1.7 Utilizing distance education in your professional development  (Page 4/6)

Since phone calls that came from the remote sites would make a buzzing noise, the studio students were asked ifthey were bothered by these call-ins. Findings indicated that, in 2002, 66.7% of the campus students said that it never botheredthem, and 30.6% said that it sometimes bothered them. In 2004, 85.7% of the campus students stated that they were never botheredby the call-ins, with 14.3% saying that it sometimes bothered them. One assumption may be that with students taking more and moretelevision courses, they have become used to the call-ins.

The size of the classes meant that attendance took longer. The students were asked whether it was stillappropriate to take attendance in these large classes. The results of that inquiry are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3

In the studio class, in 2002, 76.7% said that attendance should be taken, while 56.0% of the remote-site studentsfelt that taking attendance was appropriate. In 2004, the percentages declined: 42.9% of the studio students said thatattendance should be taken, with 32.4% of the remote-site students agreeing.

Another change was the way in which the educational leadership students were tested. There were two optionsthat did not require students to come to campus. We could use the usual pencil and paper examination and mail them to the remotesites where a proctor would supervise the exams and return them by mail, or we could put the exams on the Internet and students couldtake them by computer.

In 2002, both methods of testing were used. The students in the school finance class were given the writtenexams, and the students in the principalship class were tested by computer. When the students were asked whether they preferred theway they were examined or whether they would prefer the alternate method, students in both classes preferred the way they weretested, even though they were tested in different ways. The results of that inquiry are summarized in Table 4.

Table 4

For the studio class taking a paper test (finance class), 100% said that they would prefer a paper test; forthe off-campus students taking a paper test, 79.5% said that they liked that method. For the studio classes that completed exams oncomputer (principalship class), 68.2% said that they would prefer the computer for taking exams; for the off-campus students takingthe computer test, 91.9% said that they would prefer that method. This seems to suggest that either way is acceptable to students.Since access to computers was the same for all students and since paper tests could have been used for all students, it seems thatstudents simply preferred what was given to them.

In 2004, all students were tested using written tests, and they were asked whether they would prefer takingtheir exams that way or whether they would prefer tests on a computer. For the studio students, 69.0% said that they wouldprefer the way they had been tested—by written exams. For those at the remote sites, 66.9% said that they would have preferred to havebeen tested by computer rather than by written exams.