics. The parasite model is used instead presumably because of the high cost of the intensive course team approach. The OUHK has to be self-financing, so expensive courses would make fees unrealistic. The OLIHK therefore ignored the advice of the Education Commission over its format. No course materials have been developed or supplied by the other universities in Hong Kong, and these institutions have played no significant role within the OLIHK or the OUHK. Staff from the other universities have acted as part-time tutors, course writers and external examiners, but this has been undertaken in an individual capacity rather than as formal representatives of their institutions. It also ignored the earlier advice of the first Education Commission report that the UKOU distance education format was not likely to be suited to Hong Kong. While some of this advice might be considered as erroneous recommendations from commission members with limited expertise in open education, consideration might perhaps have been given for adapting the model to suit better the Hong Kong environment, which does differ from that of the UK. Neither home nor office environments are as conducive to study as those of the UK. The population density and the close proximity of all potential students to study centres meant that it could have been viable to consider greater levels of tutorial contact or more flexible mixed-mode patterns of study. The Education Commission devoted a significant part of its second report to the setting up of a network of study centres for use by distance education providers in all of the education sectors. This might have been interpreted as a suggestion for greater levels of face-to-face-tuition or the facilitation of group study in the centres. However, if this was the intention, it was not acted upon and the network of study centres has not been developed to any significant extent.

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Students enrolling in open universities The original demand for open entry courses in Hong Kong was mainly from potential students unable to complete their secondary education and/or gain entry to the elite conventional university system. There was, though, considerable incentive to gain a degree to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the booming economy. As I have adopted an unusual definition of a developing country – as one which has retained an elite higher education system – the same potential demand for open entry degree-level programmes must exist in other developing countries. These may not enjoy booming economies, but normally they offer considerable economic advantages to degree-holders. There is generally a surplus of unskilled workers in developing countries, forcing wages down, but a small number of degree-holders, which can act to drive up their salaries to markedly higher levels than those of unskilled workers. A high proportion of each age-group in developing countries is unable to complete secondary schooling and/or cannot gain a place in conventional universities. There is, though, a great incentive for them to gain a degree as that would open up the possibility of their being able to obtain a desirable professional position at a salary which could be many times what they can earn with limited qualifications. There is, then, a very substantial potential pool of students for degree-level open entry schemes, particularly if these can be offered at affordable fees. The types of potential student are rather different to those enrolling in open universities in the West, and they need different courses. A substantial proportion of Western students choose open universities because of the contemporary emerging market for lifelong learning in the West. They are mostly mature students with experience of both professional work and post-secondary education. The potential students in developing countries realise they have a need for a postsecondary education as soon as their schooling is curtailed. They are therefore often younger and have limited experience of education, and usually none at the postsecondary level. They are also much less experienced in terms of employment. What experience they have is likely to be of fairly low-level work, rather than the professional experience of many of their counterparts in developed countries. In describing typical open university students in Asia, Perraton (2000, p. 93) observes: For the most part, however, we can describe the students in two words, young men. Despite their differing priorities, and the different matches between courses and students, the Asian open universities have generally recruited students below the age of 30 and recruited more men than women. In a number of countries school-leavers who could not get into conventional universities are seen as the principal source of students for open universities, so are effectively their rationale for operating. In China and Korea, in particular, open universities are seen as an alternative stream of higher education for school-leavers (Perraton, 2000).

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Those who enrol in these open universities, which are mostly modelled on the UKOU, are therefore quite different to the bulk of UKOU students. The model has been proved to work well for mature students with professional experience seeking continuing professional development. However, in developing countries, the bulk of the students are more like those in the UKOU ‘younger students pilot scheme’ referred to in the previous chapter. That scheme was discontinued because the participants did not perform as well as those in the normal UKOU entry category. Enrolments If enrolments are considered, open universities in developing countries might be considered to be highly successful in catering for this pool of people denied the post-secondary education they desire. According to Perraton (2000), at least seven of the open universities in Asia have become what Daniel (1999) terms ‘megauniversities’, by having an enrolment of over 100,000. According to Wei and Tong (1994), the radio and TV universities in China graduated over 1.5 million students between 1982 and 1992. The high numbers in Asia are mainly a function of the populous nature of the continent. The numbers in other parts of the world are not so high, mainly because the populations are generally lower. Low population densities make distance education less cost-effective as well as reducing the potential enrolment. They are also affected by the levels of schooling and places in conventional universities. Table 4.1 has data from UNESCO (1999) which gives gross enrolment ratios (GER) for secondary and tertiary education in regions of the developing world. Eastern Asia has the highest level of secondary education, but is only third for tertiary GER. This means that potential students in Eastern Asia tend to look towards higher education rather than lower educational levels if they wish to further their education. Each region has a substantial difference between secondary and tertiary GERs, suggesting that there are substantial numbers of students wanting to continue their education beyond school, but unable to obtain a place at a conventional university. The numbers in open universities in other regions, particularly Africa, may have been limited by lower levels of school completion. While open entry policies may

Table 4.1 Educational participation in developing regions (percentage) Region

Secondary GER

Tertiary GER

Arab states Eastern Asia Southern Asia Latin America Sub-Saharan Africa

57 70 45 60 25

18 13 8 17 4

Source: UNESCO, 1999

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not bar those with limited schooling, in practice those who have not completed secondary school tend to look towards qualifications lower than degrees if they wish to further their education. Economic factors have also influenced enrolments. The numbers in Asia have been fuelled by economic growth. Africa and Latin America have not experienced the economic boom which much of Asia has enjoyed. To the contrary, economies have often held back both development of educational opportunities and incentives to engage in them.

Cost of distance education There is a clear case for the provision of university education with an open entry policy in developing countries. The low entry rates to conventional universities, and often to the final stages of secondary education, mean that without an open entry university there would be a substantial unmet demand. The predominant way of meeting the demand for open entry programmes has been through distance education, most commonly by following the model established by the UKOU. In most cases I suspect little thought was given to alternatives. The success of the UKOU has meant that, in the minds of many, open learning and distance education have become synonymous. If there is a rationale for adopting the distance education model, it would be in terms of cost-effectiveness. In view of this potential justification for the mode of study, it is hardly surprising that there is an abundant literature comparing the costing of distance education to that of conventional study. The literature, though, has yet to establish a clear consensus on the cost-effectiveness of distance education. There are a number of issues confounding the comparison. First, the modes of education differ markedly and so have very different cost structures. It is therefore far from easy to determine a costing model which can produce an equitable comparison. Conventional universities tend to have higher capital costs because of the need for classrooms and on-campus facilities. The most significant expenditure for recurrent costs for teaching is allocated to the salaries of the teaching staff. Expenditure normally rises in close proportion to student numbers as class sizes limit economies of scale. The average cost per student for teaching in conventional universities therefore changes little with enrolment. Distance teaching universities normally spend less on buildings, and the cost structure for teaching is quite different. Where course development is taken seriously, initial expenditure is substantial. The cost of running the course and providing supporting infrastructure is substantial and fixed. Providing tutorial support is relatively low in cost. Overall, therefore, distance education becomes more cost-effective as enrolments rise. Naidu (1994) computes average cost per student at an Indian open university as a function of enrolment. The graph is in the form of a decreasing exponential curve, with little decrease in marginal costs once the enrolment grows beyond 140,000. Comparison is then made with conventional universities on the assumption that

Need for open entry in developing countries 71

they have fixed average costs regardless of enrolment. When enrolments are low the conventional universities will be cheaper. Naidu calculated the break-even point was an enrolment of about 20,000. The conclusion is therefore that distance teaching universities are cost-effective with large enrolments. Another difficulty is comparing like with like. There are major differences between modes of distance education, just as conventional universities differ considerably in nature. Just because a costing model suggests that a large national open university might be cost-effective, this cannot be taken to guarantee that a small-scale, dual-mode operation will be equally efficient. It is also rare to find conventional and open universities with matching functions, ranges of disciplines and levels of awards. Conventional universities often cater to an elite and represent the pinnacle of a country’s educational system. The rationale of open universities in developing countries, by contrast, is more often to provide opportunities for those unable to enter the elite system. The comparison can therefore be between a comprehensive research-intensive university and one with a limited range of disciplines and postgraduate offerings and markedly less research activity. Direct comparison of costs in these circumstances is clearly unreasonable. Another issue is that of the cost to whom? Open universities commonly have some mix of funding from the government and student fees. There are therefore alternative perspectives on cost. From the perspective of a government, the cost it is most concerned with is the amount which comes from its coffers. This can be quite different to total cost and can also differ markedly between conventional and distance teaching universities. Hong Kong is a good example in this respect. There are seven conventional universities funded by the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong. Students of these universities pay substantial tuition fees, but the majority of each university’s funding is from the government. The financing of the OUHK is quite different, though, in that it is required to be self-financing. It was given a start-up grant and a grant of some land, but now income from student fees and donations has to cover running costs. From the perspective of the Hong Kong government, the cost of the OUHK must now presumably be zero; however, the students have to pay substantial tuition fees, so from their perspective, the cost is presumably viewed as substantial. There is an additional twist to the funding of education in Hong Kong. The government has recently encouraged the foundation of community colleges, which offer associate degrees and other programmes by face-to-face tuition. Again these must be self-financing. Organisations have been able to found these community colleges and attract students willing to pay fees sufficient to cover costs for the face-to-face tuition. The colleges have proved to be competitive with the OUHK’s offerings of undergraduate programmes by distance education, to the extent that enrolments in the latter have declined markedly. The OUHK has responded by forming its own community college and a substantial proportion of its students are now taught face-to-face. As the conventionally taught courses have proved highly competitive with the distance education ones, in the forms offered in Hong Kong, it appears that the costs of the two modes must be similar. This may be because

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the community colleges have been planned with the knowledge that they needed to be self-financing and had to charge fees that students would be able to afford and would be competitive with OUHK fees. Accordingly, the education provided had to be designed so that costs matched the projected income. Within these constraints of comparing costs of distance education and conventional universities, we are able to draw some tentative conclusions, dealing first with developed countries, because the costing comparisons are clearer. Peters and Daniel (1994) compare public funding of full-time equivalent study at the UKOU with that for conventional higher education institutions in the UK. The outcomes vary by subject category, but in each case the UKOU costs are less than those for conventional institutions. The range is from the social sciences, for which the UKOU receives 42 per cent of the funding given to conventional providers, to education at 83 per cent. The case in Australia is quite different. Harman (1991) compared recurrent costs for internal and external students at eight distance education centres. The costs per external student were 1–10 per cent lower than those per internal student. The Australian universities were operating by the dual-mode system, so quite different costing models apply. It is normally a matter of policy that the award is equivalent between the two modes, in which case substantial differences in resource allocation could be considered inequitable. The other important factor is that enrolments in distance education courses in Australian universities are markedly lower than in the UKOU, which means that economies of scale cannot be enjoyed. For open universities in developing countries, the comparisons tend to be more tentative, partly because of the constraints outlined above and partly because comparable data is hard to obtain. One study which does give a clear comparison is that of the radio and TV universities in China by Ding (1994). The comparison in this case was calculated from overall fixed and variable costs. On a per student basis the distance education courses cost a little over 20 per cent of the cost of conventional university courses. Ding also gives cost comparisons per graduate for three faculties which ranged from 28.6 per cent for humanities to 40.8 per cent for science and engineering. In the case of China the graduation rates are high, so cost-effectiveness does not differ markedly whether on a per student or a per graduate basis. One of the more sophisticated comparisons is made by Naidu (1994) of the situation in India. The calculations attempt to deal with a number of the constraints noted above and in doing so examine the effect of a series of assumptions. The way in which enrolments and economies of scale were dealt with has already been discussed above. One conclusion was that the cost per student for a three-year undergraduate degree at IGNOU (the Indira Gandhi National Open University – India’s national open university) in 1991–2 was Rs6,000, whereas at a conventional university it was Rs16,428. This conclusion is consistent with most others in showing that distance education is cost-effective in terms of enrolments. However, the position changes if graduates are the unit of measurement. Naidu (1994, p. 66) was unable to make the comparison directly because, as is often the

Need for open entry in developing countries 73

case, accurate figures for graduation rates or drop-out were not available. Instead, he produces a table which compares costs per graduate between IGNOU and conventional colleges for drop-out rates between 0 and 90 per cent. Perraton (2000, p. 133) notes that in open universities in developing countries ‘wastage rates for degree courses between 80 and 90 per cent can often be expected’. Conventional universities consistently do much better than this. In Hong Kong, for example, graduation rates from conventional universities are close to 100 per cent. Examining Naidu’s (1994, p. 66) table, if the drop-out rate for IGNOU is 80 per cent, the conventional universities need to graduate only about half their intake to equalise costs. This suggests that in practice distance education is more expensive than conventional universities in developing counties if the costing is per graduate.

Summary Most developed countries have moved towards mass higher education. By contrast, most developing countries retain an elite education system. Entry is often restricted for the latter years of secondary education, let alone higher education. Developing countries usually have large proportions of an age-group denied access to higher education, yet desirous of it for economic advancement. These potential students differ markedly from the typical open learner in developed countries. Their desire for further education is manifest from the time their formal education is truncated. Compared to their Western counterparts, they tend to be younger and lack the maturing experience of professional work. Those denied access to conventional higher education by the elite entry system, yet who wish to take a degree, often have few options other than open universities, which commonly follow the UKOU model. The open universities in developing countries, particularly in Asia, have therefore been very successful in recruiting large numbers of students into open entry programmes. However, drop-out rates are high, and the proportion of students who graduate from open universities is far lower than is the case in conventional universities.

Chapter 5

Other elements of openness

Open learning In Chapter 1, I introduced a reduced definition of open learning which restricted the elements of openness to the following four: • • • •

open entry; study anywhere; freedom to study at a time chosen by the student within a specified semester; a high degree of openness over the choice of courses to make up a degree programme.

The previous two chapters have dealt with open entry in developed and developing countries, though these important issues will be returned to in the latter part of the book. The function of this chapter is to commence discussion of the other three elements. Comparison between developed and developing countries will again feature.

Freedom of time The large majority of students of open universities in developed countries need to be part time. They are likely to be mature students with commitments to work and/or families which preclude full-time study. Distance education fits the bill very well because there are few, and often no, classes to attend. Instead, students work through study packages and assignments at times convenient to them. However, complete freedom of time implied by Lewis and Spencer’s (1986) definition of open learning has rarely been seen as practicable. Complete freedom would mean that students could start and finish courses at any time they chose and take as long or as short a time to complete the course as they chose. Such a high degree of freedom has been achieved by some correspondence courses, but has not been considered realistic in higher education. Administrative convenience is certainly one consideration. It is easier to administer enrolment, tutoring and assessment efficiently if there is a set time for

Other elements of openness 75

commencement and completion and due dates for each assignment. It is also questionable whether complete freedom over time is in the best interests of the students, as it would tend to restrict the level of support and tutoring which can be provided. It is noticeable that the greatest degree of freedom in time has come with quite basic correspondence courses. The only support comes from the written comments of the tutor on each assignment from the students. As students have freedom over when to start and finish and work at their own pace, each has to work as an individual. Group activities, such as tutorials, are impossible. Providing higher levels of support is possible only if restrictions are placed on freedom over time. Such support is only realistic if students enrolled in a course are at roughly the same point within it when the support activity takes place. For example, a tutorial in which each student is taking a different course or is at a different point within a single course will mean that each needs individual attention, which is not an effective use of the time of either tutor or students. This is why open universities normally have fixed start and finish times for courses and suggest study schedules between these points. Though, of course, they have no way of ensuring that these schedules are followed, and often they are not. However, the schedules do make it feasible to have face-to-face, telephone and online tutorials and residential school sessions. These provide both support and an incentive to stick reasonably closely to the recommended schedules. Examinations are also at set times and other elements of assessment are governed by deadlines. With respect to openness over time, open universities have therefore typically adopted a compromise. There is much greater freedom over when to study than that offered to students at conventional universities. There are, though, normally fixed start and finishing times and a recommended study schedule. Without these, it would not be cost-effective to provide most of the commonly provided forms of study support. Developed versus developing It is possible that typical open university students in developed countries have greater need for freedom in study time than their counterparts in developing countries. In Chapter 3 I argued that many students of open universities in developed countries are well-qualified professionals in search of continuing professional development or lifelong learning opportunities. Such students will normally be in full-time employment, often well established within their profession. This implies a degree of maturity and with it the likelihood of family commitments. The typical developed country student is unlikely to be able to put aside these commitments and find the time to become a full-time student. Study is more realistic by the part-time mode. Commitments to a limited number of fixed-time sessions are normally possible, though. Many open university students attend occasional evening tutorials or go to residential school sessions lasting between a weekend and a fortnight.

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As developing countries have elite higher education systems, however, potential open university students are more likely to be seeking an initial tertiary qualification. They have been unable to progress as far as desired through the conventional education system. The desire to continue via an open entry scheme would be manifest at the point at which their conventional education is truncated. Although it may not be feasible to start an open entry programme precisely when their schooling finishes, students still tend to be younger than their Western counterparts. They are also unlikely to be in professional employment. Their inability to complete their education often also precludes them from the types of professional employment enjoyed by open university students in developed countries. The net effect is that open university students on average tend to be younger and are less likely to have a professional role than those in developed countries. The lower degree of maturity suggests that there may be fewer commitments which preclude studying at fixed times. Openness over study time may therefore be somewhat less important than it is in developed countries.

Freedom of place Discussion of the freedom to study at a location chosen by the student is closely related to the preceding discussion of the openness to study at a time chosen by the student. In developed countries, the commitments to work and family life and occupation of homes convenient to the workplace mean that potential students are no more able to relocate to a university than they are to commit themselves to fulltime study. Again, this is not a dichotomy between complete freedom of study location and the requirement of full-time attendance. There are programmes and universities which either have no provision which requires attendance or make such provision optional. Students who choose to study by such means forgo the types of support which can be provided through tutorials, residential schools, meetings and other group activities. With a degree of sacrifice of the openness to study at a location of choice, it is possible to provide study support which many students wish, and are able, to attend. From the outset, the UKOU founded an extensive regional tutorial and counselling support system. Regular tutorials were offered at locations which were within a reasonable distance of most students’ homes or workplaces. Tutorials were particularly viable for high enrolment courses, like the foundation courses, which were usually the ones taken first and, therefore, those for which support was most necessary. The UKOU also offers summer residential schools for many courses. Students can be expected to travel further to these than to tutorials, and indeed many do so. In Australia it is common for students to travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to attend residential schools.

Other elements of openness 77

Developing versus developed The comparison of typical open university students in developing and developed societies is again relevant. Just as the developing country student may be less constrained as to when they can study, they may also have fewer restrictions on their ability to attend a particular study location. Indeed, there are two strong incentives for them to do so. The more obvious is that their home and/or workplace is less likely to be as suitable a study venue as those of their Western counterparts. The other is that, as discussed in Chapters 2, 7, 8 and 13, they may have become conditioned to favour face-to-face tuition over independent learning. With some exceptions, open universities in developing countries have not taken note of the relative lack of need to provide education open to study time and location. Formats with greater levels of tutorial provision or face-to-face contact than is the case in developed countries are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, few open universities in developing countries have developed support networks offering anything like the level of regional dispersement or intensity of support provision of that built up by the UKOU. The reason could have as much to do with financial and resource constraints as with a lack of desire to do so. However, this is not necessarily the case, as distance education in China has adopted an alternative model in which students attend classes (Wei and Tong, 1994). Another potential reason for not having a well-developed regional study network might be a combination of demographics and uneven infrastructure development. In particular, I refer to the growing schism between cities and rural areas, which is a feature of many developing countries. While it may be cost-effective to provide study centres in the cities, the rural areas lack the population density and the necessary infrastructure. However, this need not be an impediment to providing enhanced study support to most open university students in developing countries, since there has tended to be a bias towards recruitment from urban areas (Perraton, 2000, p. 96). The open universities in developing countries have found it difficult to attract students from rural areas. There are undoubtedly a range of contributing factors to this. An important one is that a major incentive for obtaining a degree is that it can lead to a middle-class, professional position with a firm in a big city. Those with aspirations for economic advancement are often drawn by the magnet of the big city, even if they were not born there. It would therefore be possible for most open universities in developing countries to offer a range of support services to a substantial proportion of their students by concentrating these services in the major population areas. For those residing or working in these areas, attending tutorials or classes would not result in a major violation of freedom to study at a location of choice. There are legitimate concerns about equity when one group of students, such as those living in cities, are able to take advantage of services and facilities not available to others. While respecting these concerns, I think there are a number of arguments which override them. First, equity of opportunity is an illusion as

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students of open entry programmes differ widely in educational background, support in the workplace and in home and family situation, which are all important factors in student progress in open learning (Kember, 1995). Second, holding back on the provision of support because a small minority is unable to take advantage of it disadvantages the majority and may significantly reduce their chances of success. I am aware of open universities which have not taken advantage of the educational potential of the internet and networked computers because a tiny proportion of students claimed not to have access to a computer. It seems clear that in such cases the iniquity is to the majority, as their chances of graduating are considerably reduced. In terms of the provision of significant levels of face-to-face support, the HKOU is an interesting case in point. Until recently, all of its courses were offered with a conventional distance education format with face-to-face contact limited to tutorials once or twice a month. Faced with dwindling enrolments to its open entry undergraduate programmes following the opening of community colleges, it now offers courses which are taught fully face-to-face. Both modes of course operate under the same economic self-financing regime. There would therefore appear to be no logistical or financial reason why the distance education courses could not have been offered in a more flexible mode with greater levels of face-to-face contact. The decline in enrolments once alternative modes of open entry programme became available suggests that this was desired by potential students. The evidence in Chapters 7 and 8 also supports this contention.

Freedom of choice of courses Two of the elements of Lewis and Spencer’s (1986) facets of open learning are flexible sequence and negotiated objectives and content. These were presumably derived from the principles of adult learning or andragogy (Knowles, 1970, 1990), which assert that the adult learner is capable of self-direction in learning and, therefore, should have a role in negotiating and designing their own curriculum. Taken to its logical extreme, this implies that the teacher should negotiate content and objectives with each adult student. This ideal is reached to some extent in research theses and in a number of adult education courses in which individual learning contracts are negotiated, but scarcely anywhere else. While the ideal is rarely achieved, it is common for open learning programmes to take note of the principle and introduce degrees of openness and flexibility which are feasible. Student input into the curriculum of courses is unusual in most forms of post-secondary education, and it is particularly difficult in distance education when a package of course materials is designed and produced before students even enrol in the course. However, while student input into the design of courses is rare, it is possible to offer a high degree of flexibility and choice over the combination and sequence of courses which make up the programme of study. Open universities tend to place few restrictions on students choosing from their pool of courses. The course

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selection process is often akin to a smorgasbord, with the courses laid out in the prospectus and the students reasonably free to pick and choose according to their taste. There may be requirements about taking certain numbers of courses at foundation or advanced level, but beyond that little restriction. When the UKOU introduced this degree of freedom of course choice it was a fairly radical position. At about the same time, I was doing my undergraduate degree in chemistry. I think my programme was quite typical for the time in that there were no options at all for the first two years. In the third year we could specialise towards inorganic, organic or physical chemistry, and my university was unusual in having options in economics and chemical education, too. In view of this restricted choice, a conversation I subsequently had with one of the professors of chemistry at the UKOU proved surprising. He explained that it was perfectly permissible for UKOU students to take chemistry courses in conjunction with subjects as diverse as anthropology and zoology. The students were mature and mostly professionals. If they had divergent interests, or if they could see the relevance of unusual combinations of subjects for their careers, they were free to pursue them. Developed versus developing To take advantage of a high degree of openness over choice of courses, there are two requirements. First, the students need to have developed some degree of selfdetermination in learning, so as to feel confident that they are capable of making an appropriate choice. Second, it is helpful to have made reasonable progress in their intended profession so that they have some understanding of what subjects are likely to be relevant and useful to them. Both of these conditions are more likely to be met by students in developed countries. I will argue in the next three chapters that schools in developing countries often condition students to be heavily dependent learners. They are therefore less likely to have developed the degree of self-determination to benefit from playing a major part in shaping their own curriculum, and may indeed find having an open choice of courses puzzling or even threatening. If their education has been truncated, they may have limited opportunity to find employment related to the profession they hope to enter once they have obtained a degree. This means that they lack the knowledge needed to determine the relevance of courses and have been deprived of the opportunity to develop a more mature, self-determining capability in learning.

Summary Freedom of time and place to study is an important element of openness for mature students with family and work commitments. It is less vital to potential enrollees to open learning in developing countries. They may benefit more from having limits placed on openness of study time and place by an enhanced provision

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of face-to-face teaching. Freedom to choose from a wide range of courses benefits mature learners as they can tailor a programme to suit their needs. To dependent learners, though, freedom of choice can be more a source of confusion than a benefit.

Part III

Adult learning

Chapter 6

Pedagogy and andragogy

Adult learning I used to teach a course in ‘Adult education and professional development’ as part of an M.Ed. at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The students had enrolled in the programme and this particular course because they saw themselves as teachers working in the adult education and related sectors. This was before the founding of community colleges in Hong Kong, so the teachers were an interesting mix from organisations such as vocational training providers, the OUHK and charitable institutes offering part-time evening courses. The topic for the first session was a discussion of ‘What is adult learning?’ To seed the discussion I provided a conventional Western definition of an adult student as ‘one aged 25 or over on entry to a course’ (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 1987, p. 29). Definitions like this, based upon age at entry, are presumably readily accepted as there is not a significant discussion in the literature on the definition of adult education similar to those for distance or open learning. The teachers believed they were part of the adult education sector, which was why they had enrolled in the course in question. The types of institution they worked for would normally be accepted as adult education providers in the West. However, the simple age-based definition of adult learners always provoked an intense debate. The reason was that many of the teachers enrolled in the course pointed out that a large proportion of their students, and in some cases all of them, were below the age of twenty-five when they started their course. These students were those whose examination results were not good enough for them to obtain a place for the last two years of secondary school or sufficient to gain entry to an undergraduate degree programme at a UGC-funded university. Maintaining an elite entry system to senior high school and university has meant that a large pool of youths are unable to progress further through the conventional education system in Hong Kong. Form 5 is normally completed at sixteen or seventeen, while form 7 graduates are eighteen or nineteen. As only about onethird of an age-group are able to enter form 6, there is a substantial pool of youngsters unable to complete secondary schooling, let alone obtain a place at

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university. If these young people wish to continue their education, and many of them do, the only outlets available until recently have been in institutions which would be considered part of adult education in Western countries. Many of those who do wish to continue their education want to start right away. The result is that what would be considered adult education providers in the West cater for younger students in Hong Kong. The same phenomenon is common to other developing countries with elite educational systems. Whether they are considered adult students because they are in the types of educational institution which have traditionally been considered part of the adult education sector is an interesting debating point. Can a college still be part of adult education if it admits students who have not even reached eighteen, the legal age for adulthood, let alone twenty-five, as in the above definition of an adult student? In the course I taught this debate was hard to resolve. Usually we reached a compromise by agreeing that the institutions in which the enrollees taught could be considered parts of the adult education sector, for the purposes of the course at least. However, we were not convinced that the school-leavers should be considered adult students. The rationale for this decision came from a consideration of Knowles’s (1970, 1984) distinction between andragogy and pedagogy.

Andragogy and pedagogy One of the most widely cited and discussed concepts in the adult education literature has been Knowles’s (1970, 1983, 1984, 1990) notion of andragogy. Brookfield (1986, p. 91) has described andragogy as the ‘single most popular idea in the education and training of adults’. When introducing the idea of andragogy, Knowles established his own interpretation of pedagogy. In wider circles this is normally taken to mean the science of teaching, and is interpreted as a value-free term. However, Knowles interprets pedagogy as the way in which adolescents are taught. To do so assumes a highly teacher-centred model of adolescent teaching which does not do justice to the instances of innovative student-centred teaching which can be readily observed in schools. By defining pedagogy in this way, it then became possible to make a contrast with andragogy, which becomes an idealised vision of how adults are taught and learn. The distinction between the two is summarised in Table 6.1, which shows six contrasting assumptions for each. Knowles’s original portrayal of andragogy (1970) was quite short and lacking in detail. Since then, though, there has been a voluminous literature in the adult education field discussing and criticising the construct. The volume of the literature and the critical line taken (e.g., Day and Baskett, 1982; Hartree, 1984; Pratt, 1984) suggest that it is an important construct in adult education, but the original formulation needs to be interpreted carefully. The most difficult position to accept is the dichotomous nature. It suggests that all adolescents are taught and learn in a teacher-centred way, while all adults learn

Pedagogy and andragogy 85 Table 6.1 Pedagogy versus andragogy PEDAGOGY 1 The need to know 2 The learner’s self-concept 3 The role of experience 4 Readiness to learn 5 Orientation to learning 6 Motivation

ANDRAGOGY

The teacher defines the course content.

Adults expect to understand the relevance of a course to their needs. Student seen as dependent, Adult is a mature, needing direction from responsible person capable teacher. of self-direction. Any experiences of the The experience of adults is a students are not seen as rich and important learning valuable. resource. The teacher decides what Allows the learner to decide will be learned and when. what is to be learned and when. Learning is seen as acquiring Learning is seen as necessary subject-matter content. for performing tasks or solving problems in daily life. External motivations are Intrinsic motivation has assumed. primacy over extrinsic.

and are taught in a student-centred way. Presumably some magical transformation takes place on reaching adulthood. Much of the critique of andragogy has insisted that, while it is a valuable concept, it is not dichotomous from pedagogy. One obvious line of criticism is that education within schools can be highly studentcentred and pupils can be self-directing in their learning (e.g., Joyce et al., 2004; Kember and Murphy, 1990). The complementary position is that many adults never display high levels of self-determination in learning (Brookfield, 1986). It is also easy to think of courses offered for adults with forms of teaching quite different to the andragogical ideal. The original formulation also seems to imply consistency, which is similarly hard to accept. Candy (1991) argued that, rather than being consistent, the nature of adult learning was context-dependent. There are numerous reasons why adults who are capable of self-determined learning might nevertheless choose highly structured courses. Examples are the need to acquire knowledge about a fresh field, lack of confidence in a particular subject area, the pleasure which comes from learning with others, the need for certification, a lack of background knowledge, or that learning from an expert in a field can be more efficient and lead to greater insights. Two of the concepts introduced in Chapter 2 about student learning were approaches to learning and its relational nature. Pratt (1988) argued that andragogy should also be seen as a relational construct. Rather than adopting either andragogy or pedagogy on all occasions or in all learning situations, the approach adopted will depend on the context. It will vary with the nature of the learning task and the student’s perception of the learning and teaching situation.

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More contemporary interpretations of andragogy have reformulated it to allow for these criticisms. It is clearly unrealistic to visualise all adult education as conforming to andragogy, so it is now more commonly interpreted as an ideal position towards which adult education should strive (Day and Baskett, 1982; Hartree, 1984) or as a philosophical construct used to prescribe good practice in the teaching of adults (McKenzie, 1977). The unsatisfactory nature of the dichotomous characterisation has led to interpreting andragogy and pedagogy as more akin to a continuum or the ends of a spectrum (e.g., Pratt, 1988). If andragogy and pedagogy are interpreted as a spectrum or continuum, the implication is that some adults may well prefer forms of education consistent with pedagogy, while their younger counterparts may be ready for forms more akin to andragogy. Such a formulation allows for contextual and situational influences upon learning behaviour, by accepting that students can adopt varying positions on the spectrum in different contexts. It is also provides a satisfactory explanation of varied rates of developmental change in learning behaviour and provides a mechanism for developmental change rather than a disjunction between adolescence and adulthood.

Andragogy as a set of continua Open learning is normally defined as a set of continua ranging from an open end to a closed end (see Chapter 1; and Lewis and Spencer, 1986). In Kember (1995), I made the suggestion that, when looking at combinations of open and adult learning (and the two are often in combination), it made sense to treat andragogy as a set of six continua, as in Figure 6.1. This formulation of andragogy is consistent with the way it is most commonly interpreted in the contemporary adult education literature. It also makes it possible to examine the extent to which the goal of andragogy is being met in both teaching and learning. The format of courses and the nature of teaching can be mapped as positions on the set of continua. These positions set limits on the extent to which students learn in a manner akin to andragogy or pedagogy. The extent to which a particular student approaches the limit will depend upon the conception of learning of that student. For example, a teacher may aim towards andragogy by encouraging students to consider theories through discussion of how they relate to personal experience in the workplace. However, if the students have no relevant work experience, or are unwilling to engage in discussion, they will not reach the level of andragogy the teacher anticipated.

Self-determination in learning The element of andragogy which will be most important for this book is the second in Figure 6.1. At the andragogy end of the spectrum the assumption is that the mature adult student is capable of self-direction in learning. The concept of self-determination has been widely discussed within the adult

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PEDAGOGY

ANDRAGOGY

Teacher designs course

Adults negotiate course design

Dependent students No relevant experience Teacher determines what is learned and when Learning is knowledge of content Extrinsic motivation

Self-directing adult Experience valued in learning Learner input into what is learned and when Learning is developing capabilities Intrinsic motivation

Figure 6.1 Pedagogy and andragogy as continua

education literature. Candy’s (1991) comprehensive treatise on the topic points out that the discussion had been confused because the term ‘self-direction’ and other related terms have been applied to a number of constructs. The following account, portrayed in Figure 6.2, is based on Candy’s work, but with some modification to the category descriptors. First, self-determination is divided into learning processes and learning outcomes. The former relates to the method by which learning takes place. The latter refers to the goal of the learning or the outcome of the process. The two may be related because processes of learning requiring self-determination may be employed in the hope that they will lead to the outcome of better developing students’ level of self-determination in learning. However, if this is the intention, the outcome is often not achieved and process and outcome are certainly not axiomatically linked. Both learning processes and learning outcomes are then subdivided into two categories. The first process category is individual learning which takes place independently of an institution. This type of learning does not concern us here as it is outside the ambit of the book, which concentrates on formal courses leading to qualifications. The other form of self-direction in the process category is learnercentred instruction. The distinction between teacher- and learner-centred instruction was discussed in Chapter 2. The two are best envisaged as the opposite ends of a continuum with didactic forms of teaching designed and controlled by the teacher at the teacher-centred end. The opposite pole includes the wide range of

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Self-determination

Learning processes

Learning independent of an institution

Learnercentred instruction

Learning outcomes

Personal autonomy

Self-management in learning

Figure 6.2 Categories of self-determination

types of learning which place responsibility for learning in the hands of the student, while the teacher takes on a more facilitative role. Other terms which have commonly been used to describe this process are ‘autonomous learning’ and ‘independent learning’. The latter term merits further discussion as it has been taken to mean learning by oneself without the presence of classmates as well as being treated as a synonym for learner-centred learning. As distance education is defined in terms of the physical separation of teacher and students, this alternative usage of the term has been relatively common in the distance education literature. The two are not the same. Learner-centred instruction can, and often does, take place with a teacher present and acting in a facilitative way, rather than being directive. The other main category refers to learning outcomes or goals consistent with self-direction in learning. The first of these is the personal attribute of independence or personal autonomy. This is an important ideal but is not central to the discussion here. The other category of self-management in learning is important to the theses of the book. Self-management refers to the willingness and capability of being able to learn by oneself with limited input from the teacher. It is related to the process category of learner-centred instruction in that the ability of students to participate successfully in learner-centred forms of education is conditional upon them having developed a level of competence in self-managed learning. This form of self-determination is important because those who enrol in open learning courses offered through distance education have to display a significant degree of self-managed learning to be successful. The teacher is absent for most of the period of learning, so however highly structured the learning package may be, it is certainly going to appear to novice distance learners that they need to take responsibility for their own learning. Whether they are capable of doing so is the main topic of the next chapter.

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Summary Andragogy is a concept which has been much discussed in the adult learning literature. Contemporary interpretations see it as a goal to be aimed for, particularly in terms of developing students capable of behaving as self-directed learners. The ability to function as a self-managed learner would certainly improve the prospects of novice students commencing open entry programmes offered in the distance education mode. These lack the presence of a teacher for most, if not all, of the period of study. They then appear to many students to be learner-centred forms of instruction as the absence of a teacher removes the opportunity for in situ teacher direction.

Chapter 7

Open universities expect andragogy

Adapting to distance education Students entering a distance education course for the first time face a transition to a mode of education which can be quite different to what they have experienced before. Nearly all education in schools takes place in classes taught by a teacher. The same is true of conventional post-secondary education. Most students new to distance education, therefore, have a great deal of experience of education in which both a teacher and fellow students are present in the classroom. Schools and colleges expect students to perform some study outside the classroom. In schools this is known as homework, while colleges set assignments and expect students to revise for examinations and tests. This work outside the classroom is set and orchestrated by the classroom teacher. The common description of this type of teaching as face-to-face indicates that it is envisaged as primarily a form of education which takes place in company with a teacher and fellow students. The work outside the classroom is adjunct to the principal mode of instruction. By contrast, distance education is characterised by the absence, for most (and in many cases all) of the time, of a teacher and/or student peers. Students who are new to distance education have become used to studying in a classroom full of fellow students. Now they have to study alone in the home or the office. Rather than the teacher being present in the room, a package of study materials arrives through the mail or the instruction is relayed through a computer network or down a telephone line.

Initial problems in adapting to study at a distance This section examines some evidence from both the persistence and part-time studies of the difficulties faced by students in the initial periods of enrolment for open entry programmes offered through the distance education mode. For students new to distance education, their courses utilised a mode of teaching and learning they had not experienced before. Many found this a daunting prospect. The following quotation is indicative of the trepidation many felt at the prospect of studying

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alone, without the presence of a teacher to act as a guide: ‘In the beginning, I seemed to be studying by myself, and didn’t know how to start. I was scared at the start’ (part-time – novice – OUHK). Many students missed the guidance of the teacher. When studying, they had become used to being told what they had to learn and what tasks they had to perform. They lacked confidence in their ability to manage their own study. This was manifest in another student agonising over both the reading tasks and the writing assignments (see below). Rereading over and over again often occurs when students are not used to having to discern the key points for themselves. Rewriting can come from lack of confidence in the format of the assignment or task. Overall, the process is painfully inefficient and must be disheartening. ‘I read many times. Then I tried to jot down the points of what I have to do. I wrote a draft later. Then I read it again to see whether I needed to add or delete some information and then I read it again, but it’s very time consuming’ (part-time – novice – OUHK). Starting an open entry programme after a long break from formal education can be daunting. It is possible that this happens less in developing countries or that the breaks tend to be shorter. Those who apply for open entry programmes because their schooling has been curtailed or they have been unable to gain entry to a conventional university in an elite system tend to do so relatively soon after finishing school. In Hong Kong there is also a tendency for them to take other courses taught face-toface between finishing school and enrolling for an open university degree. Typically these would be courses offered by vocational institutes or charitable bodies. ‘It is especially hard for me since I have put down my books and pen for so long. After eighteen years, it is not easy to pick them up’ (part-time – novice – OUHK).

Beliefs about teaching and learning Analysis of the data from the part-time project suggested that one of the most significant problems for many of the new students to the OUHK was that their beliefs about learning, teaching and knowledge were not compatible with the requirements of post-secondary study by the distance education mode. The inexperienced students’ vision of the teaching and learning process became clear when their suggestions for improving the courses were examined. The following student wanted more didactic or expository forms of teaching: Both I and my classmates find that it’d be good if there are more lectures. I hope the tutors would be encouraged to provide lectures besides the discussion in class. My classmates also work and spend much time on work and family, or are limited by crowded living environment, it is difficult to study all on our own and to learn by discussion. It depends on the tutors’ decision. Some said that lectures are not required. They ask us to study on our own, and contact them when we have questions. This however leads the students to meet more difficulties in their study. (Part-time – novice – OUHK)

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The beliefs about teaching and learning of the novice students were understandable. They stemmed from a long history of conditioning through the school system. Hong Kong severely restricts entry to the final two years of secondary school (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2003) and entry to conventional universities is restricted to about 16 per cent of an age-group (University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, 2003). There are additional pressures earlier in schooling as gaining places in the better schools depends on performance. For many children the pressure and conditioning start as early as kindergarten. Progression from one level to the next depends upon performance in the external examinations set by the Examination Authority. These examinations are, therefore, seen as so crucial that they have a major impact on the way in which teaching and learning take place in the schools. Teachers recognise that their classes’ examination results are the major indicator of their and their school’s performance. Accordingly, an important part of most teaching repertoires is ensuring that model answers to likely questions are learned thoroughly and students are well drilled in examination techniques. The students had been conditioned by the school and examination system to believe that teaching was a didactic process in which the teacher told them material which was included in the examination syllabus. Their role was to absorb this material to the best of their ability so that they could reproduce it in the examinations. One student’s vision of teaching was so ingrained in a didactic approach that dissatisfaction with the tutorial model was expressed as a desire for more teaching. Obviously, what was being provided in the study packages and tutorial sessions was not considered to be ‘teaching’. ‘I would like them to provide more teaching’ (part-time – novice – OUHK). Another student was so used to teacher-centred forms of teaching that there is a lack of confidence in discerning the key concepts in the course content. The students have become so used to the teacher stressing important points which will be needed for the examinations that they are uncertain when they have to do it for themselves. This might be in spite of the instructional design of the package highlighting key concepts and providing summaries of them. ‘I hope that they can tell us the main points in order to save our time in learning’ (part-time – novice – OUHK). The beliefs about teaching and learning of the Hong Kong students resulted from conditioning during their school education. This in turn was strongly influenced by the pressures of an elite education system in which external examinations act as gatekeepers to restrict entry from one level to the next. Many other developing countries have even more restricted entry to conventional universities and the final years of school. Examination pressures will therefore be at least as high, so there is likely to be a great deal of teaching consistent with the prevailing approach in Hong Kong. In which case the degree of conditioning is likely to be similar, resulting in a high degree of commonality for these beliefs about teaching and learning.

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Beliefs about knowledge Students in both the persistence and part-time projects also had difficulties because of their epistemological beliefs or conceptions of knowledge. They did not express this directly and were probably unaware that they even had beliefs about the nature of knowledge. The beliefs, though, could be inferred from their comments, interpreted in the light of complete transcripts. The following student expresses a distinction between ‘science’ and ‘soft science’. In the light of the remainder of the transcript, it seems reasonable to interpret the comment as coming from a student with epistemological beliefs towards the absolute end of the developmental spectrum. Multiple perspectives and value judgements are seen as unnecessary complications to baldly stating facts. ‘Soft science complicated simple things. The writing could be summarised in one or two pages, but it is elaborated to over 20 pages . . . Perhaps it leads you to think widely, but for science students like us, it is such a hurdle to study’ (part-time – novice – OUHK). The next quotation is from a student who had problems adjusting to the conceptions of knowledge required for college study. In Perry’s (1988) terms the student would appear to be best categorised as being at the level of basic duality, believing that there are definitive right answers to all problems: There are a lot of study materials sent to us and they are difficult to understand. The learning style is different from the conventional style, the present learning demands a lot of independent thinking in which I am short. It is hard for me to get out from the previous conventional learning, thus means my course grade is not that good! (Hong Kong – OLIHK) The student quoted below seemed to have started from a similar position but had been able to move towards a more relativistic position, recognising multiple viewpoints. The student realised that the original conception of knowledge was not in line with course expectations so appreciated that change was necessary, even if that was a hard process. If students do not realise that there is incompatibility, as seemed to be the case with those quoted at the beginning of this section, then change cannot even start. ‘In the beginning of the course, I am not getting used to the Australian learning style since I have been adapted to the learning style in Hong Kong. Free thinking is in fact the aim of the course. I now realise that there is no definite solution to the task’ (Hong Kong – Education). The incompatibility of epistemological beliefs caused particular problems when tackling assignments. The following student appeared to have a reproductive conception of learning. The assignment called for something beyond restating material so the student found answering the question difficult. ‘The study was difficult in the beginning. I had some confusion . . . The assignments were provided with some guidelines. But I didn’t find it easy to fully understand the guidelines . . . I couldn’t grasp the proper way to answer the questions’ (part-time – novice – OUHK).

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Problems with incompatibility of epistemological beliefs with the expectations of post-secondary study are not confined to developing countries. The extract below from case notes by counsellors from the UKOU refers to a case of a student whose beliefs about knowledge were incompatible with the conventions of tertiary study. These are like the rules of a game which have to be learned if students are to succeed. Making the learning experience more difficult is the implicit nature of the conventions at times. Mr X. Aged 48. This student stopped submitting work and did not go to Summer School on medical advice. He regularly attended the study centre in the early weeks of the course. A great deal of time was given to him by another counsellor and myself because it was obvious that he had no idea of using Social Science concepts and yet was extremely convinced of his knowledge and ability. Poor grades and a warning from the tutor led to more intensive efforts to help him. These were hindered by a change of job which made him unable to come to the study centre. Offers of special sessions were turned down as Mr H. was convinced that the next TMA was going to be a good one . . . he stopped submitting work because of illness (he had a heart attack last year), but the low assignment grades were a contributory factor in his withdrawal. There were certain psychological problems – could not stop talking – saw everything in terms of himself (this is related to the poverty of the essays). Left school at 14 but claimed to be widely read. Written English is quite good but he is incapable of using the study material as a basis for his essay. The problems set seem to him so obvious that they can be answered in a few words. But, above all, he sees all the problems in terms of his own experience. (Kennedy and Powell, 1976, ‘Case D’, p. 72)

Normative congruence A major reason for the difficulties of the student in the above case seems to have been his inability to comply with the academic norms of the university. The approach to problems, in which answers were briefly given in terms of the student’s own experiences, is at odds with the accepted value system of academic study. This is a good example of a failure to achieve academic integration in terms of Tinto’s (1975, 1987) model of student drop-out or Kember’s (1995) model of student persistence in open learning. Both models drew upon the value integration or normative congruence element of integration in Durkheim’s (1961) model of suicide. The persistence model (Kember, 1995) stressed the importance of integration with the academic environment. The normative congruence facet of this integration component calls for compatibility between the academic expectations of postsecondary study and the student’s image of those expectations. Integration will therefore not occur when the student is unaware of an academic convention or has

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a different perception of a task, or an alternative conception of knowledge, to that of the academics responsible for the course. Academics have expectations of student performance and conventions which students are supposed to follow. The type of performance demanded and the academic conventions are often quite different to superficially similar expectations met previously by new students at school or in the workplace. The extent to which academic integration occurs will be strongly influenced by the educational background of the student. Those with little or no exposure to a post-secondary education system will find it more difficult to integrate with the norms of academic study. The situation is exacerbated if secondary schooling has conditioned students strongly to hold beliefs that teaching is a didactic process and learning should be reproductive. Many students new to open learning are therefore faced with the need to learn new conventions and recognise quite different conceptions of knowledge. Some unfortunately fail to realise that any reorientation is necessary so never integrate with the norms of academic study. The model of persistence suggests that they drop-out. Others realise that something is different but find it difficult to adopt fresh conventions and acquire new skills. Unlearning a pattern of behaviour to replace it with another is never an easy process, but in this case it is particularly difficult, since many academics find it hard to define or articulate their performance expectations and the skills of their disciplines. Academic study is rather like a game with rules, conventions and codes of behaviour. To be successful, a student has to learn the rules and integrate behaviour with the accepted norms. Leaving school early deprives students of exposure to academic conventions and often leaves them with beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge incompatible with a tertiary education. Constant rebuttals in the form of low grades for work which a student thought was good would clearly lower the perceived benefits of continuing with the course. There is empirical evidence for the contention that normative congruence in the academic sphere influences student progress. Kember and Harper (1987) used discriminant analysis to relate drop-out to demographic variables and a number of scales related to approaches to studying. The variable which best distinguished between drop-outs and course completers was that of surface approach, which is a form of study inconsistent with the goals of higher education. Students who habitually employed a surface approach were unable to integrate with the more complex learning approaches consistent with the aims of post-secondary study.

Compatibility between modes of teaching and learning The previous sections have presented evidence of mismatches between novice students’ beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge and the type of teaching and learning required by the distance learning model employed by open universities. Chapter 2 introduced the research into students’ beliefs about teaching,

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learning and knowledge. The simplest way to categorise these is into two broad orientations. The one commonly held by novice students is labelled didactic/ reproductive. This trio of beliefs has been described and illustrated in the preceding sections. The other set of beliefs is called facilitative/transformative. The students holding this trio of beliefs have adopted more sophisticated beliefs about knowledge, recognising that it can be constructed by the individual and that professionals make informed judgements about complex, ill-defined problems. As a result, teaching needs to be a facilitative process which assists students in constructing their own understanding of issues. We have seen in the previous sections that problems arise when novice students are exposed to types of teaching and learning inconsistent with their beliefs. Consistency between teaching and beliefs can be examined through Figure 7.1. The diagram plots students’ conceptions of learning against their perceptions of good teaching. It has four quadrants. Quadrant 1 represents the ideal situation. In this students capable of self-determination, with beliefs that learning is a process of making judgements on complex issues, are enjoying teaching which facilitates that process. Quadrant 2 is also of students with the self-determining beliefs, but in this case the teaching is didactic in nature and so is incompatible with their beliefs and learning needs. Quadrant 3 has students with the naïve beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge, labelled ‘Reproductive’ in the diagram. In this quadrant the type of teaching they are receiving is didactic, so it is consistent with their beliefs. There is harmony between the types of teaching and learning, so the students feel comfortable. However, the type of learning which is taking place is inconsistent with the goals of higher education. Universities would not feel that it is appropriate to award degrees to those who conceive all problems as having right and wrong answers and learning as a process of remembering model answers to reproduce them in tests and examinations. Quadrant 4 again deals with students with naïve beliefs, but in this case the teaching is the facilitative sort suited to those capable of self-determination. This quadrant has been illustrated in previous sections of this chapter. The novice Hong Kong students held the naïve set of beliefs but were taking a distance education course which required them to act as autonomous learners. The framework indicates that students can have diametrically opposite viewpoints on the nature of good teaching. To those with the naïve beliefs, facilitative teaching is inconsistent with their beliefs and is therefore considered poor teaching. Yet this is the type of teaching preferred by those capable of self-direction in their learning. These opposing views of the nature of good teaching are a quite logical consequence of conceptions of learning. The framework can also be interpreted as a manifestation of the more recent interpretations of andragogy and pedagogy as akin to a continuum. The vertical axis can be interpreted in terms of the students’ readiness for andragogy. Those at the self-determining pole are compatible with andragogical assumptions, whereas those holding reproductive conceptions are not. The self-determining students’

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Students’ conceptions of learning Selfdetermining

2. Didactic teaching incompatible with self-determining students Poor teaching 4.Teaching requiring reproductive learners to be selfdirecting

1. Self-determining students receiving facilitating teaching

Good teaching

Students’ perception of the quality of teaching

3. Didactic teaching to reproductive learners

Reproductive

Figure 7.1 Compatibility between teaching and beliefs

view of good teaching is consistent with andragogy, while the reproducing students prefer pedagogy. Each quadrant then poses a different situation for the teacher and course designer through the interplay between conceptions of learning and beliefs about good and poor teaching. The remainder of this chapter considers each quadrant in turn to consider how best to deal with the situation. Most attention is paid to quadrant 4 as this is the most pertinent to the thesis addressed in this book. It is also a problematic situation in other types of post-secondary education.

Goal of self-determination Andragogy can be interpreted as a goal towards which adult education strives (Day and Baskett, 1982; Hartree, 1984). In which case a value judgement can be made that the top-right quadrant 1 of Figure 7.1 is an ideal to be aimed for. The goal can be envisaged as classes of students who conceive of learning in a form compatible with self-determination and enjoy a form of teaching and learning which facilitates their self-determination. In higher education a similar value judgement can be made. Universities expect to be graduating students who are capable of self-direction in their learning. In this era of technological change it is important that graduates are capable of selfmanaged learning so as to be able to function as lifelong learners.

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Teaching incompatible with self-determining students For completeness, this quadrant is dealt with here. However, it is the least important in terms of the thesis of this book. It is of relevance only if there are students capable of self-directed learning. The quadrant represents teaching incompatible with self-determination in learning, which is seen as poor by students with selfdetermining beliefs about learning. When students who were judged to hold self-determining conceptions of learning were asked about poor teaching, the examples they gave were of teaching which was purely didactic. Such teaching was not helpful to students who believed that knowledge was socially constructed and that they needed to be involved in discovering information if it was to be of relevance and they were to reach an understanding of it. The status described in this quadrant is unlikely to be a common phenomenon for students of open universities in developing countries, which is why it will not be explored at greater length here.

Didactic teaching to reproductive learners In quadrant 3 the teaching viewed as good is compatible with the reproductive conception of learning. This means that the teaching is largely didactic or in the form of lectures. The students holding this conception view good teaching as that which clearly and efficiently presents the body of material they need to remember for their tests and examinations. When the teaching is consistent with the beliefs about learning the students feel comfortable, which can lead to the teacher also feeling comfortable. However, although the students may feel comfortable with this position, it is not a satisfactory one for higher education. If the students continue to receive didactic teaching, they will continue with their reproductive mode of learning. There is also nothing to make them change their beliefs about knowledge. In which case they are likely to graduate convinced that all questions have single correct answers, and expecting their teachers to present these as model answers for them to remember. This is not really the hallmark of a university graduate. There is a further problem for distance teaching universities in that those holding the naïve beliefs equate didactic teaching to didactic face-to-face teaching. It is possible to have distance teaching which is didactic, but this is not the form of teaching the naïve students have experienced at school, so it is not a part of their belief set. Distance teaching universities therefore have a dual problem with students holding the naïve belief set: • •

The beliefs are incompatible with the goals of a university education. The beliefs are incompatible with a mode of education which operates principally without the presence of a teacher.

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Tutoring distance education courses Many distance education courses have limited amounts of face-to-face contact in the form of tutorials. The effects of the beliefs quadrant can be seen as manifest in both the advice given to tutors and in the reactions of students to those tutors who follow the advice. Knowles’s (1990) advocacy of andragogy over pedagogy has had a strong influence on the advice given to those who teach or tutor in courses offered to adults. The large distance teaching universities usually employ many part-time tutors so commonly have published manuals giving advice on how to teach adult students. An example comes from the handbooks to tutors of OUHK, which advises tutors not to give lectures but instead to engage in activities of a more interactive and discursive type (Open University of Hong Kong, 1999b). An old version of that for the OKOU (Open University, 1977, p. 18) advises that class tutorials are most likely to fill a definite need if they are distinctly different from a lecture, which could after all be broadcast or read. The essential feature of a face-to face meeting is that the students can participate; perhaps it is not too much to say that if the students are not active in class, the tutor should ask himself what is the point of the meeting. The common element to this advice is that of shunning didactic forms of teaching in favour of more interactive or discursive forms. Such advice is consistent with andragogical assumptions (Knowles, 1990) that the adult learner is mature and capable of self-direction. Soliciting student input is consistent with valuing the experience of adults and viewing it as a learning resource. Student participation is also consistent with the belief that adults should understand the relevance of a course to their needs. However, this advice does not appear to mesh with the wishes of many distance education students. Fung and Carr (2000) asked OUHK students in eight representative courses about their expectations of tutorials. Of several teaching approaches the students were asked to rate, the tutor giving a lecture was the most favoured by a considerable margin. This preference does not appear unique to Hong Kong, as 80 per cent of a sample of students from the OKOU wanted tutorials to contain a well-delivered lecture with the opportunity for questions (Stevenson et al., 1996). Many tutors appear to be acceding to the desires of their students. The survey of OUHK students by Fung and Carr (2000) found that lecturing was cited as the most frequent activity within tutorials. This is in spite of the advice from their handbook for tutors to engage in interactive and discursive activities in tutorials rather than give lectures (Open University of Hong Kong, 1999b). The institution might urge them to use tutorials as interactive sessions to deal with students’ difficulties, but faced with a class of students who have a contrary expectation, many appear to abandon the instructions and adopt predominantly didactic approaches. No doubt other tutors who meet classes of teacher-centred students

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find it tempting to resort to lecturing rather than follow the advice on teaching in the tutors’ literature.

Accepting the status quo? As it appears to be common for advice to be ignored and for distance education students to be offered didactic ‘tutoring’ in tutorials, it is pertinent to examine the consequences. There is compatibility between beliefs about teaching and learning and the form in which teaching and learning takes place, so students are content with the status quo when the situation conforms to quadrant 3. The students are comfortable and content to be taught and learn in a way which conforms to their deep-seated beliefs formed through many years of exposure to this type of teaching and learning during their schooling. The teachers are not under pressure because the students are comfortable with the status quo. Furthermore, in many cases the type of education is also the form the teachers are used to both as a student and a teacher. The major problem with didactic teaching in distance education tutorials is that students can start to see the role of tutorials changing in a way which negates the nature of distance education. The study package is envisaged as the main element for teaching the students. The tutorials supplement the package, with the tutor helping students with the concepts they find most difficult. However, if the tutorials take the form of lectures, students will tend to see them as the primary vehicle for delivering content. The study package becomes a supplementary textbook or can even be seen as redundant. Rather than attempting to adapt to a mode of study consistent with distance education, students try to continue employing the study methods they became accustomed to using at school. The problem, of course, is that school had long contact hours, but distance education courses have short and infrequent tutorials. It is simply not possible for a tutor to cover all the course content in the time available. This readily explains the typical quotations, given earlier in the chapter, in which students ask for more tutorials or teaching. It also explains Li’s (2007) observation of OUHK students attending tutorials given by several tutors for the same course. While didactic teaching in tutorials may seem to be a viable short-term option for tutors, it does little to help students with their longer-term need to adapt to study approaches consistent with distance education at the post-secondary level. They will find it hard to pass even foundation courses if they place complete reliance on didactic tutorials. They certainly have little chance of passing sufficient courses to complete a degree. Completing a degree by distance education is unlikely unless students develop sufficient self-direction in learning to undertake the major part of their study independent of their tutors.

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Recognition of need for independent learners There does seem to be some level of awareness that students can find it difficult to adapt to the demands of distance education. At the OUHK, the investigation of tutorials by Fung and Carr (2000), cited in the previous section, was undertaken because the researchers recognised that there were conflicting perceptions of the desired form of tutorials. Even more pertinent to the issue of OUHK students adapting to the mode of study is the following quotation in the handbook given to new students: Study Skills for Open Learning. Yuen (1997, p. 8) states in the introduction: The main aim of the OUHK is to make higher education available, through distance education, to all Hong Kong adults (over the age of 18) for their career development or personal enrichment. The University firmly believes in the principles of open education, and has developed its own practices according to this philosophy: That course materials will be designed to enable the creation of an effective learning environment; That courses should develop the students’ abilities to become independent learners and must also provide adequate support to allow that development to take place; That courses should be capable of adaptation by the independent learner to suit individual needs and circumstances by using a modular structure; That OUHK staff should facilitate the development of student autonomy rather than act as dispensers of knowledge; and That face-to-face interaction between tutors and students, and students and students will be arranged to overcome problems encountered during the study of course materials. Yuen recognises that students need ‘to become independent learners’ and that ‘OUHK staff should facilitate the development of student autonomy’. But the limitation of this otherwise admirable charter is that it lacks a mechanism for developing independence in learning or enabling the staff to nurture autonomy. It is posited that ‘courses should develop the students’ abilities to become independent learners’. A more realistic statement would be that the courses require students to be capable independent learners, and those who are not are unlikely to be successful in the mode of study. The only hint of a mechanism for staff to help students develop autonomy lies in the final element, which proposes ‘face-to-face interaction’ as a way of overcoming problems. This, of course, is the remedy recommended in this book, but at a much higher dosage than the occasional tutorials offered by the OUHK. If the final element of the above extract was the outcome of the type of analysis conducted here, it is unfortunate that the OUHK has been unable to proceed to the logical corollary and adopt more flexible forms of learning with higher levels of face-toface contact.

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Alternatives to didactic tutorials Rather than accepting the status quo, several writers, reviewed in the next section, have argued that a more fruitful long-term strategy would be to wean students away gradually from their teacher-centred beliefs by introducing measures of more learner-centred teaching approaches. The argument has usually not been based upon the conceptions of learning framework adopted in the analysis of this study. Rather, the frameworks of andragogy and self-direction favoured in the adult education literature have been used. The arguments are complementary, though, as holding reproductive beliefs about learning is incompatible with being selfdirecting, which in turn is a key ingredient of andragogy. Following traditional adult education guidelines for teaching – in a learnercentred manner – will often be difficult if the balance of students hold teachercentred conceptions of learning. This is probably more likely when the students have had less formal education, or their schooling has had a predominantly didactic approach. Those who do feel influences of this type might take note of the evidence of students changing their conceptions of learning. Such a change is unlikely if teachers reinforce the beliefs by resorting to didactic teaching. Rather, they should seek to promote self-direction through the progressive introduction of learnercentred teaching in a supportive environment. The rationale for progressively introducing student-centred learning approaches is that exposure to them is a step in promoting a change towards greater selfdirection in learning. In adult education, andragogy has commonly been seen as an ideal to aim towards and the self-directed learner is arguably the most central component. In the knowledge-based era, when there are greater demands for selfmanaged learning, the ideal of promoting self-direction is strengthened further.

Reorienting beliefs about teaching and learning In quadrant 4 of Figure 7.2 the teaching is no longer compatible with the students’ conceptions of learning. The students’ reproductive conceptions of learning mean that they prefer didactic teaching. Teaching which involves interaction is regarded as ‘poor’ since it does not serve the function of presenting the material they need to remember. But the teaching construed as poor may in fact be consistent with the learner-centred ideal in the adult education literature. In the case of open university tutors, those designated as poor teachers by the reproductive learners could simply have been following institutional advice. Students with reproductive conceptions of learning need to be exposed to forms of teaching and learning incompatible with their conceptions if they are to make the transition to more sophisticated beliefs. However, abrupt exposure to a facilitative style of teaching is not helpful. To students with the naïve belief set, this appears to be poor teaching, of a style diametrically opposed to what they are used to, and not helpful to their needs. Learning to swim might be seen as an analogy to learning to study a degree by distance education. In which case exposing naïve students to purely facilitative

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Students’ conceptions of learning Selfdetermining

2.Teaching incompatible with self-determining students Poor teaching 4. Encouraging reproductive learners to become more selfdetermining

1. Goal self-determining students receiving facilitating teaching Good teaching

Students’ perception of the quality of teaching

3. Didactic teaching to reproductive learners

Reproductive

Figure 7.2 The beliefs quadrant as a model for change

teaching is analogous to throwing non-swimmers in at the deep end. They are more likely to drown than become good swimmers. There are students who habitually employ a surface approach to study in courses which anticipate self-determination in learning and do have a learning environment appropriate for meaningful learning. Such students need assistance to develop the capability of appropriately utilising self-determination. The most common reason for students to employ inappropriate learning approaches in a favourable context is that their conception of knowledge or the requirements of academic study are not consistent with the conventional requirements of academe (Marton et al., 1993). The primary concern of any learning skills programme should, therefore, be the reorientation of students’ conceptions of knowledge. Study skills courses The conventional answer to such problems has been to offer courses with titles such as ‘study skills’ or ‘learning skills’ programmes. There has been considerable debate about both the effectiveness of and a suitable form for such initiatives. The protagonists in the debate are still far from agreement on many issues. This chapter cannot hope to summarise, much less resolve, the areas of contention. Instead, I will attempt to draw upon this literature, taking particular cognisance of the open learning context. Many traditional study skills courses may be positively harmful as they commonly contain sections on enhancing memorisation by techniques like rehearsal or mnemonics. Hypothetical graphs, showing memory decay with time, are used

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to reinforce the exhortations constantly to revise the material presented. Study skills programmes with this type of content surely would tend to reinforce the notion that rote learning is appropriate. Gibbs (1981, p. 61) produced a damning critique of such study skills courses which not only castigated proponents for these likely negative effects but also exposed the shallow research from which the memorisation techniques are derived. Study skills courses can have the opposite effect to that intended. Ramsden et al. (1986), for example, reported a study skills course which was designed with the intention of encouraging meaningful approaches to learning. However, the programme in which the students were enrolled gave the impression that the opposite approach was rewarded. As a result, students took from the study skills course only those skills they thought would be useful in their wider programme, which to them seemed to require atomistic items of knowledge to be remembered and reproduced in examinations. The outcome was that use of a surface approach increased rather than declined following the introduction of the study skills course. The students simply became better at doing what they thought the programme required. A number of distance teaching universities offer short study skills courses for new students, usually by distance education. The aim, presumably, is that students will learn good study techniques for the mode in which they are to study. The problems with such study skills courses is that many of the students are enrolling because of the open entry provision and have no experience of distance education or any form of learning requiring independent study. But the initial study skills help they are offered is through the distance learning mode, which is radically different to forms of learning they have become accustomed to. To return to the analogy of learning to swim, such study skills courses are rather like showing a non-swimmer a video of Ian Thorpe. It may be useful to see the swimming action of one of the world’s best, but it does little to give the non-swimmer the confidence to dive in the deep end. Lessons from adult education The adult education movement has seen students developing self-direction as an important goal, so the literature has a valuable discussion of ways to help learners become self-directing. Three key principles may be synthesised from the contributions: 1 2 3

The change needs to be progressive or gradual, rather than abrupt. Change should be from the familiar or known territory to the unknown. Support needs to be provided for what can be a difficult, and even traumatic, process.

Pratt (1988) argued that the learner’s degree of dependency came in the need for support and direction. He then discussed the type of teaching suitable for the four

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cases of high and low support and direction. While those with high needs were initially recommended for high levels of support and/or direction, the eventual goal was moving all learners towards a position where they required low support and direction. Grow’s (1991) model allocated learners to one of four stages of self-direction, ranging from dependent to self-directed. He argued that there was a complementary teaching style for each of the four stages but recognised that problems could arise when the stage of dependency was not matched to the corresponding teaching style. He did not argue, though, that teaching remained locked to the initial stage of dependency of the class. Rather, he saw the model as a guide to moving students away from dependency by incrementally progressing through the stages of teaching style, with the students hopefully making the corresponding move towards selfdetermination. It is difficult to do justice to Candy’s (1991) contribution to the literature on developing learners’ levels of self-direction in a succinct citation. Rather than attempting to produce a summary, it is perhaps more appropriate to note that his book deals with promoting self-direction through three avenues: developing skills for self-directed learning; facilitating independent mastery of subject matter; and helping learners gain a sense of personal control. A Hong Kong example comes from Kember et al. (2001, esp. ch. 10). This book reports courses which challenged learners’ reproductive beliefs by focusing towards the development of reflective practitioners. This posited the students’ experience as a significant source of knowledge for the course. The courses were initially quite discomforting for the majority of the students. With support from the teachers and fellow students, though, most adapted to and eventually came to prefer reflective to reproductive learning. In the process they also became more self-directing. There is also evidence of development from reproductive to self-directing beliefs from the interviews conducted for the part-time study. All of the sample went through the Hong Kong school system, which is likely to have influenced a significant proportion towards reproductive beliefs at some stage. Yet a significant number must have developed away from these beliefs as the experienced students in the sample were clearly self-directing at the time of the interviews. More direct evidence of the change in beliefs about learning came from interviews with the experienced students who were asked to compare their learning experiences as full-time undergraduate students with current practices as part-time students enrolled for higher degrees. These parts of the interviews provided rich evidence of a shift in beliefs about learning. These are reported and analysed in detail in Kember (2001), and one typical exchange is given below: I think my learning method changed after my second year of university. Q: From what to what? Because from Hong Kong schools, I was trained to memorise, revise, not to think that much. And I tried the same method in the first two years of

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university. My grade points weren’t high enough because the exams are not oriented towards memorising everything. For example, the lecturer will give you a take-home exam. You know, you take your final exam home and you . . . and gives you one week to do your final exam. So, when I had it first outside yes, very easy. You know. But it was very hard. It was harder than writing an exam because there are no right answers. They make you think. And I really thought it would be easy. But in fact, you would realise that there were no right answers. There will be no right answer at all. You have to think and analyse how you present your thoughts. Q: Yeah. And in my third and fourth year of my undergraduate course, I learned to think and present my thoughts. And I wasn’t memorising any more. I understood what was happening. Memorising did not help. (part-time – OUHK – experienced) This student has undergone this conceptual change without the assistance of any of the types of programme to develop self-direction cited above. The spur in this case was the exposure to a type of assessment incompatible with existing beliefs about learning, though earlier experiences had clearly raised doubts. Another example of change in a less experienced student came from the Education course in the student progress project. The course aimed to promote critical enquiry, which many students found hard at first. The course design set the students a series of exercises which asked them to observe their own classrooms and start to make critical analyses of their observations. An important feature of the course design was that students tackled these assignments as a ‘group of five’. The quotation below indicates that the companionship and collaborative learning within the groups helped students to cope with the transition towards the demanding forms of learning expected: Yes, I felt discouraged and frustrated and often came close to giving up when I worked on my first assignment. Luckily the support from my group kept me in the course. I knew that I wasn’t the only person to have problems with the first assignment, there were the same problems faced by my group mates as well. Now, I do not have the feeling of giving up since I understand its learning approach – free thinking. (Hong Kong – Education)

Summary Interviews with part-time students in Hong Kong revealed two broad conceptions of learning, teaching and knowledge. The competitive school system conditioned most entrants to open entry courses into the didactic/reproductive conception. This meant that their conception of learning was incompatible with forms of education requiring independent learning. They visualised good teaching as being didactic

Open universities expect andragogy 107

and teacher-centred. Changing conceptions to the more developed facilitative/ transformative orientation was a difficult process requiring gradual exposure to non-didactic forms of teaching in a supportive environment. There is a useful literature on the types of teaching and support which will aid this process. This is important because a major thesis developed in this book is that many of the entrants to open entry courses in developing countries are dependent learners who need to make the transition to independent learners to cope with distance education courses.

Part IV

Distance education

Chapter 8

Appropriateness of the UKOU model for developing countries

Students graduating from open universities While the numbers enrolling in open universities in developing countries, particularly in Asia, are impressive, the numbers of graduates often paint a rather different picture. The universities may have an open door, but it is revolving. Perraton (2000, p. 117) observes that the contrast between enrolments and numbers of graduates is a major concern: In both kinds of institutions it seems that many are called to enrol but few are chosen to graduate. Such evidence as we have – and there is not enough of it – is consistent across open and dual-mode universities: that successful completion rates on many courses are disturbingly low . . . [T]he general conclusion has to be that the methods of open and distance learning, held out as a promise of grand educational expansion, have failed to meet the hopes of the majority of higher education students. Acclaim for the large numbers of enrolments needs to be tempered by a concern about their results. I do not intend to quote numerous figures for completion rates for a variety of reasons. First, few figures are available, which in itself is highly revealing. It seems invidious to quote what statistics are available when other universities, which might have even more embarrassing rates, keep coy. Second, statistics are rarely comparable. Completion rates are rarely given directly, so are normally estimated by comparing enrolment and graduation figures. This gives reasonable estimates if both numbers are reasonably stable, but become hard to interpret when numbers fluctuate. Finally, there is no common standard for determining enrolment figures. For example, the UKOU allows students an initial three-month trial period and counts enrolments only after this time (Woodley, 1987). This can be seen as a perfectly legitimate policy, but its effect is to lower enrolment numbers and boost completion rates, as drop-out rates are normally highest during the initial stages. Rather than quoting figures, I will rely again on Perraton’s analysis (2000, p. 102):

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successful completion rates for degree courses are often little over 10 per cent. We are short of data but the figures suggest that the open universities are, because of this low rate, disappointing many students and contributing far fewer graduates to their economies than their large enrolment figures would lead one to expect . . . [D]ropout rates are more important than failure rates in explaining this. They demand further explanation. The main purpose of this book is to supply that further explanation. I also intend to draw upon the explanation to suggest ways in which success rates could be boosted. There are two sets of figures I wish to provide. The first is for China’s radio and television universities. Ding (1994) showed that more than 80 per cent of students in the late 1980s graduated within the minimum time period. This is clearly a remarkably different graduation rate to that of most other distance teaching universities in developing countries. The reasons will be explored in Chapter 13. The other figures are for the OUHK, which is the main case study analysed here. Figure 8.1 shows the number of enrolled students compared to the number of graduates with undergraduate degrees over the period 1999 to 2005. The figures were extracted from a booklet called Facts and figures produced each year by the Open University of Hong Kong (2000–2006). No direct figures appear to be published for drop-out or completion rates, so this is the best available data. While the figures cannot be taken as very precise, they do make it clear that only a small proportion of those who enrol eventually graduate. To put these figures in perspective, completion rates for post-secondary courses taught face-to-face in Hong Kong are normally high. Graduation rates for undergraduate degrees at the conventional universities are close to 100 per cent. (Although this may be an unfair comparison as the students study full time and have high entry qualifications.) What is more instructive is that completion rates for part-time programmes are also high. In 2005 there were 11,717 part-time students enrolled in the eight institutions in Hong Kong funded by the UGC. In the same year there were 7,809

Number of graduates in degree programme and existing population for OUHK from 1999 to 2004 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0

degree graduate existing population

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004–5

Figure 8.1 Enrolments compared to graduates for the OUHK

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graduates from part-time courses (University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, 2006). This is again not a precise measure of graduation rates, but it does indicate that the conventional universities have markedly higher completion rates from their part-time courses than the OUHK had from its part-time distance education ones.

Interpretation of graduation rates Various interpretations can be placed on the low completion rates of students in open universities in developing countries. It is not a topic which those speaking on behalf of these universities have chosen to address at any great length, and commitment in print has not been common, but some explanations or excuses have been offered. Commonly, enrolment statistics fail to show that those who do not graduate have dropped out. Students enrol by course, so those who do not enrol for any courses can be kept on the books in the (usually vain) hope that they might return to study at some point in the future. That said, experienced students with several credits under their belt might decide to take a semester or two off and then return to complete the degree. But students who have successfully completed none or only a handful of courses, and who do not enrol for any courses for several years, are very unlikely to restart. Another form of denial is the claim that non-completers have taken the courses they needed, so see no need to take more and hence have not dropped out. This is perhaps a realistic scenario for a minority of mature students taking courses for general interest. However, most students enrolling in open universities in developing countries do so because they want a degree for economic advancement, but have been unable to gain a place at a conventional university. In which case, not completing a degree has to be interpreted as dropping out. A further line of defence is that part-time study by distance education is not easy and that it is unrealistic to expect high graduation rates. This argument is certainly reasonable. Anybody who has studied part time will readily appreciate the difficulty of setting aside enough time for study in the face of competing demands from family, work and social commitments. And studying by distance education can add an extra level of difficulty, particularly for those unfamiliar with the mode. It is therefore understandable that open universities in developing countries have graduation rates which are lower than those of conventional universities – but there is an issue of degree here. Are the open universities’ graduation rates acceptable? A relevant and reasonable comparison is between open universities in developing countries and the UKOU, which has served as the model for most of them. Woodley (1987) maintained that just over 50 per cent of UKOU students who completed the registration process eventually obtained a degree. Perraton (2000) believes that graduation rates of open universities in developing countries are typically little over 10 per cent. I belive that this provides evidence that open universities in developing countries have failed to make sufficient adaptations to the UKOU model to suit their differing

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circumstances and types of student. The UKOU has been very successful, and as a result has been used as a model around the world. In Chapters 3 and 4, though, I showed that typical entrants to open universities in developing countries are not necessarily akin to those at the UKOU. In Chapter 7, I produced evidence that they were unlikely to be well equipped for learning through distance education. My contention, therefore, is that the lower graduation rates from open universities in developing countries indicate that these institutions should not have followed the UKOU model with little or no adaptation. Instead, they should have experimented with more flexible models which would have better suited the learning approaches of their students and the local contexts in which they operate.

Demand for graduates The degree to which governments are willing to tolerate low graduation rates depends on the need for graduates. The demand for graduates in an economy has been intimately related to the status of manufacturing industry. Economies with cheap labour, but some level of infrastructure, have become the haven for basic manufacturing, and the need for graduates is limited. In fact, an excess of graduates could be considered a handicap as it might create a push to inflate wages. This would result in basic manufacturing industry moving on to countries with cheaper labour. Economies in Asia cover a range of stages of development. As the economies have developed, wages have tended to rise, so the level of sophistication of manufacturing and service has had to rise for the country to remain viable. This, in turn, has meant that the level of education needed for the workforce has risen, which implies that the number of graduates needed also increases. As economies approach developed status, basic manufacturing has largely ceased to be viable. For societies to survive, let alone flourish, there needs to be a transition to knowledge-based economies. This implies the need for a highly educated workforce. This is why developed countries have moved towards mass higher education. The low graduation rates of most open universities may not have economic consequences when countries are in an early stage of development. Providing an opportunity to study might be considered beneficial even if graduation rates are low, as claims can be made that there are openings to higher education. However, as a country progresses towards developed status, graduates become essential to economic advance. At this point low graduation rates become a liability. The fact that graduates are needed also changes the economic parameters for costing distance education courses. When costed on the basis of enrolments or student headcounts, distance education, particularly large open universities, are normally cheaper than conventional universities. However, Perraton (2000) argues that graduation rates are normally low, so that when costed per graduate they are actually more expensive than conventional universities. Pillai and Naidu (1997) calculated that the per-student unit cost of IGNOU, India’s national open

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university, was 42 per cent of that of conventional universities in the country. This means that, if conventional universities can achieve graduation rates twice that of the open university, the costs per graduate are close to being equal. Perraton (2000), though, it will be remembered, found that graduation rates in developing countries were little more than 10 per cent, meaning that conventional universities produce cheaper graduates. Therefore, when an economy in a developing country starts to need graduates there are two reasons for not relying on open universities. First, they generally have a poor record in producing graduates and, second, those they do produce have a higher unit cost.

Demand for graduates in Hong Kong Hong Kong has recognised that its educational provision is insufficient to provide the well-educated workforce needed for the economy to convert from manufacturing to one which is knowledge-based. Plans have been made to convert secondary education from seven to six years, but at the same time have sufficient places for all of an age-group to complete the full six years (Education Commission, 2000). Undergraduate degrees will expand in time from three to four years. For the same reason, Hong Kong is in the early stages of making the transition from elite to mass higher education. There are plans to expand the number of places in higher education so that ‘Within ten years, 60% of our secondary school graduates will have opportunities to receive higher education’ (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2001, p. 14). The Education Commission (1999, p. 18) had gone even further by aiming to ‘provide opportunities for everyone who aspires to higher education to attend programmes appropriate to their abilities’. There will be no significant increase in the number of undergraduate places at the seven universities funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC). Instead, the expansion is being brought about by the government encouraging organisations to offer places on a self-financing basis. These organisations are to include (Education Commission, 2000): • • • • •

UGC-funded universities; private universities; the OUHK; post-secondary colleges, including community colleges; continuing education providers.

It is of significance that the government is not funding the expansion in postsecondary education. The fees paid by students have to cover the institution’s operating costs. Most post-secondary education in Hong Kong, other than the conventional UGC-funded universities, have previously operated on a selffinancing basis. Examples are the OUHK, continuing education courses and adult education provision.

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This is in contrast to the West, where much of the expansion in higher education has come through existing universities enrolling more students. Several countries have introduced or increased student fees as the marginal funding for the extra students has been below previous per-capita levels. As the expansion in numbers has been substantial, universities have therefore faced overall government funding levels per student which are markedly lower than they used to be. It is notable, though, that there has been some funding, unlike in Hong Kong. The major expansion in Hong Kong has come through the formation of community colleges. These offer associate degrees to those who have completed form 7, which is the final year of secondary education. The courses are mostly taught face-to-face. Those enrolling have usually been unable to gain a place in a UGCfunded university. There are also programmes for those who leave secondary education after form 5. It is noticeable that the government was not content to leave the provision of open entry programmes in the hands of the OUHK. While this has been successful in attracting large numbers of enrolments into its courses, the number of graduates has been much lower than the number of enrollees. This mirrors the situation in most of the open universities in the developing world. It may not have a major impact when economies do not have a shortage of graduates, but it becomes a liability when economic development is held back by a shortage of skilled graduates. Early drop-outs will not have acquired the competencies to support the transition to a knowledge-based economy – graduates are needed – and what is more, they need to be graduates equipped with a range of generic capabilities needed for a knowledge-based society. The OUHK continues to offer its open entry degrees through distance education, which has been the major outlet for those unable to win a place in the UGC-funded universities. However, now that alternatives are available, applications for distance education courses have declined markedly. The headcount in distance learning courses at the OUHK for the 2005–6 academic year was over 2,500 (or about 15 per cent) less than that for the previous academic year (Open University of Hong Kong, 2000–2006). The OUHK has faced severe financial stringency, with staff being threatened with redundancy unless enrolments are sufficient to cover costs. Evidence is presented in Chapters 7 and 11 that many potential students prefer face-to-face courses to distance learning, so those with these preferences are now opting for the community colleges and other providers offering courses in their preferred mode. It is also likely that some potential students are deterred from enrolling in distance learning courses by the low success rates of the past. As the vast majority wish to graduate, they are likely to prefer forms of education which promise a better chance of doing so. The large numbers of students who have in the past enrolled but not completed a degree are all walking advertisements with a negative message. To survive, the OUHK has itself started a community college with face-to-face teaching. For the 2004–5 academic year, there were 521 students enrolled in fulltime face-to-face courses, which rose to 1,342 in 2005–6 (Open University of Hong

Appropriateness of the UKOU model 117

Kong, 2000–2006). So, while it used to boast of being an open and distance university, it now recruits a substantial number of students for conventional faceto-face courses. The Education Commission (2000) envisaged the post-secondary sector as flexible, with multiple entry and exit points. Articulation between programmes was foreshadowed, facilitated by transferable credits. Worries about the articulation system have already been voiced through the media, though. The associate degrees are suitable as terminal vocational qualifications, but their value as an employment credential has been questioned. A substantial proportion of those enrolling in associate degrees seem to see them more as stepping-stones to degree places. They would have preferred to enter directly into an undergraduate degree but were unable to gain a place. There have been limitations on the degree of articulation into the UGC-funded universities. They have tended to prefer recruiting the top performers in the Alevel examinations, rather than associate degree graduates. A limited number of additional places have been allocated to each university specifically for associate degree graduates, but these cater for only a small proportion of those taking the award.

Outsourcing Until recently the state of development of an economy and the need for graduates were closely linked to the viability of basic manufacturing. Companies shift manufacturing plants to developing countries with cheap labour to minimise costs. Countries with higher labour costs have been forced to become more developed. Manufacturing industry which is viable is of the high-technology type, and service and entertainment sector industries are favoured. Globalisation or internationalisation of business was previously largely restricted to the manufacturing sector. The service sector needed to be located close to its market to be able to supply the service. However, advances in communication and information technology, and reductions in the costs of using it, have meant that outsourcing of service industries has become both possible and financially attractive. Typical examples are call-centres for financial and service industries. Customers ring a local number, but the call is transferred to an overseas centre, typically in India. As all records are online, the required service can be provided in India as easily as by the office round the corner. With the development of the internet and cheap, efficient information and communication technologies, it is now possible to outsource a wide range of services. This book was written in Hong Kong and Australia. The administrative offices of the publisher are in the UK. Copy-editing could have taken place in the Netherlands and printing in Singapore. You could have bought the book from an online bookshop with an address in the USA, but your order could have been processed in Mexico and the book dispatched from a warehouse in Romania. The

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credit-card transaction to purchase the book might have been processed in China and your statement bulk-posted from Hungary. If you rang your bank to complain that the item was shown incorrectly on the statement, your call might have been transferred to a call-centre in India. The Indian economy especially has blossomed recently, with outsourcing making a significant contribution. The limiting factor in its further expansion is the supply of skilled staff, many of whom need to be fluent in English. It may be cheaper to outsource a service, but it is only cost-effective if it is performed competently. There has been consumer resistance to outsourcing to Indian callcentres, with complaints about poor service and heavily accented English. If the service is sufficiently poor that the customers take their business elsewhere, outsourcing is not a viable option. If countries wish to benefit from the outsourcing of services, they therefore need a well-educated, skilled and linguistically fluent workforce that is able to perform the service effectively. This means that they need graduates and universities capable of producing them. So the development of outsourcing of services means that a country’s need for graduates is no longer just a function of the state of development of manufacturing industry. This could have implications for open universities in countries which wish to benefit from outsourcing. These countries may have had a limited need for graduates if they had been concentrating on attracting manufacturers to set up lowlevel manufacturing industries in their country. If their open universities had low graduation rates, this might have had limited economic consequences. However, if the country is to attract outsourced services, competent graduates are needed. An institution able to graduate only a small proportion of enrollees then becomes an economic liability as the growth of outsourcing is blocked by the limited supply of capable graduates. Indian call-centres are already having to recruit workers from overseas because of a shortage of fluent English speakers. Interestingly, most of these come from Britain. The young British graduates are willing to put up with the low wages for a short time for the experience and a holiday (Dhillon, 2005). This is clearly neither a long-term nor a stable solution, so there must be pressure to boost graduation rates. Another possible indication that the supply of graduates is starting to have an impact can be found in a postscript to an article about open learning in India by Sharma (2005). He reported that the governor of the state of Uttar Pradesh has ordered the closure of all distance education programmes offered by the state universities. Sharma predicts that there will be further significant closures out of concern over quality assurance. Perhaps this shows that dissatisfaction over the low graduation rates of distance teaching universities is already highly significant in India.

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Summary The UKOU model of distance education has printed materials, sometimes supplemented with other media, as the main instructional medium. This is augmented by face-to-face tutorials, telephone tutorials and, more recently, online forums. While the UKOU has progressively adapted to student needs, the original model has been followed, usually with little adaptation, in many countries, with apparently little attempt to evaluate its suitability for the learning needs of quite different types of student. The model assumes that students are capable of independent learning. However, for many students newly enrolled in open entry distance learning courses, this assumption is false. To the contrary, the students have often been heavily dependent learners who lacked confidence in learning on their own. They felt that it was like learning to swim (or drowning) by being thrown in the deep end. The mode of study was so different to their conception of teaching and learning that many have been unable to take advantage of the support services. As a result, distance teaching universities in developing countries commonly suffer a high rate of attrition, particularly in the early stages. Many open universities in developing countries have high enrolments but low, sometimes very low, completion rates. As a high proportion of the entrants enrolled to obtain a degree for economic advancement, there must be many frustrated students. It is likely that the students’ lack of ability to learn independently is again a major factor. Low completion rates may not be perceived by governments as a major concern in countries which attract basic manufacturing industries because of their low wage levels. However, as wage levels rise, the economies will need more intelligent labour for knowledge-based industries. There is also a recent trend for developed countries to outsource service industries as well as manufacturing. As telecommunication channels have become cheaper it is now possible for clerical and service functions to be performed at lower cost in developing countries with cheaper middle-class salaries. Unlike cheap manufacturing, these service industries require a well-educated labour force, normally with fluency in English. The expansion of outsourced service industries in developing countries, and the concomitant boost to their economies, is likely to be limited by the supply of workers sufficiently well educated to perform the necessary tasks. Satisfaction with open universities admitting large numbers but graduating few has a finite time-frame. As economies develop, wage rates rise. Basic manufacturing becomes uncompetitive, so a better-educated workforce is needed. Countries attracting outsourced service industries also need well-educated and fluent performers. This means that graduates are needed, not first-semester drop-outs. If open universities have had a history of graduating only a small proportion of those they have admitted, governments and prospective students may not see them as well suited to expanding the number of graduates when this need arises.

Chapter 9

Dual-mode universities

The success of the UKOU has meant that it has become the predominant model of open learning around the world, certainly in terms of student numbers. Countries have set up a single institution, or in some cases a small number of them, dedicated to distance education. In the main, the mode of operation of these universities has been closely modelled on the format originally adopted by the UKOU. To be effective, a single national open university needs a reasonably large population base to support a large enrolment. The UKOU model features a high fixed cost, mainly for course development, but a low marginal cost for each student enrolment. Economies of scale can accrue compared to conventional universities if enrolments are substantial. In situations which lack the population base to support or take advantage of a single national open university, the most common alternative has been dual-mode institutions. These have normally been based on existing conventional universities teaching face-to-face courses. Provision for distance education has been developed by the university offering some of its courses by distance education as well as by the existing face-to-face teaching method.

New England model The country which has been the most prominent adherent to the dual-mode system is Australia. It has a significant number of universities in rural areas with low local population bases. To attract a viable number of students, they have chosen to offer courses by distance education in an effort to gain enrolments from outside their hinterlands (Smith, 1984). The dual-mode model is sometimes known as the New England or Armidale model, named after the University of New England (UNE) at Armidale, New South Wales. The city is a rural regional centre with a population which is insufficient to maintain a purely conventional university. It is a long way from other major population centres and unable to attract many students from them for its face-toface courses. It was therefore obliged to seek external students. The strategy for developing into distance education was to require lecturers to offer courses they taught to both

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internal and external students (Smith, 1979). Initially, the lecturers would have been teaching the course face-to-face to internal students, and they would then be asked to teach it to external students, too. The lecturers prepared course materials for the external students, based on their lecture notes. The course development model, in the early stages at least, was described by the first director of external studies as the ‘intuition model’ (Smith, 1980). To counter claims that external study was inferior to the conventional internal mode, the major extension upon the correspondence education model was a relatively high level of on-campus, faceto-face tuition (Eastcott and Small, 1984). All courses had compulsory residential school sessions at the Armidale campus.

Flexibility of the dual-mode system As was noted in Chapter 1, flexible learning had three parents: face-to-face teaching, distance education and technology. The dual-mode system is characterised by the offering of the same course by face-to-face and distance teaching. With at least two of the three parents of flexible learning operating on the same course, the dualmode system might have been expected to be the genesis of flexible learning. Many of the early proponents of flexible learning have indeed hailed from dual-mode institutions. However, in the early stages, at least, the dual-mode system was often better characterised as inflexible, and by the separation of the two modes, than by flexibility. To substantiate this point, I will describe the situation at the first Australian institution I worked for, the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education, which is now part of the University of Tasmania. External students enrolled and registered by a system which was separate to the main registration system. The External Studies Unit handled just about all services for external students itself: advertising, course information and enquiries for external students were dealt with by the unit rather than by the administrative units which handled such matters for internal students. The internal students were taught in face-to-face classes, but the external students were not permitted to attend these, even if they had no conflicting commitments. Instead, they were provided with study packages, which were often of good quality because they were produced by small course teams. Tutorials were offered in a number of regional centres where numbers were viable and some courses had weekend sessions. Great care was taken to ensure that internal students could not obtain copies of the external course materials. The official explanation for the segregation of the modes was along the lines of ‘equity’. The internal students had their lectures and it would be unfair if they also had the external course materials. The external students had the course materials, so would have an unfair advantage if they also attended classes. A number of lecturers were also opposed to letting internal students have the course materials as they feared students might not attend their lectures if they had the well-developed materials.

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The concern for equity was obviously problematic in that the internal and external students were taught in very different ways. There was also considerable variation in the degree to which external students were able to take advantage of support services, depending on where they lived and the degree and nature of other commitments. Concerns over equity might also be seen as a lower priority to maximising the chances of students succeeding by providing them with as rich a pool of learning resources as possible. Moreover, the segregation policy was inefficient in that the course materials required resource-intensive development, so restricting their use meant that the committed resources were under-utilised. There could also have been some rationalisation of the number of classes if there was greater use of the course materials, and classes for internal students were not discrete from tutorials for external students. The segregation started to break down when a limited range of courses were offered at the Burnie and Devonport study centres. The idea was that students in the north-west of Tasmania could take first-year subjects while living at home. Originally these courses were to be a third mode. However, as the same lecturers were teaching the study centre courses and tutoring external students at the study centres the obvious melding of modes took place. Every student was given the course materials while classes or tutorials were open to all. The third parent of flexible learning – technology – was not sufficiently advanced at the time to make a major contribution to increasing flexibility in learning. Computer use was largely restricted to computing courses. Furthermore, the telephone network in the state of Tasmania did not have good bridging facilities, so use of teleconferencing was restricted. The car was the only form of technology used extensively. The degree of segregation of the modes must have varied among dual-mode institutions, but I suspect the TCAE case was reasonably typical at that time. If this is the case, internal and external modes were quite well separated. Flexible learning comes about through a melding together of face-to-face and distance teaching with a significant technological input. The more separated the internal and external modes, the more difficult it would be to form a successful liaison which results in genuine flexible learning. If the TCAE case was typical, dual-mode institutions would not naturally evolve towards flexible learning, so there would need to be major reconfiguration.

Summary Most Australian distance teaching universities adopted a dual-mode model in which the same course was offered by internal and external modes. Studying by the two modes resulted in the same award, but the equivalent courses were often quite discrete. The arrangement can be criticised for a lack of flexibility and efficiency. In subsequent chapters the adoption of more flexible forms of learning is explored as a potential means of ameliorating the low completion rates of distance

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teaching universities in developing countries. If dual-mode universities have made limited strides towards flexibility, though, the prospects do not seem promising for greater flexibility in study modes in open universities in developing countries.

Chapter 10

North American model of distance education

Five generations of distance education The UKOU has been such a success that its model of operation has been widely copied and has had a major influence on distance and open learning. Whether a university operates in a single or a dual mode, the format adopted by the UKOU has commonly been used as a model. All elements of the supporting services and the variety of the media mix may not be employed. Similarly, the quality of the course materials and supporting tutorial services may not be achieved, but the model is seen as an ideal and attempts are made to work towards it. The main exception to following this model has been in North America. Neither Canada nor the USA has founded a national open university, and the universities offering courses by distance education have not normally followed the UKOU model. To characterise the differences, it is worthwhile using a historical classification scheme for distance education introduced by Moore and Kearsley (2005). Their scheme has five generations of distance education distinguished mainly by the medium of communication and advances in communication technology which made use of new media possible. The five generations are: • • • • •

correspondence; broadcast radio and television; open universities; teleconferencing; internet/web.

Correspondence Correspondence education relied on printed or written text as the medium of communication. Correspondence lessons were sent to students. At periodic intervals students wrote assignments and sent them to the tutor. The tutor wrote comments on the assignments and posted the assignment back to the student. Technology used was limited. The correspondence materials were printed or duplicated. The communication channel was the postal service.

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Broadcasting Broadcasting is a one-way form of communication using radio or television as the broadcasting medium. Although there may have been a considerable amount of informal learning from broadcasting, formal taught courses, particularly at the postsecondary level, have made little use of broadcasting. It can be considered to be the least significant of Moore and Kearsley’s (2005) five generations. The primary reason was probably economic. At the time when radio and television were first developed, carrier channels were expensive. Both mediums were limited to a handful of channels, with priority given to entertainment and advertising. Making programmes of suitable quality was also expensive. Furthermore, one-way transmission of information is an ineffective method of teaching, as was explained in Chapter 2. The greatest use of broadcast post-secondary distance education, certainly in terms of student numbers, has been in China: Wei and Tong (1994) reported that over 1.5 million graduated from the radio and TV universities. Open universities The open universities generation is rather different to the other four generations in that it did not emerge because of the development of a particular form of communication media. Instead, it is characterised by the use of a combination of media and supporting services. The most prominent characteristics of the UKOU, which has served as a model, were described in Chapter 3. In terms of its relationship to the previous two generations, the model it has propagated makes little use of open-circuit broadcasting, even though the UKOU was originally to have been titled the ‘University of the Air’. Instead, it borrowed more from the previous generation of correspondence education. The defining characteristic of the UKOU model of distance education is surely the package of course materials, which is the principal medium for conveying the body of knowledge to the student. Whether single or dual mode, distance teaching universities following the open university model rely on course packages for delivering the bulk of the course content to their students. That of the UKOU has perhaps reached a higher standard of educational design and been a multi-media package rather than purely print-based, but the package is still the essential ingredient in the teaching. The open university model was also a considerable development on correspondence study in that the supporting tutorial and counselling services network offered much more than the tutor’s comments on correspondence study assignments. Over time the use of communication technology for offering support has also grown. This should presumably be seen as a development towards the blending of Moore and Kearsley’s (2005) five generations, as well as a move towards flexible learning.

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Teleconferencing The next generation of distance education has been the predominant model in North America. The defining characteristic is the use of telecommunication channels, which are used to link the instructor and students. The model is therefore closer to conventional classroom teaching. The distinction is that the students are not physically present in class listening to the instructor, but are linked by a teleconference channel. The teleconferencing generation was distinct from the broadcasting one in that, in most cases, two-way communication was possible. This overcame the severe educational limitation of broadcasting as being purely one-way and therefore limiting the mode to a transmissive or didactic style of teaching. The other distinction is that broadcasting implies open-circuit transmission, so the output is available to anyone with a radio or television. In teleconferencing the output is normally to a restricted number of locations. It is also distinct from the open university generation. Communication channels, such as teleconferences and online forums, are features of the UKOU model, but as supplements to learning through the course package. In the parlance of face-toface teaching the course package is the lecture and the teleconference the tutorial in the UKOU model. In the North American model, though, the communication channel is used as the main vehicle for delivering content and knowledge, so it becomes the medium for both lecture and tutorial. The similarity of the teleconferencing model to classroom teaching may have made it more attractive to some teachers in potential dual-mode institutions. To start a distance education course alongside an existing face-to-face one meant that the class could be taught in the same way. There were additional students outside the classroom listening to, and in some cases seeing, what was happening there. This could be seen as an easier adaptation than having to develop a study package, which was a requirement of the open university model. The reduced degree of adaptation of the teleconferencing model may, therefore, have led to less resistance from academics in offering courses by distance education. The converse, though, was that the lack of need to adapt the classroom style of teaching meant that there was no need to reflect upon the nature of teaching and limited opportunities for educational developers to present alternatives. Internet The fifth generation of distance education is that of the internet and web-based teaching. The model of distance teaching retains the same defining elements as the teleconferencing generation, but the communication technology becomes networked computers. This generation is discussed in Chapter 12, which is devoted to e-learning.

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Communication technologies Moore and Kearsley (2005) proceed to subdivide the teleconferencing generation according to technological characteristics of the communication technology in use. The pertinent variables in the communication systems are as follows: 1 2 3 4 5

one-to-one, one-to-a-limited-number or one-to-many communication; one-way or two-way communication; audio only, audio and video, or audio, video and data; the nature of the carrier: e.g., telephone lines, satellite or the internet; and synchronous or asynchronous communication.

Over the years there has been a dramatic development in the ability of carrier channels to convey greater amounts of data at faster speeds and for lower costs. This has made it possible to implement teleconference systems with the more advanced options for items 1 to 3 in the list above. The earliest significant use of teleconferencing in distance education was audio teleconferencing using telephone lines to a limited number of centres. From audio-only conferences to limited numbers of students, it is now technically possible to provide video and data links to the masses. Use of facilities Moore and Kearsley (2005) have characterised distance education, and particularly the final two generations, by the degree of sophistication of the available technology. This is a convenient method of categorisation which has been used by many other writers. A substantial part of the distance education literature describes newly introduced technological communication systems and the use being made of them. From a learning-oriented standpoint, I wonder whether a more pertinent topic for discussion might be the use made of the available technology. The availability of a channel or facility does not necessarily mean that it will be used. A face-to-face classroom has all the communication channels and facilities of the most sophisticated of the distance education communication networks: twoway communication is possible between everybody in the room; an enormous variety of learning activities can be conducted; most classrooms have facilities for playing videos or displaying graphic material in a variety of formats. But how often are these channels and facilities fully utilised? The most common type of face-toface class in universities is the lecture (Lammers and Murphy, 2002). It is also common for classes designated as tutorials or seminars to take on a form akin to a lecture if the teacher has transmissive beliefs about teaching (Kember, 1997). The typical lecture class of a transmissive teacher features almost entirely oneway communication. The channels from student to teacher are inactive, except perhaps for a token request for questions at the end. Audio is the predominant

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medium. Visuals are normally restricted to key phrases from the lecture. At one time these were written on a blackboard, but now PowerPoint is more common. About the only type of learning activity featured is students sitting passively listening to the lecture – and it is debatable whether this is a learning activity at all. The main reason why this type of teaching takes place is that the teachers have teacher-centred, content-oriented beliefs about the nature of teaching. They believe that their role is to deliver a body of content which the students absorb. In Chapter 2 evidence was presented that those holding these beliefs teach in ways which tend not to encourage meaningful learning. If teachers with these beliefs fail to take advantage of communication channels and facilities in a classroom, it is hard to imagine them making effective educational use of sophisticated communication networks. Just as it is in the classroom, the quality of teaching has more to do with the teacher than with the technology.

Research into the effect of media There is also no guarantee that if a channel is used it will be used well. There is often an assumption that a richer technological environment will lead to better learning outcomes. Every time a new form of educational technology is introduced there is always a rash of research studies aiming to show that it leads to better learning outcomes. The normal format for studies of this type is an experiment–control design in which the innovative form of teaching utilising the new medium is compared to a ‘control’. This type of research design is adopted from earlier established disciplines which followed the scientific method. In biological field trials the control would typically be a plot which received no treatment, while others received measured amounts of the variables under study. In medical trials the principle is similar, except that the control group receives a placebo to counter any psychological effects of administering or not receiving medicine. Such designs are hard to reproduce for educational research in higher education. It is certainly not practicable to offer a group of students no treatment or instruction after they have paid their fees. Nor is there any obvious educational equivalent of a placebo. Given the unrealistic nature of a genuine control which eschews treatment, the control groups in studies in higher education have by convention received teaching. The difference between the experiment and control groups is not the presence or absence of treatment but differing types of teaching or treatment. The control group receives teaching which is more conventional or normal, usually the type of teaching that was used prior to the introduction of the innovation. The experiment–control design in higher education, therefore, compares two differing types of teaching, rather than comparing a treatment with the absence of a treatment. As the control group is taught, rather than having no treatment at all, there are problems in ensuring that the two groups are genuinely comparable. Educational

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media comparison studies have been criticised on this basis by a number of writers (e.g., Clark, 1985, 1994; Levie and Dickie, 1973; Schram, 1977). Clark (1983) suggests that content differences between treatments often confound results. Compelling evidence for this assertion comes from the observation that any positive effects for new media more or less disappeared if the same teacher gave or produced the instruction for each treatment group. This is in spite of the temptation for a teacher–researcher to put more effort into the experimental teaching. Reproducibility of types of teaching The rationale for employing an experiment–control design is normally advanced in terms of it providing a way to make generalisations about the effectiveness of a particular type of teaching medium. The argument is frequently advanced that if teaching through a medium such as the web was more effective in a properly run experimental design, that type of teaching will also be more effective in other contexts. The lack of homogeneity or reproducibility in teaching by a particular medium makes generalisation from trials or experiment–control designs problematic. It is much more difficult to have reproducible treatments in education then in medicine or biology. A certain dosage of a particular medicine or fertiliser is not hard to reproduce, but particular types of teaching take on many different forms. The types of claim which tend to be made, for example, are that web-based teaching is effective in achieving specified learning outcomes. The problem with claims like these is that implementations of the use of a specified medium can differ radically. Just because one case of using a method of teaching proved effective, that does not mean that generalisations can be made to all cases, because the other cases can differ quite markedly in the way they are designed and implemented. Even within the period of introducing a new method of teaching, the effectiveness can vary considerably between an initial trial and a revised format which learned from the errors of the trial. The differences are even greater when the innovation refers to teaching which utilises particular media, such as web-based teaching. There are instructors who have seen the information-searching capabilities of the web as means of allowing students to practise and develop their abilities to research relevant information and contribute to self-managed learning capabilities. Others have utilised the communication channels of the web to form virtual communities of critical thinkers. Yet others, with an information-transmission conception of teaching, have loaded their entire set of notes, laboratory instructions, PowerPoint slides and recommended readings on to a website. These differing uses of various categories of web-based teaching seem to be aiming towards quite different types of learning outcomes. Finer-grained detail of how a site is conceived, developed and used will also impact markedly upon effectiveness and outcomes.

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Conclusion The UKOU model of distance teaching has been so influential that it has been adopted in almost every part of the world, with the exception of North America. That region has escaped the hegemony by instead tending to take a more technology-oriented approach by linking students in different centres to the professor on the main campus. The model can be attractive to university staff used to conventional university teaching because it requires less adaptation. The model offers the potential for interactive dialogue, which was a limitation in correspondence and open university models of distance education until the communication channels of the internet became available. But there is only a benefit to teaching if the interactive potential is fully exploited. If instructors have a transmissive conception of teaching and transmit instruction to the distance learners, the two-way facilities are not fully exploited. There is abundant evidence of widespread use and undesirable learning outcomes from the transmissive model for face-to-face teaching and no reason to suppose that the same effects do not apply at a distance.

Chapter 11

The loneliness of the distance learner

Keegan’s definition of distance education (1986, p. 49) separates not only the teacher from the learner, but the learners from each other. Distance education is characterised as an individual rather than a group activity: ‘the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialisation purposes’. This definition aimed to include as much of what went under the banner of distance education as possible. It therefore seems likely that this part of the definition provides an accurate description of most distance education courses. Distance learning is a lonely activity. This point is of significance as most other forms of education are undertaken as class or group activities. Students entering distance education programmes through open entry schemes will be familiar with learning in classes or groups, but are likely to have little, and often no, experience of formal learning as an individual. The following parts of this chapter examine the consequences to the distance learner of having to learn in isolation for the large majority of the time. The advantages which accrue from learning with others are examined. The role of socialisation in reducing drop-out is considered. This leads to a discussion of the role of contact in distance education. Finally, the need for interaction is examined from a cultural perspective.

Benefits of group learning Conventional education features timetabled classes. In a sense all learning in class takes place in groups. However, the literature on collaborative, co-operative or group learning focuses on learning activities in which students engage with other students, usually in sub-groups within the class. The most common form of class in higher education, the lecture (Lammers and Murphy, 2002), is not counted as collaborative learning. While there may be many students in the lecture hall, they are normally learning as individuals. Included within this literature are group activities, initiated by the teacher, and completed partly in class and partly out of class hours as an assignment. A good

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example is a group project. The projects are assigned to groups by the teacher. Often there are meetings at intervals between the teacher and student groups to monitor progress and provide assistance. The activity commonly culminates with each group presenting their conclusions to the rest of the class, so that everyone learns from each project. There have been many studies which have demonstrated the effectiveness of collaborative learning in the achievement of desired learning outcomes (Humphreys et al., 1982; Slavin, 1983, 1987; Topping, 1992; Webb, 1985). The outcomes are particularly fruitful if there are clear and commonly accepted group goals and individual accountability. Cooper and Mueck (1992) stress the importance of students working together to determine goals and the processes by which they will be achieved. Individual accountability can be achieved by the group members recognising that the group goals are dependent upon the individual members being fully committed to the task (Johnson et al., 1981; Slavin, 1983). Collaborative learning is particularly appropriate for higher education as it has been shown to be effective in promoting higher-order conceptual learning (Fraser et al., 1977; Sherman and Thomas, 1986). Co-operative learning has been shown to be effective in developing problem-solving skills and for promoting the understanding of concepts (Damon, 1984; Meloth and Deering, 1992; Qin et al., 1995; Webb, 1989). Peer tutoring A subset of collaborative learning is peer tutoring, which can be described as one student teaching other students. There are a variety of ways in which peer tutoring has been utilised in classroom education (see, e.g., Goldschmid and Goldschmid, 1976; Goodlad and Hirst, 1989). The teacher has a role in peer tutoring as a manager in setting up the tutoring scheme, forming the groups and setting the tasks. They may also provide guidance and training for the tutors. Again there has been a substantial volume of research examining the outcomes of peer tutoring. In this case it is convenient to examine a number of meta-analyses of the research. Cohen et al. (1982) conducted a meta-analysis of fifty-two peertutoring studies and found significant achievement gains for both tutors and tutees. Three other meta-analyses (Hattie, 1992; Hartley, 1977; Levin et al., 1987) found that was very effective compared to other types of educational intervention. Hattie (1992), for example, synthesised 134 meta-analyses of various types of educational innovation and found the second-largest effect size for peer tutoring. Out-of-class group learning While there has been a great deal of research into teacher-initiated group learning, there has been much less into out-of-class group learning initiated by students themselves. The distinction between this category and the two above is that the teacher does not play a role in forming the groups or designating the task as one

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to be conducted collaboratively. Students decide independently that it is in their interests to collaborate on a study task or work together to understand material. Tang (1993) interviewed thirty-nine physiotherapy students in Hong Kong and discovered that 90 per cent learned collaboratively for assignments or tests. The type of study activities reported by the collaborative students indicated that they were more likely to engage in strategies requiring a deep approach than students studying alone. Comparison of assignments classified by the SOLO taxonomy (Biggs and Collis, 1982) indicated that collaborative learning resulted in significantly better-structured assignments. A potential source of confusion from Tang’s work is that she used the term ‘spontaneous collaborative learning’ to describe the type of collaboration. The work of Yan (2001), though, showed that the affiliations between student groups could be long term and the patterns of behaviour quite stable. Yan conducted fiftyseven individual and fifteen focus group interviews with Hong Kong students to investigate out-of-class learning activities performed by groups of students of their own volition. Yan and Kember (2004a) reported that just about all of the interviewees engaged in collaborative activities which could be placed on a spectrum from low to high task involvement. Yan and Kember (2004b) showed that the types of activities could be classified into engager or avoider approaches, which were parallel to the individual deep and surface learning approaches. Engager approaches were focused on collaboration to gain a better understanding of a concept, while avoider approaches were adopted to minimise the work of individuals in a group. Yan and Kember (2003, in press) showed that the nature of the teaching and learning environment strongly influenced both the degree of collaborative learning and whether engager or avoider approaches were adopted. Creating an appropriate teaching and learning environment promoted out-of-class relationships and encouraged the deployment of engager approaches, which resulted in students helping each other to understand key concepts and hence achieved high-quality learning outcomes. Collaborative learning The above sections have considered the benefits of three types of collaborative learning in conventional higher education. The first was co-operative learning organised by the teacher for tasks specified by the teacher. The second was peer tutoring of students by other students. The final type was student collaboration outof-class of their own volition. In the first two cases there has been substantial evidence of the benefits of collaborative learning and its superiority to individual study. The third category has generated considerably less research, but what there is provides convincing evidence of the benefits of co-operation in learning and some indication of superiority over studying as an individual.

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Integration and persistence Another set of evidence for the importance of interaction comes from models of student drop-out or persistence. Spady (1970, 1971) and Tinto (1975, 1987) both drew upon Durkheim’s (1961) model of suicide in formulating models of college attrition. In Durkheim’s model, suicide is more likely to occur if at least one of two forms of integration is lacking: either insufficient collective affiliation or insufficient moral or value integration; that is, low normative congruence. The latter form of integration was dealt with in Chapter 7. It is concerned with the degree to which the student is able to empathise with the academic environment and to accommodate the demands of the university or college. The degree of integration hinges upon the compatibility between the student’s conception of academic study and the requirement, demands and conventions of the university. The conclusion of that chapter was that many students, and particularly those in developing countries, find it hard to achieve normative congruence with the type of study demanded by distance education because they have abundant experience of learning face-to-face, but many have little, or no, experience of the formal individual study required by distance education. Furthermore, the difficulty of adapting to this type of learning is often compounded by conceptions of teaching and learning which are incompatible with independent learning. Collective affiliation The other element of integration, collective affiliation, is more pertinent to this chapter. Durkheim’s theory suggested that suicide was more likely among those who did not feel themselves to be an integral part of an established social network. That is to say those who commit suicide are more likely to feel socially isolated as they have not developed collective affiliation with a social grouping. By analogy, students were more likely to drop out from college if they failed to establish collective affiliation by not becoming an established member of college society. Those who became part of a social network were more likely to persist with their studies. Tinto (1975, 1987) suggested that the normal mechanisms for establishing collective affiliation were through teacher–student and student–student contact. Universities which wanted to have high levels of student persistence needed to encourage their staff to interact with students and to put on events like orientation functions to enable the students to get to know each other and form friendships. Social integration in distance education Tinto (1982) offered the caution that his model had been developed from research into full-time on-campus students at conventional universities. If it were to be applied to other types of education, the characteristics of the form would have to be considered. If there were distinctions which affected the fundamental mechanisms of the model, it would need adaptation.

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The distance education scenario is characterised by students who study on their own for most of the time at a distance from the campus of the institution. As the main mechanisms for ensuring integration and establishing collective affiliation in Tinto’s model are direct teacher–student and student–student contact, there is clearly a fundamental schism with the model. To encourage persistence, the model postulates a need for collective affiliation or the development of a sense of belonging. Collective affiliation is seen principally as a product of personal contact, yet a distance education student can proceed through a course without any direct contact with either teachers or fellow students. Given that most of the study normally takes place at a distance, development of a sense of belonging would appear to be considerably harder to achieve than in conventional education. To compound the difficulty, most distance education students are part time. In addition to coping with the demands of studying at a distance, it has to be accommodated alongside commitments to work, family and social lives. In Kember (1995) I proposed a weaker variant of social integration for distance education students which referred to the degree to which the student is able to integrate the demands of part-time study with the continuing commitments of work, family and social life. Subsequent work has identified three mechanisms by which students can achieve this accommodation: sacrifice, support and the negotiation of arrangements (Kember, 1999). These three mechanisms all exist in the four domains of the self, work, family and social lives (Kember et al., 2005; Kember and Leung, 2004; Yum et al., 2005). Failure to establish mechanisms is likely to result in drop-out. This redefined form of social integration can be seen as a necessary type of integration, but a weaker form than developing a sense of belonging. Establishing mechanisms for coping with the demands of part-time study at a distance are a condition for completing the demands of the course. Developing a sense of belonging can function as a motivational spur for putting in the necessary time and effort and overcoming the difficulties of adapting to individual study at a distance.

The place of human contact in distance education The previous sections have shown the benefits of collaborative learning in faceto-face teaching. It has also been established that the main mechanism for achieving collective affiliation is through teacher–student and student–student interaction. It therefore seems to be important to discuss the role of these forms of interaction in distance education. There has for a long time been debate about the need for group activities and the place of human contact in distance education. Views which have been expressed can be placed on a spectrum from those who believe there is no need for any human contact to advocacy of levels of contact approaching those of classroom-based education. Views towards the no-contact end of the spectrum were advanced in a paper titled, ‘Is any face-to-face contact necessary in distance education?’ by

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Taylor and White (1981). They suggested that cognitive objectives do not necessarily demand face-to-face contact and that a large proportion of the courses they examined contained only cognitive objectives. They noted, however, that many of these courses did have residential schools or other forms of contact and so drew the following conclusion: Perhaps, the resources allocated to these activities could be better spent on the development of instructional strategies designed specifically to promote the achievement of objectives in the cognitive domain. None of these strategies necessarily demand face-to-face contact. (Taylor and White, 1981, pp. 7–8) It is probably true that most of the specified objectives for university courses would be in the cognitive domain. However, this viewpoint assumes that learning at a distance or achieving cognitive objectives can be a purely cognitive process. This assumption is highly questionable in view of the preceding discussion on the importance of integration in promoting persistence in distance learning. It appears to be necessary for attention to be paid to the affective domain to motivate students to apply themselves to mastering objectives in the cognitive domain. Not surprisingly, a contrary position was taken by prominent figures in the support service network operated by the UKOU. Sewart (1981) argued that the human element had an important role to play in adapting the study package to the almost infinite variety of student needs. He argued that it was inefficient, if not impossible, for a study package to cater for the learning needs of all students, particularly as adult learners tend to be heterogeneous. Smith and Kelly (1987) adopted a position which was a precursor to the advent of flexible learning. They argued that there was a trend towards the convergence of distance and conventional face-to-face education. They saw evidence of conventional education making more use of learning resources and distance education incorporating higher levels of interaction. It is notable that both authors were working in Australian distance education at the time, and their examples were largely drawn from dual-mode institutions. There is little evidence of the trend they foresaw spreading to single-mode institutions. Indeed, the degree of convergence in dual-mode institutions could be considered to have failed to live up to their predictions. There is clearly a divergence of opinion over whether it is of value to have interaction between teacher and students and student–student contact. What can be said safely is that the levels of human contact in distance education are normally markedly lower than is the case in conventional education. It would not be possible to include in a definition the separation of the students from the teacher and fellow students if high degrees of contact were common.

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Face-to-face contact in developing countries This observation appears to apply to both developed and developing countries. If it is possible to generalise, it seems that open universities in developing countries have lagged behind the model of the UKOU in developing an extensive local support system for providing face-to-face contact. Perraton (2000, p. 98) observes that open universities in developing countries ‘have been disappointed in what they have been able to achieve’ in terms of face-to-face study. In some ways this is surprising. Many of the UKOU’s students enrol in distance education programmes because they are mature students with work and family commitments which preclude full-time study. These obligations must also place a degree of restriction on the extent to which they are able to participate in tutorials and other forms of face-to-face contact. The UKOU, nevertheless, has consistently maintained its extensive and intensive support network. By contrast, distance education students in developing countries are often youths who have been unable to gain a place at a conventional university. They may be less restricted from attending tutorials by commitments to family and social lives. They will probably be working, but it may still be possible to fit in evening or weekend classes alongside work commitments. The part-time face-to-face mode of study is both common and popular in Hong Kong, for example. The continuing studies providers offer a wide range of programmes at various levels offered by this mode. There has also been a substantial growth in enrolments for postgraduate degrees, the majority of which are part-time programmes taught face-to-face with classes in the evenings and/or at weekends. It might be argued that the demographics of Hong Kong suit this mode of study: there is a high population density within reach of universities and study centres. However, a high proportion of distance education students in developing countries, particularly in Asia, also live in large cities. Manjulika and Reddy (1996) observed that distance education enrolments in India mirrored the bias of conventional universities towards the urban upper classes. It would therefore seem likely that many distance education students in developing countries would be able to attend face-to-face sessions were they to be provided. However, in the main, this potential does not seem to be exploited.

Do distance learners want contact? The previous section examined the position of distance educators and open universities with respect to the need for contact and interaction in distance education. It is now time to consider the views of the students. Have they chosen to be distance learners because they have a preference for individual study? Alternatively, did they enrol in a distance education course because it was the only mode with open entry? Would they prefer to have greater contact with the teacher and fellow students if that were possible? Would they have preferred to study face-to-face if a suitable open entry course were available?

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Thorpe (1987) claimed to have identified groups of distance learners who chose the mode because they perceived no need for contact with other students or tutors. However, these students were a very small minority. Thorpe et al. (1986) reported that less than 10 per cent of a large sample of students of the UKOU reported no direct contact with tutors or other students. Even that small percentage would have contained many who could not, rather than did not want to, make contact. Positive reaction to tutorials In the Hong Kong part of the persistence study (Kember et al., 1992) there was little evidence of any students who wished to study in isolation. The large majority of the students expressed a preference for meetings with the tutor to be as a group rather than as a one-to-one counselling session if that were possible. They also wanted to meet as a face-to-face class, rather than communicate through virtual or teleconference channels. The overall reactions of students to tutorials are well summarised by responses to two items on the questionnaire used in the part-time study. In response to the item ‘The tutorials help me to understand the study materials’, 84.7 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed. Furthermore, 88.8 per cent agreed with the statement, ‘I would have preferred more contact with tutors’. The latter response is notable in view of the already high levels of tutorial support in the evaluated courses compared to most distance education courses elsewhere. These findings are both confirmed and elaborated by the interviews. One indication of the value students placed on tutorials is attendance. No attempt was made to collect precise registers of attendance, but from the interview comments it was possible to allocate the students to relative attendance categories. Eighty per cent of those interviewed suggested that they attended all or most tutorials and only two students said they never attended any. Even with this high turnout a number of students suggested that their attendance would have been higher if it were not for clashes with work duties. Students in the textile and clothing course seemed particularly affected: ‘For several reasons I seldom attend tutorials. Firstly, I’m busy at work; secondly, when there are any foreign buyers coming to Hong Kong, as part of my duties I need to go out with them for business entertainment which is usually held at night’ (Hong Kong – Textiles and Clothing 1). There seemed to be little published data on tutorial attendance for distance education courses elsewhere with which these findings could be compared. Kelly (1987, p. 284) drew upon a number of surveys of UKOU students to arrive at the conclusion that ‘between about two-thirds and three-quarters of the student population attend at least one tutorial and . . . perhaps a third or more attend some or most tutorials’. Attendance at tutorials for distance education courses offered by an Australian institution was about 20 per cent of eligible students (Mezger, 1983). One might expect Hong Kong to have higher attendance figures than those in other countries where the population is less concentrated so the students are further from tutorial centres. Even with this proviso in mind, it is reasonable to suggest that

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Hong Kong distance learning students do have a high propensity to attend tutorials: ‘I prefer face-to-face classes because I will be able to listen to other students’ problems’ (Hong Kong – OLIHK). Not only was there no evidence of students wishing to study in isolation, but there seemed to be marked ambivalence concerning mode of study. When asked which mode of study they would prefer, the responses were about evenly divided between full-time face-to-face, part-time face-to-face and distance learning. Many replies were couched with riders or conditions: ‘Full-time is not possible. I will choose part-time if the number of lectures does not exceed twice per week, otherwise I will choose distance learning which will save me a lot of travelling time to the Polytechnic’ (Hong Kong – Student Guidance). In developed countries many adult students are unable to choose full-time study because of work and/or family commitments. This would also be the case for a proportion of students in developing countries. A significant proportion of the Hong Kong students had quite a different reason for not studying full time: they were unable to because they had not won a place in the highly selective tertiary education system. The same would be true of a substantial proportion of potential and actual distance education students in other developing countries. Expressing a preference for full-time study therefore has an element of ambiguity in that some of the students would still harbour desires to qualify for entry to more prestigious fulltime courses at conventional universities. There is a widely accepted hierarchy of prestige in courses in Hong Kong, topped by full-time courses in the conventional universities. Between universities there is also a widely accepted hierarchy topped by the research-intensive universities, followed by the former polytechnics and then those which used to be colleges. Part-time study for undergraduate degrees by distance education would be perceived by most to have lower status than the full-time courses at the conventional universities, particularly since many of those enrolling in these courses had tried and failed to gain a place at the conventional universities. A preference for fulltime study could therefore simply be the expression of a wish that examination results had been good enough to qualify for a place at one of the conventional universities. The ambiguity in students’ minds becomes apparent when a student believes that flexibility is the best aspect of a distance learning course but also expresses a preference for full-time study. The following quotations were from one student who was asked for the best aspect of distance learning and for their preferred mode of study: The freedom of choice, i.e. I can control the study time myself. I would prefer full-time study which is more realistic, concentrated and without work pressure. Being part-time learners, I would say that full-time work is the main influence on my study because some overtime work, business trips, casual leave for exams are unavoidable. (Hong Kong – Textiles and Clothing 4)

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In summary, distance education courses inevitably have less class contact than full-time courses. This does not imply that those who enrol in such courses want no classes at all. In fact quite the contrary: the available evidence suggests that many students perceive benefits from contact. Many students in the Hong Kong persistence study had clearly enrolled in distance education courses because of the open entry policy rather than because they wished to be distance learners. If an alternative course with convenient face-to-face classes had been available, that would have been the preferred option for many. Given the evidence reported in Chapter 7, this is likely to be the case for many students in developing countries. From the student perspective, there is no reason for distance education courses in developing countries not to offer more flexible variations with greater degrees of face-to-face contact. This may be moving away from the definition of distance education, but many of the distance learners in developing countries may have chosen the mode because it was their only option for open entry, rather than because of a preference for learning at a distance and in isolation.

Collective affiliation As many distance education students seem willing to attend face-to-face sessions and a substantial proportion appear to be keen to do so, it seems worthwhile to examine evidence of the benefits of such contact. It is not easy to demonstrate that effective learning outcomes are promoted through collaborative learning in distance education. The mode of study is characterised by the separation of teacher and student and the absence of contact between students for most of the period of study. Distance education researchers have not, therefore, seen the outcomes of collaborative learning as a primary topic for research. The benefits of co-operation in terms of promoting learning have been well demonstrated, though, in other modes of education, as was noted earlier in this chapter. There is no reason to assume that they would not also apply to a distance education course which became more flexible by including a significant component of face-to-face learning. As there is little direct research on collaborative learning in distance education, this section concentrates upon the effect of developing collective affiliation and hence promoting the tendency towards students persisting with their studies. Collective affiliation means, in this context, that students feel that they are an integral part of the university community: they recognise that there is a community of students and feel that they are a valued member of it. Mahony and Morgan (1991) refer to a ‘sense of belonging’, which they interpret as an umbrella term encompassing issues of affiliation, status and recognition. They suggest that these factors have an influence on drop-out rates.

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Sense of belonging The construct of a sense of belonging was specifically examined in the part-time project. Only sixteen of the sample for this project were distance learning students from the OUHK. The remainder were studying part-time face-to-face courses. They would experience more contact than most students in distance education courses but less than full-time students at conventional universities. They can therefore be considered relevant to the thesis examined here, as they can give insights into the potential benefits of enhancing distance education with greater levels of face-toface contact. The first important insight to emerge from the part-time project was that if sense of belonging developed it was to a particular focus rather than being an abstract construct (Kember, Lee and Li, 2001). The interview transcripts showed that there were four logical foci towards which a sense of belonging could develop: the class group or peer students; the teaching staff; the department; and the university. Determining the relative strength of the belonging to each of these foci was complicated by there being two measures of association. One was the number of students expressing association to the focus. The other was the student’s expression of the strength of the sense of belonging to the focus. Nevertheless, it was possible to identify a clear trend. The strongest sense of belonging was to the class or tutorial group. The next strongest affiliation was to the tutor or teacher. Both of these ranked well ahead of the remaining two. Of these two, affiliation to the department was stronger than that to the university. This ordering suggests that the main mechanism for establishing a sense of belonging is by initially forming relationships with a relatively small number of people to whom the student has access and feels able to approach. Liaisons with class groups tend to form via friendships with a small circle of close contacts. Contact with the tutor will be regular, but the formality of the relationship may make a sense of belonging harder to establish than to fellow students. The final two foci of the department and the university can be visualised as either relatively large bodies of people or abstract constructs. The latter visualisation would make a sense of belonging hard to establish as relationships tend to be personal rather than to entities (Kember, Lee and Li, 2001). The former would suggest that a sense of belonging would take a considerable time to develop as the effect would be progressive, building from initial friendship groups to a larger and larger circle of acquaintances. This tentative conclusion will be considered against further evidence from the part-time study. Principally by examination of quotations in the sections which follow. There is also some evidence from the persistence study. This evidence is somewhat less direct as the construct was not specifically investigated. There is, though, indirect evidence, since sense of belonging appears to relate to topics which were investigated. The sequence followed is affiliation via fellow students, then through the teacher and finally to the university. There is no section on affiliation to the department.

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This is because this type of affiliation developed only in students taking part-time courses taught face-to-face and where the programme was clearly affiliated to a particular department. As students were taught by a succussion of teachers from the department, they established relationships with the teachers in turn, and this developed eventually into a sense of belonging to the department. In open universities it is more normal for students to enrol with the university and be presented with a fairly open choice of courses offered by a range of departments. Indeed, it may not be obvious from the prospectus which department courses belong to, or what the departmental structure of the university is. From the interviews in the persistence and part-time studies, there was little evidence of OUHK students developing a sense of belonging to a department, except possibly in professional programmes, like nursing, where most courses come from the particular department and choice tends to be restricted.

Belonging to class group Of the fifty-three interviewees for the part-time project, thirty students reported that a strong sense of belonging had developed through affiliation to the class group or student peers. It is instructive to note that twenty-three of these were from the sub-sample of novice students. The attachment had not, therefore, taken long to develop. Within a collaborative group atmosphere, students built up a mutual understanding and assisted each other: ‘I am glad to talk with my classmates and share our study experience’ (part-time – novice); ‘I feel happy with my classmates. I get along with them very well and we got to know each other very fast. We help each other all the time . . . I have a great experience with my classmates. I like that’ (part-time – novice). The size of the group was a factor contributing to the success of group affiliation. The smaller groups tended to have a stronger sense of belonging among group members: ‘If the class was a small group, the relationship among students will be better. The sense of belonging will become stronger’ (part-time – novice). The converse argument came from several students in one course who felt that their tutorial group size was too large for effective communication: ‘It is strange to have a tutorial group for one to over twenty students. Since it is difficult to have closer communication with the tutor, I would prefer the tutorial group limited to six or seven students only’ (Hong Kong – Education 7). Developing sense of belonging through class discussion There were an appreciable number of comments within the transcripts, for both the part-time and the persistence studies, which indicated that a strong sense of belonging had developed within tutorials and classes. The predominant mechanism for developing affiliation was through discussion and group activities within the classes. The most effective way to develop affinity within class groups was to arrange activities which promoted discussion or group work among students so

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that they get to know each other. Many students claimed that they treasured the chance of developing relationships through discussion and group work activities. They reported that the nature of the course was an important factor in getting to know one another. In conventional higher education it has been found that courses which rely mainly on didactic teaching are less successful in developing class cohesion than those which feature group activities and discussion (Yan and Kember, 2003, 2004a, 2004b). We are very close. For the first few modules, we had to do group work. So, we are familiar with our group members. Apart from attending university, we became good friends. Sometimes we will go out together. We are very harmonious. Now, the nature of the modules requires us to work together. So, we are closer. (Part-time – novice) Kelly (1979) reported criteria which could help people to be socialised and build up feelings of competence and achievement. Two of the principal factors were a social environment which offered chances for offering voluntary help and personal interaction and the presence of various formal and informal settings which promoted social interactions. It was clear from the interviews that learning activities in class were meeting these criteria. Aalto and Jalava (1995, p. 258) pointed out that: ‘For most students, feedback, group work and group discussions appear to be the most important forms of support.’ When students developed a relationship within their classes it led to a strong sense of belonging and positive feelings about the course generally: ‘I attend almost every class and tutorial although it is not compulsory. These really give me a sense of belonging. I am glad to talk with my classmates and share our studying experiences’ (part-time – novice). Student–student contact out-of-class Relationships which built up through the in-class activities could develop into outof-class study support groups in which peer students helped each other to learn. Assimilation into groups could be a powerful technique in promoting understanding, through students learning from one another: I also joined a study group. Although I wanted to do so at the first degree, it was not possible. Now, I meet two male classmates, who are teachers, two weeks before assignment deadlines. We review the study guide and assignment file, and discuss the approaches to the questions. It definitely helps. Since our views vary, we learn more approaches afterwards. (Part-time – experienced) If courses had a specific vocational or professional nature it seemed to help foster and develop relationships between students. There was value in discussing work issues as well as the course:

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I talk a lot to other students. We usually go down to the canteen for chit-chat before the class starts. As my work role is a full-time counsellor, which is a bit different from other teachers who are involved in both teaching and counselling, they are keen to know about the situation in a technical institute, because their students are also likely to become our students one day. (Hong Kong – Student Guidance) By far the most common form of out-of-class co-operative learning was the informal type in which students met together of their own volition to support each other’s learning and study. A small number of courses required out-of-class learning through set activities, such as group projects. The education course in the persistence project required the students to make contact and work with other students in groups of five. The requirement of out-of-class group work was certainly not as common, though, as it has become in conventional higher education. This is presumably out of respect for the part-time status of the students, which obviously limits the extent to which students are able to meet to work together. The part-time status of the students meant that work and other activities had to take priority and did not leave much time for group work: Since we all work, we may not have time to discuss it together. [The success of] group work depends on the team, but the team can hardly meet. There are five students in one group, but a maximum of three meet. One may need to work. One may be engaged with other business. (Part-time – novice) The interviewed students in the persistence project were asked whether they talked with other students enrolled in their course. About one-third of the students would be classified from their responses as having little or no contact with other students. The remainder would be placed somewhere on a continuum from communicating with other students only while attending tutorial meetings to keeping in contact outside tutorial times. There is also some evidence of quite high levels of contact between students outside tutorial times: ‘I seldom talk to other students’ (Hong Kong – Taxation); ‘We talk when we meet in the class. We always talk about the course content’ (Hong Kong – Student Guidance); ‘Yes, we interchange our telephone numbers as well. We usually cross-check our CMA answers’ (Hong Kong – OLI); ‘I talked to other students during the first tutorial class. We not only interchanged our name cards, we also communicate about the latest textile information’ (Hong Kong – Textiles and Clothing). For those with the strongest affinity, the group affiliation developed into close friendships instead of being merely classmates: For peer students, one thing I am quite surprised is that we still have some social gathering with people doing different projects even after lessons now.

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We play ball games at fixed time. One of the classmates holds some charity activities. It helps us build up the affinity. (Part-time – novice)

Tutor–student interaction The second-strongest mechanism for developing a sense of belonging came from affiliation to the tutor or teacher. The essence of the collective affiliation which contributes to academic integration depends on the quality and quantity of contact between the student and the tutor. The personal contact of tutorials seems to be particularly effective at providing collective affiliation: ‘When I know a tutor is coming for a visit I work hard to catch up with the assignments. I can ask the tutor about all the work I did not understand. After the visits I always feel encouraged so I work hard’ (PNG student). When tutors go out of their way to help students they can make a significant contribution to developing a student’s collective affiliation. In the case of Mr L., quoted below, even the brief counselling notes convey the efforts of the tutors and the relationship which would have built up between counsellor and student. These supportive actions must have established a high degree of integration between the student and the academic institution. The integration would have strengthened the student’s commitment to succeed with the course, even in the face of difficulties. A detailed diagnosis was sent to the senior counsellor who authorized special sessions. Dr S., Dr P. and I (the counsellor also did some tutoring in science) have all agreed to mark late work with the concurrence of the senior counsellor and the staff tutor. This student is generally weak. He is also taking two courses. I think he would have struggled in any case without his long working hours. However if he makes it at the end of the year, our efforts will have been worthwhile. (Mr L. is still studying with the Open University in 1976, even though in 1974 he was made redundant at work.) (Kennedy and Powell, 1976, Case A, p. 71) It is not enough merely to provide tutorial contact. Quality is important as well as quantity. Negative reactions to tutors can mean that a sense of belonging does not develop. Tutoring which is perceived as very poor can mean that there is a sense of alienation rather than integration. As an example, a student cited as a contributing reason for his withdrawal: ‘the arrogant manner of the lecturer-incharge in his consideration of late assignments and his decision in failing my work’ (University of Tasmania).

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Nature of contact Interviewees in the persistence study were asked about their preference for the mode of contact between student and tutor. At the time of the interviews the choice was between direct face-to-face contact in tutorials and telephone tutoring or counselling. Only one student expressed a preference for contact via telephone counselling (because it generated a faster response). The remaining interviewees preferred direct face-to-face contact with the tutors. The large majority of the students expressed a preference for the meeting with the tutor to be in a group rather than as a one-to-one counselling session if that were possible: ‘I prefer face-toface classes because I will be able to listen to other students’ problems’ (Hong Kong – OLI). Direct personal contact undoubtedly helps to build up collective affiliation. Getting to know someone over the telephone is not as effective (Williams and Chapanis, 1976). Establishing rapport with others over the telephone is more difficult and leads to weaker levels of affiliation. However, some level of collective affiliation can be developed through telephone contact, and it is certainly better than no contact at all: Before the telephone tutorials were introduced I was studying in complete isolation. I had no contact with other students and the only contact with lecturers was the comments on assignments. I think the telephone tutorials are a good idea because Philosophy is a difficult subject to study by yourself. (University of Tasmania) Research into teleconferences indicates that they are more effective if relationships have been established prior to the conference by a previous face-to-face meeting. When it comes to tasks such as exchanging information, problem-solving and generating ideas, telephones are as effective as direct contact (Williams and Chapanis, 1976). Research into telephone tutorials indicates that they are more task-oriented and possibly more efficient than face-to-face ones (Rutter and Robinson, 1981). However, they do lack the affective dimension present in faceto-face meetings which is so important for developing collective affiliation. It seems quite probable that email or online support for students is also less effective in developing collective affiliation than face-to-face tutorials. Price et al. (2007) compared online tutorial support, through a combination of computermediated conferencing and email, with conventional tutorial support, through limited face-to-face sessions with some contact by telephone and email. They conducted three studies comparing the experience of UKOU students in the same course with online and tutorial support. In all three studies the students reported poorer experiences and lower levels of achievement with online tuition than with face-to-face tuition. The consistency between findings for telephone and online contact suggest that face-to-face meetings are an important ingredient in establishing a sense of belonging.

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To establish collective affiliation there needs to be a sufficient level of contact and communication between the university and the students. Taylor et al. (1986) thought that their multi-institutional study provided some evidence that increased contact between institution and student increased integration and hence persistence. However, as they caution, the data was not easy to interpret, since persisting students have greater opportunities for contact. The human contact of the academic support system provides a clear opportunity for enhancing collective affiliation. There is contact between tutor and students, while the meeting also provides an opportunity for student–student interaction. Collective affiliation is more likely to result if tutors devote their time to tutoring and counselling, rather than to alternative programmes devoted solely to socialisation. Kember and Dekkers (1987, pp. 9–11) found that students placed limited value on social functions with either fellow students or academic staff. The affective element of a good tutorial appears to be as good if not better at developing collective affiliation than social events. Friendships can develop, but more through collective study experiences than events specifically devoted to socialising. Busy part-time students need to feel that attending a tutorial is worthwhile.

Sense of belonging to university The preceding sections have established that a sense of belonging can develop through direct student–student and tutor–student contact. Face-to-face interaction seems to be important in developing a sense of affinity. It would not seem easy, therefore, to develop a sense of belonging to an abstract construct like a university. Even at a conventional university, where students spent lengthy periods on-campus, affinity might be expected to develop initially to fellow students and teachers. Collegial affiliation could eventually nurture a sense of belonging to the university. When students study at a distance they may never visit the main campus of the university, so they will have no physical presence to envisage. In which case the university becomes a very abstract idea towards which it is hard to develop affinity. The persistence study included Hong Kong education students of Deakin University, based in Australia. The programme was good at developing student– student affiliations through its activities based on groups of five. However, this did not extrapolate to a sense of belonging to the university: ‘There is no sense of belonging because geographically Deakin is very far from us’ (Hong Kong – Education); ‘No, because I don’t even have any idea of what the university looks like. I might pay a visit there one day’ (Hong Kong – Education). Even the Hong Kong students who were enrolled in distance education courses with institutions in their own city found it hard to feel a part of the university. Attending tutorials once a month was insufficient for the students to feel a sense of belonging to the institution. The external façade of a large and complex organisation can present a daunting aspect to those who visit it infrequently.

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Being a distance learner in the Hong Kong Polytechnic, my feeling of a sense of belonging is very little because I only come for the tutorial once a month. In addition to that I seldom use the Polytechnic facilities. Even though I am a distance learning student here, I don’t feel any sense of belonging because the Polytechnic cannot provide many facilities for us; unlike part-time evening students where regular classes meet every week. (Both Hong Kong – Textiles) Mixed-mode institutions may also face a handicap in nurturing a sense of belonging in students other than those enrolled in full-time face-to-face programmes. It might appear to those in part-time and distance education courses that they are peripheral while the main business of the university lies in teaching its full-time students. This would then make it even more difficult to develop a sense of belonging to the university. A sense of this comes through in the following quotation: ‘I feel myself belonging to the Polytechnic but I don’t feel the Polytechnic considers me as part of it’ (Hong Kong – Student Guidance). Over time, though, a sense of belonging to a university can develop. Taking into account the previous section, it seems most probable that the mechanism would be through initial development of affiliations to other foci. First a sense of belonging could develop towards fellow students and then to teachers or tutors. Eventually this might become translated into an affiliation towards the institution: ‘Having been a distance learning student in the Hong Kong Polytechnic for nearly three years now, I have a deep feeling that I belong to this institution’ (Hong Kong – Textiles).

Freedom of course choice Textile courses, and the other disciplines cited in the previous section, offered limited choice of courses. The students, to a large extent, went through the programme as a cohort. Each semester the same group of students enrolled in the limited options for that semester. They therefore got to know each other well. Friendships and study groups which formed in the first semester often continued throughout the programme. However, open universities have normally followed the practice of the UKOU of making course choice an element of open learning. The OUHK system follows an open learning philosophy, by which choice of courses is as unrestricted as possible, resulting in broad programmes with students offered a smorgasbord of courses. In many ways such arrangements are enlightened and clearly consistent with both adult learning principles and a mandate for openness. For mature professionals, this is an advantage – they can select courses which interest them and tailor a programme to suit their professional needs. For the typical student in developing countries, though, Chapter 5 showed that this freedom of choice brought few benefits as the students did not have the

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background to take advantage of the flexibility of choice. A further unintended negative outcome of offering free choice of courses is that it hampers the ability of students to form study groups or develop collegial alliances, either by their own initiative or with prompting from the institution and/or tutors. The downside of an open credit-based system is that it becomes much more difficult for students to develop cohesive class groups. The reason for this is that offering freedom to choose courses and sequences of courses means that students do not go through programmes as a cohort. Offering a wide range of choice of courses therefore contributes to the isolating effect of distance learning. For example, a student with a preference for communal learning might form a friendship with three or four other students met during tutorials in the first course in which each enrolled. If each has a preference for communal study, a regular study group might form and provide all the benefits and advantages that were described above. However, if the open university offers complete freedom in choice of courses, the students are likely to find themselves in different courses in the next semester. So the process of finding friends and study colleagues has to start all over again. If this happens semester after semester, even the most gregarious of students eventually abandon themselves to the loneliness of individual study. Developing a relationship is more likely to happen if students remain together as a reasonably coherent cohort. Conversely, effort invested in establishing a sense of belonging within a class reaps meagre dividends if the next semester the group of students is spread across a range of courses. Keep students as a cohort Many of the programmes examined in the persistence study, other than those offered by the OUHK, did keep most of the students together as a cohort or class group. The same was true of courses taught face-to-face through evening classes examined in the part-time study. This was not necessarily through deliberate programme design, but more often through restricted options within the programmes. It did mean, though, that the students were allowed to stay in the same class so could develop a stronger sense of belonging. The downside of offering a wide range of options is graphically illustrated by the plight of this student: ‘it is a kind of distance learning. The time for meeting is limited . . . Once I start to know the classmates, it is time to say good-bye. If I am lucky, I’ll meet them in the future course’ (part-time – OUHK – novice). There were intermediate cases where an intake of students had some common courses and others with a mixed group of students other than their programme cohort. The following quotation is included as it is not only illustrative of this situation but contrasts the learning support available in coherent class groups with that in which rapport has not been established: We take different programmes of study. I take Chinese, and have classes with those who take English. I have two strong feelings. When we have an English

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class, our relationship is not close because they are from various programmes. We are not close. We don’t know each other. When I have computing class, it is different. All classmates join the same programme, in which computing is one of the courses. As a result, the classmates help one another. (part-time – OUHK – novice) The importance students themselves gave to being part of a class group was confirmed by OUHK students who described how they made informal arrangements among themselves to select the same courses. Such students clearly felt that being part of a consistent study group with a sense of belonging outweighed the resulting restrictions on their choice of courses. ‘When I selected the next course, they asked, “What course are you going to choose? Let’s join the same one, shall we?”’ (part-time – OUHK – novice). These students developed an effective strategy for maintaining their identity with a group of their peer students. Others, such as those quoted above, were unable, or only partly able, to overcome programmes which did not enable students to identify with a consistent peer group. It also seems problematic if students themselves have to find ways to get round the system and promote cohesion. Surely the enrolment and course choice policy should be aiming to help students develop cohesive study groups, rather than inadvertently discouraging their formation. The evidence above indicates that the development of a sense of belonging suffered when there was freedom of choice of courses, but was promoted when class cohorts were kept together by restricted options. Development of cohesive class cohorts is incompatible with credit-based systems with virtually unlimited choice. Such an arrangement can be justified through an andragogical philosophy (Knowles, 1990) but the probably unintended drawback is the lack of opportunity to develop class cohesiveness. There would appear to be potential for exploring intermediate positions in which normal course sequences are recommended for programmes and students are told that this is because it permits classes to remain together and develop cohesiveness. There could still be an option for students who so desire to depart from the recommendations and choose other course combinations to suit their needs and interests.

Individualism and collectivism A substantial part of the research showing the benefits of learning in groups originates in the West. The models of drop-out and persistence are based on Western theories. The various strands of research reviewed so far in this chapter present a compelling case for the benefits of communal learning. As most of the research on this topic has been conducted in the West, the case for developed countries is well established. In this section and the next I shall argue that the need for collective study in developing countries is likely to be even more important because the societies tend to display greater levels of collectivism, and achievement

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motivation in Confucian-heritage countries has traditionally been seen as societal rather than (as in the West) as individual. Hofstede (1980) examined work-related values in forty countries by analysing IBM personnel surveys. The work has since been updated and analysed in greater detail (Hofstede, 2001). The dimension which is relevant here is individualism. Hofstede (2001, p. 215) has a table of individualism index values for fifty countries and three regions. The top-four ranked countries are predominantly Englishspeaking developed countries: the USA, Australia, the UK and Canada. It is significant that the large majority of the distance education literature has emanated from these countries, so the models of distance education and its research base are predominantly from countries classified as highly individualist. In the table the next cluster of countries are European. The first developing country to appear is South Africa, at 16, followed by India, at 21. The great majority of countries in the lower half of the table are in the developing world. Triandis et al. (1993) examined collectivism–individualism in ten countries. Again, there was a tendency for Westerners to rank higher on individualism. Several notes of caution might be introduced here. First, the cultural rankings for countries imply a range of individual variation. The data should be interpreted as a trend across a society. Second, Hofstede’s table (2001) was based on data gathered between 1967 and 1973. Since then, the pervasive effect of Western culture and media may have moderated differences, though other work suggests they still exist. Finally, Hofstede’s research was into work-related values and the initial sample was of IBM employees. Students in developing countries would have been exposed to rather different influences. In particular they would have gone through a school system which would be highly competitive in view of its elite nature. Many, particularly those in Hong Kong, would also have had considerable exposure to Western culture. These factors may have some moderating effect on the degree of individualism. Nevertheless, it can reasonably be argued that Western societies tend, on average, to have higher degrees of individualism then developing countries. The bulk of the research into the benefits of collaborative learning has taken place in the West. If there is evidence of successful outcomes of communal learning in relatively individualistic societies, the benefits could be even more pronounced in more collective societies. Further, developing countries with collective societies have adopted a model of distance education which is defined by the quasipermanent separation of the learners. It is hard to find evidence of the isolation model of distance education being adapted to suit the more collective cultures in developing countries.

Achievement motivation in Confucian-heritage societies There is a further strand of evidence for the possibility of greater benefits from co-operative learning in developing countries compared to the Western countries

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in which the bulk of the research took place. The nature of achievement motivation has been shown to differ in Confucian-heritage societies from the way it is characterised in the West. In a study of Chinese high-school students, Yu (1974) found that Western measures of achievement motivation were not appropriate as they characterised the motivation as individual. Hsu (1981) compared Americans and Chinese, and argued that the motivating force for the latter came primarily from the family and the clan. Yang and Yu (1988) argued that Chinese achievement motivation featured socially approved goals. Yu (1996) compared the Western traditional individual-oriented achievement motivation (IOAM) with social-oriented achievement motivation (SOAM), which better represented the traditional Chinese form of motivation. In SOAM the goal is set by others rather than by the individual. The action necessary to achieve the goal and the evaluation of its attainment were also determined by others. Again, it is pertinent to offer a note of caution. This account of SOAM is consistent with traditional Confucian-heritage values and would be likely to be strongly influenced by the tradition of filial piety. However, Ho (1996) noted that traditional filial piety is in decline. Western media and socio-economic pressures tend to promote IOAM rather than SOAM. The pressures of elite educational systems also favour completion over collaboration. However, even if the traditional heritage is diminishing, it is still likely that achievement motivation is somewhat more collective in Confucian-heritage cultures than its original formulation in the West as an individual drive. There is then a further argument that collaborative forms of learning may be more effective and more highly desired in developing countries than in the West. The psychology of the Chinese people is well developed compared to other non-Western cultures (Bond, 1996). Other cultures in the developing world, such as those in the Pacific islands, also show evidence of SOAM rather than IOAM (Mugler and Landbeck, 1997, 2000).

Conclusion This chapter has presented several strands of research which demonstrate the effectiveness of peer learning both in- and out-of-class. Models of persistence have established the importance of direct student–student and tutor–student contact in establishing a sense of belonging which in turn leads to a greater likelihood of students completing their programme of study. There is also evidence that in Confucian-heritage cultures, and probably other more communal societies, peer learning is both preferred and beneficial. However, as Keegan (1986, p. 49) asserted, distance learning is generally a lonely pursuit, with much of the studying taking place in isolation. In many cases, though, particularly in developing countries, students have enrolled in such courses because of the open entry policy, rather than because of any desire for distance education itself.

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Some of the Hong Kong courses had quite high levels of contact between students, and in this chapter and Chapter 13 there is evidence that this has boosted the sense of belonging and hence persistence. The levels of contact were also sufficient to suggest that few Hong Kong students positively sought to study in isolation. Data on student–student contact in other distance education courses is hard to find, probably because the definition has deterred research into the topic. In view of the positive effects of communal learning documented in this chapter, greater effort might profitably be directed towards promoting communal learning in open entry courses. This is likely to mean that the courses take on the characteristics of flexible learning, because they have higher levels of contact than conventional distance education. It appears that high levels of contact in-class, particularly if they involve discussion and interaction, can promote out-of-class interaction, too. There are benefits to assisting students to organise self-study groups. Merely issuing students with a list of other students’ addresses, as commonly happens, usually seems achieves very little. Self-study groups are more likely to be successful if, as in the examples given here, the course design incorporates activities suitable for group interaction, as advocated and described by Kember and Murphy (1994). This conclusion is not new. The Hong Kong part of the persistence study summarised conclusions about an appropriate format for distance education courses in Hong Kong. The following extract is taken from that summary (Kember et al., 1992, pp. 131–2): The synthesis of evaluations of Hong Kong distance education courses has indicated the students’ preference for higher levels of human contact than has traditionally been a part of most distance education courses. Evidence comes from both relatively high attendance rates and from the students’ reactions to tutorials and tutor–student and student–student contact. A significant feature of the students’ reactions was that the preference was for group sessions rather than for individual counselling . . . Overall the findings of this study suggest that distance education courses offered in Hong Kong should eschew high technology solutions in favour of greater levels of human contact. The preference is that this contact be in group situations rather than individual counselling sessions. The two courses which have incorporated specific group activities into the original course design appear to have been very successful in retaining students on the course and the sessions have been appreciated by most of the students. Integrated planning for group activities therefore seems preferable to allocating tutorial time slots and leaving the content entirely to individual tutor initiative or to students raising issues. This conclusion was published fifteen years ago. The recommendation was available to the OUHK even earlier, as two members of the project team worked

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there. However, the findings do not seem to have influenced the OUHK to implement more flexible forms of distance learning. The conclusion of the article also noted that opportunities for developing study groups are missed if an open choice of courses is adopted. It further advocated recommending sequences of courses to students which would enable them to progress through their programme as a cohort, so group cohesion and a sense of belonging could develop. However, again, the recommendation was not adopted.

Part V

Flexible and e-learning

Chapter 12

E-learning Carmel McNaught

Focus of the chapter In some ways it is problematic to have a chapter with a strong focus on technology in a book which emphasises the primacy of teaching and learning. However, while early uses of computer technology in the 1970s and 1980s had a very modest impact on university education, the advent of the internet in the 1990s and the growing and more robust web-based educational systems on offer in the 2000s have seen a significantly greater impact on the design, development and delivery of university programmes, both on- and off-campus. It is thus useful to consider how technology has impacted on the possibilities for distance education in less developed regions of the world. In order to have synergy with the other chapters in this book, it is important to portray technology as a set of tools and systems that may offer more options in terms of learning design. The focus of the chapter will not be to explore in great depth the explosion of technological options that are now available, but will rather be to examine evidence about whether the rapidly changing offerings of technology have improved the learning environments of students in less developed regions to date, or have the likelihood to do so in the foreseeable future. The first section of the chapter will examine a number of models used by distance education programmes and providers to give a sense of the growing range of options for higher education in all regions of the world. Several of these models are transnational and are increasingly reliant on technology. This ‘macro’ consideration of models will be followed by an examination at a ‘micro’ level of the effectiveness of several examples of the use of technology in learning designs suitable for distance education in less developed regions. The chapter ends with some observations about the potential for technology to contribute to education on a global scale.

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Models for distance education programmes and providers A plethora of models for online programmes Very few universities are totally online. For example, in 2002, 54 per cent of university courses in Australia used the web in some way or another for teaching and learning, but only 1.4 per cent of courses were fully online (Bell et al., 2002). Perhaps surprisingly, distance education universities have been quite slow to adopt web-based technology into their core delivery operations, though the use of standalone digital materials such as CD-ROMs and now DVDs is common. There is an overlapping and complex set of factors behind the relatively sluggish uptake of technology by universities. In 1999 a large study of e-learning in Australian universities was conducted, employing online surveys of institutional practice (twenty-eight of the thirty-eight Australian universities responded); a literature survey; and a case study of five universities at project, faculty and institutional levels (McNaught et al., 2000). Overall, there were fourteen key factors grouped into the three main areas of culture, policy and support. Effective adoption of e-learning requires alignment of all these factors. This is true for both campusbased and distance education universities. Furthermore, there are now new competitors in the higher education market. Three reports (Cunningham et al. 1998, 2000; Ryan and Stedman, 2002) explored the nature and potential impact of a plethora of new models for higher education provision. The models they identified were: 1 2 3 4 5

for-profit universities (of which the University of Phoenix is a well-known example); corporate universities (McDonald’s is an often-cited one); virtual universities (discussed in more detail below); public corporate universities (the US Department of Defense is an active example); and service companies (a range of companies selling technical platforms, consultancy services and courseware; an interesting example is Thomson Learning, which is now linked to a consortium of traditional universities through the Universitas21 global partnership).

Of these alternatives, virtual universities deserve some scrutiny. They are distance education universities where the majority of the learning resources are accessed online and interactions are carried out online. Advocates for this mode of university appeared in the late 1980s (e.g., Harasim, 1989). However, the promise of rapid profitability from online universities has not been realised. The most striking example of failure is that of the UK eUniversity (UKeU), which started in 2000 with the UK government putting up 100 million euros to kickstart it. The aim was to gain a considerable share of the market for e-learning for English-speaking

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students at university level. However, just four years later, the UKeU was closed down and its small number of students were accommodated elsewhere (Garrett, 2004). Another oft-cited disaster used to highlight the fragility of the business models in this area is that of the Western Governors University (WGU). Founded by the governors of nineteen western states in the USA in 1996 with $US2.2 million in seed money, WGU had just 750 students enrolled in nine different degree programmes in 2002. However, current indications are that it may have recovered from this shaky beginning as enrolments doubled in the year 2004–5, reaching 3,000 enrolled students (Kelderman, 2005). It is clearly too soon to tell if virtual universities will become key players in higher education in the developed world. However, if they are fragile in areas where the technical infrastructure is sound, they are certainly not a viable alternative at this stage in less developed regions of the world. It is more constructive to examine how distance education universities might employ the potential of educational technology in the design and development of their programmes in ways that are financially sustainable and educationally beneficial. The use of technology at the UK Open University The UK Open University was the world’s first successful distance education university. It began in the 1960s with a ‘belief that communications technology could bring high quality degree-level learning to people who had not had the opportunity to attend campus universities’ (). Its success appears to be due to several factors about its use of technology for teaching and learning, four of which are briefly described below: The design of programmes is led by teachers in the discipline The UKOU has a normal faculty structure with the design of academic programmes being under the auspices of the faculty. The members of a course team are normally: the course chair, appointed by the faculty; a course manager; academics who are authors, readers or editors; a number of multimedia support staff; regional staff who contribute to the design of the support network; a member of the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) advising on teaching strategy, media and evaluation; and occasionally heads of departments, sub-deans and deans as full or ex officio members (English, 1999). This course team structure ensures that educational considerations drive the use of technology. Theoretical frameworks drive the use of technology at the UKOU The seminal work of Diana Laurillard (1993, 2002), former pro-vice-chancellor (Educational Technology) at the UKOU, has impacted worldwide. As illustration, a Google Scholar search on her book Rethinking University Teaching yields 18,900

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responses. Central to the book is the principle that conversation and interaction are essential to the learning process, and thus appropriate uses of technology need to support conversation and interaction. These principles have driven much of the e-learning research and development at the UKOU. There is quite careful research into the effectiveness of any use of technology during its adoption One clear example is the work done by Price et al. (2007). They conducted three studies comparing the experience of UKOU students when tutorial support was provided conventionally (using limited face-to-face sessions with some contact by telephone and email) with their experience in the same course with online tutorial support (using a combination of computer-mediated conferencing and email). In all three studies the students reported poorer experiences and lower levels of achievement with online tuition than with face-to-face tuition. This research clearly shows the need for training for both tutors and students in the nuances of communication and how these subtleties might be conveyed in an online environment. A broader consideration of how communication technologies might build communities for learning is taken by Weller (in press). He argued that three core principles of openness, robustness and decentralisation exist with some forms of internet-based technologies (he cites Napster, blogging and open source software), and that these three core principles underlie genuine communities for learning. So, if such communities are to be built with widely distributed students in a distance education course, then the opportunities afforded by some technologies cannot be ignored. Further, as students are increasingly using these technologies for a variety of lifestyle purposes, the synergy becomes greater. Weller’s work is a bridge between current learning technologies used at the OU (e.g., blogging) and possible future scenarios. In tune with this focus on evaluative research, focused research occurs into innovative technologies At the UKOU there is a clear separation between what might be considered ‘tried and tested’ technology and research into potential ‘cutting-edge’ technologies that might be adopted at some future time. As noted above, the IET serves the needs of course teams. Their focus is on how to support effective learning in the existing UKOU programmes. In addition to the IET, the UKOU established the Knowledge Media Institute (KMI) in 1995 with a brief to focus on research and development into future technologies. Their focus is on the convergence of cognitive and learning sciences, artificial intelligence and semantic technologies, and multimedia. The term ‘knowledge media’ has been chosen to explain this focus. This distinction between operational support for existing technologies and careful research into future technologies serves the UKOU well as technology is allowed to mature before it is implemented on a broad scale.

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Adoption of technology at the University of South Africa Let us now examine how technology is used for e-learning at an open university in a less developed region. The University of South Africa (UNISA) will be used as an example. UNISA’s foundations go back to 1873 as the University of the Cape of Good Hope, which was essentially an examining agency for Oxford and Cambridge universities. Its current form as a distance university began in 1946. Today, across its vocational and higher education sectors, it has a total student enrolment in the region of 250,000, approximately 70,000 more than the UKOU. It has one main and nine regional campuses throughout South Africa. The model of the UKOU has been closely studied by all open and distance universities in less developed regions. However, the focus of analysis was more on the level of technological provision made by the UKOU rather than on guiding educational principles. As a result, there is no doubt that there have been wasted resources on inappropriate technologies in the last few decades. I worked in South Africa in the 1980s and was a designer of early CD-ROM multimedia materials for science. I know that many of my endeavours did not reach learners in the field. The plan was to set up computer rooms in schools which would also become study centres for adult distance learners, many of whom were teachers in the schools. After initial enthusiasm, the problems of ongoing technical advice and maintenance were often too challenging and the result was that limited use was made of these resources. In addition, in the 1980s, South Africa was a country at war and other matters dominated. Indeed, computer technology often had negative connotations and associations with repressive monitoring: for example, the South African government accounted for 41 per cent of all South African computer sales in 1986 (Leonard, 1989). After regime change in the early 1990s, the hoped-for funding from a variety of international non-governmental sources did not materialise because, on a global scale, aid funding moved to countries further north in Africa, and also to Eastern Europe and former Soviet Bloc countries. The result was that rather wasteful utopian ideas were no longer possible and faded. So, by the time the internet arrived in South Africa, the funding available for widespread cabling and IT infrastructure was quite limited. Ubiquitous access to web-based technology is still far off in South Africa and indeed in all countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Ifinedo, 2005). Similar stories of complex relationships between social, political and economic factors exist in many less developed countries and it is a reasonable generalisation to say that internet-based e-learning is largely restricted to university centres in urban areas. Ojo’s (2005) account of the challenges facing a telecentre in rural Uganda which ‘legitimatiz[ed] the inequalities in the status quo in terms of age, gender, educational qualification and socio-economic status’ echoed much of my own experiences twenty years earlier in South Africa, even though the technology itself is now more sophisticated. As a result, there is relatively little use of the internet and conventional webbased computer technology by UNISA. Quan-Baffour and Vambe (in press)

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described how a diverse range of ‘low-tech’ approaches are used quite effectively with the increasingly diverse UNISA student population. These include CD-ROMs, audio and video cassettes, radio, telephone and, of course, print-based materials. These technologies are combined with the support of local tutors – what QuanBaffour and Vambe described as ‘the oral technology of the tutor’s voice’. One interesting new development is the increasing use that is being made of text-based short message systems (SMS) over mobile phones. I will return to this towards the end of the chapter. Before looking at future opportunities and scenarios, a quick examination of the ways in which existing technologies are used to support student learning might be useful.

A focus on technology and learning designs Promises and problems of course management systems There is a bewildering plethora of course management systems (CMSs) available. These are often called virtual learning environments (VLEs) or learning management systems (LMSs), though those of us who believe that learning is not likely to be efficiently managed by computers tend to use CMS to foreground the organisational aspects of these systems. The definition given by Wikipedia for a CMS is succinct: a software system designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially by helping teachers and learners with course administration. The system can often track the learners’ progress, which can be monitored by both teachers and learners. While often thought of as primarily tools for distance education, they are most often used to supplement the face-to-face classroom. These systems usually run on servers, to serve the course to students as internet pages. Components of these systems usually include templates for content pages, discussion forums, chat, quizzes and exercises. () Thankfully, a US-based professional organisation, the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET; see ) maintains an excellent online comparison tool (EduTools; ) that allows the user to compare up to ten different systems on over forty different characteristics. At the time of writing there were sixty-one systems available for comparison. From the perspective of less developed countries, the cost of these systems has been a major drawback, but with the advent of freely available open source software this has now changed. One example of an open source system that is being adopted in many countries, albeit in restricted internet-serviced areas, is Moodle (). This is currently used in over 160 countries, and has a large

E-learning 163

and diverse user community who speak over 75 languages. For a product where version 1.0 was released only in August 2002, this is an astounding adoption rate. One of the reasons for its success is that it is based on clearly articulated educational principles, which are broadly constructivist (Dougiamas and Taylor, 2002). There is no doubt that, where internet access exists, it is now possible for educators to use some form of course management system to provide learning resources and activities for students. Content: the potential and pitfalls of learning objects For the last decade a great deal of effort and resources have been expended on the development and ‘stocking’ of learning object repositories. One of the hopes was that this investment would provide content materials which teachers across the world could use, reuse and adapt in their own courses. This might ensure that the high costs of producing multimedia materials might be offset by widespread use. Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic statement of the situation. The packaged modular approach to the provision of learning resources is not plain sailing. The crux of the matter is the tension between producing something which is generic enough to fit many educational contexts (including subject matter, and teacher and student preferences), and yet adaptable/customisable to fit each context in an educationally satisfying way. Parrish (2004) provided a recent authoritative review of this tension. Also, as Boyle (2003) pointed out, e-learning does not have a good track record in designing learning materials, so why should the somewhat more complex job of designing reusable learning objects be carried out in a better fashion? While there are many accounts of small-scale successes (e.g. Weller, 2004), most of the existing repositories are not used widely (McNaught, in press). The culture of reuse is not yet embedded into higher education. Community-based digital libraries have been much more successful. Wright et al. (2002) commented, ‘a community digital library is distinct through having a community of potential users define and guide the development of the library’. They were writing about a community digital library dealing with the broad subject domain of earth system education, the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE; see ). My own assessment is that the potential for learning object repositories actually to assist with provision of low-cost courseware for the less developed regions will not be realised for several years. However, small-scale initiatives may grow and the concept is certainly not one that should be dismissed. So, we now have affordable CMSs which are undoubtedly supporting distance education in internet-enabled areas. There is a fragmented learning object movement that has the potential to provide cost-effective courseware in the future. However, the main stumbling block to e-learning is still the attainment of ubiquitous access to the internet, and it is my contention that the most dramatic change to e-learning across the world will come from wireless technology.

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Bridging the bandwidth divide with wireless systems Again using Africa as an example, there have been expensive attempts to cable the continent in the hope that connectivity costs would be lowered enough to make web-based activity affordable for most people. There is an existing cable system, called SAT3, which goes from Portugal to South Africa and out across the Indian Ocean to Asia. The combined length of all the system segments is 28,800 kilometres. It has thirty-six members who put up US$600 million to build and operate it for the life of the cable over the next twenty-five years. However, while connectivity is possible, costs have not been reduced, presumably because the system is operated by a series of monopoly state-owned telecommunication providers (Jensen, 2006). Work is under way for a new submarine cable to connect eight coastal countries in eastern and southern Africa with other global submarine cable systems. This 9,900-kilometre system is estimated to cost US$200 million and is expected to be operational by the end of 2007. However, as a similar management model is being used, the likelihood that consumer costs will fall is not high. Wireless technology may offer some hope for more affordable connectivity. Wireless has two major benefits in getting less developed countries connected to the internet – ease and cost (Feldman and Hawkins, 2005). Wireless systems can be locally installed or have more global coverage. Interconnected mobile phone systems now offer a clear example of how versatile and relatively low cost wireless technology can be. Currently, there are approximately two billion mobile phone users worldwide, and many of these devices have the potential to access the internet. Using southern African countries as an example, Table 12.1 shows that mobile phone ownership is much more common than conventional computer ownership. Tafazolli (2006) reported on the work of the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF; see ). The WWRF Table 12.1 Communication infrastructure in four southern African countries, US and UK Botswana

Mozambique South Africa

Zimbabwe

US

1.7

18.4

13

291

Literacy rate

78.9

46.5

86

90

–

–

Landlines per 1,000 people

87

5

107

25

646

591

241

14

304

30

488

841

Population (millions)

Cell phones per 1,000

43.6

UK 59

Computers per 1,000

38.7

3.5

68.5

12.1

574

460

Internet users per 1,000

29

2.7

68

43

551

423

Source: Czerniewicz and Carr (2005)

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identify the need to consider not only technological access but to understand users’ perspectives. In addition, new business models are needed to give affordable access to wireless technology. These sentiments are echoed in the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS; see ). This has been a twophase summit at Geneva in December 2003 and Tunisia in November 2005 aimed at identifying strategies to ensure ‘an information society for all’. While the detailed declarations and reports emanating from the summit are full of lofty ideals, there is a reassuring pragmatism in several of the statements (McNaught, 2005) and a healthy evaluation of the gains made in the two years between the two phases. While WSIS encompasses much more than wireless access, this technology is seen as central to its recommendations: Encourage the use of unused wireless capacity, including satellite, in developed countries and in particular in developing countries, to provide access in remote areas, especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, and to improve low-cost connectivity in developing countries. Special concern should be given to the Least Developed Countries in their efforts in establishing telecommunication infrastructure. (World Summit on the Information Society, 2005, p. 33) These indications are positive for the future of e-learning in less developed regions. But the actual way in which the combination of mobile devices, open source systems and sharable learning materials might be accessed and used in a connected world is not at all clear. Harry and Perraton (1999) spoke about the ‘new society’ and described the newness of our society not only in technological terms but in its political and economic dimensions. This was true in my work in Africa twenty years ago and it is still true now. Change is occurring on many fronts at the same time and planning must be broadly based and interdisciplinary.

Summary In this chapter I have outlined the diversity in the models used for distance education in general and noted the centrality of computer technology to all of them. Despite this, the uptake of appropriate technology has been patchy and, in particular, totally virtual universities are not significant players. The balanced approach taken by the UKOU has been described and it remains as an important model for e-learning in open and distance education. The challenges of connectivity in less developed countries have been explored, with wireless technology offering some hope for realistically priced internet access in the future. In the present ‘low-tech’ solutions are more robust and realistic. Once (if we take a positive stance) more widespread internet access occurs, learners may be able to use mobile devices (such as phones) to connect to learning materials and have communication with their teachers and other students. Universities may be

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able to use freely available open source course management systems in conjunction with community-based learning repositories to have e-learning as a significant part of their endeavours. That situation is still many years off, but perhaps it is now on the horizon. There is, then, some potential for e-learning to contribute to providing more flexible forms of provision for distance learners in developing countries. The interactive capabilities of the internet could be utilised to provide support to novice students lacking the ability to be self-directing in their learning. It is also possible that a virtual classroom could provide some semblance of the benefits of communal learning, sorely missed by many lonely distance learners. However, the prospect of e-learning being a solution to the very low graduation rates of many open universities in developing countries must be approached with a degree of scepticism. The work of Price et al. (2007) suggests that current modes of virtual support are both less effective and less accepted by students than face-to-face support. The marked lack of success of most virtual universities also suggests that students are hardly enthusiastic about embracing virtual learning.

Chapter 13

Flexible learning But how flexible?

Flexible learning This book is part of a series called ‘Open and flexible learning’. Presumably, this can be taken to imply that the two modes are commonly found in conjunction with each other or that they are often blended together. Flexible learning involves a judicious mixture of the ingredients of distance education, face-to-face teaching and information technology in a cocktail suited to the needs and tastes of the students. For the series title to be appropriate one might expect to find examples of open universities modifying the standard distance education model to incorporate more face-to-face teaching and information technology. There has certainly been a great deal of enthusiasm for embracing technological advances. A substantial part of the distance education literature has always been devoted to descriptions of how new technology has been utilised in distance teaching. There are few accounts, though, of initiatives to make courses more flexible by boosting the level of face-to-face contact. When the term ‘flexible learning’ started to come into fashion there were suggestions that it would lead to widespread reconfiguration of modes of learning, which would make them highly tuned towards the learning needs of students. Moran and Myringer (1999, p. 57) visualised a breathtaking change in higher education brought about by the adoption of flexible learning: We suspect the days of distance education, as such, are numbered. An unsteady, problematic, profound process of change is under way. Distance education methods and systems are converging with those of face-to-face teaching, strongly influenced by new electronic technologies. This process, we believe, will transform university teaching and learning as a whole, not merely add some distance teaching here, and some on-line technologies there. The watchwords today are flexibility, student-centredness (or clientcentredness), networked learning, quality and efficiency. However, I believe these optimistic predictions have not been realised for many open universities in developing countries. I will first give two reasons why it was

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unlikely that such a radical change would take place and will then balance this position by giving some examples of flexible learning models which combine distance education with high degrees of face-to-face teaching and/or the development of coherent classes. Interestingly, the examples pre-date the time when the term ‘flexible learning’ started to become fashionable.

Open universities lack parents of flexible learning Flexible learning had three parents: face-to-face teaching, distance education and information and communication technologies. Initial proponents often came from dual-mode universities in developed countries which had these three parents. Flexible learning could therefore be brought about by blending together existing ingredients. A high proportion of developing country students entering open entry programmes enrol in single-mode open universities. Asian countries, in particular, have the populations to benefit from the economies of scale which can result from large open universities. The most common type of provision is therefore the national open university. These have taken the UKOU as a model, particularly with respect to the distance education element. From the outset, then, face-to-face teaching, of any sort, has been limited in these universities, and for many students it has been absent altogether. Remember that Keegan’s (1986, p. 49) definition of distance education includes ‘the quasipermanent separation of teacher and learner’ and ‘the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group’. At most these open universities, with a few exceptions, provided limited tutorials in restricted locations. They certainly did not have the parallel stream taught by conventional face-to-face teaching of the dual-mode universities in the developed world. An important ingredient for flexible learning is therefore absent in the open universities in developing countries. In a dual-mode university which has both modes in situ, it might seem natural to blend together modes of learning, particularly when the two modes operate in parallel for a common course. However, in an open university, introducing a higher element of face-to-face contact would mean adding a new mode of teaching. What is more, the additional mode might be seen as counter to the defining mandate of the institution. The open universities commonly see themselves as distance teaching universities. The OUHK, for example, describes itself as a ‘distance and open university’. By definition, distance education minimises face-to-face teaching. More flexible forms of learning require major changes to practice and operational mode. There is likely to be resistance to their introduction from staff of the open universities with conceptions of distance and open education taken from the UKOU model. The third parent of flexible learning, communication and information technology, may also be in a less developed state and less widespread in terms of availability in developing countries. The high degree of communication and virtual

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contact made possible by the internet and networked computers may simply not be available to contribute to flexibility in learning.

Industrial systems Peters (1971) equated distance education to an industrial form of education. He argued that large open universities could achieve economies of scale by utilising mass-production models of operation, based on the factory production line. The common features included division of labour, with course materials produced by large teams of specialists by a process akin to a mechanised production line. There are then quite separate organisational systems to provide tutorial and counselling support. Yet another operation provides the necessary administrative services, while the whole process is run by a central bureaucracy employing well-defined and standardised operating procedures. The resulting product or education becomes highly standardised to a central design. This type of operation has been termed a Fordist model after the early example of the production line for Ford cars. Badham and Matthews (1989) characterised Fordism by low product innovation, low process variability and low labour responsibility. By contrast, post-Fordist systems of production, which have been adopted for high-technology products in developed countries, feature high product innovation, high process variability and high labour responsibility. Campion and Renner (1992) argued that it was now more appropriate for distance education to adopt post-Fordist practices. Developments in information and communication technology meant that courses could be offered through a craftsman model in which the teacher has little need for the production line. This position is consistent with moving away from the type of operation adopted by the very large single national open university towards forms of flexible learning. It is notable that Campion himself and many of the colleagues who contributed to a special edition of Distance Education (Campion, 1995) on Fordism, were from dual-mode institutions. The influence of Fordism on the operation of these was often limited. Campion and Renner (1992) classified many distance education operations in Australia as pre-Fordist, implying that they had not adopted the industrialised practices of the large open universities. In the classic New England model it is common for a single lecturer to teach the internal course face-to-face, write the external course materials, tutor the external course and set and mark the assessment for both modes. This is surely a craftsman operation, which should be readily adaptable to flexible learning. By contrast, the large open universities made much more use of division of labour. Writing and production of course materials would normally have input from a wide range of people and operate over an extended schedule. An individual course would normally have a substantial number of tutors, particularly for high enrolment foundation courses. Many of these tutors might have had no involvement in writing the course materials. Clearly such an educational organisation requires

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co-ordination, management and scheduling akin to a production line if it is to operate effectively and keep to schedule. The very features which result in economies of scale and effective management, though, mitigate against making the transition to more flexible forms of learning. Elaborate course development systems with multiple inputs and many procedures and steps can make radical change difficult as established procedures have to be changed and there are many people involved who need to be convinced of the advantages of that change. Changing the mode of tutoring or teaching means that all of the tutors (and there are many of them) need to be retrained to follow the new philosophy and adopt practices consistent with the intentions of the implemented change. Making changes to a large, well-established production-line system is considerably more difficult than when all of the important tasks are performed by the individual craftsman. It is therefore not surprising that the large national open universities have not been at the forefront of the flexible learning movement.

Examples of flexible learning Having suggested some reasons why most of the national open universities in developing countries have not adopted more flexible forms of learning which might boost their graduation rates, the next step is to describe some examples of distance learning courses which have gone down the flexible learning path. The examples all feature greater levels of face-to-face contact between tutors and students and/or higher levels of student–student contact within class groups than is common with distance education. Each example makes a significant move away from Keegan’s (1986, p. 49) definition of distance education. As such, each of the examples has moved away from the classic distance education model. I was involved in some of the examples; others were courses which my team evaluated as part of the evaluation project; and a third set I had no direct contact with. I cannot claim that any of the examples were guided by the theories advanced in this book. The courses in which I taught pre-date the research which has been drawn upon here. The evaluated courses provided the data which has eventually resulted in the theories presented here. I have not been connected with two of the examples. I suspect that for most of the examples the chosen format was largely adopted on pragmatic grounds to suit existing local circumstances and the needs of students. But isn’t that what flexible learning is all about?

University of the South Pacific My initial involvement with distance education was in my first academic position at the University of the South Pacific (USP). I had been appointed as a lecturer in chemistry and shortly after my arrival I was asked to contribute to writing a chemistry course for USP’s extension studies programme. My main qualification for being offered this role was that I was one of only two members of my section

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not going on leave during the summer holiday, when the course writing had to commence. USP is unusual in that it is a regional university. It is a collaborative venture providing higher education to no fewer than twelve countries: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa (University of the South Pacific, 1993). Of these countries, only Fiji has a population base large enough to support a university on its own. Most of the countries are small islands, or archipelagos, with sparse populations. In spite of the low populations of many of the constituent countries, though, USP would not survive if it was restricted to the main campus in Fiji. For the member countries to feel that they are genuine partners, there had to be a significant presence in each of them. This took the form of building a regional study centre in each country. Each of these is a substantial building, designed and built for the specific purpose. They are quite different to the borrowed buildings and facilities commonly used for study centres or tutorial venues in other countries. Each of USP’s regional centres has a centre director and several staff. They are lively places, running their own events and courses, as well as facilitating the distance education courses. For such small countries, the regional centres are significant presences, important educational resources and focal points for students in a variety of courses. The USP network is linked together by satellite communication and has been for a long time (Williams and Gillard, 1986). When I joined the university in 1976 it had already been using the ATS-1 satellite for a number of years. This was a former NASA satellite which had become outdated, so the agency allowed USP and a number of other organisations in the region to make use of it. USP was therefore well ahead of most universities in making use of communication technology. Each centre had an aerial and receiver, designed and built by physics lecturers, so two-way audio communication was possible across the entire network. As the satellite was past its use-by date the sound quality was variable, but the regular audio conferences between the centre directors and other staff were an important way of maintaining contact, providing information and maintaining a sense of togetherness across the vast distances of the Pacific served by USP. Administrative use was higher than tutoring, but the administrative messages passed on were often important in keeping the courses running. The extension studies courses offered by distance education make use of the regional network for support and facilitation in a variety of ways. Each regional centre acts as a focal point for extension students in their country. The regional centre is where students enrol, receive study materials, take examinations and, where practicable, attend tutorials. There is therefore a strong possibility of students developing a sense of affinity with centre staff and with fellow students. Like a number of others, the chemistry course I taught went a step further by having local teachers in some centres. In Niue extension courses were used to teach subjects to senior secondary-school students.

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Teachers tutored students by making use of the course materials. For chemistry, the teacher and students performed experiments, making use of a supplied kit and readily available materials (Kember, 1982). I or my colleague also spent about a week with the students and their teacher each year. In the two years I taught the course, it was only offered in Niue as a substitute for senior secondary school. As a result, the students received high levels of face-to-face support. The success rate was very high. Koshy et al. (1994) have reported that more chemistry courses have subsequently been developed and offered in a wider range of centres. The more diverse offerings, though, have meant that numbers in each centre have become low, so it has been difficult to maintain the levels of face-to-face support or offer practical work at a distance. The success rates have subsequently dropped to about 30 per cent. However, this still seems to be higher than for most distance education courses in developing countries (Perraton, 2000), and is quite an achievement, given the logistical problems of teaching science at a distance in that part of the world. Another element of flexibility in the USP model is the advantage taken of the dual-mode status of the university. It has been common for students to complete part of their degree as an external student and part by face-to-face study on the main campus. The most common pattern was to start studying lower-level courses as a distance education student in their home country, where support could often be provided by the regional study centre. The latter parts of the degree would then be completed on-campus. The Niue chemistry students, for example, were eligible to start courses on the main campus once they had completed the external course. Another measure of success is the fact that USP has functioned for so long. Multi-country regional and international bodies are often criticised and hampered by the competing self-interests of member countries. Many universities complain about the difficulty of dealing with one government, let alone twelve. USP must be providing a worthwhile educational service or it would not have been able to pull off the political balancing act necessary for survival. Another credit is that it has to operate in a very difficult environment. Readers unfamiliar with the region might take the trouble to find a map of the South Pacific region in an atlas. It is hard to portray because most of the countries are such tiny dots in a huge expanse of blue Pacific Ocean. Not surprisingly, postal services, transport, communication facilities and other infrastructure lag well behind the state of development in major population centres in developed countries. In spite of these handicaps, though, USP has managed to provide a service acceptable to each of its political masters.

University of Papua New Guinea My next position was at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). PNG had restricted opportunities for secondary education. The shortage of skilled staff meant that intelligent youngsters could quickly work their way up through government and business ranks to reasonably senior positions. They would reach a ceiling,

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though, because of competition with graduates. There was therefore a very substantial pool of potential university students. UPNG was a conventional university and did not have an open entry programme. Dealing with the large pool of potential students was the province of the unit to which I was appointed. This offered programmes at a level equivalent to the final years of secondary school, so successful completion provided the opening to take a degree. The programmes were offered through a combination of distance education and face-to-face teaching during the long summer holiday. UPNG had a tradition of offering summer courses, which were known as Lahara sessions, after the prevailing wind at that time of year. These had provided valuable education, but not led to the formal qualification needed for university entry. When it came to developing the matriculation courses, it seemed to make sense to build upon a tradition which was well accepted within the university and the community. Each intake to the matriculation programmes commenced with a Lahara session at the main university campus in Port Moresby. During this period it was possible to work on the learning ability of the students and prepare them for the following period of distance education. It was also possible to develop a strong sense of belonging within the class cohort and a good rapport between the students and the five academics running the programme. Another feature was the high level of support and sponsorship from employers. PNG had such a shortage of well-educated and skilled employees that the government made staff development a high priority. Government employees were released from work for Lahara sessions and course fees were paid. Successful students were eligible for sponsored places at university. The larger companies, like Bougainville Copper, tended to follow the lead of the government in encouraging staff development.

Hong Kong – student guidance Most of the Hong Kong courses examined in the persistence study took advantage of the concentrated population of Hong Kong to offer face-to-face sessions at a frequency greater than most comparable courses elsewhere. Two courses included group activities as an integral feature of the course design. The course in student guidance recognised the value of group sessions in achieving objectives relating to counselling skills, group dynamics and group-work strategies. A series of colloquia and workshops was therefore planned as an integral part of the course. The assessment for the course consisted of group and individual project work which were presented at the colloquia. During the first semester of the course there were six colloquia, each taking place on a Saturday morning, which the students were required to attend. In addition there were optional tutorials for help with study problems and guidance on project work and presentation. While some students did not find the optional tutorials particularly useful, the colloquia and workshops were very well received:

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Since the tutorial is optional, I will not attend if it is unnecessary. Only students who are going to present in the next colloquium will attend the tutorial. In fact I come back just to listen to other students’ queries about the course. It seems to me that its function is to prepare those students who are going to present in the following week. Most of the time is spent discussing what to do in the colloquium. They are helpful to me. Doing a workshop is much better than just reading the theories in book. Workshops are especially good for in-service teachers since most of the theories have been studied in our Cert. Education. I attend all of them. They are quite helpful. At the meetings, I learn through communication with other classmates. My point of view is thus broadened. (All Hong Kong – Student Guidance) These responses reveal that the meetings were valued by the students and that the objectives related to group communication were being achieved.

Deakin – Hong Kong – education The Deakin education degree course in the persistence study placed great value on group work, and built requirements for such work into the course materials. Students were placed, or placed themselves, in a ‘group of five’, each of which might actually contain between three and seven people. A significant proportion of the activities within the course materials required each student to make use of the group of five. For example, one activity involved the taking of photographs of the students, who were all practising teachers, in their normal classroom setting. The photographs would then be passed to other group members who would make written comments. The photographs and the comments would ultimately form part of submitted assignment work. Students seemed to enjoy working in these groups, finding that such work aided their study and helped build confidence: Yes, the ‘group of five’ has helped me in doing the tasks. My personal thinking about the idea cannot guarantee whether I am right. Listening to other classmates’ ideas gives me more confidence whether my ideas are right or wrong. (Hong Kong – Education 2) Our group has helped me with the tasks. In fact we help each other to solve any problems. Our group is running quite well, sometimes our discussion can even last seven hours. It is worthwhile to have the study group because it is a very effective method in our learning process. (Hong Kong – Education 9)

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It is instructive to note that both the student guidance and the education degree courses had drop-out rates of less than 10 per cent, which is remarkably low for open learning courses. While not claiming that the group work wholly accounted for this phenomenon, it would seem to be an important contributing factor towards persistence in the courses.

China A good reason for considering the very different format of China’s radio and television universities is the graduation rates they have achieved. Ding (1994) showed that in the late 1980s more than 80 per cent of students graduated in the minimum time period. This is clearly a remarkably different graduation rate to Perraton’s analysis (2000, p. 102) of little over 10 per cent of enrollees graduating from most other distance teaching universities in developing countries. The main features of China’s radio and television universities are summarised below (adapted from Wei and Tong, 1994, pp. 105–7): 1

2

3

4

5

provision of specialisation-oriented academic programmes rather than courseoriented academic programmes, which places emphasis on meeting the set requirements for the specific training of the workforce. Once the students are admitted, the courses they should take for the programmes are already decided by the majors or specialties they have chosen. They have no individual right to pick the courses in or out of their subject areas; organised group learning instead of independent study or self-study at home. Due to the influence of traditional modes of education, group learning is believed by the authorities to be the only way for the guarantee of the efficiency of educational administration and the quality of the RTVU graduates; many working adults released full time in order to attend group instruction and face-to-face-tutorials, and manage to accumulate enough credits within the schedule; a mixed mode of combining adult education, vocational-technical education and conventional education by offering training programmes both to working adults and new middle-school graduates at both central and local levels; and both centralised and localised courses are committed to guaranteeing quality and to satisfying special local needs.

The teaching mode of the universities is characterised by its: i multi-media instruction which however relies overmuch on the TV transmission of ‘talking head’ programmes; ii compulsory face-to-face tutorials which often account for half of all in-class study hours; iii printed materials which are likely to be modelling on those of conventional colleges and universities; and so sometimes lack the advantages and convenience necessary for self-study and distance learning;

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iv success in producing a great number of graduates majoring in engineering and technology, compared with humanity-and-social-science-oriented models of distance higher learning in many other countries; and finally v attention paid to relating knowledge and theory closely to practice and experience by way of students participating in lab work, field study and graduation projects. It is pertinent to consider these key characteristics to see how they differ from the UKOU model adopted by most other distance teaching universities in developing countries. It is also important to see how consistent the format is with my analysis developed up to this point in the book. Perhaps the most significant of the points cited above is the organised group learning element (point 2). This is contrary to the normal practice for distance education courses, captured by Keegan’s (1986) characterisation of it as predominantly a mode of individual study. By studying as a class group, the students do not have to make the abrupt transition to autonomous self-directed learning required of novice distance learners. They can also enjoy the benefits of communal learning discussed in Chapter 11. The students in China experience some learning as a group in the company of a face-to-face tutor and other communal learning when viewing the transmitted broadcasts. As they spend so much time together as a group, it is likely that a firm sense of belonging becomes established. As was discussed in Chapter 11, this is strongly related to persistence, which helps explain the relatively high graduation rates. The sense of belonging is also likely to result in a great deal of out-of-class communal learning. There is a large volume of evidence that this has a very beneficial effect on the achievement of learning outcomes. The communal spirit and the sense of belonging would be further enhanced by the students proceeding through their programmes as a tightly knit cohort, as specified in point 1, above. Rather than following open learning principles and allowing a very free choice of courses, the students are constrained to courses selected for them, once they have made their original selection of specialisation. While this restricts freedom of course choice, it maintains class coherence, and the resulting sense of belonging seems most effective in boosting graduation rates. It seems most unlikely that the high graduation rates are anything to do with the quality of the instructional media. If anything, these might be described as an instructional designer’s nightmare. Point iii, above, comments that the printed materials look more like conventional texts than self-study materials. Point i, meanwhile, makes it clear that the main part of the broadcast instruction is didactic. (Chapters 2 and 10 pointed out the limitations of one-way didactic teaching.) Furthermore, the quality of that broadcasting does not seem to be high. Wei and Tong (1994, p. 61) explained that the productions could be placed in three categories: The quality of video programs can be divided into three categories A, B, and C. Category A mainly comprises lectures of traditional classroom teaching.

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Category B consists of different parts of instructional content well organized and connected by background music, pictures, voices, or scenery, etc., while category C refers to the supplementary electronic-field-production (EFP) video programs or direct shooting of situational dialogues, field studies, real events or films for references, which, of course, is the most expensive of all. It seems clear from point i, above, that category A predominates. This conclusion is confirmed by Perraton’s (2000, p. 97) observation: Students of the Chinese television university in Shen Zhen in 1993 were attending classes in an echoing brick-and-concrete building with the institutional feel of an English technical college of the 1950s. Television lessons, with talking head and blackboard, were giving the same physics curriculum you would find anywhere, as was the noisy move from one classroom to another at the end of fifty minutes. The teacher was on the screen, in the only apparent difference from a conventional class. In spite of students being taught by instructional materials of poor quality, in environments that are less than salubrious, the Chinese radio and television universities have achieved graduation rates far superior to those of most other distance teaching universities in developing countries and better then many in developed countries. The explanation for this clearly does not lie in the design of the instructional system, the superiority of the instructional materials or the quality of the tutorial support network. Rather, it seems most likely to lie in the area of greatest difference from other distance teaching universities, namely the fact that the students study as a group. The Chinese universities have ignored the normal format for distance education in favour of a mode which suits conditions in the country and has proved to be highly effective.

An OUHK tutor The next example is rather different. It is of a tutor at the OUHK who provided the type of help needed by novice students to make the transition towards self-direction in learning which is needed by successful learners. The degree of assistance she was able to provide was limited because of the restricted time allocated for tutorials. It is not realistic to expect students to be able to reorient their conceptions of teaching, learning and knowledge in a few hours per mouth. However, tutorials in this format serve as a model. The example is taken, with some adaptation, from a Ph.D. study by Natalia Li (2007). The study was of the adaptation to distance education of a group of newly enrolled OUHK students. Data gathering included semi-participant attendance at, and observation of, a number of tutorials attended by the sample of students. The observations were analysed in four categories. The category presented here is

178 Chapter 13 Table 13.1 Summary of observation of the tutorials Tutor’s activities performed

Tutees’ responses

Wrote the agenda/activities/issues to be addressed in the tutorial on the blackboard.

Copied information from the board.

Presented main points of the units to be covered. Whole-class discussion of issues raised in the course materials. Put notes on board when necessary.

Copied notes. Students nominated gave responses. Other students listened quietly, some dropped their heads when the tutor asked questions.

Guided learning activities, usually in groups.

Worked in groups, conclusions reported by a representative.

Reminded students of main points for the tutor-marked assignment (TMA) to be handed in.

Some asked questions about how to deal with it. Asked clarifications for tackling it: e.g., what is a plain paper?

Commented on the previous TMA.

Listened attentively, laughed when points reflected weaknesses or mistakes made on TMA.

Invited questions.

Normally kept quiet.

Reminded students of logistics of handing in TMA: deadline of TMA, sent in with notice card.

Jotted reminders.

of a tutor who had developed a style of tutorials ideal for helping students develop self-direction in learning. The outline form of a typical tutorial is shown in Table 13.1. The tutorial follows the good practice of starting with a preview, which provides a road-map of what is to come. Next comes a summary of the main points in the relevant sections of the course materials. This start provides scaffolding support for students accustomed to didactic teaching. The teaching is of a form they are used to, but provides just a summary of key concepts, rather than all the material. Even at this point there is class discussion. Next comes a section devoted to learning activities. This exposes students to forms of teaching and learning incompatible with didactic teaching and reproductive learning. To encourage participation, the activities are mostly tackled in small groups. A spokesperson from each group reports the conclusions or outcomes from the group. Involvement in these learning activities helps the students develop confidence in their ability to learn in an active manner and take responsibility for their own learning. The next section offers help with tutor-marked assignments (TMAs). This is important, first, because it is probably what is most wanted by students and so ensures good attendance. Second, many new students find it difficult to interpret

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the requirements of university assignments. They are as yet unfamiliar with academic conventions, so they can easily misunderstand requirements. The tutorial also has a question-and-answer session in which the students have a chance to ask questions about topics with which they have difficulty. While this is not always fully utilised, there is more chance of students feeling confident enough to ask questions if the tutorial has been interactive, as they feel less inhibited in speaking up. More information on the tutor comes from Natalia Li’s (2007: 187) summary of the style of the tutorials: Trudy was a helpful tutor. She was involved and eager to help her tutees to learn. In the first tutorial, Trudy conducted a simple survey about how her tutees took courses. She discovered that quite a few tutees took two or more than two courses. She voiced her expectations to her tutees in the first tutorial. She wanted them to learn seriously and to be responsible. She provided chances for her tutees to become familiar with each other. She asked each of them to prepare a name tag to be shown to all others, to chat for a while, to form small study groups and exchange contact information. In each tutorial, Trudy tried to employ a ‘sandwich approach’ to do different things to help tutees to construct their knowledge. She first gave a short presentation on the content to be covered in the session. She then organised some learning activities. Finally, she concluded with the key contents that had been covered. She walked around to help out her tutees while they were working. Her comments given on the TMAs were detailed and helpful to her tutees to make improvements. Before the examination, she did some revision with her tutees. Her teaching was relevant to the tutees’ study or work. She was appreciated by the tutees. The attendance rates were relatively high and steady. She gained quite a lot of compliments from their tutees during the interviews. This extract reinforces the above comments. The activities are ‘sandwiched’ between beginning and ending segments which are more presentation oriented. The tutorial then has familiar forms of teaching and learning, but also forms which should help the students become better at active learning and develop a degree of self-direction. The tutor also made a serious attempt to help students get to know each other and form study groups. These efforts would have been reinforced by the amount of small group work within the tutorials.

Conclusion A form of flexible learning is suggested which could enable dependent learners to learn to cope with the demands of distance learning. The learning system is a fusion

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of distance education materials and face-to-face tuition designed to promote the development of autonomy in learning and the ability to learn independently from a study package. Open universities already have the learning packages, so what is called for is increased face-to-face learner or tutorial support in the initial courses for a degree. The aim is to start learners in a mode of education with which they are familiar and progressively develop autonomy in learning so that the final parts can be completed by distance learning. An analogy is to swimming lessons in the shallow end in which support is offered until the novice swimmer feels confident enough to strike out on their own. The other modification to the classic distance education format which seems to encourage students to persist in their studies is that of students studying together as a class group. There needs to be some initiation of the class meetings by having a tutor present for some or making broadcasts to centres. Once the cohort becomes socialised into a coherent group, the powerful benefits of communal learning and a sense of belonging start to become effective. There is limited evidence of the adoption of truly flexible learning systems. Open universities in developing countries have possibly been slow to adopt more flexible forms of provision because they have not featured at least one of the three parents of flexible learning. Furthermore, most of the Asian open universities are large institutions which have to function as well-ordered production lines. This may also militate against changing to more flexible educational models.

Chapter 14

Conclusion

In the book so far I have developed a series of arguments. The principal ones are summarised below: • •

•

•

•

•

• •

•

Developing countries have retained elite post-secondary education systems, while developed countries have moved towards mass higher education. This means that developing countries have a large number of potential postsecondary students denied entry to the final years of secondary education and/or conventional universities. The predominant way of catering to the demand for higher education from this pool of disadvantaged students has been through distance education with open entry policies, often modelled on the UKOU provision. However, the majority of the UKOU students have been qualified for entry to university and many are mature professionals seeking additional qualifications for continuing professional development. Students enrolling in open entry courses in developed countries tend to have less education and relevant professional experience and as a result have lower levels of self-determination in learning. There is often, therefore, a degree of incompatibility between the demands of independent learning posed by distance education and the students’ stage of development of self-direction in learning. As a result, the graduation rates of open universities are often low, with heavy drop-out rates in the initial stages. Graduation rates are likely to be boosted if students can be helped to make the transition from dependent to independent learners. The adult education literature suggests this is best achieved by starting with forms of learning with which the students are familiar and comfortable, and gradually exposing them to forms which require more self-determination, while providing a supporting environment. This suggests more flexible forms of education, with significant levels of face-to-face contact in the initial stages, providing a preparation for distance learning. New students often find it difficult to cope with a form of learning which mostly takes place in the absence of a teacher or fellow students. It can be hard

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•

to adapt to study in isolation when previous education has been in classes. As well as having to adapt to studying as an individual, the established benefits of collaborative learning must be forgone. Another factor which appears to contribute to student progress is establishing coherent class groups, which leads to students developing a sense of belonging. This again calls for more flexible models, since conventional distance education is, by definition, a predominantly individual mode of study.

Difficulty of adapting to distance education The conclusion of this series of propositions is that many of the students enrolling in open universities in developing countries do so to take advantage of their open entry policies. They have been unable to complete secondary education or gain a place in conventional universities as a result of elite selectivity in the educational system. Open universities have, in the main, adopted distance education in a form modelled on the UKOU. In this the principal medium of instruction is a package of study materials which is designed for individual study. There may be tutorials, but these are considered secondary or supplementary to the study package. Open universities in developing countries have often not been able to achieve the quality or the extensiveness of the local study support network established by the UKOU. As a result of enrolling in the open entry programmes taught by conventional distance education, many of the new students find themselves having to study by a mode which is radically different to what they have become accustomed to in their schooling. Their previous education will have been in secondary-school classes, taught by a teacher. So they have become conditioned to thinking of education taking place in classes of fellow students, under the direction of a teacher. Many find it difficult to put aside these beliefs and commence a lonely venture without a teacher on hand to guide them every step of the way. To compound the difficulty of adaptation, the elitist school systems in developing countries are often focused towards maximising students’ chances in the all-important examinations which determine who gets one of the limited number of places at the next level of education. There is a temptation to teach model answers to questions likely to appear in examinations. Teaching is commonly didactic, sticking closely to the external examination syllabus. Learning, all too often, becomes a process of remembering the model answers in order to reproduce them in examinations. Students often complete school conditioned to believe that education is a communal process under the direction of a teacher. Further, their beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge are of the naïve set which is incompatible with the goals of higher education. Compounding their difficulties even more, they enrol in open entry programmes often because their examination results were not good enough to gain a place at a conventional university. Their self-concept of their ability as a student is therefore unlikely to be sky high.

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Is it any wonder, then, that many of the developing country students, whose only previous educational experience was at school, fail to cope with studying for an undergraduate degree by distance education? To be a successful student they somehow have to adapt, from the outset, to a form of education radically different to anything they have experienced before. All too many fail to do so. The dropout rates in the early stages of undergraduate and sub-degree distance education courses in developing countries are high. The open door is more like a revolving door.

Easing the transition It would be over-simplistic to attribute all drop-outs to a failure to make the abrupt adaptation to the distance education mode of study. However, this book has been devoted to establishing the diagnosis that this is a major cause, and probably the most significant cause in developing countries. If the diagnosis is that students are unable to make the instant transition to a radically different form of education, it surely makes sense to explore ways in which students might be helped to make the transition. Chapter 7 suggested that rather than thrusting them straight into a form of education very different to that which they had experienced before, it would be better to start with a form of education closer to what they were used to and support them through the process of transition towards self-directing distance learners. This implies providing an initial scaffolding in the form of substantial amounts of face-to-face support or teaching and progressively removing that scaffolding as the students are taught and helped to become more autonomous in their learning.

Towards flexible learning? In terms of the types of education introduced in Chapter 1, open universities in developing countries should consider adapting the conventional distance education model, which most have adopted, towards more flexible learning. The latter is seen as a judicious blend of distance teaching, face-to-face learning and networked information technology suited to local conditions and students’ learning needs and abilities. Of the forms of post-secondary education introduced in Chapter 1, flexible learning has had perhaps the least impact, particularly in the developing world. Chapter 13 suggested two reasons for this. First, the large national open universities lack the face-to-face teaching stream of dual-mode institutions. Blending the ingredients to a judicious mix is less likely to happen when one or more is not in the store cupboard to start with. Second, distance education has been seen as an industrialised form of education, characterised by multiple inputs, division of labour, a production-line process and high throughput. Such a factory-like system can operate effectively only if the processes are well regulated by an established bureaucracy. Documented procedures need to be established by the overseeing

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bureaucracy. Once set in place, the system is hard to change. Rigidity, rather than flexibility, is favoured. I suspect another factor militating against enhanced flexibility are deep-seated conceptions of forms of education. Chapter 2 introduced research which showed that university teachers’ conceptions of teaching had a major impact on the ways in which they teach and how their students learn. The high degree of commonality about the form in which distance education and open learning are offered suggests that an academic tribe has formed with deep-seated beliefs about the nature of their discipline and the form of education they offer. The principal tenets of the tribal beliefs are that open entry is synonymous with distance education, which is a form of learning with minimal face-to-face contact between teacher and students or by students with their peers. If these beliefs are indeed entrenched, adopting flexible learning would need a tribal revolution.

Blending in more face-to-face contact Chapter 13 gave some examples of distance education courses which had adopted more flexible forms with higher degrees of teacher–student and/or student–student contact than the conventional form. All had graduation rates markedly higher than the norm for open universities in developing countries. Interestingly, there was a great deal of diversity across the examples because each had taken on a form suited to local conditions and circumstances. They had fitted in with what was already in place and built upon it. As a result, the form of education was suited to the local environment and therefore consistent with the expectations of potential students.

Adapting existing structures These examples of more flexible models were adopted early in the lives of the educational ventures. They appear to be the result of planners taking an independent line, or possibly following their own instincts, rather than sticking to a recipe developed in a different style of restaurant for quite different customers. As the degree of adaptation of open universities in developing countries towards flexible learning has not been widely trumpeted in the literature, it seems likely that it is not a major trend. For the reasons given earlier in this chapter, it seems more likely that it will be difficult to develop more flexible forms of education. The incentive to do so is that governments are unlikely to be satisfied with forms of education with low graduation rates when their economies need labour forces with the knowledge and competencies of university graduates. When economies are underdeveloped, providing an opportunity to enrol in post-secondary education might be seen as a social benefit. However, once economies become more technologically developed or outsourced service industries are established, the need is for competent and capable graduates, not early drop-outs.

Conclusion 185

Making adaptations to boost the graduation rates will not be easy. The examples of more successful distance education programmes, and the UKOU is one which could be cited, suggest that they have thought through the needs of their students and tried to build upon existing resources and strengths to meet the identified need in the best possible way.

Evaluation and research Adapting modes of education to suit the needs of students better could be facilitated by feedback from students which identifies their needs and problems. The normal source of feedback of this type is through evaluation and research. Most, if not all, open universities in developing countries routinely conduct evaluation. The data and feedback gathered, though, seem to have done little to help address the major problem of low graduation rates. A clue as to why this is the case may lie in the word ‘routinely’. The place of evaluation is entrenched in the classical instructional design system model as a means of refining and finetuning the study package and possibly evaluating the tutor for any supplementary tutorials. Many open universities have standard evaluation questionnaires and procedures for administering them. These forms of evaluation are no doubt effective in meeting the narrow aims of refining study packages. However, they do nothing to address the wider issues raised in this book because questions do not seek input on these issues. To do so, a quite different style of evaluation is needed – one which is more open, naturalistic and qualitative, which would give students the opportunity to raise their own concerns and issues, rather than being bound by a framework decided by instructional designers at the university. Evaluation is meant to be a process which informs decision-making. All too often it has failed to provide information for the important issues. A similar paradigm shift is needed if research is to guide a process of adaptation to more flexible forms of education. Distance education research has been categorised by Berge and Mrozowski (2001). Over 75 per cent of articles in the field were placed in the descriptive category, with case studies as the next biggest section. In another survey of distance education research, Lee et al. (2004) also interpreted a high proportion of distance education work as descriptive. Reporting on existing practice is unlikely to lead to anything more than minor refinement of practice. Significant changes can result only from research which reflects critically upon existing practice and current wisdom.

Helping students adapt to study at a distance The most prominent thesis developed in this book is that many students in developing countries find it hard to adapt to distance education. The most important reason for this is that the mode of education is characterised by the absence of a teacher or fellow students for most of the period of study. Students who have become conditioned by years of schooling, often didactic in nature, rarely have the degree of self-determination in learning needed to take

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confidently to individual study at a distance. The adult education literature suggests that the transition is most likely to be successful if: • • • • • •

it is made gradually; support is provided; there is a movement from the familiar to the unfamiliar; initial scaffolding is provided and only gradually withdrawn; a trusting relationship with a facilitator is built; the students are not ‘dropped in at the deep end’.

Unfortunately, the distance education literature has made limited reference to this part of the adult education literature. If the diagnosis of this book is correct, then significant improvements in graduation rates can be expected from more flexible versions of distance education which attempt to make use of the points above. Another important contributor to the low graduation rates of distance education providers in developing countries is the isolation of the mode of study. Studying alone is not easy when all previous study has been in the company of others. The significant benefits of collaborative or peer learning are forgone. There is definitely room for exploring an enhancement to the degree of tutor–student and student–student contact in open education. Even if costs prohibit high levels of teacher–student contact, this should not prohibit the trialling of forms of peer learning and class-based distance learning which have succeeded in other contexts. This book started by examining forms of post-secondary education with respect to developing countries. The conclusion has been that the open entry element of open learning is important in developing countries because of elite entry to conventional universities. There are many, though, who envisage open learning as being synonymous with distance education. My thesis has been that many developing country students find it hard to study at a distance as they lack the necessary level of self-determination in learning. The suggested solution is to move towards forms of flexible learning with greater levels of teacher–student and student– student contact than pure distance education. This recommendation is derived from the adult learning literature on the development of self-determination in learning. Self-determination is worth perusing as it would not only help students cope with their open entry programmes but is also surely one of the most important goals of all post-secondary education.

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