Abstract:

Distance Education is gaining momentum in the current years. Apart from the relative infrastructure that facilitates communication and distance education, the main actors include the students and the instructors. An instructor who is “charismatic” could deliver online educational courses in a successful manner. One aspect of interest is the profile of the best performing instructor for distance educational programs. The current study is aiming at defining a number of teaching preferences that are considered more welcomed by students. The findings of the study are based on a structured questionnaire survey regarding distance education. Students from Italian universities participated in the research and 222 responses were collected and a corresponding database was organized in SPSS 29. The number of questions within the survey and the corresponding variables recorded were equal to 124. The survey was based on google forms and was disseminated to students studying through distance learning programs. The language of the questionnaire was Italian. The questionnaire survey recorded participants’ profile, distance education experience, their personal learning preferences, the learning preferences of their fellow students, their instructors’ preferred teaching style and the participants personality characteristics. One of the highlights of the current research is the fact that students like to see the instructors trying new teaching techniques and collaborate with fellow instructors. Furthermore, it became evident that students also like their instructor to be creative, spark creative ideas to students and at the same time set priorities and stick with them. It is also true that students prefer instructors that are open-minded and like to test new ways of approaching the educational process. Research is also aiming to identify whether the profile of the students correlates with their assessment of the desired instructors’ teaching styles.

Keywords:

Distance Education, Students Characteristics, Instructors’ Teaching Preferences, Questionnaire Survey.