BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

To a large extent education can be thought of as a communication process among the
participants. This article focuses on distance education, which has both the general
communication processes that in-person education venues possess, and also
communication specific to the technologies that mediate the teaching and learning
taking place at a distance. There are various opportunities and barriers to effective
communication. An exhaustive review of literature regarding communication barriers to
distance education summarizes the technical, psychological, social, cultural, and
contextual challenges leading to a significant conclusion: that as technology used for
distance education improves so does both the opportunities to overcome many of the
barriers to ineffective communication and the complexity of the barriers that are faced
by the participants. The hierarchy of this structure is described.