Journal of Online Learning Research and Practice Volume 8, Number 1, 2020/1 | Page 13

Historical Review of Distance and Online Education from 1700s to 2021 in the United States

and a worldwide pandemic influence instructional design and pedagogy .

Methodology

We employed a historical literature review methodology . The purpose of a historical literature review is to examine “ research throughout a period of time , often starting with the first time an issue , concept , theory , phenomena emerged in the literature , then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline ”

( Baumeister & Leary , 1997 , as cited by Banomyong et al ., 2017 , p . 3 ). Historical reviews may follow a chronological method , such as this historical review , to show how research has been added to the literature and to identify directions for future research .

Historical literature reviews are valuable contributions to the literature because they provide both a comprehensive perspective of a phenomenon of interest as well as illumination of that phenomenon ’ s contextual relevance within modern constructs . Primary data sources include original and verified documents or artifacts . Secondary sources are credible artifacts , such as peer reviewed research articles , books , book chapters , observations , or interviews that document the existence and impact of the phenomenon . Booth et al . ( 2012 ) identified three components for historical reviews : they must be ( a ) clear ; ( b ) valid ; and ( c ) auditable . Historical reviews are auditable when they follow the same four steps as systematic reviews : search , appraisal , synthesis , and analysis ( Booth et al ., 2012 ; Grant
& Booth , 2009 ). Furthermore , historical reviews may reflect searches that are more exhaustive because they are not limited to predetermined constraints such as a specific number of databases .
The purposes of a historical review are to provide historical context that shows developments across phenomena and identify directions for future research . We used the term “ distance education ” for the research questions since the term “ online education ” developed as part of the evolution of distance education . The following research questions guided this historical literature review :
1 . How has distance education evolved from the 1700s to 2021 in the United States ?
2 . How has instructional design and
pedagogy
evolved
in
distance
education ?
3 . How has research from the Learning Sciences and Mind , Brain , and Education Science influenced instructional design and pedagogy ?
4 . How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected pedagogical practices within higher education ?
We began this historical literature review by searching multiple education databases for publications related to the following word search combinations : correspondence education , correspondence courses , correspondence study ; distance education , distance learning ; online education , online learning , online instruction ;
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