Research shows that between 30 and 50 per cent of all students fail to complete distance courses, in stark contrast to the more successful completion rates of conventional courses (Simpson, 2004; Moore & Kearsley, 1996; Daniel & Marquis, 1979).  We argue that it is not the geographical distance, but rather the perceptual distance between students and teachers that most significantly contribute toward these greater attrition levels in distance education.  This premise is based on the theory of transactional distance (TD) ( Moore , 1973). TD has the potential to create problems of misunderstanding between separated teachers and learners.  Through data gathered from a naturalistic study, we present the case that technology and media are mediating influences that can amplify or reduce the negative effects of transactional distance.

An opportunistic sample of mature students studying at a UK University participated in this study (N=348).  All participants completed two sets of instruments (Likert scale questionnaire combinations), the first at the commencement of their studies and the second between 6-9 months into their course of studies.  The participants in the research were enrolled on teacher training courses, ranging from first year undergraduate through to master’s level study.  Participants were studying in a variety of modes including exclusively distance based, and predominantly dual mode, or face to face mode.  Students were asked to provide a range of data including demographic details, preferred approaches to study and their perceptions of tutor support, quality of dialogue and structural aspects of their programme of study in up to four modes of communication.

Factor analysis revealed that factors representing structure, immediacy of dialogue and social presence existed with strong interrelationships between the identified questionnaire items.  Structural equation modelling was used to enable pathways between factors to be represented and measured.  Although none of the proposed hypotheses were fully supported, several findings emerged which predicted user responses and perceptions of immediacy, social presence and structure within specific communication modes.  From these findings, we propose an extension to Moore ’s model of transactional distance, incorporating two sub-divisions of the dialogue variable – social presence and immediacy.  The paper concludes that a more in depth study of the above identified variables may be the key to the unlocking of our understanding of the true nature of separation between distance learner and tutor.