The accessibility both of the physical location of an institution and the accessibility of its programs due to time and cost were mentioned as a factor in the decision making to attend a particular institution or course by all of the members of the cohort. This is because these students were all employed full time and studied part time. Thus they had only time outside of business hours in which to undertake self-initiated
The geographic location of an institution and its resources can be advantageous if close and a barrier to participation if too distant. Ellen explained her reasons for choosing one institution:
So I decided to do a BEd at a city university because physically that was close to where I work.
Fran agreed that close proximity to an institution was a factor in choosing a program:
… and I thought this is good, it’s only (in a nearby suburb) and I can drive there every week.
Queenie also found a close location to be a deciding factor in the choice of an
institution through which to undertake her current professional development. She had refused offers to undertake a PhD at two other universities because the locations were too inconvenient in relation to distance and time. However, living close to this university meant that she could ‘be there in twenty minutes and parking is not too bad especially of an evening’.
For Len, an inconvenient location was one of the reasons he did not complete an architecture course in the 1970s:
It was at a city university and because it was part time it wasn’t good
because you had to do four hours at night, well it was too much trouble to get there. So I did engineering, that was by distance.
Similarly, Gary explained that distance was one of the reasons he undertook a three year Bachelor of Engineering Technology degree in preference to his first choice which was a Bachelor of Engineering when he first came to Australia:
I lived in the city and I had to go to a regional university which was a long way to travel.
All of the members of the cohort expressed satisfaction at being able to experience face-to-face contact with the lecturers and with other students in preference to distance learning as Fran explained:
… and then I got into doing the doctorate and I was interested because before then I had been doing the work off-campus and I thought this is good it’s only in a nearby suburb and I can drive there every week and get to meet all the students and have a discussion.
The geographical accessibility of an institution was an important consideration to the members of the cohort when they were choosing an institution at which to undertake self-initiated professional development. They expressed dissatisfaction with
geographically impossible locations that required extensive time spent in travel or which were too inconvenient to access. Distance learning was considered to be unsatisfactory because it does not contain the social interaction at a professional level that is seen as an essential part of the learning experience.
Time
Time has two aspects; the time of day that the programs are offered and the length of time in months and years that it takes to complete a course. For Chloe, as for all members of the cohort, having the coursework classes scheduled of an evening and at weekends was a strong point in the programming of the EdD:
This course was delivered at convenient times.
As previously mentioned, Gary took his second preference in engineering degrees, partly due to the length of the courses:
Actually I didn’t want to do the engineering degree which is four years because it was too long.
The members of the cohort expressed disappointment at not being able to easily access the ancillary professional development programs run by this university’s Office of Postgraduate Research. These programs appear to be directed at full-time students as they have been consistently scheduled during weekdays throughout the five years the part-time Doctor of Education degree has been offered on-shore (Appendix 8). There are other problems of accessibility to the university’s services for part-time students. Two situations are demonstrated in this next conversation. One is the difficulty part-time students have in attending professional development
programs that are only run during normal business hours. The second is attending to administrative tasks when offices are only open during normal business hours. Gary explained to Bob, Queenie and Chloe that he was not able to access the main campus of his university during business hours in order to purchase a compact disc of
bibliographic software. The disc accompanied material from a daytime course he attended on a day he absented himself from his school:
Queenie:
What I’m doing this Wednesday or Thursday is one on electronic searching
Gary
I’m not going to it because it is in the morning and I’m at school
Queenie:
I know, I know, I’m about the only one who can do it, so if there is anything really good comes out of it I will get it out to you
Gary:
Endnote’s one, end note, a CD, I attended the first one at St Albans campus and even (I asked) ‘Can you guys just send me one I’ll pay for it’. No response.
Bob:
What you’re saying is you can’t get there in the morning to go to pay for it
Chloe:
Well I didn’t have my card stamped you know your student card for two years because I couldn’t get there to stamp it, now I work (for this university) I went to the counter(at my campus) and they stamped it for me . It’s the first time I’ve actually had a current student card.
The final point in relation to access is the cost of a course. Len has found the costs involved in a university education to be a difficulty:
I mean, I honestly don’t know how people get on at uni because of the cost of everything, and what you are expected to have, and the access to books, and if you haven’t got a heap of money you might as well say, well this is too hard.
The scheduling of classes and workshops at times convenient to part-time students engaged in full-time employment as well as ‘lack of time and lack of money’ are noted by Merriam and Caffarella (1999:56) as the most frequently given reasons for non-participation in both formal and informal adult learning.