We close the thirty-second volume of The American Journal of Distance Education with several articles that cover topics ranging from the use of audio in courses, student peer review, scholarly productivity, students’ collaborative learning attitudes, leadership, and K-12 teacher education.
Before summarizing the articles, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the editorial team of the American Journal of Distance Education, to thank Dr. Matthew Beckman for his service as a statistical reviewer over the past couple of years. We greatly appreciate the time and expertise that he has shared with all of the authors. He and all of our peer reviewers provide invaluable service and are much appreciated. If any of our readers have interest in joining our colleagues in the process of peer review, please feel free to reach out to us.
In this issue
Angela Hollman, Matthew R. Bice, James Ball, Nate Bickford, Alex B. Shafer, and Sonja Bickford look at scholarly productivity among professors with terminal degrees, and compare the productivity of those who have received their degrees from doctoral programs, hybrid, and face to face programs.
Community building and increasing student interaction in online courses is a common goal of instructors and course designers. Dianne Burke Moneypenny, Margaret Evans, and Amanda Kraha conducted a study on the topic of peer reviews in online courses and related student perceptions. Aside from the results of the study, researchers interested in this topic will find numerous suggestions for future research.
K-12 teacher education has traditionally been carried out in a face to face manner. Amanda R. Hurlbut presents the results of a study that compares student progress between online and face to face formats in a teacher education program. The mixed methods study was conducted using the same student teaching supervisor.
Andy Curran and Kay K. Seo address an interesting study of audio engagement and learning. As distance educators and instructional designers, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance text based courses that are provided online. This article provides interesting insights into the study of the effects of voice and music in online courses and how the use of these elements affects learning outcomes.
In the final article, authors Niva Wengrowicz, William Swart, Ravi Paul, Kenneth Macleod, Dov Dori & Yehudit Judy Dori use transactional distance as the foundation for their work, and report on student satisfaction and collaboration in case-based online courses within an MBA program.
Our journal’s series of interviews continues with Jenifer Kach speaking with Lawrence C. Ragan, who has been the co-director for the Institute of Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) for almost a decade. Dr. Ragan provides insight into lessons learned from developing and facilitating sessions with scores of emerging leaders in the field of distance education, and outlines his views on leadership.
Best wishes to our readers in 2019.