Computers in the instructional process in distance education: Examining relationships between usage, expectations and software acquisition

"A major concern of Australian distance education has been to foster interaction between teacher and learner (Sheath, 1979; Smith, 1979; Store and Armstrong, 1981; Cook, 1985). Residential schools, weekend schools, study centres, teleconferencing and student selfhelp groups were responses to this concern. With the advent of computers another way of responding was by using Computer Aided Learning (CAL). The use of CAL in distance education as a substitute for the face-to-face tutorial was being explored in a piecemeal manner throughout Australia in the late seventies and early eighties (Arger, Clayton and Oliver, 1983)."--p. 242.