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John A. Bååth (1931-1999) a well-known Swedish distance educator, born 1931 to Johan Patrik Bååth and Ida Sofia Bååth (born Forss). Johan was born on April 16 1886, in Bredaryd and Ida was born on March 9 1898. John was married and had three (3) children. John passed away on 15th August, 1999 at the age 68.

Biography
John Bååth was a theoretician since 1960s where he worked as a course author, a tutor and an adviser. He began in distance education as a teacher of Swedish at Hermods, where in the earlier 1970s he was made director of research and development. During the last two decades of his life, he run a consultancy service of his own and in this capacity taught staff at Swedish universities, the Armed Forces and private companies. He was also very active in European cooperation in the field, functioned as an author, tutor and examiner in the professional training organised by what used to be cold the Association of European Correspondence Colleges, now the European Association for Distance Learning and contributed lectures and discussion papers to the conferences. On a couple occasions he was a guest lecturer at the Fern Universität in Germany.

Research
Internationally he was noted as the author of some very important scholarly studies of the methods of distance education. Baath focused on the academic aspect, teachers roles and suggests two-way postal communication for effective teaching-learning

His work included doctoral thesis on communication in distance education of 1980, he presented three empirical studies. His studies focused on:


 * 1) Postal two-way communication in correspondence education : an empirical investigation (A review of the research on correspondence education with emphasis on its two-way communication aspects introduces this report on a series of studies designed to shed light upon problems related to the design and delivery of correspondence instruction).
 * 2) Distance students' learning — empirical findings and theoretical deliberations (In this article the author identifies the distance education learner, examines the approaches of various educational theorists to the satisfaction of learners' needs and relates these approaches particularly to the field of distance education.
 * 3) Assignments in Distance Education
 * 4) The tutor as an agent of motivation in correspondence education
 * 5) CADE - a system for Computer-Assisted Distance Education : development, design, and evaluation of the system   (A three-stage, computer-assisted distance education (cade) project was undertaken to design a prototype of cade that would improve the two-way communication in correspondence education in three respects: (1) the quality of the tutors' comments as to feedback effectiveness and motivational aspects, (2) the turn-round time of students' solutions to assignments, and (3) the quality of assignments)

An earlier work of great importance, analysed the applicability of seven well-known educational theories or models to distance education (Skinner, Rotkopt, Ausubel, Bruner, Rogers, Gangé and the model of Structural Communication).

In 1979 Bååth analysed the implication of these theoretical approaches for the development of course materials, for non-contiguous communication and for the supplementary use of face to face contacts.

Other studies of his were concerned with very concept of distance education, the drop-out problem, thus a much discussed paper of his of 1989, as well as psychological and other aspects of course development.

He was one of the first to pay serious attention to the possibilities of the using the computer in distance education

Publications and/or books

 * Baath, John A. 1979 Correspondence education in the light of a number of contemporary teaching models. Malmö: LiberHermods
 * Baath, John A. 1980 Postal two-way communication in correspondence education. Lund: Gleerup
 * Nils-Ove Månsson, John A. Bååth 1982 CADE, a System for Computer Assisted Distance Education: Development, Design, and Evaluation of the System Malmö : Liber Hermonds
 * Baath, John A 1981 On the nature of distance education, Distance Education, 2.2 pp. 212-219
 * Baath, John A 1982 Distance student’s learning – empirical finding and theoretical deliberations. Distance Education 3.1 pp. 6-27
 * Baath, John A 1984 Research on completion and discontinuation in distance education. Epistolodidaktika : 1-2, pp. 31-43
 * Baath, John A 1986 Learning by written material. Psychological aspects with particular for correspondence education. Epistolodidaktika : 2, pp. 8-22
 * Baath, John A 1987 A list of ideas for the construction of distance education courses. An appendix to B. Holmberg, Distance education: a short handbook. Malmö: LiberHermods
 * 1996, Handbok för distnsutildare. Stoclholm: Utbildningssflörlaget Brevskolan