Distance Education Research Priorities for Australia: A Study of the Opinions of Distance Educators and Practitioners.

The advantages of undertaking research in distance education are numerous. They include those which impact on national development, educational practice, professional practice in distance education, policy and management, and the constant review of research needs and methodology. Research in distance education has suffered from a number of problems which include lack of co‐ordination and focus, and the involvement of comparatively few researchers. This is perhaps why there have been calls of late from some quarters such as the Australian Research Council to prioritise educational research agenda in Australia. Future development in distance education would require a coordinated effort in establishing research priorities in Australia to effectively drive distance education theory and practice. One of the criteria in setting research priorities should be that derived from distance educators and practitioners of distance education. This paper reports on the Australian data collated from an investigation carri...