Education Commons^™

In 2007, a wholly-online Bachelor of Early Childhood Education degree was introduced into James Cook University School of Education's suite of pre-service teacher preparation programs. The online degree provides access and opportunity for (predominantly) women in the childcare or associated fields to gain qualifications as a teacher. The majority of students in the first and subsequent years of the program are mature-aged women with significant family and work commitments and have had little prior opportunity to engage in online technologies or in further education opportunities. The university has had a very successful face-to-face Peer Mentoring Program (PMP) for almost 20 …

This paper presents a study into the motivations, aspirations and characteristics of students who embarked on a new wholly-online early childhood teacher preparation program introduced at James Cook University in 2007. The inquiry contributes to a number of areas where there is currently little research. Australian studies into the experiences of first-year undergraduates focus on on-campus students, not on students who engage with tertiary studies wholly online, nor do they specifically relate to preservice teacher education. Contemporary research into e-learning is predominantly based on blended learning rather than solely online modes of study. In addition, there is little literature relating …