Editorial: Three types of interaction

Abstract

Many of the greatest problems of communicating about concepts, and, therefore, practice in distance education arise from our use of crude hypothetical constructs-terms like distance, independence, and interaction, which are used in very imprecise and general ways, each having acquired a multiplicity of meanings. Most seriously, the same terms are commonly used at both generic and more specific levels. For example, the generic concept "independence " is frequently confused with its species, independence of learners from instructors in space and time and independence of learners to control their means of study. These are further confused with the many subspecies of each type of independence. The same could be said of the concept and term "distance " itself, which is commonly used in the most general sense to describe education characterized by separation between learner and instructor, but by too few users in the more technical and specific meanings as discussed, for example, by Saba (1988), Keegan (1988), Shale (1988), or Moore (1984). Interaction is another important term that carries so many meanings as to be almost useless unless specific submeanings can be defined and generally agreed upon. Progress in this direction was made in a panel discussion convened by the Divisions of Independent Study and Educational Telecommunications of the National University Continuing Education Association at its annual meeting in Salt Lake City on 16 April 1989. Chaired by Shirley Davis of Purdue University, the panel was