Selection and integration of communications media

Thus, the greater the transactional distance, the more such -autonomy the learner willexercise

When a programme is highly structured and teacher-learner dialogue is non-existent the transaction between learners and teachers is high.

PROGRAMME STRUCTUREThe second set of variables that determine transactional distance are the elements in the course design, or the ways inwhich the teaching programme is structured so that it can be delivered through the various communications media.Programmes are structured in different ways to take into account the need to produce, copy, deliver, and controlthese mediated messages. Structure expresses the rigidity or flexibility of the programme's educational objectives,teaching strategies, and evaluation methods.

continuous rather than a discrete variable, a relative rather thanan absolute term

It is obvious that the nature of each communications medium has a direct impact on the extent and quality ofdialogue between instructors and learners.

INSTRUCTIONAL DIALOGUEDialogue is developed by teachers and learners in the course of the interactions that occur when one gives instructionand the others respond. The concepts of dialogue and interaction are very similar, and indeed are sometimes usedsynonymously. However, an important distinction can be made. The term 'dialogue' is used to describe aninteraction or series of interactions having positive qualities that other interactions might not have.

These clusters of variables are named Dialogue, Structure, andLearner Autonomy.

The transaction that we call distance education occurs between teachers and learners inan environmenthaving the special characteristic of separation of teachers from learners. This separation leads to special patterns oflearner and teacher behaviours. It is the separation of learners and teachers that profoundly affects both teachingand learning.

This universe of relationships can be ordered into a typology that is shaped around themost elementary constructs of the field - namely, the structure of instructional programmes, the interaction betweenlearners and teachers, and the nature and degree of self-directedness of the learner

What was stated in that first theory is that 'distance education is notsimply a geographic separation of learners and teachers, but, more importantly, is a pedagogical concept.