Two hundred and four students enrolled at a Greek
university in the Economics department were asked to
estimate the costs for participation in traditional and in
distance education. These costs included ‘psychological
cost’, which this paper reports on. ‘Psychological cost’,
such as stress and anxiety for each educational method, was
estimated by students on the assumption that they would
hire (1) an assistant to facilitate learning and using a PC in
the case of distance learning, and (2) an independent
expert to help the student understand courses and to
overcome any stress associated with class participation in
the case of traditional learning. It was hypothesised that the
psychological cost for each educational procedure would
decline with experience. It was found that for university
students following a distance learning course, psychological
cost declined with experience and familiarisation with elearning.
However, psychological cost did not decrease with
experience in the case of students following a traditional
course. The latter finding may be partly due to constantly
changing professors, classmates and expectations, and to
the cyclical nature of academic stress in the traditional
setting. In conclusion, it is suggested that a mixture of
distance learning and traditional learning may be the
soundest strategy, allowing the student to profit from the
advantages of both distance and traditional higher