Evaluation and the invisible student: theories, practice and problems in evaluating distance education provision

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractMaking sure that a higher education distance learning course meets student expectations is critical to ensuring the quality of the student experience. Judging whether a course delivers to its promise is a particular challenge when the course is delivered by distance learning and there is no regular face-to-face contact with students, the more so when courses are faced with alternative conceptions, and external audits, of quality. The paper identifies the contested nature of quality, examines models of evaluation, relates them to existing forms of evaluation facing education courses, and offers an alternative constructivist approach based on the notion of a service template. Electronic accessThe research register for this journal is available at http://www.mcbup.com/research_registersThe current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emerald-library.com/ft Our thanks to the anonymous referees whose detailed suggestions were much appreciated by the template team.

The Views of Instructors in Foreign Language Teaching with Distance Education Model during the Covid 19 Pandemic Process: A Study at Tishk International University in Erbil, Iraq

“…It has been found that problems such as lack of direct feedback, active participation, communication and interaction in distance education environments have been expressed by instructors in different studies (Shaytura et al, 2020;Fojtík, 2018;Watts, 2016;Zhao et al, 2005). It is also supported by the studies in the literature that it affects the teaching staff negatively and creates a negative perception towards distance education (Gunawardena & McIsaac, 2013;Bernard et al, 2020;Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006;Gilroy et al, 2001). When the findings of the research were examined, it was concluded that the instructors perceived technical problems such as connection and technological infrastructure and instructional problems such as motivation, participation, communication, student follow-up, feedback and evaluation as very important in the distance education model.…”

Improving distance education through Programme Quality Assurance

“…In the early 1990s, in response to Commonwealth Government initiatives relating to the quality of university education, the University had a need to design a suitable system to ensure the quality of all its educational programmes. We will not delve too far here into what might be meant by educational quality (Vidovich, Fourie et al 2000;Gilroy, Long et al 2001), except to say that it was seen to relate to ensuring that course documentation reflected practice and assisted in the improvement of practice. In late 1993 Bowden was given the task of going around the University to speak about the need to introduce some sort of EQA system, and to discuss how this might be done.…”

Gestão estratégica do conhecimento no campo da avaliação em educação a distância

“…Nas duas últimas décadas tem crescido o debate e a preocupação com o desempenho de instituições educacionais no contexto internacional, especialmente, quando muitos governos iniciam um processo de desregulamentação dos cursos de graduação e pós-graduação e quando há um considerável aumento na oferta desses cursos à distância (Gilroy et al, 2001;Pounder, 1999;Martens e Prosser, 1998;Varey, 1993).…”