A Tangled Web Indeed: The Difficulty of Developing a Research Agenda for Distance Education

Abstract

This article reviews the basic structure of distance education research as it currently exists in the literature. It also reviews the literature that has made recommendations for priorities to be set within distance education research. It is my contention here, however, that while there is a need to narrow or prioritize the most productive areas that should appear on a research agenda in distance education, the field remains too complex to gain consensus necessary for such a consistent or unifying framework to emerge.