0220--Psychosocial Learning Environments in Evaluation of Asynchronous Geography and Education Programs Presented by: Scott Walker, Texas State University-San Marcos

Often when university departments evaluate asynchronous distance education programs they primarily consider student achievement outcomes, student and instructor attitudes, and/or program costs. Some distance education pundits suggest that outcome comparisons—the well worn “no significant difference” view—are inadequate means of instructional program evaluation and that affective evaluations are often skewed because students and instructors learning and teaching at a distance would not do so if they did not already have such a preference toward distance education. Likewise, accurate cost analyses are difficult to construct due to existing infrastructure costs that can be overlooked. While the use of these appraisal measures can be debated, this presentation considers distance education program evaluation from a radically different perspective based on the “private beta press” of the psychosocial learning environment; that is, the individual students’ perspective of the online class climate. When quality psychosocial distance education factors are measured based on students’ perceptions, university administrators have more data from which to make crucial decisions related to distance education offerings within a department, resulting in less influence from departmental politics.