Key words: Tutor training, electronic delivery, international co-operation, distance teaching pedagogy
This paper describes and discusses the system of tutor training for distance education in NKI today. The training programme has continuously been developed through by regular revisions since 1978 when the formalised training system was initiated.
The NKI Foundation NKI is the second largest non-governmental educational institution in Norway. It is organised as a non-profit foundation accredited by the government and financial supported by the state through the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. The organisation has three external departments:
NKI Publishing develops teaching and learning materials for use within NKI as well as materials for sale on the open marked, mainly textbooks for secondary and tertiary education.
NKI Polytechnic College is a full-time college on engineering, computer science and information systems offering two and three year programmes. Opposite of what is happening in many academic institutions today, where we see a change from offering traditional academic studies only into dual mode institutions offering both on-campus studies, distance education or other flexible forms of teaching, the NKI engineering programme originally developed from an existing distance education programme.
NKI Distance Education is the second largest distance teaching institution in Norway enrolling approximately 7.000 students a year, constituting about 35.000 course enrolments. The programmes offered cover technical/vocational training, management studies, computer science and business training on secondary and tertiary level.
To support these activities NKI has established a Research and Development Unit responsible for educational research and evaluation. The unit has given priority to research and development activities within distance education and has also been responsible for the development of the tutor training scheme.
NKI changed the name of its "Correspondence School" to "NKI Distance education" some years ago. This change marked a development that had taken place during many years from a teaching/learning system based on correspondence education to a system applying a variety of media, different organisational forms (group learning and local teaching/seminars), different communication systems (mail, telephone, fax and computer mediated communication) and an elaborate support system specifically for individual distance learners. See e. g. Rekkedal (1985) on the "personal tutor/counsellor" concept for tutoring, support and counselling in distance education, Rekkedal (1989) on the use of telephone and Rekkedal & Paulsen (1989), Paulsen & Rekkedal (1996) on computer mediated communication. Presently, computer conferencing, teaching on the Internet, video and audio presentation and fax communication are ordinary elements of the NKI distance education system.
The changes in the system have developed gradually and there have been no marked revolution in the basic distance learning system as experienced by the majority of the students. Printed material and two-way communication by post between the tutor and the students still represent the main medium/method arrangement today, and will most probably do so in the foreseeable future.
When speaking of tutor training in distance education, we generally mean the training of tutors, whose main responsibility is to teach individual students by means of written communication based on assignments for submission presented in the still dominating printed study material. However, an increasing number of NKI distance tutors are now teaching on the Internet, as NKI autumn 1996 offer some of the complete programmes and more than courses over Internet.
The majority of tutors in NKI are part-time employed. They may have their full-time occupation in trades and industry, research or educational institutions. Some have teaching experience from other teaching situations and/or training in pedagogy/didactics for the traditional educational system. NKI employs at any time about 300 part-time tutors with an annual turn over of approximately 50. The tutors normally work from their own home. Their work load vary considerably over time and between tutors teaching different subjects and student groups.
The status of the tutor in the traditional systems of correspondence education has been quite low, represented both by what we would call a "degrading" terminology (at least both in English and Norwegian", such as "correction of papers" describing the work, and "marker" as term for the distance tutor. Conditions of pay and employment have not been very good, and education for the work had up to the mid 70'ies practically been non-existent (see e. g. Lamacraft 1975, Harris 1976). On the other hand, many practitioners and researchers have pointed out the tutor to be of main importance for the quality of distance education (Holmberg 1987, Bååth & Wångdahl 1976). Lentell (1995) discusses the central position of the tutor in the quality of distance teaching and reports experiences in professional development of the tutors in one region of the British Open University, based on involving tutors in 'action research' and evaluation of their own teaching activities. In our opinion, distance tutors ought to receive adequate training in distance teaching methods, whether or not they have formal education in pedagogy or teaching experience from other settings, as well as continuous support in their professional development concerning teaching distance education students.
In 1976 The European Home Study Council (EHSC) devoted its Spring Conference to "The Role of the Tutor in Correspondence Education". Several substantial papers on distance tutoring were presented (EHSC 1976).
One result of the conference was the establishment of a co-operative project to develop a training course for distance tutors among 4 Scandinavian institutes and a project within EHSC to develop a general programme for the education of distance educators leading to "The Diploma in Distance Education". Two following conferences arranged by EHSC were organised around the theme, training of distance educators (EHSC 1978, 1983). The course for tutors at NKI was offered from 1978. Later this course have been revised, translated into English, Dutch and German, and now constitutes the "Course for Tutors" as one module of the European Diploma Programme for Distance Educators. In its Norwegian version it is now available for all distance learning institution in Norway for their tutor training, made possible by a co-operative project between NKI, The Norwegian Association for Distance Education (NADE), and the Ministry of Education.
The Diploma Scheme developed by EHSC is now, after the merger between two European distance teaching associations in 1985, offered by the Association of European Correspondence Schools (AECS) . The Diploma Programme is open for anyone and recruits students from all parts of the world.
The complete programme includes the following modules:
| Introduction to Distance Education | Course for Tutors |
| Essentials of Distance Education | Course on Marketing |
| Course for Administrators | Course for Editors I and II |
| Course for writers I and II | Course for Counsellors I and II |
To qualify for the "Certificate of Distance Education", one has to complete three introductory modules, while the "Diploma in Distance Education" requires the completion of eight modules - partly specified and partly according to the participant's own choice. "The Diploma Foundation" is responsible for appointment of examiners, auditing examination papers and approving the choice of subject for dissertation. The Diploma Foundation is chaired by Lord Perry of Walton, the founding vice-chancellor of the British Open University.
Right from the beginning we developed the NKI tutor training course as a correspondence course. Completion of the course is an absolute requirement before being employed as distance tutor. The reasons for training the tutors by distance study methods were:
In principle, we would agree with Lamacraft (1975) who suggested that distance tutoring is so demanding that a training course equivalent to at least one year should be a minimum requirement.
Lamacraft (1975) argued that training in the pedagogy of distance teaching should be obligatory, also for persons having a degree or diploma from traditional teacher training. We agree. However, in practice, as distance tutoring for the majority will generate only a marginal part of their income, it is necessary to balance ideal goals against the realities. The NKI course is supposed to take approximately 70 hours to complete (relative to a full year study programme regulated to 1400 study hours). The majority of the students complete the course within 4 months.
The total tutor training and guidance scheme at NKI may be described as below:
Phase 1. Initial contacts:
1.1 First contact, information/guidance by telephone.
1.2 Formal application for employment. 1.3 Enrolment in the tutor training course.
Phase 2. Course period:
2.1 Study of Distance tutoring:
Completed by correspondence or by computer mediated
communication, both supported by telephone guidance.
Phase 3. Initial tutoring period:
3.1 Formal employment, telephone guidance.
3.2 First two months of employment:
Formal evaluation of the tutor's work by examining the feedback on student assignments and formal guidance based on the "NKI evaluation form for tutors".
Phase 4. Part-time tutoring at NKI:
4.1 Regular follow-up and quality control of the tutor's work, formal feedback and guidance by letter and or phone, scheduled minimum 4 times a year. 4.2 Meetings, seminars and conferences for tutors.
4.3 Tutors are free to take other NKI courses at reduced rates.
4.4 Tutors are invited to continue their training in distance education through the AECS Certificate and Diploma Programme.
The course consists of 3 study units including 3 assignments for submission. The basic material includes:
The course was developed partly as a self-contained course and partly as a commentary course (see Ljoså 1975). The reason being that the courses offered by NKI (and many other distance teaching institutions) include courses in both categories. Thus, the study units 1 and 2 in the course for tutors are constructed as the self-contained type distance course, while unit 3 simulates the commentary type. The "Guide for Distance Tutors", based on the teaching functions (or instructional events) presented by Gagné (1977), constitutes the academic content for the commentary course part.
The main objectives for the course are presented below:
After completing this course, you will be able to:
Main content:
The course for tutors has now been offered for nearly 20 years and has gone through a number of rewritings according to the developments that have taken place during this period. Our experiences have generally been very positive. The course functions excellently as an initial screening tool in the recruitment process. Some applicants withdraw when they understand that they have to complete a training course to be employed. We consider interest in qualifying for the work to be a good predictor of whether a prospective tutor will live up to the demands put on the distance tutor in the NKI system.
Further, the course itself functions as a seeding process for selection of those participants who have positive attitudes towards the demands on the distance tutor or develop these attitudes during the course, and who demonstrates that they understand the pedagogical ideas and seems to be able to carry out the work satisfactory. Abilities in written communication etc. are also clearly demonstrated.
Seen from the prospective tutor's perspective, through the course the tutor gets to know the methodology of distance teaching, the demands of the work and experience how the practical arrangements function in practice. Some enrol just to learn about distance education, without actual intentions of starting to teach at a distance. Some participants find out during the course that they do not want to become distance tutors, either because they find that they do not live up to the requirements or because it is not compatible with other duties. In both situations it is a good solution to be able take these decisions during the course, rather that after "experimenting" with the real distance students in the NKI system.
Being a distance student gives the prospective tutor insights into the student situation, positive and negative experiences, such as:
During this process of study with positive and negative experiences, it seems clear that the tutors gain knowledge and understanding which later may be positively transferred to their own tutoring and co-operation with their own students.
The academic and experiential background, as well as reasons for taking the course, vary a great deal between the participants. Generally, this fact has not lead to many problems. As the course primarily is designed for prospective tutors who do not have teaching as their main profession or previous training in pedagogy, it could be expected that participants with degrees in education or related academic areas or extensive teaching practice would find the course to be of little interest. This has not been the case. In fact most participants with this kind of background as responded positively and appreciated the learning experience.
Finally, the course gives the tutors a better understanding of the field of distance education in general, the theories behind, how different parts are interrelated and work together within the total teaching/learning system. As a result many tutors develop real interest in distance education, continue to take further education, e.g. the Diploma Study, and they often take up other kinds of work in the system as writers, fact-to-face instructors or full-time positions in NKI.
Our conclusion has been that the course for tutors is an important element in the total quality assurance work of distance education. The course has clearly resulted in NKI now having a well qualified and stable staff of motivated distance tutors.
As mentioned above, an increasing number of NKI distance tutors are now teaching courses at "The NKI Electronic College" the term used for the 'virtual school' of distance teaching courses and programmes offered via Internet. The tutors employed to teach Internet courses prepare for this work by taking the tutors' course by the same method. Also an increasing number of prospective tutors for 'correspondence teaching' choose the electronic version. There are some difficulties involved in training tutors by electronic media, when they, in fact, prepare to teach by correspondence themselves. For the time being the course is based on communication via e-mail and discussions/conferences 'listserv', which can be explained as a conferencing system built on e-mail.
As the prospective tutors enrol for the course at different times and progress at their own rate, it has been difficult to organise real discussions in connection with the studies. It also seems that the students on the course for tutors are more interested in individual study, communication with the course tutor and working on assignments than in discussion with other students. These experiences are very similar to experiences in other NKI electronic distance courses (Rekkedal 1990). From 1996 we have organised an integrated conference for active students on the course for tutors, persons who have completed the course and/or are active tutors in electronic delivered courses (thus also functioning as a sort of tutors' forum) including some administrators and full-time academic staff. It seems that this conference may become more stimulating for both students and active tutors.
We are just now planning a formal evaluation of the course for tutors, specifically searching for viewpoints and ideas concerning adapting the material for presentation on the Internet World Wide Web including links to other distance education material, articles and organisations. This project has received some funding from the Norwegian Action Plan for 'Information Technology in Education. Hopefully, this work has been finished before the ICDE 1997 conference.
Bååth, J. A. & Wångdahl, A. (1976): The tutor as an agent of motivation in correspondence education. Pedagogical reports 8. Department of Education. University of Lund.
EHSC (1976): The Role of the Tutor in Correspondence Education. Papers of the 14th Workshop of The European Home Study Council, Leiden.
EHSC (1978): Spring workshop 1978 at Royal Holloway College on The Development of a Correspondence Course for Correspondence Educators. Proceedings.
EHSC (1983): Autumn workshop at Eastbourne. The Diploma in Correspondence Education. Proceedings.
Gagné, R. M. (1977): The Conditions of Learning. New York, Holt, Rinehart, Winston.
Harris, W. J. A. (1975): The Distance Tutor. Education by Correspondence. Manchester monographs 3. University of Manchester.
Holmberg, B. (1987): Distance Education. A short Handbook. Malmö, LiberHermods (3rd. edition).
Lamacraft, K. R. (1975): Distance education, its didactics and preparation of its teachers. In: Ljoså, E. (ed.): The System of Distance Education. Papers to the 10th ICCE international conference. Brighton.
Lentell, H. (1995): 'Giving a voice to the tutors.' In Sewart, D. (ed.): One World - Many Voices. Quality in Distance Learning. 17th ICDE World Conference, Birmingham, ICDE.
Ljoså, E. (ed.) (1975): The System of Distance Education. Papers to the 10th ICCE international conference. Brighton, ICDE.
Ljoså, E. Why do we make commentary courses? In Ljoså, E. (ed.): The System of Distance Education. Papers to the 10th ICCE international conference. Brighton.
Paulsen, M. F. & Rekkedal, T. (1996): Technology for Adult Learning in Norway Including a Case Study on the NKI Electronic College. Article to the OECD CERI study B6. New Delivery Systems and Changing Demand on Education. Paris, OECD.
Qvist-Eriksen, S. & Rekkedal, T. (1983): A correspondence course for correspondence tutors. In: EHSC: Autumn workshop at Eastbourne. The Diploma in Correspondence Education. Proceedings.
Rekkedal, T. (1985): Introducing the personal tutor/counsellor in the system of distance education. Bekkestua, NKI.
Rekkedal, (1989): The Telephone as a Medium for Instruction and Guidance in Distance Education. Bekkestua, NKI.
Rekkedal, T. (1990): Recruitment and Study Barriers in the Electronic College. In: Paulsen, M. F. & Rekkedal, T.: The Electronic College. Selected articles from the EKKO Project. Bekkestua, NKI/SEFU:
Rekkedal, T. (1995): Lærer i fjernundervisning. 2nd ed. Bekkestua, NKI.
Rekkedal, T. & Bååth, J. A. (1987): Course for tutors. AECS.
Rekkedal , T. & Paulsen, M. F. (1989): Computer conferencing in distance education: status and trends. Eur. J. of Ed., 24, 1, pp. 61-72.
Sewart, D. (ed.)(1995): One World - Many Voices. Quality in Distance Learning. 17th ICDE World Conference, Birmingham, ICDE.