TOOL5100 - CSCL Empirical studies and interaction analysis

TOOL5100 - CSCL

Empirical studies and interaction analysis

Empirical studies and interaction analysis

Presentation 23.03.06

Hara, N., Kling, R. (1999) ”Students’ Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education Course”

Hakkarainen, K. & Palonen, T. (2003). ”Patterns of Female and Male Students' Participation in Peer Interaction in Computer-supported Learning”

Hara, N., Kling, R.(1999) Students’ Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education Course

Content – Hara,n.,Kling, R.(1999) Students Frustrations

with a Web-based Distance Education Course

Introduction Literature Review Background Methodology Students`Fustration in an Online Course Understanding Studnets Perspectives Discussion Conclusion


Introduction

Recent cutting-edge technology enable universities to implement distance education to reach a diverse population and to provide open learning environments 24 hours a day 7 days a week

In addition they form ”a critical” pressure point for challinging the dominant assumptions and characteristics of existing traditonally organized universities in the 21st century” (Hanna, 1998)


Introduction cont.

Nipper (1998) indentifies three generations of distant education

- The first; provided mostly through paper-based instructions- The second through integraded multimedia (ex: courses via

television)- The third through two-way communications media (ex: video-

conferencing)


Introduction cont.

The literature about distance education is dominated by enthusiastic studies and accounts

But some studies report the importance of studentsìsolation in distance education course

Original research question was: ”How do the students in B555 overcome their feelings of isolation in a virtual classrom to create the sense of a community of learning?”


Introduction cont.

But after the first interviews where students reported major fustration of various aspects and futher investigation of the literature they desided to shift the focus of the study

New research question: ”How do students`frustrations in a Web-based distance education course inhibit their educational oppertunites? How do students deal with these frustrations?”


Literature review

Research indicates that the achivments and satisfaction of student is almost the same in both traditional cassroom and distance education (Johnstone and Krauth, 1996)

Opportunities for students away from campus

Little focus on the students perspective, more on the students outcomes (Ahern and Repman, 1994)

Research on the use of the World Wide Web lack disciplined scholary articles.


Literature review cont.

Hidden phenomenon- Higher education are facing a challenge

- The expectations for technology to transform the education are high

- ”There have been an unrelenting cycle of technology in classrooms since the 1920s, where technology was introduced by enthusiastic advocates, such as administrators and researchers, only to fail because teachers lacked equipment, time and training” (Cuban, 1986)


Literature review cont.

Little research on distant education, and the research that was found was mostly positive, and do not indicate probems in social context

But important to study failures as well as successes, so that we can understand the limitations of each technology as well as its capabilities. This provided that we understand the people we are trying to educate and what kind of education we are trying to give them (Simpson, 1985)


Background

Study site- B555 was a graduate course whose syllabus characterized it as

designed ”to give participants a broad view of computer-enhanced language learning and the place of the World Wide Web

in the language lerarning classrom”- It was taught through a Web site - The site contained reading materials, activities, dicussion questions

and additional readings organized along eight themes.- The main menu used the metaphor of a traditional classrom, so the

students could be situated in their familiar environments


Background cont.

The Students and the Instructor

- In 1997, B555 enrolled 6 master´s students- 4 of the students had minimal experience with computers, 1 was

very familiar with computers; she was also familiar with the course`s content. And 1 student was taking the course far away from the university, so had no direct access to the university facilities

- The Instructor was a Ph.D candidate and an international student- She was experienced English teacher; but was her first experience

teaching by distance education- Instead of altering the Web site, she tailored the instructions by

sending weekly e-mail messages


Metodoloy

Data collection- They choose to use a case study methodology because they found

it necessary to develop a ”thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of a virtual classrom

- The inquiry was an instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) based on a need for a general understanding of students in distance education


Metodoloy cont.

Data collection cont.- Three different methodologies was used; - Observation: Online classrom discussion was observed to grasp

how the instructor facilitated the dialogue among the students. And it was observed how each student interacted with the Web site

- Interview: Was conducted immediately after the students had finished their tasks on the Web

- Document review: Examination of various types of documents realted to B555, including the course syllabus, reading assigment, and the cataog`s course description. And the instructor´s personal log


Metodoloy cont.

Data analysis- The data was simultaneously analyzed- The analysis was triangulated in terms of methodologies, people

and time (Silverman, 1996; Stake, 1995)- Congruence as well as inconsistency were cautiously examind in

order to present multiple perspectives


Students`Frustration in an Onlline Course A Virtual Field Trip- SchMOOze University is a virtual university for people studying

English as a second or foreign languange, which uses metaphors of locations

- The observation and interviews showed different kind of frustrations, such as: no feedback if you did something wrong, no instructions for alternativ commands, and technical problems

- But the trip also gave positive experience for one of the students. He was excited about the technology, and the involvement of real

feelings


Students`Frustration in an Onlline Course cont. Working Alone at Night- One of the students was working alone after midnight in the campus

computer lab- Had not recived the the assignment specifications from the

instructor and felt confused- To much information- Had doubts about the professional development of the B555 Web

site


Students`Frustration in an Onlline Course cont. Interactive Communication Tool: E-Mail- The students and Instructor generated quite intensive online

discussions through e-mail- On the surface the the volume of the online discussions indicated a

lively class- But there where underlying problems, such as; the students did not

read the other students postings before writing their own e-mails. The lack of time to keep up with the amount of postings. And the new way of using e-mail made the work time consuming

- It appeard that the students were competing with each other, or felt a duty to produce a notable number of e-mails


Understanding Students Perspectives No Physical Existence, No Feedback

- Feel a sense of competitiveness, since there are no feedback about the contribution done. Unsure about the Instructor`s expectations.

- No immediate assistence from the Instructor when help is needed

- The literature caution that the lack of communications cues is a disatvantage of CMC because people cannot use any non verbal cues, such as gesture and facial expressions


Understanding Students Perspectives Technological Problems- No personnel to provide technical support- Inappropriate prerequisite statement - The instructor also felt fustrated because she knew about the

students problems, but couldn`t help them

Pedagogical Issues – Ambiguous Instructions- Vage instructions for the assignments- Lack of the teacher`s support and clarification of her instructions


Understanding Students Perspectives cont. Pedagogical Issues – Ambiguous Instructions cont.- The web site was developed for the same course only offered in a

traditional classroom. Some hyperlinks were no longer accessible

Dealing With Fustrations - Talked to classmates and friends, supported each other- Experience for later- However, two students droped out of the course because they didn`t

overcome their fustrations


Discussion

From the interviews and the observations it appared that there were two foci of fustrations among the students, the first was on the technological problems and the second was on the course content and the instructur`s practices in managing her communications with the students

The Instructor belived that she had reduced the students fustrations during the semester, but this was shown not to be true, as the student only had expressed some of their fustrations to the Instructor


Conclusion

Most articles about distance education emphasize the positive aspects

Only a few scholars examine important limitations and pervasive problems

It is time to seriously consider the actual experience among students in distance education courses an to critically discuss the phenomena of distance education

It is also question if technology can improve pedagogy with little specia effort


Conclusion cont.

In this case it is easy to place the burden of the students`frustrations on the Instructor. But the Instructor was chosen by the department chair who had expierience with online courses.

Even expirienced administrators can also misperceive the kinds of pedalogical shifts that are required from face-to-face teaching

It all end out to the need for more research that is designed to to teach us how to use the appropriate use of technology and pedagogy to make distance education benefical for students

Hakkarainen, K. & Palonen, T. (2003) Patterns of Female and Male Students' Participation in Peer Interaction in Computer-supported Learning

Content - Hakkarainen, K. & Palonen, T. (2003). ”Patterns of

Female and Male Students' Participation in Peer Interaction in Computer-supported Learning”

Introduction Method Results Discussion


Introduction ”An advanced information society is taking shape, in Western

countries, in which knowledge will be the most critical resource for sosial and economic delvelopment and where self-organized teams and networked activities, more and more, will characterize the emerging type of work”

Educational institutions are required to find better pedagogical methods that guide students to collaborate for advancment of their ideas.

Lethinen and his colleagues arguedd that one of the most promising approches to improving learning and instruction with the help of modern information and communication technologies is provided by the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)


Introduction cont.

In the beginning educators was worried that CSCL would reduce the social interaction

Was a breakthrough of network and mobile technologies, which facilitate a synchronous social interaction

These innovative learning enviroments are likely to improve quality of education as well as the equality of educational opportunity by fostering female students`participation in computer-supported learning


Introduction cont.

The objective of the study was to intensivly examine the patterns of female and male students`participation in computer-supported collaborative learning in two classrooms

There are significant differences between male and female students in their attitudes towards, knowledge about, or use of computers (Durnell & Thompson, 1997, Hakkarainen et.al, 2000, Scott, Cole &Engel, 1992)

Male students are generally more enthusiastic about the use of information and communication technologies

Female students experience computer phobia or tend to minimize the use of their computers


Introduction cont. Mixed gender pair perform less well than singel-gender pairs

(Fitzpatrick &Hardmann, 2000)

There are some evidence that new pedagogical methodes, such as cross-age tutoring and peer tutoring , may facilitate the development of female students`computer skils (Bromfield, Clarke & Lynch, 2001)

Male students are intrested in using ICT redardless of the nature of the application, while young girls are very intresting in interactive technology that encourages collaborative learning, solving of comlex social dilemmas, intensive writing and flexible pursuit of problem solving


The Study

The patterns og male and female students`participation in collaborative learning were studied by comparing inguiry processes in to computer-supported elementary school classrooms

The technical infrastructure was provided by the Computer-supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE)

CSILE is a network environment for buliding, articulating, exploring and structuring knowledge


The Study cont. Three features of the learning environments are essential;- Students themselves are responsible for producing all knowledge

entered in the system- A shared virtual database that allows the users to produce knowledge,

categorize it by using their own kewords, conduct searches for finding relevant knowledge, and connecting linkages between associated ideas.

- The design of CSILE relies of a pedagogical model of progressive inquiry (Hakkerainen, 1998; Scardamalia &Berieter, 1994, 1996) taht have been developed together with innovative teachers. A crucial aspect of this kind of inquiry is studentsèngagement in collaborative effort aimed to improve shared ideas and thoughts instead of merely attempts to assimilate bodies of pre-existing knowledge


The Study cont.

The study examined the epistemic nature of written comments provided by the student

Focus on analyzing the pattersn of CSILE students´ participation by applaying a method of social network analysis

Examined the relations among students commenting on each others` productions within CSILE`s databse

Examined the degree of centralization of the studentsìnteraction


Method

Participants; Classrooms A and B- Classroom A, 19 female, 9 male- Classroom B, 10 female, 20 male

Study material; The CSILE database- Qualitative analysis of teh students`written comments posted to the

database within one academic year- The comments was first partitioned into ideas- Then the comments were classified according to type of

communicative idea (agreement, neutral or disagreement)


Method cont.

Study material; The CSILE database cont

- Communicative ideas within a comment were analyzed by specifying the object of inquiry; Linguistic form, Research question, research methods, information, explanation, other or unspecified


Results


Results cont.


Results cont.

Patterns of interaction- The analysis indicated that CSILE students`network of interaction

was rather dense in both of the classroms

- Also indicated that the students preferred to communicate within their own gender group. This was stronger in classroom A than classroom B


Results cont.


Results cont.

Interaction in classroom A was less centralized than in classroom B Table 5 presents means and standard deviations for centrality of

classroom A and B students`participation as function of their gender


Results cont.

Analysis indicates that within classroom A, female students`pattern of participation differd considerably from that of male students


Discussion

Classroom A students`peer interaction focused on advancing the students` own explanations wheras classroom B students pursued more traditional learing tasks

Classroom A; Gaining theoretical understanding. Female students carried out the main responsibility for pursuing deeper kind of inquiry

Classroom B; Acquiring factual knowledge and empirical generalizations

Female students dominated discourse interaction within classroom A wheras male students dominated interaction within classroom B


Discussion

The relative intensity of female and male students` participation appeared also to be associated with the kind of pedagogical culture

Collaborative advancement; Encourage female students A special effort is often needed to engage female students,since male

students often dominate discourses (as seen in classroom B) Key for sucessfull implementation of CSCL (especially for females); build a

supporting social infrastructure around the technical infrastructure Focus not only on collaborative technology but also examine soscial

settings that support the meaningfull implementation and use of technology To conclude; essential to build a culture of collaborative learning supported

by the whole organization and structure of pedagogical activities (as in classroom A) rather than being added to prevailing practices (Classroom B)


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TOOL5100 - CSCL Empirical studies and interaction analysis