Methodology
The sources used for the literature search include the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and distance education journals and proceedings. The ERIC search descriptors linked distance education and telecommunications terminology with a variety of terms relating to faculty, organizational and instructional development. The five distance education journals searched were Distance Education; Journal of Distance Education; Research in Distance Education; The American Journal of Distance Education; and Open Learning. These searches identified over 225 articles; the abstract of each article then was reviewed for applicability. Articles identified as relevant to faculty issues in distance education and secondary citations from the reference lists were reviewed and incorporated into the study. This analysis Identified twenty-four research studies from both primary and secondary sources.
Traditional content analysis techniques were then used to categorize and organize the literature according to emerging themes and theoretical per-spectives. Analysis of these themes is based on general theories of innovation (Rogers 1983) and theories of innovation related specifically to higher education (Lindquist 1978).
Conclusions
Although much of the literature in distance education discusses the importance of the faculty member, research on faculty is lacking in quality and quantity. Of the 225 articles identified in the literature search, only twenty-four research studies relating to faculty have been conducted. The majority of the studies can be characterized as evaluations of single systems, rather than as research which builds on or adds to existing theory. Most studies examined faculty attitudes, one-third examined teaching styles and competencies, and the remainder examined administrator attitudes and institutional policies.
In general, the data indicate that the faculty who deliver education at a distance are well educated, full-time veteran instructors who represent all sectors of higher education and who come from all ranks and a wide variety of disciplines.
Faculty who teach at a distance are positive toward distance teaching and their attitudes tend to improve with experience. In general, faculty motivation to teach at a distance results from intrinsic rather than extrinsic incentives. Although the literature indicates the need for institutional commitment and support for successful distance learning. the research finds little evidence of such commitment. In fact, the research portrays institutions as largely indifferent, inconsistent, and skeptical, as operating in an environment in which distance education is considered, at best, peripheral to the "real" mission of the institution. A common thread in the research is the perception among faculty that distance teaching is neither rewarded by their academic departments nor perceived as a scholarly activity by significant colleagues. The results of one study, which found full professors to be more satisfied with their distance teaching experience than teachers in the lower ranks, caused Scriven (1986) to hypot
hesize about the positive effects of immunity from institutional reward systems.
Another common thread from the research is the finding that faculty who teach at a distance do indeed alter their roles. Holmberg's (1986) theory of guided didactic conversation suggests that a positive relationship exists between the use of didactic conversation and student involvement, motivation, and performance. Smith's (1991) model for effective distance teaching places student involvement as the foundation of all distance teaching activities. The extent to which traditional faculty roles are modified by teaching at a distance may be related to the type of technology used. Comparing studies of faculty roles of those using video to roles of those using audio technologies suggests that faculty who use interactive video change less than do faculty who use interactive audio systems. Although faculty need to understand how to use the technology, more important skills involve personalizing the instruction and incorporating student involvement strategies into the instructional experience. Research also indic
ates that faculty believe that distance teaching improves their traditional teaching.
However, faculty development programs designed to promote distance teaching are concerned primarily with training and do little to encourage or support a dramatic restructuring of faculty roles. Grossman 1989) attributes the second-class status of distance education to the fact that distance educators fail to understand the traditional academic culture that prevails in all institutions of higher education. Distance education has failed to become integrated into the academic culture, not as a result of the commonly cited factors of cost and faculty resistance, but rather due to the insistence of distance educators on perpetuating a culture that is out of touch with the driving force of higher education. At the heart of Grossman's argument lie the issues of ownership and of compatibility with long-held, traditional academic values. Grossman is suggesting that the current paradigm, which evolved from the instructional systems design paradigm described by Heinich (1984), diminishes the contribution of the fac
ulty by defining them as "content specialists," by likening faculty to the craft guilds of the middle ages and thus forcing them to
sacrifice the intellectual proprietorship held in esteem by the academy.
Strain (1987) counters Grossman's argument by suggesting that, in reality, participation in distance education requires instructors to sacrifice neither their intellectual proprietorship nor their control over the instructional process. He cites studies indicating that print materials developed by faculty are rated by telecourse students as more important to their learning than are expensive, mass-produced television segments.
The issues of ownership and compatibility are central to the successful diffusion of distance education, and several studies cited in this review confirm these as key issues in the adoption of distance education methods. Grossman (1989) argues that distance educators must respond to the needs of the academy. However, we cannot forget that the academy in turn must respond to the needs of the students it serves. As the needs of students change so do the roles of faculty. The issue of ownership is crucial in the development of distance education, for we should never allow technology to "drive" the content. Likewise, the academy has a responsibility to shift from a faculty-centered to a student-centered educational system. The studies of effective distance teaching find that faculty who make this shift are not only more successful distance teachers, but also more successful classroom teachers.
This review of the literature suggests that the ingredient most neglected in the diffusion of distance education is leadership, the very foundation of change. In contrast, the ingredient most prominent is training. However, training will be successful only if it exists in an environment supportive of change. Institutional approaches to distance education can be characterized as piecemeal, half-hearted attempts at extending educational resources to new populations of learners. The literature defines faculty development in distance education as training. The literature generally fails to view faculty development within the framework of a system which supports both professional development (i.e., faculty growth) and the organizational development (i.e., improving the institutional environment for teaching and decision making) in which professional development must occur (Bergquist and Phillips 1975). As Bergquist and Phillips (1977) point out,
[h]igher education too frequently offers...teachers little or no incentives to change. Supposedly committed to the highest moral and intellectual values, higher education is too often the province of triviality and irrelevance. (p. 157)
Distance education is viewed as distinct and separate from organizational development: however, by definition distance education implies nothing less than a massive restructuring of the organization of education. The needs of a learning society require that our educational system transfer the ownership of learning from the hands of educators to the hands of the learners. This is the promise of distance education.
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