Effects of Computer Mediated Instruction on Classroom Dialog

Running head: EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED INSTRUCTION ONDIALOGUE Effects of Computer-Mediated Instruction on Classroom Dialogue: A Review Bettie HallUniversity of CincinnatiProfessional

Running head: EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED INSTRUCTION ON

DIALOGUE

Effects of Computer-Mediated Instruction on Classroom Dialogue: A Review

Bettie HallUniversity of CincinnatiProfessional Seminar IDecember 9, 2004

AbstractThe effects of computer-mediated instruction on classroom dialogue between students and the teacher and among the students are considered in this paper, including the benefits, problems and possible solutions to those problems A literature review of more than 30 previous works has been done to determine whether there are any such beneficial or detrimental effects, what those effects are, whether the effects are positive, and whether there are possible solutions to detrimental effects The principal result determined from this review is that computer-mediated instruction does appear to have many enhancing effects on classroom dialogue Dialogue between the teacher and

students most often improves when the communication takes the form of electronic mail initiated by the student However, dialogues between students that took place through web logs (or blogs) or chat room conversations and other innovative devices are less discernibly edifying The use of the computer can eliminate the frustrations and perils of paper-and-pencil communication experienced by students and increase the satisfaction of the students with classes that include computer-mediated instruction At the same time, problems with communications availability can be a major concern, along with software and hardware difficulties, significant delays of communications between instructor and student, which can disrupt the flow of communication, and fewer physical or auditory cues for the student to follow while attempting to acquire information from an instructor While a number of studies were found that discuss these effects, a more intensive review,and particularly more experimental or quasi-experimental studies, should be undertaken

to determine statistically significant results for the beneficial effects of

computer-mediated instruction when replaces, rather than augments, traditional, face-to-face

instruction on the classroom dialogue between students and teachers, and among the students.

Introduction

To ensure shared understanding of terms, the following definitions are offered,

based on definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

(2000), and some of the assumptions that may be tacitly implied during the discussion arestated

The computer was first used as a machine for performing calculations

automatically, but now is being increasingly used in the classroom As it is situated between the teacher and the student, and among the students, it is in a perfect location to mediate or be in the middle, or to intervene in the dialogue, or exchange of information and ideas, among the participants It can be regarded as an equalizing tool for each able user, and when used especially for the purpose of effecting agreements or posting

questions and answers between student and teacher, the computer could bring about the mediated improvement of education that results in increased satisfaction to all

participants in the act, practice, or profession of instructing It may also improve the imparting of knowledge by instructors and enhance the acquisition of knowledge by students

Instruction by definition is an explanation of an applicable principle The act of instructing involves the imparting of information or directions Sometimes, the activities

of educating or instructing are the focus, such as activities that impart knowledge or skill,rather than information itself This has traditionally been the domain of the educator, but today, particularly in the business world, instruction is being increasingly packaged as

programmed modules by instructional designers working with subject matter or content experts for audiences they never expect to meet, rather than by the instructors who plan tofacilitate the knowledge and who expect to develop a relationship with their students during the course This factor, along with the growing demand and availability of

distance learning or web-based courseware, increases the need to understand what is gained and lost by eliminating face-to-face communication (Barron, 1998; Bodzin and Park, 2000; deVries, Lund, and Baker, 2000; Chickering and Erhmann, 1996)

The profession of a teacher who prepares for teaching by learning about teacher education in college is called pedagogy and it is generally recognized as an important profession, although convincing arguments have been made concerning the need to elevate and further edify that status (Shulman, 1987) The place in which classes are conducted, while traditionally an indoor or outdoor classroom, may today be a home office or cyber café This change in contexts may have important impacts on the content and quality of dialogue among teachers and learners The main ingredient of instruction today can be as simple as a conversation between two people, or as complex as an

asynchronous, online conference The exchange of ideas or opinions outside the

classroom permits students to engage in an informal construction of knowledge This practice has been enabled or revived, particularly with reference to communication between parties in institutional contexts such as a university, by the computer

(Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1994)

Berge and Collins (1995) note in their introductory chapter of

Computer-Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom in Higher Education that the term

computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be used in a general manner when

discussing the pairing of computers with telecommunications technologies (which can summarily be termed "networks") to support education Their work provides a range of perspectives from the educational community in response to the need for systems that provide something more than an automated slide-show presentation

With such a broad array of issues that could be discussed, it is necessary for us to narrow focus for the purpose of this paper, which is to explore the effects of computer-mediated instruction on the classroom dialogue between students and the teacher and among the students To determine theses effects, a literature review of previous works has been made The goal is to determine whether there are any such effects and, if so, to describe some of those effects In addition to the effects, there is a need to establish whether benefits and drawbacks may exist in computer-mediated instruction in relation todialogue, and whether solutions for those drawbacks or issues have been proposed or implemented with what result, and what directions future research may take

questions, especially if it is voluntary and initiated by the student, it can provide

important advantages over traditional, face-to-face interaction, especially for shy students(Berge and Collins (1995) Another advantage of providing computer-mediated

communication for students is emphasized by the The Council for Exceptional Children,

In Teaching Writing Skills to Students with Disabilities (1999) Among the many

suggestions for instructional designers, teachers, and others that may be found at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education's web site,

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/index.html, are frequent mentions of using driven, creative means of communicating with students who may have various

technology-disabilities Suggestions of such creative means are graphic organizers such as

bookmarks, instructional scaffolding, and alternative media, so students can access materials and engage in a meaningful interaction with them

While the computer can serve as a cognitive tool to establish a simultaneous, dual partnership between the user and the technology, as well as between the users of that technology, it does not give those users better cognitive ability, it just increases the pace The best materials still require effective methods, as described by Brophy (1995) Berge and Collins' (1995) multiple-volume text on Computer Mediated Communication, or CMC, provides excellent information in its chapters on various ways in which computers are used to mediate human communications in support of instruction, including basic functions of electronic mail, group conferencing, and interactive messaging systems, as well as using on-line databases and campus-wide information systems They found that CMC provided a new medium for learning that emphasizes the exploratory nature of communication Further, the electronic dialogue can be preserved and retrieved, reread, and used to scaffold future learning

Computer-mediated dialogue has also found purchase in teaching foreign

languages González-Bueno (1995) describes the use of computer-mediated instruction

for foreign language instruction and described benefits to the students such as their learning a greater amount of language, being able to discuss a greater variety of topics and language functions, exhibiting a higher level of language accuracy When students were able to engage in online chats, their dialogue demonstrated more similarity with orallanguage, and there were more student-initiated interactions, as well as more personal andexpressive language use

Although some studies are inconclusive, several researchers find that students enjoy the empowerment provided by controlling what, how much, when they engage in learning (Berge & Collins, 1995; Brophy, 1995; Yang, 2002) For example, in Kuh and Shouping's (2001) survey of more than 18,000 students at 71 colleges and universities, it was determined that students benefited more when the computer was permitted to be usedfrequently and in a variety of ways In addition, computer use was positively related to student effort In a similar study, found that students felt empowered by their use of the internet

In the adult education arena, Berge and Collins (1993) compare the similarities and differences of computer conferencing with other channels of communication and concluded several benefits of computer conferencing for professional development, such

as repetitive information processing, and independence of temporal or spatial elements

In another study of older students, Black (2002) compared perceptions of how well course goals were achieved in a web-based course with the same perceptions from a traditional class Interestingly, she found that older students reported perceptions of achieving higher levels of course goals, and that students who took the web-based class

understood some goals better than those who took the classroom-based course She also found that student satisfaction was significantly higher.

While such controlled studies are rare, researchers are increasingly turning to software functionality to replace face-to-face interaction in computer-mediated

instruction For example, Turoff (1995) describes the objective of using the powers of thecomputer to actually do better than what normally occurs in the face-to-face class He uses software functionality to create a virtual classroom that permits instructors to tailor the communication process to the nature of the group Types of functionality included electronic mail, computer conferencing, decision support systems, and electronic meetingsystems What was interesting was that he did not want to duplicate the face-to-face class,but to improve it Similarly, Aist (2002) reports on a computer-assisted oral reading to help children learn their vocabulary A computer program uses automatic speech

recognition to "hear" children read out load, then provides instruction This program was compared to traditional, classroom-based reading and human oral reading Third graders who used computer-assisted oral reading performed significantly better than did other third graders on word comprehension, which might indicate that, at least in this case, computer-mediated instruction enhances the learning experience because of the ability of the learner to engage in simulations of live dialogue

In another study that points out the advantages of computer-mediated instruction over face-to-face instruction, Diehl (2001) argues that computers can facilitate teaching and make new methods of teaching possible While face-to-face dialogue is

impermanent, difficult to reconstruct, and occurs once, with the cognitive consequences

of computer representations, learners may visualize their argument structures, using epistemic scaffolding provided by interactive dialog boxes.

To balance this argument, LaRose et al (1998) describe audiographic telecourses for the Web that were designed knowing that the loss of teacher immediacy could cause student dissatisfaction The course was designed so students could listen to an audio of classroom interaction while viewing the course and World Wide Web sites They

concluded that the audiographic course holds several advantages over a virtual classroom,which uses email, news groups, listservs, bulletin boards, and chat rooms

With much focus on the interactions that occur among students, we sometimes overlook the instructor as learner Kayany (1998) focused on instructor experiences in hisreview of instructional uses of World Wide Web course pages Using open-ended survey methodologies, he found that while the availability of course material on the Web can increase student participation, and help them better prepare, the main benefit was to the instructor's understanding of the students, as a result of increased interaction between instructors and students Steffey (2001) also notes improvements in the quality of

communication in instruction, as well as increased satisfaction

Shea (2000) studied captioned interactive video as a means of learning a second language, and confirms that computer mediated education has positive effects on learner

motivation Shea's work used syntactic chunking, a means of dealing with the

overabundance of information that can overwhelm online discussions As Shea notes, while computer mediated discussion can help motivate, save time, and address areas of weaknesses, and helped the "least able" students in that they were able to perform

"beyond their apparent ability." An experiment was performed with a control group, and

it was found that the experimental group could complete tasks more quickly

Thus, the benefits of computer-mediated instruction are clear (or as clear as possible without a statistical analysis of all the numbers referenced in these pieces of research) but there are problems that can hamper the implementation of computer-

mediated instruction

Problems

There are intrinsic difficulties in usability built in to all e-learning applications, as discussed in Zaharias, Vassilopoulou, and Poulymenakou (2002) The attributes of the hardware and software, network speed and reliability, capabilities and experience of the users, etc are some examples Some other drawbacks can be lack of staff training in new methods of instruction, poor course design, flawed assessments, and inappropriate

applications, as described by Hentea et al (2003) Different creative solutions to these problems include projects like the text-based virtual world described by McCallum, McGrath, and Rusch (1997), where students created their own versions of an ideal

classroom, complete with characters, rooms, and importantly, dialogue exchanged during

a virtual "open house." Hentea et al (2003) stressed that interaction must be frequent, andinterspersed with face-to-face meetings requiring local instructors for facilitation We will have a more complete discussion of possible solutions later in the paper

While CMC liberates the instructor and student from communicating at preset times or places, it also places new demands on students and instructors For instructors, there is a new need to design and use computer applications instead of engaging in simple, face-to-face instruction This is added to the already complex and demanding