RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE

North American University

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

Name: Mucahit Engin Date:11/22/2019

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
Literature Review:

Distance Education was based on the premise that education was possible without

the face-to-face interaction between the student and teacher. It was a common start in the

late 1800s, but its rapid growth began with the advance of the online technical revolution

in the late 1990s. Of course, Distance Education has some advantages and disadvantages.

Firstly, the authors state that "Voice, Discourse, and Pedagogy pushes us to look at

distance education more critically in their academic article. In addition, Quality Control

in Online Courses: Using a Social Constructivist System supports a socially constructivist

online learning system for designing and providing quality online courses” (Maddux,

Taylor, & Johnson, 2002, p.8).

Secondly, author Scott Carlson focus on same topic that cost of Distance Education.
Some state prisons have a program which is related to distance learning. Advocates of

prison distance education say the benefits are worth the relatively small cost. Adding

prisoners to existing courses cost relatively little. (Carlson, S., 2004).

Thirdly, another author Cosar explain that some advantages and disadvantages of

distance education. He declares “Advantages: Provides various educational models,

minimizes the opportunity gap, eases mass education, decreases the expenses in

education, increases quality in education, provides independence/autonomy for the

learners, furnish the learners with useful learning environments, helps people to learn

individually, supports learners to learn independently, puts responsibilities for learners,

provides information from the prior sources, lets many more learners to get into contact

with the experts, removes the obligation of being present in a certain time and place.

Disadvantages: Not easy face-to-face communicating, stops students' socialization

process, not get enough contributions from the applied courses, not efficient on

actualizing behaviors for skill and attitudes based conditions, depends on the access to

Internet and communication tools.” (Cosar, M., 2015, p.187).

Fourthly, some authors claim that one-way contact is a problem as a disadvantage of

distance education. They approach from teacher side. They say “at the beginning of work

with DE, a teacher experiences the syndrome of one-way dialogue, because he or she

changes the usual place at the board in the classroom to the place in front of a computer

screen”. (Gulnura, T., Zaure, K., Polyakov, A., & Irina, A., 2016, p.289).

Finally, Echo Brown list that Advantages of Distance Learning are, greater

flexibility, no commuting, significant cost savings, convenient learning and

Disadvantages of Distance Learning are, lack of social interaction, high chances of

distraction, complicated technology, questionable credibility of online degrees. (Brown,

E., 2017).
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 some advantages and disadvantages. Generally, flexibility,

cost, convenient learning, etc… are advantages and inadequate social interaction,

distraction, technology issue, etc… are disadvantages of distance learning.

Most of the authors claim that distance education is cheaper that the school system

as an advantages and I agree with them. I am a master’s degree student and I am taking

class online. My experience is a prove that distance education is cheap. Also, it is great

opportunity taking class online because you don’t need to go to school, you can take a

class everywhere and you can watch recorded class, if you miss class. My friend Ahmet

started master’s degree in Nigeria then he came the U.S. and he continue to take class

online. Of course, there are some disadvantages such as one-way communication.

Especially new online teachers have struggling about this. My wife takes online class

about coding. Two days ago, she complained that her new teacher forgets about turn on

the speaker again, when I was working on advantages and disadvantages of Distance

Education. Her teacher is new for online education and they have a problem to

communication each other. My wife and I have another problem about online learning,

our internet is not good enough, when we both have a class at the same time. If I am join

webinar and my wife is taking class at the same time, our online connection with our

classes interrupted. This is the big issue for distance education. Our students take a test

online in our school and I heard many times complaints from our students about slow
internet. Also, some of our students take an online class from colleges and they are

complaints about slow internet too. Except those our students do not use distance

education.

In conclusion, I can use distance education for my students. Some of my students are

working after school. Some of them are sleepy in the morning because they work until 11

pm. They have a time in weekend. I can prepare some videos or online assignment for

them to use weekend.

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:
Brown, E. (2017, July 21). Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance Learning.

Retrieved November 21, 2019, from

https://www.eztalks.com/elearning/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-distance-

learning.html.

Carlson, S. (2004, April 2). Prisoners in the Virtual Classroom. Retrieved from

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=06db5433-9ea1-4202-

a81f-31b30c73d916@sdc-v-

sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==#db=eue&AN=507900494

Cosar, M. (2015). PERSPECTIVES OF FOREIGN STUDENTS TOWARDS

DISTANCE EDUCATION. International Journal on New Trends in Education &

Their Implications, 187–187. Retrieved from www.ijonte.org

Gulnura, T., Zaure, K., Polyakov, A., & Irina, A. (2016). Proceedings of the

International Conference on e-Learning.

Maddux, C. D., Taylor, J. E., & Johnson, D. L. M. (2002). The Light and Dark Sides of

Distance Education. Computers in the School, 6–6. doi: 10.1300/J025v19v03_01