Distance Education - Research Paper Example

It is therefore a vital concept that serves the interest of the people of all categories, both full time and part time students, who may also be engaged in other aspects of life such as working, or even domestic responsibilities, thus they may not be able to attend to a classroom setting. The change in the social, economic and technological conditions have brought about the need for educational advancement, considering that the more the society advances in the technological, social and economic spheres, the higher the demand for educational attainment and advancement.

Therefore, the concept “is emerging as an increasingly important component of higher education” (Bradford, 1999). It has opened an opportunity that can be exploited by those who have always had the desire to advance their education, but were limited by the traditional concept of attending classrooms. This opportunity is even more crucial to the disabled people, who are well served through Distance Education, as opposed to attending physical classrooms, which proves a great challenge for them (Barnard-Brak, Paton, & Sulak, n.d.).

Additionally, Distance Education has made it possible for “Adults who work full time, family people, and people from remote countries all over the world” to access education, while they “would otherwise never even dream of it” (Bozorgmanesh, 2011). Despite all these benefits as provided by Distance Education, there are numerous challenges that are associated with this modern concept. Therefore, this discussion seeks to critically assess the concept of Distance Education, with a focus on advancing the argument that Distance Education is not an effective mode of Education acquisition.

Discussion First, the mode of offering instructions highly determines how effective learning will be for students. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that technology, the means through which Distance Education is offered, can replace the instructional offering made by the teachers in a classroom setting. For example, the stakeholders and the teachers of Eagle County, CO, school district opposed “replacing face-to-face instructors with a digital option they argued would not be as rich or as meaningful” (Quillen, 2012).

It is easier for teachers issuing direct instructions to the students, to assess whether students are clearly understanding the instructions given, since the absorption of instructions is not only assessable through the performance of a student in a test, but also through the observable behavior of such a student. While learning in a classroom setting offers an opportunity for the teacher to assess how well the students have internalized the instructions, the concept of Distance Education does not provide such a valuable opportunity, since the instructional offering through Distance Education is limited to online communications and conversations, which are not as effective and convenient as face-to-face instructions (Bradford, 1999).

Distance Education could be beneficial due to its budget efficiency possibilities, where an institution can effectively reduce the number of staff and still reach the same number of students as would happen with a large number of teachers in a classroom setting (Mayadas, Bourne, & Bacsich, 2009). However, the issue is that the quality of the education obtained by the large number of studen