Postgraduate perspectives of distance e-learning : a qualitative case study of online distance learning in occupational safety and health

Abstract

The use of the Internet as a medium for education has grown exponentially sincethe mid-1990s. Institutions of higher education are increasingly offering onlineaccess to distance education programmes, especially at postgraduate level. Somesee e-learning as offering solutions to many problems traditionally associatedwith distance education.Research into e-learning at a distance has largely focussed on the effectiveness ofdiffering technologies for the delivery of online courses, the emphasis beingupon the technology itself, with few studies examining the student experience ofthis new phenomenon. It is therefore argued that a gap exists, as the views ofdistance e-learners at postgraduate level have seldom been paid attention, withtheir specific and individual needs failing to be addressed. This study aims torectify this gap by examining postgraduates' experiences of e-learning at adistance. The purpose of the study is to inform the future development of elearningat postgraduate level and help determine how higher education can bestsupport this rapidly expanding group of learners.The research presents a qualitative case study of a group of students studyingmodules from the University of Salford's MSc/Postgraduate Diploma inOccupational Safety and Health in a virtual learning environment calledGOLDPhase, which was specifically designed and developed to facilitate thestudy.Issues related to the students' heightened awareness of their peers, theirsensitivity to tutor feedback, and the learning strategies they adopted areidentified and discussed. The findings show that e-learning engendered a rangeof barriers and enhancements for this group of distance learners. Theenhancements were largely computer based and barriers were mostlysociological.The findings have implications for both online teaching and online learningstrategies. As distance e-learning is in its infancy the study will increase overallunderstanding in this area and contribute to the growing body of knowledge