RESEARCH PAPER

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in EDLE & CUIN
EDUC 5324: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO EDUCATION

Name: Sami Tbeileh Date: 10/21/2018

Topic Selected:
What does the research say about advantages and disadvantages of distance education?

1. LITERATURE REVIEW:
What does the literature/research say about this issue/topic? By using NAU Library or
Online Search engines, conduct a literature review.
• You need to include 5 different sources (book, journal article, web article etc.) in your
review. Try to use current sources as much as possible.
• You need to summarize and synthesize your sources by discussing a common
theme or issue.
• You don't need to critique your sources
• You don't need to evaluate your sources (if the sources are trustworthy, weather the
author has a bias or not)
• You need to provide background information such as history and definitions

Brief Literature Review:

Distance education is the education that delivers the approaches to students who are not in the
same room with their instructors; and it supports regular and substantive interaction between the
students and the instructor, synchronously or asynchronously.
The distance education has pros and cons that be separated into several categories:
Advantages:
- Use of different media to realize the interaction among teacher, learners and
educational content.
- The provision of two-way communication between teacher and learners;
- Control of the learning process by the learners rather than the teacher.
- According to the time, no need to spend time to go and wait for a transportation

Disadvantages:

- Lag time between student input and feedback -Time lapse between need for learner
support and resolution .
- Occasional internet provider downtime .
- There is a big chance to be distracted and lose a track of deadlines.
2. REFLECTION:
• What is your personal opinion on this issue? Do you agree with the research? If you
agree or disagree, please explain why?
• Provide examples/experiences regarding this issue from school perspective or If you
are not working in a school, from your profession. Be specific with your examples.
You can mention software/hardware names, specific methods that you plan to use,
etc.
• How would you implement this research in your career? (At least 1 paragraph)

Reflection:
According to the distance education, I believe and agree what Kirykova mentioned that it is really
important to have a distance education in our lives because sometimes we, as students, are not in
area of the main campus to attend face-to-face class, even the campus classes is more effective,
but we the students also are able to focus on the online courses by following their instructors up.
Sometimes students can be trouble with their online course because they feel lazy to do their
assignments on time or before the deadline, as Gabriela Kirykova mentioned in the research paper,
the online courses are shorter than on-campus classes, thus, the pupils are required to comprehend
the learning content in a short period. An experience happened to me was in 2017 that an instructor
gave us three huge projects to achieve them in 10 days for just one course though I took 2 other
important courses. After that, I squeezed myself to finish everything on time.
As the author stated, people in the world need to interact each other to have an important social
life together. Distance education helps students to create sociability that allows them to have
different activities.

3. REFERENCES:
• Cite at least 5 References in APA.
• You may use http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-journal for citing your
sources in APA style.

References:

Kyrikova, G. (2009). Review of Distance Education. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279448170_Review_of_distance_education

Bijeesh, N, A. Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance Learning. Retrieved from

http://www.indiaeducation.net/online-education/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
distance-learning.html

Bozkurt, A., Ozbek, E, A., Yilmazel, S., Erdogdu, E., Ucar, H., Guler, E., Sezgin, S., Karadeniz, A.,
Ersoy, N, S., Canbek, N, G., Dincer, G, D., Ari, S., Aydin, C, H. ( 2015, February). Trends in
Distance Education Research. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1061066.pdf

Barket, R. & Holley, C. 1996. Interactive distance learning: perspectives and thoughts. Business
Communication Quarterly, 59(4), 88-97.

Schmitz, C, A. (2010, Oct. 25). Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance Learning. Retrieved
from https://wiki.uiowa.edu/display/edtech/Advantages+and+Disadvantages+of+Distance+Learning