Chapter 1



Acknowledgements 2

Key Findings and Recommendations 3

Structure of the Report 4

Chapter 1: Understanding Distance Education 6

Introduction 6

Distance Learning at DCE 6

Research Strategy 7

Study Design 8

Student Survey 8

Faculty Interviews 10

Chapter 2: Student Experience with Distance Courses 13

Introduction 13

Results 13

The Demand for Adult Education at DCE 14

The Demand for Specific Courses 15

The Demand for Distance Courses 17

Classroom plus Internet 18

Satisfaction and Experience with Distance Capabilities 23

Student Survey Follow-up 28

Chapter 3: The Views of the Faculty 38

Introduction 38

Going Distance 39

Why do it? 39

Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance 40

Readiness to teach the course 42

The Practice of Distance 42

The impact of distance on teaching performances 42

Attending to Students and the Role of the TF 46

The Creation of Community 47

Conclusions 47

Appendix A: Student Questionnaire 49

Appendix B: Interview Guide for Faculty 58

Acknowledgements

This report was sponsored by the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education (DCE). We are particularly grateful to Len Evenchik, Director of Distance and Innovative Education at DCE, who took the initiative to have us carry out this evaluation. Throughout all the phases of our work, Len offered unflagging interest, support, and guidance. This research was supported generously by the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Instructional Technology and Distance Education, and we are thankful to Elizabeth Hess for helping us to frame the original proposal. Our report has benefited from the contributions of many individuals at DCE: Dodge Fernald, who served as faculty advisor, Mary Higgins, Henry Leitner, James Peregrino, Tim Kelly, Susan McGee, Colin Kegler, Brenda Mahoney, Jan Jackson, and others. We also wish to acknowledge the guidance and support provided by Dean Michael Shinagel, the careful editing of Wayne Ishikawa, and the production help from the Promotions Office. We often asked DCE staff to accommodate our requests, and they did so in a spirit of collegiality. We thank the i-Commons group for granting us the opportunity to present a preliminary version of this work, and offering useful feedback. We are grateful also to the DCE faculty who gave us their time, and to the students who voluntarily provided us with data and insights.

Executive Summary

The explosion of distance education at the post-secondary school level in the United States has captured the attention of faculty, students, university administrators, and the corporate community. As technological advances that improve course delivery over the Internet coincide with labor market changes and increased demand for learning opportunities, questions about the future of distance education are foremost in the minds of many academic planners and policy makers.

For the past six years, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education (DCE) has made a small number of its courses available to local and distance students over the Internet. In order to assist in its planning and strategy, DCE commissioned an evaluation of its distance offerings that attempted to address the following issues:

□ Should the program expand, and if so, how fast?

□ Why do students choose DCE for distance courses?

□ How does distance education change the teaching and learning that goes on at DCE?

This report details the first phase of work in a multi-year process of strengthening the distance program by developing a greater capacity to create innovations in distance learning and to incorporate evaluation. It presents the findings of research carried out in the spring 2001 term, grounding them in an understanding of contemporary debates and management models related to distance learning.

Key Findings and Recommendations

The results of our study support a growth strategy for DCE’s distance education program. Not only did the courses receive high overall marks but both students and faculty were also enthusiastic in their support for distance courses. In addition, distance courses appear to generate increased demand for the distance modality in the future: once students take a course with a distance component, they are more likely to want that option again. We believe that the strategy for growing the program should include:

□ Focus growth on ‘hybrid’ courses, those that offer both live classroom meetings and Internet video availability.

□ Consider expanding foundation courses in the degree and certificate programs.

□ Courses with a technology focus or content are an appropriate area for distance growth.

□ Develop incentives for faculty members to put their courses online

□ Distance courses should have a one- to two-year rollout.

□ Evaluation and adoption of some of the Harvard iCommons tools.

□ Continued study and evaluation before growing the number of Internet-only courses.

Students chose DCE distance courses for a variety of reasons. Local students are attracted by the convenience; not always having to attend class allows them to combine hectic work and family lives with being able to pursue further education. The Harvard University image and reputation is also important for the distance program. Students from outside the Boston area are attracted to DCE in part because of the Harvard name and reputation. The farther from campus, the more important the Harvard brand. Given what we have learned, we recommend:

□ Different marketing strategies for local and non-local students.

□ Demands for education may change, but DCE must maintain its standards and academic focus.

□ Any rise in fees should be done with an overall price increase, not a targeted increase in the distance courses.

Teaching and learning at DCE have changed in the distance courses. Faculty and students alike are experimenting and struggling with issues of how to create communities in the classroom and online. Teaching styles are changing in some cases and the nature of teaching is also changing. Given these changes we suggest:

□ Instituting some differential but not preferential treatment of distance.

□ Better training for course personnel.

□ Help faculty adapt teaching styles to both classroom and distance audience.

□ Continued study to understand better how different student learning styles interact with technologies.

.

Structure of the Report

This report begins with a discussion of the distance education program at DCE and highlights some of the important issues raised in the literature that guided our research. Chapter Two presents the results of the survey and follow-up interviews we administered to students enrolled in distance courses at DCE. Chapter Three analyzes the structured interviews conducted with faculty members in the distance program. Chapter Four offers our recommendations to DCE about where we see potential for growth and how to focus on teaching and learning practices that will enhance the distance program.

Chapter 1: Understanding Distance Education

Introduction

As technological advances that allow for better mechanisms of course delivery over distance coincide with changes in the labor market, changes in the type and number of students and an increased demand for learning opportunities, questions about the future structure and provision of higher education are foremost in the minds of many academic planners and policy makers.

For several years, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education (DCE) has made a small number of its courses available to local and distance students over the Internet. In order to assist in its planning and strategy development for distance education as it looks ahead, DCE felt it an opportune time to undertake an evaluation of its current offerings. In particular DCE wanted to focus on: whether the program should expand and at what pace, to determine why students choose DCE for distance courses, and to understand how the teaching and learning at DCE changes as the result of distance education. This report details the findings of our evaluation, grounding them in an understanding of contemporary debates about pedagogical issues and management models related to distance learning. It also offers suggestions and recommendations for the future of distance education at DCE.

Distance Learning at DCE

In order to contextualize the research presented here, we start with a brief overview of distance education at DCE. In 2000–01 there were 25 distance education courses with more than 2,200 students, of whom approximately 10 to 15 percent were taking the classes exclusively at a distance either because they were living far from Harvard or because their schedule did not permit attendance in class. (In 2002, 32 courses had been made available via the Internet.) Course lectures along with other course-related material can be viewed on video over the Internet by students anywhere in the world. Registered students, including those in the Boston area, have the option of attending lectures when they are given on campus or watching them online. In some cases, courses are available online only. Students view lectures on the Internet through streaming video (video that is being fed to the user as it is being viewed.) Further information regarding the Distance Education program can be found on the Distance Education website; .

All students registered in a Distance Education course have access to the videos, regardless of whether they attend live lectures or not. Lecture videos are made available 48 hours after the live lecture and they remain online for the duration of the semester. DCE has a policy of not videotaping the faces of students present in class. This means that the distance students only hear the voices of their peers. Outside the classroom, much of the communication between teaching staff and students takes place via e-mail and the course website. This is true for both local and distance students. Most courses have a bulletin board or chat room to foster dialogue among students and teaching staff. Some instructors are starting to give special assignments to the distance only students, such as requiring them to post on the bulletin boards. Because students access live lectures asynchronously, they cannot participate in this more interactive arena of the course.

Distance Education and local students follow the same schedule of due dates for assignments and exams. The lag time between the actual lecture and the availability of the online video is taken into account when determining these dates. In the event that a course has an exam, arrangements can be made at a local school to have the exam proctored to the student. Because the Extension School does not distinguish between on-campus and distance students, the transcript does not specify if a course is completed via distance education or not.

Because there are no distance education courses per se, instructors have to propose a course to the Extension School and have it accepted as part of the normal course selection process that takes place each spring. If it is accepted, it might be added to the distance education offerings for the following year. At times the Extension School solicits the courses, at times instructors propose to teach in that fashion.

Over the past several years, DCE articulated the following principles to guide the development of the distance education component:

□ There are no special noncredit or 1- or 2-unit “distance only” courses. Most Extension School courses are worth 4 units; this implies that all the courses meet a certain academic level. Any new instructional technology (such as DVDs) or new mode of delivering a course (such as the Internet) should not change this academic structure or negatively affect academic rigor. In other words, a course via the Internet should correspond to a regular face-to-face class presented in a Harvard lecture hall.

□ All students are “the same.” Except for the obvious differences (that a distance student does not attend lectures on campus), students at a distance should be treated in the same manner as local students. When it comes to registration, student/teacher communication, grading, and student evaluation no distinction is made between local and distance students. In fact, at the beginning of the term instructors do not know who in the class is a distance student and who is not. Students who take distance education courses complete the same coursework and receive the same credit as students who take the courses locally.

□ Technology should not take precedence over learning and teaching. An effort has to be made that technology does not dictate the pedagogical approach. Given that all the courses were large lecture type courses, the steaming video technology seemed to work well.

Research Strategy

The central task faced by this study was to respond to the question of what the pace and direction of growth of distance education at DCE should be. Although the researchers examined the trends in distance education nationally as an important contextual factor that DCE faces in the development of its own program, we also assumed that its actions will be bounded by the need to fulfill and stay faithful to its core mission. That mission is to extend the teaching and research of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to the local community. This concern with DCE’s mission also prompted us to focus on issues of how distance education may change the teaching and learning that occurs at DCE, and how ongoing research on the distance education offered by DCE can provide useful tools and feedback for enhancing the experience of students at both DCE and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Study Design

The research entailed a survey of DCE students enrolled in the distance courses and structured interviews with faculty members teaching in the distance program. In both cases, the questions were designed with the central themes of the study in mind and drew on key issues in the current academic and educational policy literature on distance teaching and learning.

Student Survey

The survey was administered to students enrolled in two types of distance courses at DCE. One was a ‘hybrid’ model, where the classroom lecture is taped and available over the Internet within 24 to 48 hours after delivery, along with Powerpoint slides of the instructor’s notes. Students can attend lecture or not, depending on how convenient it is for them to do so. The second type of course is the ‘all-distance’ course, which is an Internet-only version of a course that was usually filmed a semester earlier. This type of course has no live lectures and all students are distance students. The courses do, however, have live weekly section meetings.

Students enrolled in 12 courses in the spring 2001 term were asked to complete the end of term survey, which had been piloted during the fall 2000 term. Two hundred thirty students of 758 completed the questionnaire, for a response rate of 33%. We also conducted a follow-up series of interviews by email and phone in order to deepen our understanding of some of the response patterns revealed by the quantitative analysis. Appendix A provides a sample of the questionnaire.

The questions posed to students on the survey reflected central concerns of the study and also drew on the current literature on various aspects of distance learning. A number of the relevant literatures are discussed briefly here. Students were asked a series of questions about their reasons for pursuing further education, why they had chosen DCE, and their reasons for taking a distance course. Answers to these questions allowed us to look both at the relative importance students assign to the availability of distance as an option when choosing a course and to inform our understanding of the particular draw of DCE as opposed to other institutions offering distance courses. The features of the distance education market often are an important contrast to the traditional higher education market. One of the central concerns for consumers is the quality of the product; not only has less information for distance programs been available but also the fact that so many programs are relatively new means that it is often hard for consumers to make informed judgments. Studies have shown that the reputation of an institution is an important factor in students’ willingness to take distance courses.[1]

We also developed a series of questions that reflect the broad economic and demographic changes that scholars agree are changing the landscape of higher education. Because issues of training and lifelong learning are now viewed as central to labor market success over the life course of individuals[2], we inquired about the work-related reasons for choosing courses and distance. Other sociologists have pointed to the speed-up of work and family life, particularly for women[3], in the United States[4]. We speculated that distance courses might be especially important for those whose work and family lives are extremely demanding and so included questions about those aspects of students’ lives.

Another issue that the literature discusses is the role of learning styles on people’s performance and interest in distance learning courses. Despite the fact that many view learning style as a crucial explanatory variable on a variety of distance learning outcomes, there is a shortage of studies on it.[5] One of the particularly important points for adult learners is that they are often thought to be generally characterized by a learning style that prefers face-to-face interaction over more impersonal forms, with the implication that distance programs need to take this into account when designing courses.[6] We utilized a number of questions on learning styles that other researchers, such as those associated with Project Adept[7], have worked with and also designed new questions to examine how students at DCE with different learning styles viewed their experience with distance education.

Closely related to learning styles is student readiness to take a distance course. Many programs assume that the ideal distance student is one who is highly motivated, self-directed, and has good time management skills.[8] Being comfortable with computers is another aspect of readiness, and the assumption is that students who are familiar with technology and use computers regularly will make better distance learners. Our survey includes questions about how well students are able to organize their time and their feelings about computers that allow us to test the relationship among these individual factors and their experience and evaluation of DCE’ distance courses.

An interesting assessment of distance learning that has been undertaken in the US occurred in 1999 at the University of Illinois. There a group of faculty met over the course of the year to explore the implications of distance education for the university. Their research, available in their online report[9], focused exclusively on pedagogical aspects of distance learning. They assumed that characteristics of good practice in teaching and learning are generic and hence apply to all contexts. They viewed good practice as encouraging student-faculty contact, cooperation among students, and active learning. Good practice gives prompt feedback, emphasizes time on task, communicates high expectations, and respects diverse talents and ways of learning.[10] Ultimately the group agreed with Hansen[11], that from the pedagogical perspective, the most important principle is attentiveness to students, defined as an appropriate reaction to what students do, need, and ask.

Apart from the professor, students derive much motivation from each other. [12] “Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated.” Working with others often increases engagement in learning. All of these aspects are part of a high quality learning experience that needs to be incorporated into online learning. Following this literature, we included survey questions about students’ relationship to faculty, to each other, and how the interactions occurred. In addition, many of the follow-up interviews focused on these issues.

Another area that the survey considered was how the students were using the technology. This was considered important in order to best respond in the future to the needs of the distance students. We examined what the primary use for the class videos was (i.e. as a way to take the class or mainly to review it), how well the technology functioned, and their overall level of satisfaction with it. Most studies of distance learning look at how technology may change the learning process but do so from the perspective of the student who is not in the classroom. This study does so as well, considering, for example, how reading bulletin boards or chat rooms facilitate virtual discussion, how posting helps learning or the utility of linked websites. Unlike much prior work, however, this study also considered the impact of distance learning on the in-class student community by examining how the presence of the camera affected students.

Faculty Interviews

Part of our research strategy also included interviews with faculty members in the distance courses. Faculty who taught DCE distance courses were also interviewed using a structured, open-ended guide. Nine instructors participated in the study and the interview guide is reproduced in Appendix B. Five of the faculty members were in the Computer Science department and four from a variety of other departments. The interviews were coded for themes and analyzed. Together with the data from the students, they help bring into focus a clear picture of the experience of distance education at DCE.

One of our central concerns in the faculty interviews was why they had decided to teach a distance course and what they viewed as the positive and negative aspects of their experience. This set of questions is related to a broader ongoing discussion in academe about the meaning of distance education and the use of the Internet for intellectual endeavors. These are extremely contentious issues at some universities. For example, at the University of Toronto faculty members went out on strike against the university’s attempts to have faculty put course materials online, fearing a loss of autonomy and control over their own intellectual property.[13] The issue of remuneration has also arisen for faculty members when online courses can in theory infinitely expand the number of paying students. Faculty members have made arguments in favor of profit-sharing, a step that university administrators have generally been loathe to take. The point is, many faculty members see (and administrators both welcome and fear) a sea change in the economics of higher education. We were interested to see whether any of these dynamics were present among DCE distance faculty.

We also asked professors about the process by which they developed the online versions of their courses. In particular, we were interested in being able to make recommendations to DCE about an optimal time frame for the creation of distance courses. The issue of how well developed the electronic aspects of the course had been prior to its distance version was a specific area of interest to us because we wondered whether there might be overlapping or competing learning curves in terms of computer mediated instruction versus distance instruction. Interestingly, and in contrast to most distance programs, we felt that the faculty members’ role in the development of the electronic features of the course was likely to be high because of the particular strategy of DCE to focus on the Computer Science courses and we inquired about this.

In addition, we asked about whether they had consulted with other faculty members either when deciding about doing a distance course or in developing it because we wanted to ascertain the degree to which there is any kind of community of practice that has developed at DCE around the distance course. This would include advice on design, ongoing sharing of ideas and some forum or mechanism for exchange of ideas.

The faculty interviews also focused on their interactions with distance students and what, if anything, they did to acknowledge those students. In part, we wanted to know whether DCE’s policy of treating distance students the same as their non-distance counterparts was followed in the classroom or whether faculty members had felt that differentiated treatment was necessary. We also asked professors whether they saw any differences in the needs, behavior or performance of the students. This is the reverse side of the coin: the institution may treat students similarly but distance students may act and make demands differently than local students.

We also probed the faculty members for information about the nature of the work of teaching a distance course. In the pilot study that we carried out in the semester prior to the research for this study, we were struck by how the amount and type of work seemed to change once a course was offered at a distance. In particular, the email traffic had appeared to increase greatly and the work needed to be offloaded to Teaching Fellows. In the faculty interviews, we followed up this theme with questions about the amount of work and also how their teaching performance may have changed.

Chapter 2: Student Experience with Distance Courses

Introduction

This chapter examines students’ opinions and experiences with distance courses at DCE. Students in 12 courses were surveyed about their reasons for taking courses, in general and specifically at Harvard, their perceptions and use of the course’s distance component, their learning styles and overall experience in the class. In addition to the survey, some students were contacted for a follow-up interview in order to get a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how the distance component met their expectations and needs for learning.

We surveyed students from nine hybrid courses (those that met in the classroom and made a video of the class sessions available over the Internet) and from three distance-only courses, where lectures were taped in an earlier semester and then rebroadcast over the Internet with support from the instructor and teaching fellows. The 12 courses were offered during the spring term of 2001. They represent all the distance course offerings of DCE that term with the exception of one course that was excluded from the survey because its mode of delivery was fundamentally different from the rest of the distance courses. Eight of the courses were in the Computer Science department, including all three distance-only courses, and the remaining ones were offered by the departments of Classics, Government, Natural Sciences, and Philosophy. The characteristics of the sample are reported in Table 2.1.

Results

The findings show that there is a high degree of satisfaction with the distance component of the courses. At the same time we note that the distance features (such as the quality of the video or the ability to follow the lectures over distance) received somewhat lower ratings than the courses in general. The evaluation of distance appears to assume a trade-off between the convenience that distance education allows many adult learners with complex professional and family commitments, and the attentiveness and interaction available in the classroom. This is a trade-off that most students seem willing to accept, particularly since there are other factors that offset the negatives. For those who live outside the area, the prestige of taking Harvard courses is an important factor weighing on their decision to enroll. For them, presumably the lack of physical proximity to the instructors is outweighed by their virtual proximity. Local students, in contrast, often enjoy the best of both worlds, attending classes when they can and catching up over the Internet when they cannot. Many of them become essentially mixed-modality students, erasing the distinction between classroom and distance learners.

|Table 2.1 |

|Descriptive Characteristics of Student Survey Sample |

| | | | |

|Sample size |230 |Employment Status | |

|Respondents enrolled in hybrid | |Full time |80.7% |

|courses |74.2% |Part time |8.3% |

|Respondents enrolled in Computer | |Not currently employed | |

|Science courses | |Education level |11.0% |

|Age |72.2% |High School | |

|18-25 | |Associate degree |8.3% |

|26-35 |14.5% |B.A./B.S. |4.8% |

|36-45 |46.1% |M.A./M.S. |50.7% |

|46-55 |23.2% |Grad or Professional |17.5% |

|55+ |12.7% |Respondents enrolled in |18.8% |

|Gender |3.5% |degree/certificate program | |

|Male | |Respondents with prior DCE courses | |

|Female |63.3% |Respondents with prior distance courses |46.1% |

|Distance from Campus |37.7% |Course payment | |

|Under 10 miles | |Self-pay |73.7% |

|10 to 25 miles | |Employer pays | |

|Out of Boston area |44.5% | |36.0% |

|Out of New England |24.0% | | |

|Out of USA |16.6% | |56.2% |

| | | |41.2% |

| |11.4% | | |

| | | | |

| |3.5% | | |

The findings also suggest that there is great demand for the hybrid courses precisely because they allow local students to combine the convenience of distance with the connectedness and attentiveness of the classroom format. Distance, in a sense, creates its own demand among local students, as many who experience it are loathe to return to a classroom-only model once having taken a hybrid course. In the following sections, we present a discussion of these findings.

The Demand for Adult Education at DCE

One of the issues examined by the survey is why respondents take courses at all. Students were asked to rate their reasons for pursuing their education. In this sample, respondents stated personal enrichment as the most important reason they were taking classes, although as Table 2.2 shows, professional concerns, especially in one’s current career also were an important factor.

|Table 2.2 |

|Mean Rating of Item’s Importance for Pursuing Education* |

|Personal Enrichment |4.3 |

|Professional enhancement in current career | |

|Pursue a degree |3.9 |

|Interest in changing careers |3.7 |

| |2.8 |

|N=227 |

|* Respondents used a 5 point scale where 1=not very important, 5=very important |

There was little variation among the responses related to other characteristics of the students, except in what department they are taking courses. Students enrolled in Computer Science courses were much more likely to list current career concerns as a reason they were taking classes (4.3 versus 2.6 on a 5 point scale) and much less likely to cite personal enrichment as important (4.1 versus 4.7). That career concerns were more important to students in Computer Science courses is not very surprising since it is a growth field in terms of employment and one where skills need constant upgrading.

These findings suggest that differentiated marketing strategies for different types of courses may be effective and in ways that are directly relevant to DCE thinking about its plans for distance education. After controlling for whether a student was enrolled in a Computer Science course, results showed that the more important personal enrichment was in the decision to pursue coursework, the more important it was that the particular course was available on the Internet in the decision to take it. In contrast, professionally driven reasons for continuing one’s studies had no relationship with how important a course’s availability on the Internet was.

General reasons for pursuing adult education are likely a contextual factor influencing the demand for certain characteristics of specific courses. As part of the strategy for attracting distance students to courses that do not have a clear link to career trajectories, DCE might capitalize on the personal enrichment aspect of the experience. Combining that with a focus on the Harvard ‘brand’ name could be particularly effective since the prestige of Harvard is also associated with personal enrichment motivations.

The Demand for Specific Courses

In addition to the issue of the pursuit of education in general, the survey was designed to examine in greater detail the reasons students gave for taking the specific course in which they were enrolled. They were asked to rate several factors related to convenience (Internet availability, location and schedule), reputation (Harvard prestige, instructor or personal recommendation), requirements, and cost. Table 2.3 reports students’ responses and shows how the importance of the different factors varies by students’ place of residence. There are a number

|Table 2.3 |

|Reasons Given for Choosing DCE Courses |

|Variation among Students’ Residence* |

| |Overall mean |Living with/in |Living out of |Living out of |

| | |25 miles |Boston area |NE or USA |

|Convenient Schedule |3.6 |3.5 |3.7 |4.0 |

|Prestige of Harvard |3.5 |3.3 |3.7 |4.5 |

|Available over the Internet |3.3 |2.9 |3.8 |5.0 |

|Convenient location |3.3 |3.4 |3.3 |2.6 |

|Required course |3.2 |3.0 |3.6 |3.7 |

|Reputation of the instructor |3.1 |3.0 |3.2 |3.7 |

|Cost |2.8 |2.7 |3.0 |3.1 |

|Recommended by someone |2.4 |2.4 |2.6 |2.1 |

| | | | | |

|N |228 |156 |38 |34 |

|* Respondents used a 5 point scale where 1=not very important, 5=very important |

of notable patterns to the responses. Internet accessibility is clearly more important for those living outside of the Boston area for the obvious reason that it allows such students to enroll, and for them it is the most important factor in their decision. For local students, in contrast, it is one of the least important reasons, although as we note below in the section on the importance of distance education, prior experience with distance courses tends to increase the weight students attach to having it as an option.

Regardless of where students live, the reputation of the course or the instructor seemed to carry little weight in their decision to take the course, although the one exception was found among the students who live farthest away. For them, the instructor’s reputation was a factor in their choice, suggesting that courses with high-profile faculty will be more appealing to true distance students and might be marketed accordingly. With respect to the institution’s reputation (Harvard prestige), it gained importance as distance from Cambridge increased, again suggesting different strategies for promoting DCE’s distance courses in the Boston area and outside of it.

It is also interesting to note that cost was a relatively unimportant factor for students, suggesting that the demand for DCE course is fairly inelastic with respect to price. For some students, it was not price alone that makes DCE a good value, but the implicit economic benefit that the institution’s name adds. The link between price and prestige can be seen in the comment one student made on his survey form:

“Considering that this is HARVARD Extension School, the tuition cost is relatively ‘cheaper’ than other schools.”

As this suggests, some students do look at what other schools offer and make their decision to take DCE courses after considering different options. Slightly over twenty percent stated that they had compared other institutions before choosing DCE. Comparison shopping for distance courses was more common among students who lived farther away and those who had taken a distance course before. It was less common among students who had taken courses at DCE in the past. To some extent, people who live in the area may look less at other institutions because they see DCE as their local school; when considering potential students outside of Boston, DCE faces a more competitive market. Once DCE attracts or captures students, whether local or those at a distance, the data suggest that students stay with DCE. Distance education, however, does mean that people are more aware of, and check out, other options, presumably because the experience of having taken a distance course changes people’s perceptions of what is available to them, suggesting that to keep distance students DCE needs to be constantly aware of how to meet their needs. The next section focuses specifically on what students want from distance courses.

The Demand for Distance Courses

Student data, comments, and follow-up conversations uniformly highlight how much students appreciate the convenience that distance provides in allowing them to combine work and family responsibilities with study. Table 2.4 shows what draws students to courses

| Table 2.4 |

|Mean Rating of Item’s Importance for |

|Taking a Distance Course* |

|Flexibility of viewing class to fit schedule |4.2 |

|Ability to view classes over Internet | |

|Go back and reflect on class or discussion |4.0 |

|Not having to be physically present |3.8 |

|Less pressured environment | |

| |3.7 |

| |2.5 |

|N=209 |

|* Respondents used a 5 point scale where 1=not very important, 5=very important |

available over distance. Although the convenience features play a prominent role in the demand for distance courses, it is also noteworthy that the pedagogical possibilities offered by distance courses are highly valued by students as well. Being able to go back and revisit what went on in the lecture and discussion is important for many students. Students noted that this helped with their comprehension of the course materials as evidenced by this comment:

“I do not say that classroom is always better than distance learning. With very effective Internet tools like lecture-videos-online, I have benefited being able to watch the lecture again and understand things better.”

For most students, the ideal course combines both distance and classroom components. As Table 2.5 shows, the hybrid modality of classroom-plus-Internet is by far the option preferred by students when considering taking future courses. The hybrid mode has quickly become the ideal for students, even among those who might be assumed to have other preferences. For example, local students have a strong preference for hybrid courses: only 7% of those living within 25 miles of DCE would prefer the classroom-only option, while over 75% would want the hybrid mode in choosing a future course. As one local student who was new to the distance experience explained on his survey, although having the option of viewing the class on the Internet was of no interest to him in choosing the course, he came to realize how invaluable a feature it was as the semester progressed. In the follow-up interview with him, he stated:

I've reached the conclusion that it would be unwise for me to sign up for a course without that [distance] component. I should also mention that I only live a 15 minute walk away.

Students who are currently enrolled in the distance only courses also overwhelmingly prefer the hybrid mode (84%) and only a fifth of them would take distance only again as their preferred mode, a difference which is not statistically significant compared with students in the hybrid courses. This is perhaps in part explained by the fact that most of the distance-only students who answered the survey live locally and would enjoy the in-class experience. However, it is interesting to note that the truly distant students may also have reasons to prefer hybrid courses over Internet-only ones. One student living across the country mentioned as an aside that the fact that there were ‘live’ students in the classroom made the course better for him compared with some distance programs that are only ‘talking-heads’.

|Table 2.5 |

|Preferred Course Modality (percentage) |

|Classroom-only | 6.1 |

|Classroom plus Internet |73.0 |

|Internet-only |14.3 |

|Does not matter |7.5 |

|N=230 |

Curiously, even students who never watched the videos of their own classes would prefer to have the Internet option in the future. Of students currently enrolled in the hybrid courses, one quarter of them never used the video option in their courses. While 19% of these students who never view the video favor the classroom-only option, it is still striking that 65% want the option of watching the course over the Internet. It may be that they see the value in having the Internet viewing capability should they need it in the future.

One way of gauging how strong the preference is for the hybrid option is to examine the willingness to pay for it. Even for students who do not use an option in a course, if it is free to them and there is no downside to having it, then they are rational to choose it, especially if they think that it might be useful under certain circumstances. However, faced with some cost for the option, students may be much less willing to choose it. That may be because they are unlikely to use it or because they do not feel that the value of the option is equal to the additional cost. For the respondents in the survey, the majority (59%) indicate that they would be unwilling to pay any additional fees to have Internet video capability and only fifteen percent would be willing to pay more than 10% extra for it.

Regression analysis (not shown) of the willingness to pay revealed that the following factors are related to being willing to pay for Internet availability:

• higher rating given to the current course

• greater distance of residence from campus

• using the video component of current course

• less interactive learning style

This suggests that the value attached to the distance component of courses is related to a variety of factors that have different implications for pricing and advertising strategies. The importance of the perception of quality, reflected in the fact that the more highly rated a course the more likely the student is willing to pay for distance, suggests that if any additional charges for such courses were to be instituted, such an increase should only occur when the quality of the distance experience can be assured. Since one of the findings of the study is that a course’s learning curve for distance is sometimes steep in the first year, one suggestion would be to hold off a price increase until a course’s distance component runs smoothly.

Another strategy could be to fold the cost of distance into an overall tuition increase since the ill-will generated by differential pricing, particularly among local students, may not be worth the additional revenue. In addition, charging higher prices for courses available on the Internet could encourage local students to opt for a classroom-only experience of the hybrid courses, which would be a waste of the technology and counterproductive to a growth strategy. Since growth will partly need to come from distance-only local students due to the physical ceiling on classroom seats, DCE would not wish to create a negative incentive to avoid hybrid course.

The differences among students with respect to their attitudes towards the distance component of courses depending on their place of residence also bears on future Extension School strategies. For students living outside the Boston area, the distance option is clearly a necessity to be able to enroll in the courses. The importance of Internet availability for them in choosing their current course is extremely high. In addition, as we noted above, the greater the distance from Cambridge, the more heavily the prestige factor of Harvard factors into the decision to take the course. This suggests that a distance course recruitment strategy for students living outside the area could focus on being able to access the Harvard experience from anywhere in the country or world.

Locally, the situation is rather different. For local students (those living within 25 miles) the distance component is currently a highly desirable feature, yet appears to be non-essential. Not only are they much less willing to pay extra for Internet availability, it is also far less important in their decision to take a course, as Table 2.3 above shows. For them, the value of the Internet option lies in the flexibility it offers: the closer students live to campus, the more important is being able to view the course when it fits their schedules. Local students are likely to be attracted by a focus on the ability to combine taking a course with their busy lives.

The results from the local students offer another suggestion about the future growth of distance courses at the Extension School. There is some reason to think that the pressure to include a distance component in courses will rise from the local market that currently makes up the bulk of demand. While the local students may not currently view the distance option as particularly important, their behavior to some extent suggests a different picture. Certainly, the local students in the hybrid courses are oriented to the classroom. Over sixty percent of those living within ten miles and half of those living under twenty-five miles attended at least ten class sessions. At the same time, however, they also tend to use the Internet video. Two thirds of these students use the video and spend approximately 1.6 hours weekly doing so. Primarily they use it to make up for missed classes. As students have experience with this convenience, they are likely to want it in the future. As the Extension Schools expands its distance offerings, more students are likely to come in with some prior distance experience because of the repeat nature of many of the students. Of the local students in this sample, over eighty percent had taken an Extension School course prior to their current one, though fewer than half had ever taken a distance course. As more students take courses with a distance component, the demand to offer the option in many more courses is likely to rise.

We draw this conclusion from the fact that prior experience with distance influences local students’ rating of the importance of Internet availability in their decision to take a course. In our earlier discussion, we noted that Internet availability is less important to local students than to those living outside the area. However, local students who had previously taken a distance course rated its importance at 3.3 on a 5-point scale, significantly higher than the 2.6 rating local students who had no previous distance courses did. Since virtually all of the local students with prior distance experience have also taken courses at the Extension School previously, we assume a high percentage of the past distance courses were also DCE courses. This suggests that having the experience of the distance component of courses for local students creates a demand for subsequent distance courses. Combined with the fact that distance experience is also associated with a greater willingness to shop around for courses suggests that to stay competitive, DCE will need to grow its number of distance offerings.

|Table 2.6 |

|Students’ likelihood of taking different |

|class modalities if only option offered |

| |Internet only |Classroom-only |

|Definitely not |17% |16% |

|Probably not | | |

|Probably yes |32% |17% |

|Definitely yes |25% |27% |

| |26% |40% |

| | | |

| |N=150 Does not include |N=228 |

| |students currently in | |

| |distance only course | |

While students may prefer a certain option and even be willing to pay extra for it, it is worth considering how they respond to the various options under conditions of limited choice, as opposed to different price levels. This is particularly informative since, as noted above, demand for Extension School courses is probably fairly inelastic with respect to price. When presented with the options of taking their current course if it were only offered as pure distance or as a pure classroom-based course, there was generally a fair amount of support for taking whatever option was offered; as Table 2.6 shows, half of the students currently enrolled in the hybrid courses would be fairly likely to take a course offered only over the Internet.

Understanding the factors associated with students’ willingness to take either of these options is useful for further assessing demand for different types of courses. Table 2.7 reports regression results for each of these. The models considered the effect of how far away a student lives from campus, whether the student’s learning style is interactive (a scale made up of several variables measuring the respondents’ assessment of how they learn), whether they had taken any distance courses before, how much they enjoy using computers, and how old they are. How well they manage their time was also added to the distance-only model on the assumption that the lack of structure provided by a fixed weekly class meeting could be a deterrent to students with below-average time management skills.

|Table 2.7 |

|Willingness to choose course modalities under conditions of choice constraint |

|Independent variable |Estimated coefficient |Standard error |

|Model 1: Internet-only | | |

|Distance from campus |.334*** |.071 |

|Interactive learning style |-.217** |.089 |

|Prior distance courses |.345** |.156 |

|Employed full time |.321* |.180 |

|Enjoyment of computers |.183** |.089 |

|Age |-.002 |.071 |

|Time management |.169** |.068 |

|Constant |1.482*** |.517 |

|R2 |.25 | |

|Model 2: Classroom-only | | |

|Distance from campus |-.441*** |.056 |

|Interactive learning style |.385*** |.081 |

|Prior distance courses |-.132 |.135 |

|Employed full time |-.113 |.164 |

|Enjoyment of computers |-.209*** |.078 |

|Age |.118* |.065 |

|Constant |3.461*** |.465 |

|R2 |.34 | |

|*** p ................
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