Interaction in Post-Secondary Web-Based Learning

Zane L. Berge Contributing Editor

Distance education in the industrialized nations has seen dramatic changes in delivery technologies over the past few decades. Computer-mediated communica- tion and the World Wide Web allow significantly faster interaction between student and faculty and among students during teaching and learning compared with the correspondence or mass communication models of distance education. Questions like the following are under increasing scrutiny: What does "interaction' mean in the context of teaching and learning? Why is interaction perceived as so important in post-secondary education? How can technology be used to promote the types of interaction that facilitate learning at a distance? The answer is often "it depends"-based on the motivation, individual capabilities, and learning style of the student, the subject matter, and a dozen or more other factors that affect the type and level of interaction needed for learning. This article will discuss the more salient dimensions of interaction in the context of Web-based instruction and hopefully provide a useful framework for thinking about interaction in a Web-based learning environment.

Interaction is typically thought of as "sustained, two- way communication among two or more persons for purposes of explaining and challenging perspectives" (Garrison, 1993, p. 1 6). If done in a formal, educational environment, then, interaction is usually between a student(s) and instructor, or among students. It is, and will continue to be, the strength of this ongoing interaction with faculty and other students which distinguishes the university experience from indepen- dent learning or one-way, mass communication educational programs (Rogers & Wells, 1997).

Interaction does not simply occur but must be intentionally designed into the instructional program

Zane L. Berge is Director, Training Systems, ISD Graduate Program, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland (e-mail: berge@umbc.edu).

(King & Doerfert, 1996). How instruction is designed is based largely on the designer's interpretation of the world, filtered through his or her instructional philosophy. It is the instructional design, not the delivery system, that frequently sets the limits on the quality of instruction. The balance of the mix of various interpersonal interactions is a result of what the designer values.

if we are chiefly interested in conveying our version of the subject content and enabling learners to deal with questions we already know the answers to, then it may (possibly) be enough to tell them as clearly and interestingly as possible (no interaction). But if we want to help them formulate questions of their own and make their own meanings, then discussion of some kind (though not necessarily with us) seems essential. What I suspect colleagues are likely to be differing about here is not whether it is possible to learn without interaction but about whether non-interacting learning can be worthwhile (educational?) learning. (Rowntree, 1995, n.p.)

Implied in Rowntree's statement is that simply because the quantity of interaction in instruction is increased, through the use of two-way technologies, for example, it is not necessarily true that the quality of instruction will improve. In large part, increased quality achieved through the design of interaction is due to the teaching methods used and designed for in the instruction.

The technology employed for instruction sets parameters on the type of interaction and the convenience of the interactions in which students are engaged. Different technologies are characterized by different benefits and constraints. Effective instructional design requires that those benefits and constraints be known and accounted for.

(Kearsley, 1995, p. 366). King and Doerfert (I 996) state that what research does indicate is that interaction is important for various types of learning, is important to learning satisfaction, and assists in maintaining the persistence of distance students. Additionally, interaction is central to the expectations of teachers and learners in education, and to that extent it is a primary goal of the educational process. Certainly, for these reasons and to provide the necessary feedback between learner and teacher, interaction will continue to be seen as a critical component of formal education, regardless of whether there is research showing a direct link to increased effectiveness.

AsHillman etal.(1994)state,thelearnerinterface is important to the learner's experience. While the use of a variety of media and formats may often make pedagogical sense, as a financial or practical matter, designers do not always have the full range of media available to them. Each medium has a different set of characteristics that impact the different interactions that are possible in the design of the instruction. The designer needs to choose from the systems available for use, those that will best meet the instructional goals of the program under examination. I have chosen to describe interaction in Web-based instruction because use of a Web browser allows many different media to be accessed through this one "umbrella" interface, and because a significant amount of technology-enhanced learning today is being transferred to digital format and delivered via the Web.

By Web-based instruction (WBI), I mean a technology system that has such given features and capabilities as hypermedia and tools such as e-mail, Web-based computer conferencing, and/or synchronous chat (Hughes & Hewson, 1 998). For this discussion, the salient characteristics that are inherent to using WBI are that it requires the use of only one interface program, i.e., the Web browser; while (1)

permitting students or instructors to give presentations, to use the Web system for various forms of communication, and allowing linkage to others' presentations; (2) enabling either asynchronous or synchronous communication among participants; and (3) providing individual, small group, or mass communication.

Synchronous communication occurs in real time- like a face-to-face meeting, a telephone call, or a class held at a specific location with instructor and students meeting face-to-face. All participants in the interaction must be present, although not necessarily at the same physical location (e.g., if a class were televised and broadcast live to other locations).

Asynchronous communication, on the other hand, is in some manner technologically mediated and is not dependent upon teachers and students being present together at a specific time/place to conduct learning/teaching activities. Using asynchronous communication, students can work at their own convenience when and where they want, and from a pedagogical point of view, students can also control the pacing of instruction.

Kroonenberg (1994/1995) has her high school French students occasionally work in Paris to discuss and debate positions in computer-mediated synchronous chat mode. She observed several benefits. The synchronous communication allows students to get practice at fast interaction. Yet, when students do need

to pause and reflect, the text-based mode allows them to do that, encouraging critical thinking. Kroonenberg also finds that many students are more expressive in this mode than in written composition (where every sentence weighs heavily on their minds) or ir-L oral conversation (which deters shy students). When oral discussion follows these online chats, the 'quality of the arguments is enhanced and thinking is more creative than without this kind of preparation' and "interest in listening is augmented as well' (pp. 26-27). The online chats thus serve the role of thinking devices that Lotman (1988, p. 39) suggested are important for collaborative construction of knowledge. (Warschauer, 1995, p. 7)

offline or online, synchronous communication negates "my place and my pace.' If it is synchronous, then it has to be conducted at a given place. Also, many teachers like student-centered learning. With synchronous communication in an online learning environment especially, a leader or faci I itator is needed and this person sets the conversational tone and pace. Synchronous communication in a learning environment forces a focus on teaching or facilitating, not learning. Such a focus on teaching is limited and often limiting.

Individual, Small Group, and Mass Communications

Ellington (cited in Dekkers et al., i990) suggests three classes of instruction: individual learning, small groups, and mass communications. Historically, in distance education, there were few ways to vary delivery and teaching methods. The correspondence model of individual learning was used almost exclusively for the first 120 years of distance education in the United States. Earlier in this century, mass communications (i.e., audio and/or video in live or recorded forms) expanded the range of delivery tools. Still, the prevailing model is of students reading, using a workbook, and watching a video tape or listening to an audio tape or broadcast program alone (Garrison, 1993). Students individually attempt to make sense or meaning of this type of instructional intervention. To check students' "making of meaning' in what they read or saw, the instructor asks them to submit a written paper, or to respond, in writing, to various questions showing evidence of familiarity with the lesson/course content and perhaps the occurrence within the student of some analysis, synthesis, or evaluation. For many years, individual students worked alone on the content of a course, and received feedback from the instructor, in most cases, very slowly and by mail. What was, and still often is, missing is opportunities for the use of group learning models. As Moore (I 993) states:

Above all, the teleconference media allow a new form of dialogue that can be called inter-learner dialogue. Inter-learner dialogue occurs between learners and

other learners, alone or in groups, with or without the real-time presence of an instructor. By audio- conference, video-conference, and computer conference, groups can learn through interaction with other groups and within groups. There are enormously significant implications in this potential, in every process of teaching-learning. In particular, such dialogue by learners to learners within and between groups makes it possible for distance learners to share in the creation of knowledge. (p. 33)

Over the past two decades, emerging technologies have opened to the designer of distance education many more opportunities to vary medium and teaching methods, and to facilitate the use of group learning models. There have also been significant changes in the way that distance educators think about how distance learning can be accomplished.

Variable characteristics are those set by the instructional goals or design rather than inherent in the technology selected. The characteristics chosen for discussion here are: (1) teaching methods, (2) types of interaction (interpersonal and intrapersonal), (3) performance level (teacher versus student control), (4) task/content versus social interaction, and (5) feedback.

• disseminating information not readily available from texts or workbooks in appropriately sized pieces according to a teacher-determined structure;

• arousing or heightening student interest;

• reviewing previously learned skills and knowledge; and

• giving feedback and corrective guidance. Then, there are times when direct instruction is not effective, efficient, or appropriate when compared to the knowledge that can be gained from inquiry or problem-solving methods. This is because not all outcomes require responses that have direct links to the stimulus material. Direct instruction may be less desirable when the desired outcomes of instruction are to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate; when fuzzy or ill- defined, authentic problems are focused upon; when multiple perspectives must be examined; or when the content is best learned gradually, over an extended time period (Borich, 1 996, 246-249, 291--293).

Learning takes place only after the interactions a student engages in intrapersonally and with other people have taken place.

lntrapersonal Interaction. For learning to occur, either alone or in a group, the student must interact with, and process, the content of the course. A student "talks to him/herself" regarding the content. The content cannot merely pass before one's senses but must be cognitively processed (Bower & Hilgard, 1981). Typically, in formal schooling, much of the content, while processed and integrated, quickly becomes "inert' (Gagn6 et al., 1993), as it has little relevance to the life circumstances of the student. it eventually becomes 'lost' to retrieval. Hence instructors are exploring the advantages of "just-in-time learning.' It appears that knowledge and skills acquired immediately prior to a need may reduce the need for retraining later. All one-way and didactic instruction, such as broadcast television, radio, lecture, or textbook readings, is directed at content-interactivity (Moore, 1989).

Another aspect of intrapersonal interaction includes reflection-students exercise control over what is learned, at least at the personal level within their own rninds. So, a large part of teaching is promoting the intrapersonal reflection that helps integrate new experiences with those existing already and organize them into meaning (Warschauer, 1995).

The only really important form of interaction for learning occurs in the mind of the learner, as knowledge is reprocessed/reorganized, or related to fresh incoming information, etc. What matters then in distance learning (indeed any mode) is promoting this reflective, inner interaction (O'Hagan, 1995). (n.p.)

An individual learner often needs time away from the instructor and other learners, sometimes even without the text or content provided by other people, to internally make sense of new information as it relates to what is already known.

Interpersonal Interaction. The ir-nportance of interpersonal interaction in learning is well documented (Fulford & Zhang, 1993). When students have the opportunity to interact with one another and their instructors about the content, they have the opportunity to build within themselves, and to communicate, a shared meaning, to "make sense' of what they are learning. Much of learning inevitably takes place within a social context, and the process includes the mutual construction of understanding (Bruner, 1971). interpersonal interaction offers the opportunity for the student to gain the motivational support of fellow students and instructors, develop critical judgment, participate in problem-solving, and often has the potential for other incidental learning (Chacon, 1992).

Figure I shows selected media along the continuums of synchronous or asynchronous communications and the main purposes of interaction. There is some overlap among the quadrants in the interactional goals that can be attained with many of these media. I have attempted here to place each medium along these two dimensions at the place where I hypothesize it could be used most appropriately for instruction. The most notable excep- tion is Web-based instruction. It can be appropriately used in a much broader scope than perhaps any deliv-

Table 1. Techniques (and devices) for different levels of cognitive skill using synchronous and asynchronous communication.

ery system or communication channel in education: It can be placed in all four quadrants. While it may not be appropriate to deliver high-density text in real-time using the Web, new modes of video and audio stream- ing accessed via the Web do have benefits for instruc- tion.

What is essential to any educational system is the possibility for interaction in the form of feedback to the learner as he or she is practicing skills or acquiring knowledge. O'Hagan (1 995) emphasizes this:

Education would be much improved if more attention was paid to this and less to the means of delivering or exchanging information. Is this mainly what is envis- aged by those who promote teacher-learner interac- tion? But again, time for reflection is required by both parties for the feedback to have any depth and for it to be assimilated: this is not easily facilitated in rapid (face-to-facel interaction. (n.p.)

The capability to accommodate novel feedback from other people is one hallmark of the dimensions shown in Figure 1. For instance, dense content lectures are most likely to be found in synchronous settings- however, this is the very setting in which practice and learner feedback is the most problematic.

Conclusions

Each medium has characteristics that instructional designers need to be aware of when choosing the delivery system(s) to use. For this reason, it does not make a lot of sense to speak about interaction in a teaching and learning environment out of this context. Part of the context described here is interaction within a Web-based instructional environment, in which the key inherent features include: (1) students or instructors are permitted to give presentations, to use the Web system for various forms of communication, and to allow students to link to others' presentations; (2) either asynchronous or synchronous communication among participants can be used; and (3) individual, small group, or mass communication is available to the instructional designer. There are also variable elements within the Web-based learning environment that a designer may choose to employ. The salient variables described above are: (1) teaching methods, (2) types of interaction (interpersonal and intrapersonal), (3) perfor- mance level (teacher versus student-control), (4) task/ content versus social interaction, and (5) feedback.

Critical to understanding interaction in education is to realize that interaction involves a continuum from teacher-centered to student-centered approaches. That is, from a teacher informing by such means as summarizing, interrelating, and giving knowledge and information, to eliciting the creation of knowledge within students with such things as drawing out student opinions, knowledge, and problem-solving abilities; facilitating student interaction; and enabling students to learn and develop by self-discovery and personal insight Caques, 1991).

Regardless of the media used, it is the responsibility of the institution and the instructor to provide a learning environment in which the learner has the opportunity for appropriate interactions with content, the instructor, and other students (Moore, 1 993). A mismatch of the use of interaction, synchronicity, and technology can lead to loss of the student's attention, boredom, information overload, and frustration. All are costly in time lost for learning. Even students who are

Figure 1. Selected media based on communication mode and type of interaction.

actively engaged in attending to the learning activity constantly fight distracting thoughts while processing new information (these can be thoughts related to or unrelated to the content being presented). One challenge therefore, for those designing learning environments, is to seriously consider which presentation or delivery media will best enhance the presentation of information and facilitate interaction among students and faculty. n

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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/january-February 1999