Tutor Support

The Students’ Experience in an Asynchronous MBA Course

Abstract

Collaboration and interaction supported by communications technologies is a defining feature of networked management learning as an educational approach (Hodgson and Watland, in press). Within this context, interaction between student and tutor becomes a critical component of the educational process (Dewey, 1938, Rogers, 1951, Vygotsky, 1978). As part of an ongoing doctoral research in investigating the student’s experience of tutor support in open and distance learning, this poster session offers an opportunity to explore the preliminary findings and interpretations of a pilot study of five in-depth interviews with distance learning students enrolled in a Canadian executive MBA program. As Kvale (1996) states, “If you want to know how people understand their world and their life, why not talk with them? (p. 1)”.