Reading 5 (Theme Two)

Reading 5

Third reading on Theme Two: Underpinning teaching with technology: Theory and research Foundations

Martens, R., Bastiaens, T., & Kirschner, P. (2007). New Learning Design in Distance Education: The impact on student perception and motivation. Distance Education, 28(1) pp.81-93.

Downloaded on 20 April 2008 from http://kea.massey.ac.nz/search~S4?/fDistance+Education/fdistance+education/1,2,2,B/l856~b1405259&FF=fdistance+education&1,1,,1,0

Motivation (learner-centred psychological principles 7-9 cited in McCoombs & Vakili’s, 2005 ) resulted in this article arresting my attention. Written from a constructivist perspective this is a report on a study into the actual perception of electronic authentic learning tasks in which perceptions of students at Open University of the Netherlands were contrasted with the designer’s expectations.

A table adapted from Dalgarno (1998) showing 10 constructivist design principles is given but the authors comment that designing by these principles does not guarantee success. The effort in CEEs (constructivist e-learning environments) relies on intrinsic motivation therefore learners’ perceptions are critical. Reference is made to Simons et al’s instructional models of the new learning (competency-based education that integrates constructivism and ICT) viz. guided learning (awakening students’ curiosity); experiential learning (let students follow own curiosity and interest) ; action learning ( organise action to arouse curiosity).

Constructivist principles require CEEs to be challenging and contextually authentic so that learners become intrinsically motivated to explore and control their own learning process. Designer challenges are:

• Difficult to determine what ‘new learning skills” are
• What is delivered is driven by what is technologically possible rather than what is educationally desirable
• Designers must gauge students’ perception
• Paucity of clear guidelines for designing new learning tasks
• Little empirical evidence for claims re supposed motivational impact of “constructivist” e-learning programs

Questions researched: - How do students learn in CEEs that provide a “virtual” reality and authentic problems? - How do students perceive it? - How do student opinions relate to the opinions and expectations of developers?

Tasks used in study were authentic, ill-structured - designed to stimulate intrinsic motivation to resolve the “confusion” thus constructing required knowledge and skills.

Findings:

• mismatch between positive expectations about CEEs and student perceptions;
• amount of intrinsic motivation correlated with amount of self-reported explorative behaviour.

Conclusions

• limited understanding of how complex key variables influence student behaviour;

• crucial variable is intrinsic motivation

Feelings of competence, relatedness and autonomy are crucial for the development of intrinsic motivation. The amount of intrinsic motivation highly correlated with the amount of self-reported explorative behaviour.

Discussion:

1. According to the fourth principle of Androgogy, adults become ready to learn "when their life situations create a need to learn.” (Huang, 2002) . This would contribute to the intrinsic motivation referred to in this article and existing as principle 9 of the learner-centred psychological principles. If intrinsic motivation is crucial to success of CEEs, can they be as effectively implemented indiscriminately with younger (e.g. secondary) students ?

2. What struck me was that not only are the ‘design guidelines vague” but “once the task is delivered to the students there is relatively little control over student perception”. (p.84) What can designers do between design and early online delivery to ensure the appropriate levels of challenge when designers can only “gauge” the students?

References

Huang, H. (2000) Toward Constructivism for Adult Learners in Online Learning Environments.
British Journal of Educational Technology. 33(1), 27-37.

McCombs, B.L. & Vakili, D. (2005). A learner-centred framework for e-learning. Teachers
College Record, 107, 1582 – 1600.

Reading 4 (Theme Two):

Second reading on Theme Two: Underpinning teaching with technology: Theory and research Foundations

Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (2003) The Expertise reversal Effect. Educational Psychologist, 38 (1), 23-31.

Downloaded on 28 March 2008 by Massey University

This reading was prompted by the previous reading (1 of theme 2) . The authors outline cognitive load theory and then review the empirical literature on the interaction between instructional techniques and levels of learner experience that suggested the expertise reversal effect.

The expertise reversal problem is explained by applying the CLT principles. Many instructional design recommendations give no explicit reference to learner knowledge levels. Some recommendations apply only to learners with limited experience. Experts bring their activated schemas that give full guidance to the process of constructing mental representations of a task. Additional guidance becomes redundant and unnecessarily uses up working memory in cross referencing and integration and results in poorer performance.

The research focused on how expertise can alter relative instructional effectiveness. The article reviews the following empirical studies of interactions between levels of expertise and

• the split-attention and redundancy effects (e.g. text and diagrams);
• text processing (e.g. additional explanation to increase coherence);
• the modality and redundancy effects (replication of information via both auditory and visual sources as opposed to dual-mode presentation);
• the worked example effect (appropriacy of worked example as opposed to problem-solving);
• the isolated or interacting elements effect (mixed instructional method followed by interacting elements);
• the imagination effect (worked examples as opposed to imagining procedures)

Findings from the above research foci consistently confirm the expertise reversal effect. The conclusion is that design must be tailored to the level of experience of the learners.

Discussion:

1. This is a warning that recommendations to use particular designs can be counterproductive if they are not based on sound learning theory, research and knowledge of the learner’s needs. It illustrates the importance of planning in design and suggests that greater collaboration between student and teacher would increase the effectiveness of the design. This points to the importance of the instructor-student relationship which leads me to reflect on Garrison’s Community of Inquiry framework in which the social – cognitive-teaching presence facilitates the educational experience.

2. What can an instructor do in the initial phases of setting up an online class to include some form of reconnaissance of developmental experiences learners bring to the learning situation?

Reading 3 (Theme Two)

First reading on Theme Two: Underpinning teaching with technology: Theory and research Foundations

Paas, F., Renkl, A. & Sweller, J. (2003). Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design: recent developments. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 1-4.

Downloaded on 28 March by Massey University

This is the introductory article to an issue devoted to Cognitive Load Theory and with Sweller himself one of the authors, it offers a good overview of the theory and terminology related to CLT which itself provides a framework for investigations into cognitive processes and instructional design.

Intrinsic cognitive load relates to the material being learned. Conscious cognitive processing of the element interactivity is done in the working memory.

Extraneous or ineffective cognitive load refers to problematic instructional procedures in task design that interfere with schema acquisition and automation.

Germane or effective cognitive load enhances learning: working memory resources are able to be devoted to schema acquisition and automation because effective material presentation. Increases in effort or motivation can increase cognitive resources and if relevant to schema acquisition and automation, increases germane cognitive load.

For learning to occur the sum of intrinsic, extraneous and germane cognitive loads needs to be less than the working memory resources available. Effective instructional design that reduces extraneous load and increases germane load improves learning; schema acquisition reduces intrinsic cognitive load and frees working memory capacity.

The original static focus of CLT aimed to develop instructional techniques to reduce extraneous cognitive load (goal specificity, split-attention, etc). Emergence of a dynamic approach considers intrinsic load as the property of the task and considers alterations in the cognitive load that occur with increasing expertise. Its main outcome has been the expertise reversal effect – previously effective instructional techniques can lose effectiveness with experts.

Some instructional consequences include: need for realistic tasks, simple-to-complex sequencing, provision of worked examples; appropriate timing of information and provision of overarching supportive information (big-picture) .

Discussion and questioning

When this paper was written (2003), little had been done to measure cognitive load. I will have to research more recent developments as it would be very valuable in terms of accommodating learner differences (cf Learner-centred psychological principles 12 – 14) in design.

The dynamic approach that recognises the problem of the expertise reversal effect presents a very practical problem to the designer. How does design accommodate the different stages learners are at in an online task – a problem exacerbated by the variance in time, pace and motivation of online learners? This problem prompts more reading.

Technology influences the learning context. Does one have to be more careful in online learning that important information does not get lost-in-delivery for the more technology-savvy students taking shortcuts while for others the technology itself becomes extraneous cognitive load? How does one accommodate both possibilities in practice?