Teachers' views on and use of printed materials in a distance learning teacher education course

Abstract

Despite the heavy emphasis on online learning in recent years, print is still an important medium for course delivery in distance education. Distance educators have argued that, with the incorporation of appropriate access structures, distance learning materials can be self‐instructional and interactive. This study aims to explore the extent to which students on a distance teacher education course considered that the print materials had achieved the course objectives, and how they made use of the in‐text access structures. The results indicate that, although teachers on the course agreed that the materials were able to achieve the course objectives, the extent to which they made use of the access devices varied considerably.

Keywords:

• Distance education
• Distance learning materials
• Teacher education

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the President's Advisory Committee on Research and Development of the Open University of Hong Kong. The author would also like to thank Professor Ronnie Carr for reading and commenting on the draft of this paper, and Mr Ken Yu for his help in collecting and transcribing the interview data for the study.

Notes

* School of Education and Languages, The Open University of Hong Kong, 30 Good Shepherd Street, Homantin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yvonne Y. H. Fung*

* School of Education and Languages, The Open University of Hong Kong, 30 Good Shepherd Street, Homantin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected].