The Part Played by Instructional Media in Distance Education

A content analysis of 409 distance education web sites was conducted to assess their explanations of the media used in their online course offerings. A check sheet consisting of sixteen media strategies was completed for each by examining course demonstrations, video introductions, pages related to “Academics,” pages related to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) and by analyzing text descriptions of course offerings. Holsti's reliability coefficient showed an 85.3% intercoder agreement among three analysts. Only 67 universities mentioned using seven or more media types and 90 were found to be correspondence courses with email support. Text- based media (e-mail and print-based discussion boards) were mentioned as being the primary method of communication and information exchange. Many of the sites mentioned cutting-edge internet technologies such as streaming video, online conferencing or synchronous lectures, but institutions do not effectively communicate on their websites how these technologies are used to support instruction.