RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE

North American University

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

Name: Halil Caybasi Date: 11.24.2019

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

1. LITERATURE REVIEW: (250 Words)

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
Online/distance education is growing exponentially in popularity among

programs of education all over the world.. This phenomenon called online/distance

learning has been revered as an extraordinary change to the delivery platform of

education. In this review, the focus is on the examination of benefits and disadvantages of

implementing online instruction in institutions of education.

Fish and Gill (2009) discusses advantages and disadvantages of online instruction

identified by faculty members revolved around common themes pertaining to higher

order thinking, student convenience, face-to-face interaction and student honesty.

According to Challoo, Saldana, Davis, Kupczynski and Lori (2010), convenience,

flexibility accessibility and cost are the main benefits of online instruction. The authors

state that students need motivation, one-on-one interaction to be successful in online

courses. Students who are not positive toward learning online will ultimately fail their

online course work.

Sagheb-Tehrani (2011) underlines flexibility, learning more, faster and location

free-24/7, lower cost and additional university income, bringing disparate students from

anywhere, latest IT, forcing interaction, taking breaks as benefits of online learning. On

the other hand, according to him, lack of face to face interaction, complex concepts,

feedback issues, interruption and computer fail are the most important drawbacks of

distance education.

Al-Asfour (2012) underlines the most well-known benefit of online education is

flexibility. According to him, distance education can increase students’ skills in

technology and even become better writers. The author stresses that lack of one-on-one

meetings, lack of motivation and self-discipline and having difficulty of access to the

internet are the basic handicaps of online education.

According to Fedynich (2013), cost effectiveness, convenience, ease of

participation, hybrid courses are the basic advantages of distance learning. Fedynich

(2013) takes computer illiteracy, lack of instructor face time, lack of access to the

internet as disadvantages of distance education. The author also emphasizes that design

and implementation is another disadvantage to online learning.

2. REFLECTION: (250 Words)

 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:
Distance education has been in existence for a very long time. The medium has
changed from paper and pencil correspondence courses to real time Internet courses. So

online/distance education seems to be a necessity for the students of technology and

knowledge era/age.

Although there are some drawbacks of distance learning in education, there is no

doubt that it is very useful and effective concept in education. Namely, according to these

five studies, flexibility, convenience, cost effectiveness are the main benefits of online

learning. I think we can eliminate its handicaps. For example, lack of motivation or self-

discipline can be handled by organizing useful seminars before taking on line course. We

can educate those who will take online courses before the program starts. Another issue is

lack of face to face interaction. I am a master student in leadership in education program.

So far we have participated 3or 4 different on line conference. So this means that you can

see your instructor and you can talk to him or her as he or she is in front of you.

According to the studies I reviewed, designing and implementing online course

are very important. "There is no one-size-fits all approach to the design of eLearning,

because each course is unique..." (Steen, 2008). So, in the future, I will focus on this issue

in order to be able to increase the effectiveness and rate of participation of the students to

online learning.

Hybrid courses are also interesting to me. “As the name implies, there are a blend

of various forms of learning activities. These may include classroom, learning

experiences, and e-learning or various forms of e-learning or some combination of all

three” (Steen, 2008). This is also an alternative to motivate students to join online

programs.

NAU is the best example of this I have seen so far. I am 43 years old. Thanks to

online course program of NAU, I will be able to complete a master degree program at

this age. I am very busy but this online program will make life easier for me and my
future. In the future, as a school or an educational leader, I can initiate an online program

for my school. Discussion forums are very interesting to me. I am very eager to start a

medium in my school now. In terms of budget, applying online courses is also very

useful for a school. The following quote explains the importance of education over the

internet very well. “The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education.

Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a

rounding error.” - John Chambers, CEO Cisco, (Friedman,1999).

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:
Al-Asfour, A. (2012). Online teaching: Navigating its advantages, disadvantages and best

practices. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, 23(3).

Challoo, L., Saldana, J., Davis, R., & Kupczynski, Lori. (2010). Successful internet based

Online instruction. Journal of Educational Technology, 7(1), 30-39.

Fedynich, L. V. (2013). Teaching beyond the classroom walls: The pros and cons of

cyber learning. Journal of Instructional Pedagogies, 13.

Fish, W.,& Gill, P. B., (2009). Perceptions of online instruction. Turkish Online Journal

of Educational Technology, 8(1), 53-64.

Friedman, T. L. (1999). Next, it's E-ducation. New York Times (Op-Ed). Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/friedman/111799frie.html

Sagheb-Tehrani, M. (2011). Distance learning: An empirical study. Information Systems

Education Journal, 9(1), 41-52.

Steen, H. L. (2008). Effective eLearning design. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning

and Teaching, 4(4), 526-532.