Asynchronous and synchronous online teaching: Perspectives of Canadian high school distance education teachers

This paper presents the results of an inductive, interpretive analysis of the perspectives of 42 Canadian high school distance education (DE) teachers on asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. The paper includes a conceptual overview of the affordances and constraints of each form of teaching. Findings provided insight into the following aspects of asynchronous and synchronous online teaching: degree of use; the tools used; the contexts in which each occur; students’ preferences; and limitations. Pedagogy emerged as more important than media for both asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. Synchronous online teaching relied on teacherrather than student-centred approaches. Asynchronous online teaching provided support for selfpaced, highly independent forms of secondary DE supplemented by synchronous online teaching for answering questions and troubleshooting. Introduction Distance education (DE) at the secondary (high school) level in Canada and the United States takes place in web-based learning programmes organised into single entities or schools that provide supplemental or full-time online studies, often referred to as virtual schools (Powell & Patrick, 2006). Virtual schools rely on both asynchronous online teaching (AOT) or synchronous online teaching (SOT). One of the difficulties in examining these approaches to teaching in virtual schools is the general lack of research that has been conducted into DE at this level and in kindergarten to grade 12 (K-12) in general. While there has been a shift towards more empirical research into the practice of virtual schools, the vast majority of this research has been conducted in the United States (Barbour & Stewart, 2008) and is limited largely to practitioner reports and issues surrounding policies or technologies (Cavanaugh, Barbour & Clark, 2009). Furthermore, early research on virtual schools has tended to focus on their effectiveness compared with classroom-based practices, as opposed to on design and delivery issues. The education system in Canada is regulated at the provincial level. As a result, there is no one uniform approach to the organisation or delivery of DE at the secondary level (see Abrami et al, 2007; Barbour & Stewart, 2008; Barker & Wendel, 2001; Canadian Council on Learning, 2009; Haughey, 2002a, 2002b; Haughey & Muirhead, 2004). This lack of uniformity presents an British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 42 No 4 2011 583–591 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01112.x © 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. opportunity to survey perspectives based on a variety of contexts and approaches related to AOT and SOT. This paper presents the results of an inductive, interpretive analysis of the perspectives of 42 Canadian high school DE teachers on AOT and SOT. The paper begins with a conceptual overview of AOT and SOT in terms of affordances and constraints and a review of studies conducted in relation to the two approaches. Findings provide insight into the following aspects of AOT and SOT: degree of use; the tools used; the contexts in which each occur; students’ preferences; and limitations. Conceptual framework