Students’ perceptions about distance education. A primary approach

Abstract

 Within only a few years, open and distance education emerged offering a flexible opportunity for skills upgrading by combining work and education. This paper describes a study that investigated students’ perceptions about the distance education offered by the Hellenic Open University. The study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches. A questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument that consisted of quantitative Likert-type questions and qualitative open-ended questions. The quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS and the qualitative data were described qualitatively by identifying main themes resulting to significant insights relative to the effectiveness of distance education that may contribute to future improvements.