Conley (2005) stated, "These data may suggest that some women are reducing their work responsibilities in order to start a family." However, she mentions in the conclusion that "respondents are not asked whether they have ever interrupted their careers for family or other reasons."
Although her research initially seems to suggest that women take different career paths because of family responsibilities, there may be other reasons such as gender barriers or financial burdens that may also affect a woman's career track. The initial findings agree that women often take a different track than men, but they do not answer the question of whether the disruptions in a woman's career are primarily because of familial obligations or if they occur for other reasons.
Summary 3
Clardy, a. (2009, June). Distant, online education: effects, principles and practices. Retrieved May 12, 2010 from ERIC - Research Report (ERIC# ED506172).
In "Distant, Online Education: Effects, Principles and Practices" by Clardy (2009), the purpose of the research was to determine whether online or traditional campus courses were more effective. The researcher evaluated the effectiveness of computer aided instructional models and teaching...
He examined three meta-analyses in particular and determined that there were two points on which they agreed. First, "distance education is as effective (if not slightly more so) than traditional classroom based, face-to-face instruction on many measures of academic performance." Secondly, there is "a large range of variance in both forms of educational delivery" (Clardy, 2009).
Clardy (2009) observes that regardless of the method of delivery, pedagogy is still one of the most important components of the learning experience. He suggests that online educational experiences should be improved by analyzing the teaching methods and delivery and determining "well-established researched-based guidelines for the best pedagogical practices."
His final summary concluded that distance education is equally or more effective than ground-based classes. He noted, however, that there were a number of unanswered questions regarding best practices, such as how traditional practices can be adapted to an online format and if there were specific techniques for teaching online students that might be more effective than others. His findings are reasonable, but more research is…
