Encyclopedia of Distance Education Research in Iowa. Second Edition.

Overview & Synopsis

This document is a resource for distance education research in Iowa, including information on developing, implementing, and administering distance education systems. This second edition contains the original 16 research papers published previously, as well as 8 additional, more recent research studies. The first section describes distance education in Iowa, the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), the Iowa Distance Education Alliance, and the research plan. The second section contains the research articles, divided according to the following headings: (1) "Adoption of an Innovation"; (2) "K-12 Teacher Attitudes Toward Distance Education"; (3) "The K-12 Distance Education Experience"; and (4) "Distance Education in Postsecondary Institutions." Research article topics include: use of the ICN; teachers' training; teacher attitudes; assessment of program implementation, learning needs and course performance; teacher attitudes and change; telecommunications-assisted instruction in family/consumer sciences, music, HIV/AIDS education, and foreign language; constructivist-based distance education environments; ICN use for secondary agriculture and music instruction; instructional adoption of the Internet; cooperative learning with interactive multimedia; teacher and student perceptions of effective instructional methods; virtual field experience; demographics and innovation of the community college; and adult education. The third section, "Literature Review," includes the definition, history and theory of distance education; a review of the literature; a discussion of operational issues; and a science bibliography.(AEF)