Approaches to studying and perceptions of academic quality in distance education

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and a short form of the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) were adapted for use in distance education and were administered to students taking six different courses with the Open University. The constituent structure of the CEQ was preserved in this distinctive context, and a second-order factor analysis confirmed its status as a measure of perceived academic quality. The students' scores on the individual scales of the CEQ and the ASI shared almost half of their respective variance. It is concluded that approaches to studying in distance education are strongly associated with students' perceptions of the academic quality of their courses.