Management factors in planning concurrent credit, distance learning courses for special populations' students.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to discover the factors necessary to plan concurrent credit, distance learning courses for special populations' students and how these factors interrelate. Three strands of research were performed to answer the research questions. A focus group composed of twelve members of the Association for Compensatory Educators of Texas, initially named the factors through a process of inductive research. The focus group then organized the factors into a qualitative model to demonstrate how the factors interrelate. The focus group developed an interview instrument, which was used to verify the group analysis. Thirty-five other members of the same association responded by interview or email letters to the interview instrument. Four differences were found in the qualitative data as a result of the interview. A final qualitative model, which considered these differences, was generated. Eighty theoretically relevant statements from the interviews comprised a survey instrument, which was sent to one hundred fifty members of ACET. These members were asked to respond to the statements as to their agreement or disagreement with the statements on a five point Likert scale. Respondents responded by email or by hypertext transfer protocol. Data from the survey was analyzed by factor analysis to give definition to the factors and by path analysis, which showed correlations between the factors. A final quantitative model demonstrated the results of the quantitative phase of the study. A description of the relationships of the factors to demographic variables concluded the study.