A case study of distance education at the Naval Postgraduate School: Assessing the effectiveness of video tele-education (VTE) as a distance learning instructional delivery mode in graduate degree programs

This study investigates video tele-education as an effective distance education instructional delivery mode for graduate degree programs at the Naval Postgraduate School when faculty attitudes, student attitudes and administrative staff attitudes are measured.{09}A quasi-experimental case study comparing the two delivery methods was conducted. Data for student attitudes were obtained by archival student opinion forms (SOF) used by the Naval Postgraduate School. Data for faculty and administrative staff attitudes were obtained from online surveys. Follow-up personal interviews were conducted as required to clarify or expound respondent answers. The case study focuses on three NPS distance education video tele-education (VTE) delivered graduate degree programs: Master of Science in Program Management (MSPM-836), Master of Science in Product Development (MPD-721) and Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSWE-369). Faculty, student and administrative staff attitudes were measured comparing instruction delivered by distance learning mode one using video tele-education (VTE) and traditional mode two using the standard resident classroom. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used for analysis. The case study provides NPS and other academic institutions valuable lessons to help build or improve their distance education programs.