Cross-national comparison of gender discrepancies in distance education

Patricia Fidalgo 1 * , Joan Thormann 2, Oleksandr Kulyk 3, José Alberto Lencastre 4, Maria João Figueiras 5
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1 Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2 Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, USA
3 Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Dnipro, UKRAINE
4 University of Minho, Braga, PORTUGAL
5 Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 14, Issue 2, Article No: e202421. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/14408
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ABSTRACT

This research focused on gender discrepancies regarding students’ opinions about distance education (DE). Data was gathered from Emirati, Portuguese, and Ukrainian university students through an online survey during the first term of the 2020/21 academic year before the war in Ukraine. A qualitative content analysis was used to understand gender discrepancies among the participants. Results show that greater gender discrepancies occurred in the categories of overall opinions and usefulness of DE. Men found DE more helpful and had a more positive opinion about DE overall. The discrepancies between males and females were smaller in several other categories, such as distractions and time management issues. Interestingly, the comments made by men and women focused on different aspects of these categories.
Keywords: cross-national comparison, distance education, gender discrepancies, higher education, student opinion

CITATION

Fidalgo, P., Thormann, J., Kulyk, O., Alberto Lencastre, J., & Figueiras, M. J. (2024). Cross-national comparison of gender discrepancies in distance education. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 14(2), e202421. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/14408

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