E-Learning vs. Traditional Teaching Methods

Abstract

We have conducted a series of action research projects on elearning in recent years, funded by grants from the European Commission. The SEPT project (Tantam, 2001) showed that access to psychotherapy for those who are in most need is restricted in many European countries. Accessibility factors played a part in this, and the SEPTIMUS project was designed to widen accessibility to psychotherapy by increasing access to training for students who live in geographically isolated areas, who have family/work commitments or who have a disability. SEPTIMUS is a 1-year psychotherapy training program blending theoretical instruction and tutoring delivered by elearning methods with supervision, therapy and practical experience delivered face to face and local to one of the 16 participating training centers, located in one of eight European countries. The project was coordinated from the United Kingdom (UK), and the training program was available to students in Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and UK The impact of the training was evaluation by means of student self-assessments, participation, time spent on-site, tutor-marked assignments, tutor feedback, supervisor reports and student feedback. One hundred fifty-six students have completed the course, and we recruited an additional 61 students taking comparable but traditional face-to-face courses in three of our participating training institutes to act as educational controls. In this article, we present the results of a comparison between the elearning students and these educational controls.