Roff, Michael


Contents

· Clark (1983) Framing of the Argument
· Types of Technology
· Past Evidence Against Media and Learning
· Modern Technology is surely of more use than outdated Technology?
· Individual Differences & Media utilisation
· Media’s Role in Motivation
· Flaws with Research
· Conclusion
· References


In this wiki I will be tackling the question of whether the rise of technology has brought any true gains to education. This argument has been sparked by the work of Clark who has caused a large amount of debate when in his 1983 paper he claimed that media has no learning benefits. He was quoted as saying that media are:

‘Mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition.’ P445.

This is a very bold claim especially when you consider that schools strive to keep up to date and put large financial investment into this such as making sure every classroom has a computer and upgrading blackboards to interactive white boards or higher education investing in electronic voting systems.

Clark (1983) Framing of the Argument

It is first important to understand Clark’s argument which is carefully framed (and perhaps not as controversial as it first sounds when understood). Clark acknowledges that learning requires some to must be present in order to deliver instruction, (media can take the form of reading from textbooks to discussions prompted by electronic voting systems). Based on the fact that any media can be used to facilitate learning Clark argues that it must be down to the instructional methods embedded within this media that are responsible for the learning gains themselves.

Types of Technology

When discussing technology it is important to be aware that they can be categorised into two types:

  1. Instructional/ Training Design: These draw on psychological research to create instructional methods and environments that can enhance achievement. These would be specific software programs designed with the purpose of directly teaching or testing the student.
  2. Delivery: Influences the cost and access of instruction and information. The best modern technology example of this would be the internet. But computers themselves could also be used as an example.

Literature often confuses these types or fails to separate them making it hard to study the contributions from media. Without a doubt delivery technology has changed the face of education.

The internet has provided a vast source of information at student’s fingertips within seconds. Unlike a library preparation is not needed it can simply be found and acquired however this information’s reliability can also be questionable.
Just because this has changed students approach to education it doesn’t necessarily mean it has brought about benefits. Consider the student who uses a translator for their Spanish work or that leaves their deadline to the last day because they assume that the material will be there when they decide to do it unlike the books in the library.

Past Evidence Against Media and Learning

The fact media brings little gain was not a new idea even in the 1980s. Figures such as Mielke (1968) noted that medias use was to develop the technology of instructional method. While media may not bring about the gains it certainly seems that it can provide different instructional methods that would have failed without certain media to speed up the utilisation or presentation of information.

Schramm (1977) claimed that learning is influenced more by the content and instructional strategy in a medium opposed to the type of medium. Research covered within the course demonstrates this well such as Mazur (2001) where he observed his physics class were not learning the content as well as he expected. It wasn’t the implementation of an electronic voting system that caused his new found learning gains but the method of interactive engagement that relied on the use of brain teasers to prompt debate and discussion between peers. Such a method would be possible without this technology but it is facilitated by it due to speed and presentation.

Kozma (1994) noted that there is no compelling evidence (in the past 70 years of published and unpublished research) that media causes learning increases under any conditions. The main difference between media use is cost, thus the cheapest media should be chosen in order to make the greatest savings. Despite this as Clark has highlighted:

“We tend to ignore basic and applied research if that research was conducted with older media."

Interestingly it has been noted that media can influence the speed/ efficiency of learning yet this is not counted as an increased gain.

Modern Technology is surely of more use than outdated Technology?

The question that seems to fuel further research is the idea that more modern technology can surely bring benefits. This was covered by Moreno & Mayer (2002) who argued for the media affects learning hypothesis. The idea that more advanced instructional technologies promote deeper learning, regardless of the instructional method. This theory is consistent with attempts to integrate newer technologies into education and is based on the assumption that state of the art technologies are more effective learning tools than older technologies are.

The argument against this as already said is the methods affect learning hypothesis that as long as instructional methods are embedded in the media they promote appropriate cognitive processing during learning. Thus the type of media delivering the method does not matter.

Motion picture was originally thought to have the potential to replace books and transform education however its influence was modest and no such radical change has been seen. This train of thought also applied for computers, while influential they are yet to have a direct impact on the goals of schooling, and what evidence there is seems illusory and subject to debate, Tamim et al. (2011).

Ross, Morrison, and Lowther (2010) said “educational technology is not a homogeneous ‘intervention’ but a broad variety of modalities, tools, and strategies for learning. Its effectiveness, therefore, depends on how well it helps teachers and students achieve the desired instructional goals” (p. 19).

Individual Differences & Media utilisation

Individual differences within learning is prevalent. Many students will claim to have different learning strategies and methods that work better for them and those that don’t. Likewise different media combinations may work better for different students. It may be that technology can be used to reach students that are currently been failed by the standard education system. The issue with this is that the large body of research can’t account for overcoming the opposition to the implementation of new media in a classroom or fails to highlight how some groups make greater gains.

An excellent example of this is Kurt Squire’s research who taught American Social History to a group of students who had been failed by standard education via the use of Civilisation III a popular video game.

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E-learning has a reputation for being dull and ineffective while games have developed a reputation for being fun, engaging and immersive, requiring deep thinking and complex problem solving, (Gee, 2003). Based on this the question is not whether educators can use games to support learning but how they can be most effectively used as educational tools.

Cuban (1986) has shown that educators abandon media that does not fit the social organization of schooling.

The implementation of the game system was met with scepticism with many students challenging its value as a learning tool. Roughly 25% of students in school situations complained the game was too hard, complicated and uninteresting and thus withdrew from the gaming unit to participate in reading groups instead. However another 25% of student (notably academic underachievers) loved playing the game thought it was a perfect learning experience and did not resist it unlike much of their other school education. It was found these students developed new vocabularies, better understandings of geography, and more robust concepts of world history (Squire 2004).

Interestingly the game brought completely different understandings not just in history but in geography, politics, economics and an understanding of the interplay between all of these. Furthermore it developed skills that students may not always experience. Crucially students experienced failure and those who accepted the system realised that this was not a reflection on them but a demonstration of where they needed to improve and acted as a crucial learning tool.

Media’s Role in Motivation

Motivation can come under individual differences. It is important to remember that media can not only be responsible for learning but also for motivation. It can be down to the student to decide what media to utilise for their learning.

Many students can likely relate to choosing to watch a documentary found on the internet as it is an easier option than sitting down and studying their notes, this motivation affects what can be gained from the media. Just because the option is there does not mean it is the best one.

Salomon (1984) highlighted that the motivation of students and their expectations and beliefs about their chances to learn from any given media are different from other students and across time. One of the biggest barriers of implementing new media or instructional methods can be student’s pre-conceptions of this approach and expectation that they will not learn from it meaning they fail to get the most gains. Tutors instead have to spend time convincing students to try their new approach opposed to just having to teach the content. It is not just students that must overcome this barrier, teachers themselves may need to do this when schools or curriculums change and expect staff to utilise new methods. A good example of this is Squires video game research using Civilization as already discussed.

Another interesting use of technology and motivation can be seen by Mitra & Dangwal (2010). Here they provided ‘hole in the wall terminals’ (a lone computer connected to the internet) attached to a wall in a slum in areas throughout New Delhi which allowed local children free access and use of this. These children lacked normal reliable schooling as it was not available thus the PC provided them with a tool to learn. They found self organised, self mediated learning in children (as tested by the learning of basic molecular biology) that would otherwise be denied the opportunity for schooling. This learning could be on par with school teaching based on two comparison groups. What’s more via the use of Skype children could discuss what they had learnt with Western Grannies with no expertise in the area. This was known as the ‘granny cloud’ and was found to also have benefits.
This shows the ability of delivery technology to bring gains at a relatively cheap cost to children where normal teaching is not economically viable or possible.


Flaws with Research

Clark argues that the failure to separate the medium from the method has lead to large confounds and waste in an important and expensive research area. Thus we continue to heavily invest in expensive media hoping to produce gains in learning and when this is not seen this is attributed to the wrong mix of media, but when right is credited to the medium not the instruction. Regardless businesses and educations are convinced they must invest in newer media to insure learning performance and motivational gains.

Older research studied the use of computers in the classroom and those without, before these became a regular feature in classrooms this was a practical study however research still looks at classrooms that use technology and those that do not despite the fact this is no longer a realistic picture within mainstream education. Furthermore Clark (1983) has argued against this type of methodology in order to validate Media’s use.

Conclusion

This wiki has not so much challenged Clark’s argument that no learning can be gained from media itself but rather highlighted the fact that different media can be used to effectively engage groups that can otherwise be neglected by the education system whether it be due to the students themselves or the economic and political situation they live within. Delivery technology certainly seems to have the capability to provide opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable while instructional technology can be embedded within areas such as video games to engage groups in another way.

References