Dare We Hope Research Finally Goes Beyond No Significant Difference?

Abstract

Distance education (DE) research has been sprinkled with comparative studies for nearly 100 years (See NSD https://detaresearch.org/research-support/no-significantdifference/view-fulldatabase/?frm-page-651=21). Two decades ago, Twigg (2000) called upon researchers/educators to move beyond no significant difference to (1) individualization of distance education; (2) improving quality; (3) increasing access; (4) reducing the costs of teaching and learning; and (5) sustaining innovation. Yet, the 2020 emergency pivot to online course and support delivery resulted in a plethora of articles in which we sadly read of experiences of largely frustrated and stressed-out students and unprepared and stressed-out instructors as they tried valiantly to complete courses designed and facilitated as still within the walled classroom. Dare we hope for a new realization in DE research, as we head deeper into the 2020s, that we will likely continue living, working, and learning in a blended world of online, when desired, convenient, or required and of in-person, when possible, desirable, and convenient? Dare we hope for educational institutions to have learned something positive, something scalable from the pivot year? Dare we hope researchers will be intrigued enough to appreciate that their micro-level questions likely could be resolved with a good review of the existing literature and to move more into institutional meso-level research questions (Zawacki-Richter & Bozkurt, 2023)? In this issue we invite you to read and consider recommendations from a few authors who are looking deeper than cursory comparative research. Xu and colleagues explored 2005–2012 data from a large inter-institutional set that focused on adopting online learning in college developmental education coursework: impact on course persistence, completion, and subsequent success of adoption of online learning in college development education coursework. The authors noted that not much has changed; that other researchers are continuing to show poor results of online developmental education courses. They pointed out needed institutional commitment with the evolving realities of education: