This study explored six Chinese graduate students' asynchronous online learning in a large urban Canadian university. Individual interviews in Mandarin elicited their perceptions of online learning, their participation in it, and the cultural factors that influenced their experiences. In general, the participants had a positive attitude towards…

This study used a grounded theory case study to identify the theoretical areas that account for the nature and success of Royal Roads University's (RRU) learning community model. This instructional model enables RRU's mission to serve adult learners who want to further their careers through education while living and working across British…

In a multi-year study of a group of learners engaged in online graduate study, I explored the development of learners' sense of community using a variety of data-gathering instruments. An initial questionnaire established learners' pre-program perceptions of online learning and the notion of community; subsequent questionnaires, interviews, and a…

Recent studies in the literature on online learning highlight a constructivist approach to knowledge-building in Web-based environments. In this case study of an online course, students were introduced to a constructivist orientation toward learning, a requirement to work in a new learning environment, and a challenge to accomplish academic work…

Motivation in distance education (DE) has been studied mostly at the postsecondary level with few studies having been conducted at the high-school level. This paper breaks with this tradition by reporting on the perspectives on motivation of 42 Canadian high-school DE teachers. Data collection involved one-hour long, semi-structured telephone…

While there has been research into the provision of "distance" and "off-campus" education, both in relation to technology and to curriculum, little attention has been given to the experiences of students studying in geographically remote locations, where the remoteness has been an aspect of investigation. This study aimed to…