Distance Education Learning Environments Survey

The Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) is a psychosocial learning environment survey designed specifically to measure college and university distance education learning environments. The DELES was developed in 2003.^[1]

The DELES was designed to measure students' perceptions of their distance education social environment through six scales:

1. Instructor Support (Scale I, consisting of 8 items), (e.g. The instructor responds promptly to my questions).
2. Student Interaction and Collaboration (Scale II, consisting of 6 items), (e.g. I collaborate with other students in the class).
3. Personal Relevance (Scale III, consisting of 7 items), (e.g. I can relate what I learn to my life outside of university).
4. Authentic Learning (Scale IV, consisting of 5 items), (e.g. I work on assignments that deal with real-world information).
5. Active Learning (Scale V, consisting of 3 items), (e.g. I explore my own strategies for learning).
6. Student Autonomy (Scale VI, consisting of 5 items), (e.g. I play an important role in my learning.

An additional eight-item scale of student affect (psychology), designated the Enjoyment scale, was included in the original DELES. An example item in this seventh scale reads, "I enjoy studying by distance education."

The 42 DELES items have response value options of: Never, Seldom, Sometimes, Often, and Always.

The DELES focuses on students' perceptions of the learning environment to the exclusion of technical factors such as Internet connectivity or learning platform as found in other distance education learning environment instruments.^[2]