The latest issue of AMDE (closed but available through the library) has two intersting artciles.

1. A new article in the American Journal of Dist. Educ., has some interesting results from a US University with both F2F and online courses, in which students could choose etext or paper text. As expected most of the dependent variables measured (student, self report data, N=538, 80% choose paper) showed no significant difference. However two scales measuring "cognitive strategies" and " self-regulation" showed significant higher scores for the etext users.  The authors speculate the reason may be due to the non-linear capacity of the etext to encourage linking, exploration, sharing etc.

Reference: Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw , Jillian Wendt & Rebecca Lunde (2013) Electronic

Versus Print Textbooks: The Influence of Textbook Format on University Students’ Self-Regulated

Learning Strategies, Motivation, and Text Anxiety, American Journal of Distance Education, 27:3,

179-188, DOI: 10.1080/08923647.2013.796230

 The full text is available (closed publication, but through our library at http://0-www.tandfonline.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/08923647.2013.796230

2. The second counts the percentage of articles in 4 DE jounrals (sadly not IRRODL) and notes a decline in % of qualitative articles. 

This review study examines the current research literature in distance education for the years 2005 to 2012. The author found 382 research articles published during that time in four prominent peer-reviewed research journals. The articles were classified and coded as quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods. Further analysis found another category of articles in which qualitative data were obtained but results were reported as quantitative. The analysis shows that the publication of purely qualitative research occurs least often in The American Journal of Distance Education than in the other journals. The analysis also shows that, on average, prominent journals are publishing less qualitative research now than they were 2005. This study shows the need for further research and analysis of the methodologies currently utilized in distance education.

Finally the EdD806 Research seminar is featuring a very special guest appreanace by New Zealander, Dr. Wayne MacIntish, the founder of WikiEducator and OERu. The seminar is from 6-8:00 MDT on Wed. Oct 23 via Adobe Connect. The format for these seminars is to ask our guest to talk about their graduate experience and then present some of their most current work. The focus of the seminars is helping EdD students complete their thesis, but we have room for the odd dropin from other CDE students.

To see details of this and future presentations check out or join the 806 Landing group 

Terry