The pervasive technology and significant social and economic development have forever changed our society. Economic development brings the different way to do anything in life to make easier and give different options to do because economic development means development of technologies. Distance education is the emergence of a new way of doing education that responded to the industrial age in society. Technology in the industrial era enabled new ways of designing education and teaching and learning reconceptualized in ways that shape new roles for teachers and students, emerged to accommodate news models for delivering education at a distance. Distance education is the delivery of instruction and the fulfillment of course work from remote locations; allowing instructors and students to interact without being in same place and it also helps in current situation like (Covid19). However, despite the benefit and growth in the size of acceptance of distance education, there have been criticism and challenges of distance education because it often fails to provide for interactions between students and instructors, and in rural, there has problem in internet connectivity.
The purpose of this literature review is to examine the overall attitude of higher education faculty towards teaching via distance education. It also explore about the distance education and how it was doing and also examines the different types of distance education. Distance education was done when the teachers and students are staying in different place and they study and interact through online using different technologies. It helps students to improve their independent learning and internet also helps to access different information which gives more information to students and they learn new knowledge. Distance education is also excellent method of adult learning because learning independently is more important when we are grown adult because it helps us in acquiring new knowledge and to get confident in ourselves. However, distance education are likely to insecurities about learning because when we learn in distance, there will be lack in receiving helps from tutors. We can’t access and refer book from library which is big source. When there has lack of support from tutors, students can’t do well in learning of knowledge because even in independent learning, teachers support is also most important. In rural areas there have problems in internet connectivity and not well in the verses of technology.
Distance education has different definition and most definitions specify that distance education is teaching and learning that occurs asynchronously, the learners and instructor separately by time and space using a variety technical, media to support the teaching and learning (Keegan, 1996: Eastmond, 1998; Locatis and Weisberg, 1997). In an online environment, interaction between teachers and students increases, and important to reach greater number of learners which resulting in increased diversification and globalization. Distance education was done when the worse situation was happening and the school was not suitable to continue. To avoid from such unpleasant situation, distance education was done. In current (COVID 19) situation, school se distance education to continue and improve learning. Distance education has many advantages such as flexibility, saving money and time, quality; improve in socializing and speaking skills and independent learning. Despite from having benefits of distance education, there have been persistent criticisms of this form of educational delivery because it often fails to provide for interaction between students and instructor, lack of support and source of education and internet connectivity problems. Some critics’ belief distance education’s inability to reproduce a critical dialogue among students which makes students to understand well.
Distance education has become the most significant change to the process of teaching and learning of the last decades (Simonson 2012). The researcher finding that students have positive attitude about online learning outcomes and the computer anxiety is not a problem to most students Well-designed distance education were reported to produce more positive online learning outcomes and to related to overall students satisfaction. Quality and design are most important in order to go smooth in distance education. There has also a question that why some individuals and organizations adopt distance education and others do not have produced many interesting studies. When researcher analyzed the data, the strongest barriers to distance education were because lack of money to implement distance education programs and it is understandable for students who came from poor backgrounds. There has also many barriers that find out and that are lack of strategies planning for distance education which means sometimes both teachers and students have to do some other works which they can’t participate with mass. Lack of technology-enhance classrooms, labs or infrastructure which greatly effects on students way of learning. Sometimes students will not participate in online class because of personal problems and lack of parental involvement.
The growing presence of distance education has changes the landscape of formal education. The promise of all these undertakings is to deliver courses that posses the signature of academic excellence and incorporate sound cognitive and instructional principles. The internet has given distance education a new appeal, either because it taps into unexplored instructional such as just-in-time learning or corporate training. Distance education was rarely in past because of lack of technologies and internet connectivity. In past class are always done face-to-face interactions in class. Nowadays, distance education was done mostly when the situation was not well in school. Comparing to past, presents students have ability to think big and they will not fully depend on teachers like in past. That was because of the development of infrastructure and facilities which students can access world news and knowledge through internet easily. Distance education also have negative impacts on students because unlike past students, present students become lazy because they don’t have to work and search hard to find knowledge because of easy facilities are there. Some students who can’t manage their time properly will waste their time in social media instead of learning knowledge.
Researcher also state about the theory of distance education known as the transactional theory. The concept of distance education was derived from Dewey (Dewey and Bentley, 1949). The transactional that we call distance education occurs between individuals who are teachers and learners, in an environment that has special characteristics of separation of one from another, and a consequent set of special teaching and learning behaviors. Even students and teachers are separated from each other; they are still interacting in video conferencing or zoom video. It is the physical separation that leads to a psychological and communication gap, a space of potential misunderstanding between the inputs of instructors and those of the learner, and this is the transactional distance. Teachers share and teach information from internet which are far from each other and using technologies. Sometimes they will share information not clear because of internet connectivity and technologies problems. There has elements which explain about transactional theory and that are dialogue and flexibly of structure. Dialogue and flexibility of structure varies from program to program, rather than from one medium to another. What determines the success of distance education is the extent to which the institution and the individual instructor are able to provide the appropriate opportunity for and quality of dialogue between teachers and learners as well as appropriately structured learning materials.
To conclude, distance education may go well if it reduces the inequality by providing wide access to enticing learning opportunities in a way that individual difference. Sometimes distance education is unfair to an individual because of several consequences. This research discusses the criticism and challenges that faced by the students. The distance education challenges will not same to all students and as a result it also results different in students’ performance. It was advantages for some but it was not suitable for some students. Distance learning was not used to students and instructors because they always gone through school and doing face-to-face interaction. Some students feel it as fake and uncomfortable. Sometimes time was late, early unlike in school and that give students a lot problem to do well in their academic performance. The topic distance education was examined the benefits, challenges and how students feels such new experiences.
References
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Simonson, M, Schlosser, C, Orellana, A. (2011). Distance education research: a review of literature.
Davie, L.E, Wells, R. (1991). Empowering the learner through computer-mediated communication. American Journal of Distance Education, 5(1), 15-23
Wedemeyer, C.A. (1971). Independent study. In R. Deighton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Education lV. New York: Macmillan.
Moore, M.G, Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance education: Systems view (2nd ed.). Belmond, CA: Wadsworth.
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