Διερεύνηση της μεταβολής της διαδραστικής απόστασης στο πλαίσιο ενός εξ αποστάσεως προγράμματος

Abstract

One of the main features of Distance Learning is that the learner is taught and learns without the physical presence of the teacher in a classroom, which shapes not only the physical distance, but the psychological, as well. The latter, that is the psychological distance between the learner and the teacher, is defined as transactional distance. The aim of this paper was the study of the transactional distance's change between the students and the tutor within the frame of a distance learning programme. On these grounds, an empirical research was carried out among 29 postgraduate students of the Hellenic Open University, who were given a scale of transactional distance in two different time periods of the same academic year that measures the dimensions of co-understanding and awareness of transactional distance. For the statistic analysis of the results the following were used: a) the statistic indicators of descriptive statistics, b) the statistic method t-test for independent samples, c) the statistic method t-test for dependent samples and d) the analysis of variation of one-way direction. The results showed statistically significant differences between the two time periods in terms of the dimension of co-understanding of transactional distance, but they did not show any difference in terms of the dimension of awareness. Finally, no statistically significant differences were found as far as gender, age and students’ experience is concerned.