Target populations for online education.

For a variety of reasons, a rapidly increasing number of institutions of higher education have started to offer degrees and other educational programs fully online. Most institutions aim their online programs at mature part-time students. The assumption is that the increased convenience and flexibility that online programs offer and the fact that there is no need to attend traditional classroom settings make such programs particularly attractive to this group of students. However, there is relatively little evidence to bear out this assumption. This article describes a survey stud