Index: Educational Technology

Distance Learning

At a world conference on distance education in Caracas, Venezuela (November 1990) , I became enlightened about the status and promise of the distance education movement.

In the numerous plenary and paper sessions, presenters from various nations offered insight and analysis into a great diversity of distance education experiences. From those experiences, it became clear to me that the movement has come a long way since the proliferation of correspondence courses. And yet, it was also apparent that we have given short shrift to some important dimensions of distance education, especially pertaining to a cognitive understanding of distance learning.

Page Contents

Websites Neats Versus Scruffies Advance Organizer Functions USES EFFECTS A Research Agenda References

Websites

Distance Education Report

TEAMS Distance Learning... for K12 Educators

Neats Versus Scruffies

One particular conference session, featured a debate between the "neats" and the "scruffies." The "neats" are instructional designers from the behaviorist tradition that follow "neat" patterns of design based on the traditional instructional-systems-design (ISD) model. The"scruffies" on the other hand feature designers who loosely develop course materials according to specific situations and contexts. What was missing from this and most sessions, however, was brought forth toward the end of the debate by a participant in the audience. Alexander Romisowski, an instructional technology professor from Syracruse University, emphatically pointed out that distance educators are focusing much of their attention on technological innovations and instructional techniques, but little attention is given to understanding learner cognition. He basically called for research agenda that stresses the role of, and effect on, the distant learner in the total communication process.

Romisowski's remarks struck a responsive chord with me. At the time I was becoming increasingly aware of the learner's role in the ISD process. It occurred to me in one conference session after another that distance education has yet to adequately deal with this important topic. So little, in fact, has been done that there is (for my purposes at least) a need to brainstorm about potential hypotheses ahead of performing any micro-level research studies. From that standpoint, I felt that I would try to concentrate on developing a general research agenda that focuses on the cognitive processes of distance learning, specifically pertaining to the instructional medium of television.

Advance Organizer

The distance education movement, borne out of dramatic political and technological developments in this century, is changing the look and feel of education for a great many of the world's learners. The forms of communication currently being used in distance education include various text, audio, visual and combined formats. Computers are the newest medium in a plethora of formats while the oldest form, human contact, remains an integral part of almost all distance learning interaction. So, then, what is distance learning?

Let's begin with the obvious: Distance learning is different from classroom learning because the instructional events are mediated through high technology (i,e. hard and soft technologies that are drawn from various scientific disciplines). We may still have frequent, even regular, interaction between students and instructors, but the primary difference lies in contiguous (i,e. face-to-face) and non-contiguous interaction during the instructional events (Holmberg, 1981 for example).

What distinguishes distance learning from self-directed learning is that in distance learning there remains interaction between the student and instructor. This interaction may come through the forms of tutoring and counseling via telephone conversations, periodic office visits, mail delivery, or electronic mail.

If we consider all the possible forms of interaction in the teaching-learning process, the only distinction between distance education and what we are calling "classroom learning" is based on contiguous and non-contiguous face-to-face contact during an instructional event. Presumably, all students are non-contiguous from the instructor during their general study habits outside of the instructional event. Distance education in this sense is only fractionally different from classroom learning when one considers a macro-level perspective of the teaching-learning process.

In the current stages of the movement, we have yet to witness a complete model of distance learning based on cognitive principles; for example, a model that compares and contrasts distance learning via television with the traditional cognitive processes of classroom face-to-face learning. I challenged myself to address this shortcoming.

At first, I chose to focus on communications research expecting to apply its constructs to the cognitive processes of learning via instructional television. Instead, what I found was that communications research offers little that directly applies to the functions, uses, and effects of television in distance instruction. Thus, I am arguing in this paper that much of the communications research is inadequate and we therefore need to identify new variables that more closely describe what happens in instructional television.

Although there are many passé constructs of television functions, uses, and effects that are irrelevant to a televised instructional event, a brief survey of some hallmark theories will help me to point out why I feel that way. I try to follow through by identifying some additional constructs that are missing from these theories. Later, in this paper, I gather our new constructs and attempt to use them to create some new questions about the cognitive processes of the instructional event.

Functions

FUNCTIONS (X). Early research in television dealt with the fundamental functions of communications. Lasswell (1948) sums it up by asking the dictum "who says what, through which channel, to whom, with what effect?" Another functionalist, Wright (1964) asks which functions are manifest (intended by the communicator) and which functions are latent (unintended by the communicator). Either way, we see that these functions assume a unidirectional flow from sender to receiver. Nothing is reciprocated.

Interestingly, these early ideas of communications are "neat" theories that correlate with the behaviorist principles of unidirectional flow. In this sense, the receiver/learner is the target and exit point in an imaginary flowchart. These surviving constructs continue to thrive today and much of distance education is perceived of and directed according to this tradition. But the times are changing, and the functionalism perspectives of Lasswell and Wright (for example) do not adequately address the current functions of instructional television.

So there is a need rethink the functions of television technology when applied to distance learning. Rather than address the impertinent functions of mass communications, we need to generate new ones. The functions of instructional television today no doubt need to include the following: X-1. Time-Independence

X-2. Place-Independence

X-3. Asynchronous Communication

X-4. Non-contiguous Interactivity

USES

USES (Y). As an extension to the functionalist theories of communications, researchers began to ask questions about the receiver. The "uses and gratifications" theory, for example, asks what needs are being fulfilled through the mass media? Why are people psychologically dependent on the mass media? We can learn from those inquiries, but the "uses and gratifications theorists" (Blumner & Katz, 1974) did not have instructional television in mind. For example, they explain that viewers use television to gratify such needs as escapism, information and entertainment, and for "passing time." Those uses are hardly the uses of instructional television.

In the distance learning mode, the uses of the television medium would more likely include the following: Y-1. Reception

Y-2. Interaction-Feedback

Y-3. Autonomous Learning

EFFECTS

EFFECTS (Z). In the early days of television theories, the "Hypodermic Needle Theory," or "Bullet Theory" (Schramm & Roberts, 1971) as it was sometimes called, was a popular way to describe how the media influences the receiver/viewer. This theory sees the audience as passive and neglects the important role of feedback, reciprocation, and processing by the receiver. You either get "stuck" and the message "takes" or you're able to withstand the message if it is not "potent" enough. These "neat" ways of television have survived to date, despite a great deal of creative theories that have since come to the fore. Like so many theories, this one too ends its investigation once it reaches the learner.

It is difficult to pinpoint when exactly some truly cognitive theories of television uses and effects came about, but as early as 1960, Joseph Klapper integrated the cognitive constructs of selective processes to communications field. The processes of selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention, along with the consistency theories of cognitive dissonance and balance, represented a breakthrough from the "neat" theories of one-way communication that previously dominated in communications research. Freedman and Sears (1965) continued in this direction and began to ask some serious questions about attitudes as a prediction variable in media exposure. From these theories we can attain the variables of selection and affective attributes.

Chaffee (1975) contributes a more sophisticated model of conceptualizing media effects. In a 2 x 2 x 3 (18 cell) matrix, Chaffee offers a significant tool to dissect the effects of television. In one cell we have the variables of attitudinal, behavioral, and cognitive "dimensions." On another plane in the matrix we have individuals, small groups, and societies. And on a final plane in the matrix we have the concepts of "content" and "non-content." Within the multivariate relationships in this matrix, we have a tool—albeit complex and laborious—to make postulations about media effects. What would contribute to our research agenda, though, would be only the relationship between individuals, content, and the cognitive dimension. This model does recognize that content may have a specific effect on our cognitive processes.

From an ethnographic perspective, we might bring ourselves to see the effects of television based on structural and social uses. Lull (1982) provides a social uses typology on the effects of television on behavior and interpersonal relationships. Much of this does not apply in instructional television except to comment on the possible uses of the medium for social uses beyond the reception and interaction with content. For example, one use in Lull's typology sees television for "social learning" in which viewers may tend to learn and develop behavioral patterns based on television role models. By some stretch, we can imagine that there could be an effect on the cognitive learning process as a result of repeated viewing of role model behavior. We will call this variable modeling.

McQuail and Windahl (1982) try to reconcile these kinds of effects approaches with the uses of television. By postulating that outcomes are attributable to both the sender and receiver, they points out that an outcome caused by the content is an "effect," but an outcome caused by the medium is a consequence. To reconcile this distinction, Windahl gives us the term "conseffect."

More abstract analysis have come about in the last 20 years but to date have had little impact on the pragmatic evaluations of media effects. Semiotics, basically the science of signs, provides a realm from within which one tries to decode the symbolic meaning of signs, symbols, and the creation of mythologies from the televised paradigms of culture. The visual language of television, much like verbal languages, has a grammar and syntax all its own. Therefore, the viewer of television images is exposed to much more meaning than what simply plays off of the audio track and the meaning is decoded and determined according to a referent culture (Fiske & Hartley, 1978). However tangential from the cognitive effects of instructional television that this appears to be at first, there is much to be discovered about the covert and subtle processes of a technological mediation of instruction. Semiotics may someday be of more pragmatic use.

A list of generic variables about the effects of instructional television on cognitive processing that are gained from these theories, may include: Z-1. Selection

Z-2. Affective Attributes

Z-3. Content

Z-4. Modeling

Z-5. "Conseffects"

Z-6. Semiotics

The following are constructs that are not included in these theories: Z-7. Attention

Z-8. Creativity

Z-9. Memory

Z-10. Perception

Z-11. Thinking

Z-12. Collaborative Learning

A Research Agenda

From the methodologies of cognitive inquiry, we can utilize these variables to ask more sophisticated questions about the functions, uses, and effects of instructional television. We are still quite distant from a cognitive constructivist approach to distance learning but that would likely be an extension of such an endeavor.

By attempting to find relationships between the X, Y, and Z variables we've gathered here, one could formulate the beginnings of a research agenda.

References

Blumler, J. G. & Katz, E. (eds) (1974). The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications.

Chaffee, S. H. (ed) (1975). Political Communication: Issues and strategies for Research. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications.

Fiske, J. & Hartley, J. (1978). Reading Television. London: Methuen.

Klapper, J. T. (1960). The Effects of Mass Communication. Glencoe, Ill: The Free Press.

Lasswell, H. (1948). "The structure and function of communications in society," in L. Bryson (ed.) The Communication of Ideas. New York: Harper.

Lull, J. (1982). "The social uses of television," in D. Whitney, E. Wartella & S. Windahl (eds), Mass Communication Review Yearbook, Vol. 3. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications.

McQuail, D. & Windahl, S. (1982). Communication Models. London: Longman.

Schramm, W. & Roberts, D. F. (eds) (1971). The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press.

Wright, C. R. (1964). "Functional analysis and mass communication," in L. Dexter and D. M. White (eds). People, Society and Mass Communications. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, pp. 91-109.