TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring staff attitudes to distance learning

T2 - – what are the opportunities, challenges and impacts on engineering academics and instructional designers

AU - Saunders, Fiona

AU - Brooks, James

AU - Dawson, Mark

N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Journal of Engineering Education on 15/10/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03043797.2019.1677562

PY - 2020/9/2

Y1 - 2020/9/2

N2 - Higher Education Institutions often see distance learning as a means of expanding student numbers and increasing global reach and reputation. Much of the academic literature, however, remains focused on the impact of distance learning on students and the technologies that support it, rather than considering the impact on those staff that are tasked with designing and delivering it. We describe a qualitative study across two engineering departments in a research-intensive UK university, which examines staff perceptions of the impact of converting programmes from successful on-campus ones to distance learning. The findings provide a rich picture of the practical concerns that individual academics have over the impact of distance learning on pedagogy, on technology, on their institution, on students and on themselves. This is an important contribution to the literature that should benefit other engineering departments around the globe who are also grappling with the opportunities and challenges of distance learning.

AB - Higher Education Institutions often see distance learning as a means of expanding student numbers and increasing global reach and reputation. Much of the academic literature, however, remains focused on the impact of distance learning on students and the technologies that support it, rather than considering the impact on those staff that are tasked with designing and delivering it. We describe a qualitative study across two engineering departments in a research-intensive UK university, which examines staff perceptions of the impact of converting programmes from successful on-campus ones to distance learning. The findings provide a rich picture of the practical concerns that individual academics have over the impact of distance learning on pedagogy, on technology, on their institution, on students and on themselves. This is an important contribution to the literature that should benefit other engineering departments around the globe who are also grappling with the opportunities and challenges of distance learning.

KW - Distance learning

KW - higher education

KW - faculty perspectives

KW - faculty perceptions

U2 - 10.1080/03043797.2019.1677562

DO - 10.1080/03043797.2019.1677562

M3 - Journal article

VL - 45

SP - 675

EP - 690

JO - European Journal of Engineering Education

JF - European Journal of Engineering Education

SN - 1469-5898

IS - 5

ER -