Last updated in December 2021
My research interests are rooted in my own personal experiences as a K-12 student and teacher. When I was a senior in high school the Advanced Placement (AP) program was introduced in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I was able to enroll in the first AP European History course that was offered. I was able to do this because I attended one of the largest, urban high schools in the province. Fast forward six years, I was hired in my first teaching position as a social studies teacher at a regional, rural high school. Even though this regional school was still one of the larger schools in the province, the educational opportunities available to my students were quite limited in comparison to the opportunities that I had as a student. For example, in order for my students to be able to take an AP course they had to be enrolled in a distance learning program, and even then the selection was limited to math or a couple of the sciences. So in 1999-2000, as a first year teacher – and in addition to my regular teaching duties – I developed and taught an AP European History course to two students at my school and one student at a neighboring high school just over 100 kilometers away. This initial, volunteer experience eventually became a short-lived, federally-funded online program. It was also the spark that ignited my research interests in K-12 distance and online learning, which has been the consistent focus of my scholarship from my master’s and doctoral degrees through to the present.
Like many of sub-fields or domains within the broader field of educational or instructional technology, much of the early research into K-12 distance and online learning – including my own scholarship – has focused on how this form of educational delivery differed from traditional classroom-based instruction; in particular, how students performed using the technology compared to how they performed in a traditional classroom (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2006, 2008, 2009a; Cavanaugh, 2001; Cavanaugh et al., 2004; McLeod et al., 2005). As the field has evolved, this focus has shifted from the traditional media comparison studies to a more nuanced understanding of the unique characteristics involved in a distance learning environment (Clark, 1983). It was a shift from asking the question does it work, to asking the question of under what conditions will it work (Ferdig & Kennedy, 2014). In my own work, I operationalized this shift by focusing on factors that influenced the effective design, delivery, and support of K-12 distance and online learning (Barbour, 2019).
This exploration of the conditions necessary for effective K-12 distance and online learning began with a series of studies designed to use data to describe what occurred in the K-12 online learning environment (Barbour, 2005a, 2007a), and how students perceived these experiences (Barbour, 2008; Barbour & Hill, 2012; Barbour, McLaren, et al., 2012; Barbour, Siko, et al., 2012). My research continued with an exploration of the perceptions of online course developers, online teachers, and online students on characteristics of effective online course design (Barbour, 2005b, 2005c, 2007b; Barbour & Adelstein, 2013; Barbour et al., 2014). At the same time, I had also engaged in studies focused on the pedagogical aspects of delivering effective K-12 distance and online teaching (Barbour & Plough, 2009, 2012; Hawkins, Barbour, & Graham, 2011, 2012), as well as the support provided to the online students at their local school level (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2004; 2009b). As I began to make a name for myself within the field of K-12 distance and online learning, I started being asked to write and speak about how specific policies at the state and national level might encourage more effective practice.
These collaborations began shortly after a team of researchers with Evergreen Education Group began publishing an annual national study of the level of activity and nature of regulation of K-12 distance and online learning in the United States. As a Canadian, I saw an opportunity for a similar study in my own country, and in 2008 I was able to secure the funding necessary to begin an annual Canadian version of that study entitled the State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada (see https://k12sotn.ca), which is still active and funded annually. As I continued to examine a variety of regulatory issues related to K-12 distance and online learning (Barbour, 2012; Barbour et al., 2014; Barbour & Mulcahy, 2013), I was invited to join a team of scholars with the National Education Policy Center to conduct a biennial examination of US state policy related to the effectiveness of full-time K-12 online learning schools (Molnar et al., 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021). As the narrative thus far suggests, much of the research during the first half of my academic career focused on Canada and the United States.
However, as one of the few scholars in the field of K-12 distance and online learning conducting research outside of the United States, I was provided the opportunity to engage in and lead several international studies. One of the early efforts was a funded project that examined K-12 distance learning in 50 different countries (Barbour, Brown et al., 2011), followed by more detailed case studies of approximately nine of those nations (Barbour, Hasler Waters et al., 2011). This initial international scholarship resulted in additional opportunities to examine the practice of and policies related to K-12 distance and online learning outside of the US (Barbour, 2014; Barbour & Kennedy, 2014; Clark & Barbour, 2015), as well as several more specific studies focused on individual countries (Barbour, 2011; Barbour & Bennett, 2013; Barbour & Wenmoth, 2013; Bennett & Barbour, 2012; Powell & Barbour, 2011).
Currently, my research agenda continues to focus on the effective design, delivery, and support of K-12 distance and online learning (Adelstein & Barbour, 2018; Azukas & Barbour, 2021; Barbour & Siko, 2020), and how policy and regulation can create environments that allow those practices to flourish (Barbour et al., 2019) – often with an emphasis on international jurisdictions (Barbour & LaBonte, 2019; Whalley & Barbour, 2020). Additionally, the field of K-12 distance and online learning, depending on the specific reference used, is presently between 25 and 30 years old. Over the past three years I have overseen a series of scholarly projects designed to examine the state of the field from publication patterns to what scholars have published in the field to what we have learned from almost three decades of research (Arnesen, Hveem et al., 2019; Arnesen, Walters et al., 2020; Barbour, 2020; Hu et al., 2019).
Finally, as I have been fortunate throughout my academic career to be able to collaborate with many successful and prolific researchers, it has provided me with some flexibility to apply my scholarly efforts to more non-traditional sources of publication. The complete closure of schools in March 2020 due to COVID-19, as well as the continued disruptions in K-12 schooling over the past two school years, has underscored the importance of evidence-based guidance in the field of K-12 distance and online learning. For example, during the early months of the pandemic instead of focusing on more traditional forms of scholarship I chose to engage my colleagues and collaborators in a series of 27 short interviews focused on providing advice to teachers and parents on how to adjust to the emergency remote learning that occurred with the worldwide closure of schools (see https://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/5-minutes-on-k-12-online-learning-with/). When it appeared that the 2020-21 school year would also be impacted, I conducted a second series of 30 interviews focused on school leaders. In another example, I partnered with the Canadian eLearning Network to publish six reports examining the educational response to the pandemic across Canada (see https://sites.google.com/view/canelearn-ert/). These pandemic focused initiatives have continued my overall research agenda on how to effectively design, delivery, and support K-12 distance and online learning.
References
Adelstein, D. & Barbour, M. (2018). Redesigning The iNACOL Standards For K-12 Online Course Design. Journal of Online Learning Research, 4(3), 233-261. https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/178229/
Arnesen, K. T., Hveem, J., Short, C. R., West, R., & Barbour, M. K. (2019). K-12 online learning journal articles: Trends from two decades of scholarship. Distance Education, 40(1), 32-53.
Arnesen, K., Walters, S., Barbour, M. K., & Borup, J. (2020). Irrelevant, overlooked, or lost? Trends in 20 years of uncited and low cited K-12 online learning articles. Online Learning, 24(2), 187-206. https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/2080
Azukas, M. E., & Barbour, M. K. (2021). In-service teachers’ perceptions of K-12 online learning: An action research project of a graduate course. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 11(4), 61-81.
Barbour, M. K. (2005a). From telematics to web-based: The progression of distance education in Newfoundland and Labrador. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(6), 1055-1058.
Barbour, M. K. (2005b). The design of web-based courses for secondary students. Journal of Distance Learning, 9(1), 27-36.
Barbour, M. K. (2005c). Perceptions of effective web-based design for secondary school students: A narrative analysis of previously collected data. The Morning Watch, 32(3-4). http://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/win05/Barbour.htm
Barbour, M. K. (2007a). Portrait of rural virtual schooling. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, (59). http://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/cjeap/articles/barbour.html
Barbour, M. K. (2007b). Teacher and developer perceptions of effective web-based design for secondary school students. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 93-114. http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/30
Barbour, M. K. (2008). Secondary students’ perceptions of web-based learning. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4(9), 357-372.
Barbour, M. K. (2011). Primary and secondary e-learning: Examining the process of achieving maturity. Christchurch, New Zealand: Distance Education Association of New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.vln.school.nz/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=114023
Barbour, M. K. (2012). Virtual schools are more cost-effective compared to traditional, brick-and-mortar schools? In K. P. Brady (Ed.), Technology in Schools: Debating Issues in American Education (pp. 84-90). Sage.
Barbour, M. K. (2014). A history of international K-12 online and blended instruction. In R. Ferdig & K. Kennedy (Eds)., Handbook of Research on K-12 Online and Blended Learning (pp. 25-50). Entertainment Technology Center Press, Carnegie Mellon University. http://press.etc.cmu.edu/files/Handbook-Blended-Learning_Ferdig-Kennedy-etal_web.pdf
Barbour, M. K. (2019). The landscape of K-12 online learning: Examining the state of the field. In M. G. Moore & W. C. Diehl (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (4th ed.) (pp. 521-542). Routledge.
Barbour, M. K. (2020). Misbehaving toddler or moody teenager: Examining the maturity of the field of K-12 online learning. Revista de Educación a Distancia, 64(20). https://revistas.um.es/red/article/view/412821/286721
Barbour, M. K., & Adelstein, D. (2013). High-school students’ perceptions of effective online course design. The Morning Watch, 41(1-2), 56-65.
Barbour, M. K., Brown, R., Hasler Waters, L., Hoey, R., Hunt, J., Kennedy, K., Ounsworth, C., Powell, A., & Trimm, T. (2011). Online and blended learning: A survey of policy and practice from K-12 schools around the world. International Association for K-12 Online Learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNACOL_IntnlReport2011.pdf
Barbour, M. K., Clark, T., DeBruler, K., & Bruno, J. A. (2014). Evaluation and approval constructs for online and blended courses and providers. Lansing, MI: Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute at MVU. http://media.mivu.org/institute/pdf/eval_constructs.pdf
Barbour, M. K., Clark, T., Siko, J. P., DeBruler, K., Bruno, J. A., Wilson, E. V. (2019). Evaluation and approval constructs for online and blended courses and providers: Examining individual cases. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 22(1). https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring221/barbour_clark_siko_debruler_bruno221.html
Barbour, M. K., Hasler Waters, L., & Hunt, J. (2011). Online and blended learning: Case studies from K-12 schools around the world. International Association for K-12 Online Learning.
Barbour, M. K., & Hill, J. R. (2011). What are they doing and how are they doing it? Rural student experiences in virtual schooling. Journal of Distance Education, 25(1). http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/725
Barbour, M. K., & Kennedy, K. (2014). K–12 online learning: A worldwide perspective. In A. Hirumi (Ed.), Grounded designs for online and hybrid learning: Trends and technologies (pp. 53-74). International Society for Technology in Education.
Barbour, M. K., & LaBonte, R. (2019). Sense of irony or perfect timing: Examining the research supporting proposed e-learning changes in Ontario. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, 34(2). http://www.ijede.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/1137
Barbour, M. K., McLaren, A., & Zhang, L. (2012). It’s not that tough: Students speak about their online learning experiences. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 13(2), 226-241. https://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde47/pdf/article_12.pdf
Barbour, M. K., Morrison, J., & Adelstein, D. (2014). The forgotten teachers in K-12 online learning: Examining the perceptions of teachers who develop K-12 online courses. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 4(3), 18-33.
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2004). The role of mediating teachers in Newfoundland’s new model of distance education. The Morning Watch, 32(1-2). http://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/fall4/barbourmulcahy.htm
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2006). An inquiry into retention and achievement differences in campus based and web based AP courses. Rural Educator, 27(3), 8-12.
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2008). How are they doing? Examining student achievement in virtual schooling. Education in Rural Australia, 18(2), 63-74.
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2009a). Student performance in virtual schooling: Looking beyond the numbers. ERS Spectrum, 27(1), 23-30.
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2009b). Beyond volunteerism and good will: Examining the commitment of school-based teachers to distance education. In I. Gibson et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (779-784). Associate for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Barbour, M. K., & Mulcahy, D. (2013). Examining enrollment trends in schools participating in online learning in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Morning Watch, 41(1-2), 66-76. http://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/vol41/fall2013/barbourMal.pdf
Barbour, M. K. & Plough, C. (2009). Social networking in cyberschooling: Helping to make online learning less isolating. Tech Trends, 53(4), 56-60.
Barbour, M. K. & Plough, C. (2012). Putting the social into online learning: Social networking in a cyber school. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(3), 1-18. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1154/2148
Barbour, M. K., & Siko, J. P. (2020). Advancing a curriculum toward improved online nurturing of K-12 students. i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, 16(4). 20-32.
Barbour, M. K., Siko, J., Sumara, J., & Simuel-Everage, K. (2012). Narratives from the online frontier: A K-12 student’s experience in an online learning environment. The Qualitative Report, 17(2), 412-430. http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR17-2/barbour.pdf
Barbour, M. K., & Wenmoth, D. (2013). Virtual learning as an impetous for educational change: Charting a way forward for learning in New Zealand. Christchurch, New Zealand: CORE Education. http://www.core-ed.org/sites/core-ed.org/files/VLN_Barbour_Wenmoth-v3a.pdf
Bennett, C., & Barbour, M. K. (2012). The FarNet journey: Perceptions of Māori students engaged in secondary online learning. Journal of Open, Flexible & Distance Learning, 16(1). http://journals.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/index.php/JOFDL/article/view/105
Cavanaugh, C. (2001). Effectiveness of interactive distance education technologies in K-12 learning: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications,7(1), 73-88.
Cavanaugh, C., Gillan, K. J., Kromrey, J., Hess, M., & Blomeyer, R. (2004). The effects of distance education on KÐ12 student outcomes: A meta-analysis. Learning Point Associates.
Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445-459.
Clark, T., & Barbour, M. K. (2015). Online and distance education in schools: Global perspectives on policy and practice. Stylus Publishing.
Hawkins, A., Barbour, M. K., & Graham, C. (2011). Strictly business: Teacher perceptions of interaction in virtual schooling. Journal of Distance Education, 25(2). http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/726
Hawkins, A., Barbour, M. K., & Graham, C. (2012). “Everybody is their own island”: Teacher disconnection in a virtual school. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(2). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/967
Hu, M., Arnesen, K., Barbour, M. K., & Leary, H. (2019). An analysis of the Journal of Online Learning Research, 2015-2018. Journal of Online Learning Research, 5(2), 123-144. https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/195231/
McLeod, S., Hughes, J. E., Brown, R., Choi, J., & Maeda, Y. (2005). Algebra achievement in virtual and traditional schools. Learning Point Associates
Molnar, A. (Ed.); Huerta, L., Barbour, M. K., Miron, G., Shafer, S. R., Gulosino, C. (2015). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2015: Politics, performance, policy, and research evidence. National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2015
Molnar, A. (Ed.), Miron, G., Barbour, M.K., Huerta, L., Shafer, S.R., Rice, J.K., Glover, A., Browning, N., Hagle, S., & Boninger, F. (2021). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2021. National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2021
Molnar, A., Miron, G., Elgeberi, N., Barbour, M. K., Huerta, L., Shafer, S. R., Rice, J. K. (2019). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2019. National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2019
Molnar, A., Miron, G., Gulosino, C., Shank, C., Davidson, C., Barbour, M. K., Huerta, L., Shafter, S. R., Rice, J. K., & Nitkin, D. (2017). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2017. National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schoolsannual-2017
Molnar, A. (Ed.); Rice, J. K., Huerta, L., Shafer, S. R., Barbour, M. K., Miron, G., Gulosino, C, & Horvitz, B. (2014). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2014: Politics, performance, policy, and research evidence. National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2014
Powell, A., & Barbour, M. K. (2011). An examination of government policies for e-learning in New Zealand’s secondary schools. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(1), 75-89. http://journals.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/index.php/JOFDL/article/view/17/18
Whalley, R., & Barbour, M. K. (2020). Collaboration and virtual learning in New Zealand rural primary schools: A review of the literature. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 21(2), 102-125. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/tojde/issue/53991/727983