Critical Reflections on Distance Education, Terry Evans & Daryl Nation (Eds.) Deakin Studies in Education Series: 2. London: The Falmer Press, 1989. |
VOL. 5, No. 1, 77-79
The objective of this book is to present a critical perspective in the analysis of the theory, policy, and practice of distance education. It attempts to do this through a presentation of nine critical reflections on distance teaching practices in selected Australian universities and colleges. The book, and indeed the entire series, aims to demonstrate the harmonious relationship between educational theory, policy, and practice and thus obliterate the futile and sterile traditional boundaries between educational theorists, practitioners, and policy makers. Such boundaries are meaningless particularly in distance education where a wide range of people with different abilities and responsibilities are involved on a cooperative basis to operate an industrialized form of education, or what the book calls "instructional industrialism," that is, the adoption of educational technology in distance education.
The book aims at a wide range of audience which includes theorists, practitioners, scholars, and researchers in distance education. It is targetted particularly at the burgeoning generation of innovative distance educators and researchers who are keen to develop a critical educational science in distance education, that is, critical reflections in the philosophy, curriculum, administration, management, modern technology, action research, and evaluation in distance education.
All in all, the book succeeds in raising critical consciousness about many assumptions and concepts made by distance educators and educational technologists in their teaching activities. For example, the critique on the application of educational technology in distance education should induce us to re-examine the whole relationship between teachers and learners, whether they are separated in time and space or in a face-to-face situation. The main criticism levelled on educational technology is that it is based upon behaviorist theories and models of learning which tend to regard teachers and learners as inanimate objects or passive givers and receivers of pre-prepared and prepackaged knowledge. The other criticism is that, in a distance teaching system, the temporal and spatial separation between teachers and learners tends to insulate one group from the other and thus forge undesirable power relations between the two groups. If these criticisms provoke distance educators to strive for better ways and means of humanizing teaching and learning processes, if distance educators begin to critically analyze the various forms and processes of enacting knowledge and communication, then the book will have achieved one of its main objectives. The book goes farther to suggest and discuss some ideas on alternative ways of enhancing teaching and learning processes, such as the use of "open" texts and the encouragement of dialogue between the teachers and the learners, and, one might add, among the learners themselves.
We should not, however, be over-hasty in criticizing distance education. The discipline itself is still relatively young and has yet to undergo the test of time. In the final chapter of the book a warning is sounded that distance education may become bureaucratic and dehumanizing. On this issue, we should not underrate the abilities of adult learners to manage and self-direct their own learning. There is a limit to what extent a distance educator is in control of the learner. For instance, an indoctrination into a particular thought or action is likely to be more effective in an institutionalized conventional education system than in a distance education system where learners are not removed from their social and political milieu for long periods and, therefore, have more leeway for independent thought and reflection. Andragogical approaches inherent in distance education call for a recognition and encouragement of the learners' capacity for self- direction which is, in itself, a recognition of their power to shape and control their own destinies.
This book is not for a beginner in distance education. It is more suitable for university teachers, college tutors, researchers and students of education at the post-secondary level. The quality of the presentation and production of the book is high, albeit rather mean on graphics and illustrations to break the monotony of the printed word. The case studies are well documented and the bibliography reflects a careful and contemporary selection. The book makes a refreshing contribution to practical research and scholarship in distance education which is impossible to ignore.
Critical Reflections on Distance Education, edited by Terry Evans and Daryl Nation is the second in the series of Deakin Studies in Education - a project supported by the Institute of Distance Education at Deakin University and the School of Social Sciences at the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education in Australia.
Peter E. Kinyanjui
The Commonwealth of Learning
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