Distance education is a variable that is different for each individual student. Some students are more relaxed than others with practicing autonomy in:
- Setting their studying goals,
- Selecting their studying techniques,
- Monitoring their meta-cognitive states,
- Ensuring that they have obtained their predetermined goals, and
- Assessing when they have exceeded perfecting predetermined goals and have obtained the capability to be innovative, fix problems and deal with unique conditions when they occur instantly and suddenly.
- More independent students usually reduce the stage of transactional distance between themselves and their teachers. Other students require more structure in their studying. They:
- Are less likely to set their own studying goals and depend more on what is set for them in advance,
- Are more relaxed with preselected studying techniques as in comparison to choosing such techniques for themselves,
- Prefer to get support in how to observe their meta-cognitive states,
- Rely on consistent assessments to make sure that they have obtained the specified goals of training, and
- Arrive at critical thinking, troubleshooting and creativeness with the support of a group of students.
Less independent students usually increase the stage of transactional distance. However, both categories of students and the many more that fit in between them benefit from versatile distance education that accommodate their patience for independence and meet their need for framework.
Distance education in-and-of-itself has no value other than serving the learning of students according to their skills (ability to perform particular projects under certain conditions. More transactional distance is not better or more intense; its appropriate stage relies on the skills of each individual student while executing a process). The objective for all students is to be successful, some may take more time, some less, but all of them would master the conventional studying goals. Distance education created based on the concept of transactional distance is, therefore, result oriented; it measure the efficiency of the student under certain conditions as the important factor in the teaching-learning formula.