Monday, October 21, 2002

Distance Education Attracts Older Women With Families and Jobs, a New Study Finds By DAN CARNEVALE Washington The U.S. Department of Education released a study on Thursday showing that older women with families and jobs were more drawn to undergraduate distance-education programs during the 1999-2000 academic year than were members of other groups. The report offers the most recent large-scale research into who enrolls in distance-education programs. Overall, about 7.6 percent of students taking college courses during the 1999-2000 academic year did so through distance education. Observers figure that the percentage has grown since then. (The study is available online. It can be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free.) The results are not likely to surprise many officials who work in distance education. Online courses have often been advertised as ideal for the single working mother trying to improve her job credentials. Anna C. Sikora, who is a research associate at the education-consulting firm MPR Associates Inc., was the author of the report. She says working adults probably gravitate toward distance-education courses because of the flexibility they provide. "Distance education offers an alternative for those who have those work and family responsibilities," she says. The study shows that among undergraduate students, 8.5 percent of females who took college courses did so through distance education, compared with 6.5 percent of males. Ms. Sikora says the difference is statistically significant. And when it came to age, the difference was even larger. The report shows 9.9 percent of students age 24 and older took distance-education courses, compared with 6 percent of those under 24. Of those students who took courses at a distance, about 29 percent completed an entire distance-based academic program. The rest had some traditional component in their studies. David E. Brigham, dean of learning services of the distance-education institution Excelsior College, says the study's findings mirror Excelsior's student population, which has an average age of about 40. But he says different programs draw different proportions of men and women. At Excelsior, just as at traditional institutions, nursing programs are likely to enroll more women, while men make up the majority in technology programs, he says. "The gender difference really depends on what the program is," says Mr. Brigham, who is also president-elect of the American Association for Collegiate Independent Study. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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