The Future of Distance Education: An International Comparative Study

Introduction

With the pandemic, it became necessary for many Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) to use the Distance Education (DE) format to keep schools open (UNESCO, 2020; UNESCO & IESALC, 2020). Before the pandemic, IHEs mainly used a face-to-face teaching model, although an increasing number of IHEs have been offering online classes (Seaman et al., 2018; Kentnor, 2015). Substantive changes in the educational environment were required from IHEs to address the challenges of the sudden crisis.

Purposefully designed DE programs could not be developed due to the need to transition from face-to-face to DE rapidly. IHEs need to plan for post-pandemic scenarios in which “digitalization expands and complements student-teacher and other relationships” (Schleicher, 2020, p. 4).

Marinoni et al. (2020) found that DE brought many challenges to IHEs during the pandemic, such as a negative impact on the quality of educational activities and a decrease in the equity of learning opportunities. According to Zhaohui (2020), organizational agility allows many IHEs to respond quickly to challenges. Many IHEs focused primarily on transitioning their course content to online platforms rather than effective online pedagogy (Crawford et al., 2020), which led to questioning if IHEs are prepared to switch to online classes (Houlden & Veletsianos, 2020). During the pandemic, many IHEs provided training for instructors on how to create and deliver online courses. Students’ opinions and engagement with DE depend on the quality of DE classes; thus, instructors need further training in online pedagogy.

This empirical study aims to support the theoretical framework of DE by providing a multinational perspective on students’ opinions and experiences with DE learning. The study intends to offer research-informed support for future DE models that IHEs can use and contribute to understanding students’ preferences, needs, and opinions regarding DE. The study’s results have the potential to assist IHEs in planning their digitalization strategies, recruitment efforts, and learning approaches while also informing the development of purposefully designed DE and blended learning (BL) programs. To address these objectives, the authors of this chapter adapted and modified research questions from a pre-pandemic study to reflect the current pandemic context. The research questions include exploring students’ previous experiences with online courses, their opinions about DE, reasons for enrolling or not enrolling in DE courses, their perceived preparedness for DE, receptiveness to DE courses after the pandemic, preferences for DE formats, and examining similarities and differences in responses based on age, gender, and country.

Including three countries, Portugal, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates, will allow for a comprehensive analysis of the impact of DE on students’ learning experiences. A multinational approach strengthens the results and understanding of the future educational landscape for IHEs in different countries.

Background

Because of the pandemic, all educational stakeholders were affected and found it necessary to address pedagogical and technological issues. Assessing students’ opinions and needs regarding DE has gained a renewed interest in the last two years. The DE format can be used to reach a large number of students (Perraton, 2008) due to its scalable nature (Fidalgo, 2012). According to Perraton (2008) “If the right model could be found, the techniques of […] distance learning might be adapted to the needs of some of the millions who drop out of school, or who dropped out in a previous generation” (p. 6).