| The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of four formats of distance education instructional delivery (Course-in-a-Bag, Instructional Television, Online, and Mixed Mode) on interaction (learner-learner, learner-instructor, learner-content, learner-technology, and overall interaction) and satisfaction. A second purpose was to determine if significant relationships existed between the four types of interaction and satisfaction in each of the four formats of instruction.; Three research questions directed the study. The first explored the dependent variables interaction and satisfaction in each format of instruction for the demographic variables gender, age, and ethnicity.; The second research question was addressed by six null hypotheses. Four of the null hypotheses explored the differences in each type of interaction across the four formats of instruction. The fifth null hypothesis explored differences in overall interaction across the four formats of instructional delivery. The sixth null hypothesis investigated differences in satisfaction across the four formats of instructional delivery.; The third research question was addressed by four null hypotheses. Each null hypothesis examined whether a relationship existed between a type of interaction and satisfaction across the four formats of instructional delivery.; The methodology selected for the study was the research survey design and included the development of a 38-item survey that measured means of the four types of interaction and satisfaction. The setting of the study was a community college in the Southeastern United States that offered various formats of distance education. Each of the 5,536 students enrolled in distance education in the Fall 2006 semester were invited to take part in the study. Surveys were returned by 1,024 participants at an overall response rate of 18.2%.; Descriptive statistics were conducted on the demographic data to construct a thorough description of the sample. Analysis of variance was used to determine if differences existed in the four types of interaction, overall interaction, and satisfaction among the four formats of distance education instructional delivery. Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficients were generated to determine if relationships existed between the variables of the four types of interaction and satisfaction in each of the four formats of instructional delivery.; The findings indicated that the format of instructional delivery influenced the reported means of learner-learner interaction, learner-instructor interaction and satisfaction. Significant positive relationships existed between learner-learner interaction and satisfaction as well as learner-instructor interaction and satisfaction in all formats of instructional delivery. Learner-content interaction was positively related to satisfaction in all formats except instructional television. Finally, learner-technology interaction was inversely related to satisfaction in the instructional television and online formats of instructional delivery. |
