This article reports findings of a meta-analytical study of research on distance education. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that affect the effectiveness of distance education. The results show that although the aggregated data of available studies show no significant difference in outcomes between distance education and face-to-face education as previous research reviews suggest, there is remarkable difference across the studies. Further examination of the difference reveals that distance education programs, just like traditional education programs, vary a great deal in their outcomes, and the outcome of distance education is associated with a number of pedagogical and technological factors. This study led to some important data-driven suggestions for and about distance education.

Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are important public health tools to fight against COVID-19. Governments around the world have instituted a variety of NPIs to modify individuals’ behavior, giving rise to four distinct pandemic response strategies: nudge, mandate, decree, and boost. To better understand the different policy choices involved in these strategies, four countries including Sweden, China, France, and Japan were compared to identify the critical institutional and cultural determinants of national response strategy. The finding shows that various responses regarding same threat are dependent on the distinctive institutional arrangements and cultural orientation of each country, and thus, there is no One-Size-Fits-All strategy.

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