posted on 2019-01-10, 14:23authored byHelen M. Lentell
This thesis is about distance education as work in campus universities. It seeks
to understand how distance education arose and has been sustained in campus
universities. The research uncovers that critical to the development and
sustainability of distance education are the workers (academic and
administrative) who believe and are committed to this form of provision for those
who are otherwise unable to study.
The literature on distance education rarely addresses the role of the distance
education workers. Rather it suggests that distance education is very unlikely to
develop, let alone be sustained, if the appropriate infra structure is not in place
to support it. More recently a contrasting approach, ignoring policies and
organisational structures, suggests that the wide scale adoption of learning
technologies will mainstream distance education into conventional university
provision. There will be little or no difference between the two methods of
course delivery. My professional observation was that neither accounts could
explain the vibrant and successful distance education that had grown bottom up
within departments in campus universities in the UK. This provision, whilst
successful, remained marginal to mainstream university teaching and learning.
The research for this thesis took place between 2012 and 2015. It utilises an
iterative ethnographically informed interview process and was in two stages.
The first stage was concerned with ascertaining what ten internationally well
known and successful leaders of distance education provision considered to be
the critical factors for successful distance education provision. Called the
leader/experts in the research, I had anticipated that they would stress
leadership and management - and they did. However what emerged from these
first stage conversations was that above all else it was the people who worked
in distance education who made it take off and thrive. Thus whilst infra structure
and technology were important, they were second order considerations for
success. These leader/experts pointed to the team working and shared values
of distance education workers and their role, as leaders in distance education, was to provide an enabling environment for distance education workers. The
second and substantive stage of the research explores how 27 distance
education workers in 6 departments in three UK campus universities, describe
their work and why it is important to them.
The analysis of the research data suggests that distance education workers, in
all research sites, saw themselves as working in non hierarchical teams where
all, regardless of grade or role, supported each other, worked cooperatively and
learned together. This is described as the distance education community of
practice and is seen by the distance education workers as very different to the
typical (individualistic and competitive) ways of working in academic
departments. In addition the interviewees all stressed their involvement and
engagement with their distance education students, and emphasised that in all
aspects of their work they were student centred. Interviewees also stressed
their belief in the benefit of distance education, in particular emphasising the
values of access. These core ideas and dispositions are described in the thesis
as the distance education habitus. The distance education community of
practice and distance education habitus give the distance education workers a
sense of identity separate to their campus colleagues and explains their tireless
efforts to ‘work around’ the systems and processes of the campus university,
which are not designed to ensure the flexibility distance education students
require for successful study.
However all the interviewees, but most particularly in two of the universities (A
and C), also reported that these ways of working were being eroded and stifled
by changing managerial practices that promoted what were described as more
‘efficient’ ways of running the university. These managerial practices included
technology led systems approaches to the management of all students, and
changing requirements demanded of academic staff.
The thesis concludes by drawing analogies with other public sector provision
and noting the contradictions that whilst higher education policy makers are
addressing the need for flexibility the operational management of universities
are making this harder to achieve.