Archive - Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems, CECIIS - 2008

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Attitudes towards distance education
Zlatko Nedelko, Carmen Elena Cirnu

Last modified: 2008-08-27

Abstract


Distance education refers to any education in which learner and educator are at distance. Development in information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled the new way of distance education - which is supported with modern ICT and represents an important way (and/or type) of learning in information society (also know as e-learning). The main emphasis in the literature about distance education is on technology and software issues. In order to ensure more holistic view at the problematic of distance education also the view of participant's interest for distance learning (supported with ICT) must be addressed. Participant's readiness for incorporation in distance education process is influenced by several different factors (e.g. participant's skills for working with computers and ICT, preferences about using e-literature, participant's personal values). The main purpose of paper is to provide an insight into the problematic of participant readiness for incorporation in distance education process and present the influence (and/or role) of participant' personal values in assessing (and determining) participant's attitudes towards distance learning. Personal values influence a behavior and actions of a person. Therefore participant's personal values have an influence on participant's attitudes towards distance education. For our research of participant's attitudes towards distance education we have done survey among students. In research we compared results of survey about student's attitudes towards distance education from perspectives of Romanian and Slovenian students. In our contribution we offer some new suggestions how to asses participant's attitudes towards distance education.

Key words: distance education, personal values, participant's readiness for e-learning, ICT.

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