Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Instructors Using Distance Education Taught More Courses Than Classroom Counterparts in 1998 Survey By DAN CARNEVALE Washington Instructors in distance-education programs taught more courses in 1998 than their counterparts who taught in classrooms, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Education on Monday. The report covers data from a nationwide survey of faculty members in fall 1998. The information was not released until this year because it was being reviewed by the department's National Center for Educational Statistics, said Ellen M. Bradburn, a senior research associate at MPR Associates, a consulting company. Ms. Bradburn was the author of the report. Although the data is a few years old, Ms. Bradburn said the information is still valuable. "With education and information technology changing so rapidly, where I think this report is most useful is as a base line for future comparisons," she said. "We know things have changed. When we do our next survey, we'll be able to do a comparison." Instructors who were involved in distance education taught an average of 5 courses in fall 1998, compared with an average load of 3.6 courses for those who taught face-to-face only, the report says. Still, faculty members in distance education were generally paid salaries similar to those of traditional instructors. But faculty members in distance education were as likely or more likely to express satisfaction with their workloads, the report says. Mark F. Smith, director of government relations for the American Association of University Professors, said Monday that although he hadn't seen the survey, he suspects the greater satisfaction comes from instructors' enthusiasm for distance education. "It's not that professors are excited about higher workloads," Mr. Smith said. "I do see people being very into what they're working on and being very enthusiastic about it." Mr. Smith said he doesn't know whether faculty members who teach in distance-education programs are now teaching more or less than they did in 1998. But the association is still working to make sure that distance instructors are required to carry only the same teaching load as their traditional counterparts, he said. The report is available online at the Web site of the National Center for Education Statistics (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free). Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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