Classic Theories of Distance Education

It is true that there is no global theory of distance education any more than there is of face-to-face education. However this absence does not prevent the existence of a number of theoretical constructs and models related to the practice of distance education which although they cannot be extrapolated to any situation fulfill the role of providing tools and proposing ways of understanding specific aspects of teaching and learning situations in this modality. This book presents representatives of the main classical theoretical approaches developed between the late 1960s and the 1970s which can be classified into three categories: (1) industrialization theory; (2) autonomy and independence theories and (3) interaction and communication theories. The author devotes a chapter to each of these groups seeking to scrutinize their foundations and implications for distance education.