Distance education in therapeutic recreation/recreational therapy in the United States

Distance education (DE) today is a growing phenomenon in American colleges and universities, almost exclusively in the form of online courses. With the rapid development of DE, it has become a burgeoning force within college and university therapeutic recreation/recreational therapy (TR/RT) programs, at a time that there has been a decline in TR/RT professional preparation programs. DE is certainly a timely and important topic for the TR/RT profession. Yet, the development of DE in TR/RT has been largely neglected in the literature of TR/RT. Within this article, the evolution of DE in TR/RT is traced, and ramifications resulting from the developments of DE in TR/RT are considered.