In the year 2001, we noted several trends in the field, some new, and others continuing from recent years. The international surge toward online education or �e-learning� continues to gain momentum. Instructional technology projects and initiatives continue to emphasize the themes of collaboration and integration. The interdisciplinary nature of this field seems to be broadening, and the borders between instructional technology, information science, and educational media, and information technology are becoming increasingly blurred. Among K-12 and higher education leaders, tension between the standards reform movement and the constructivist philosophy remains, and the debate over this issue has many implications for our field. In broader contexts, experiential education seems to be gaining importance, and designers are applying emerging technologies to create learning environments that stimulate authentic situations. Finally, over the last few years we have witnessed a changing of the guard as many prominent leaders in the field of instructional technology have retired�. (Fitzgerald, Orey, & Branch,
2002)
This paper will attempt to navigate this shifting terrain meaningfully. In doing so it will explore and create maps of that terrain and the struggles inherent in the field will no doubt be expressed: educational technology has roots in education, the arts, the sciences, the workplace, the military and industry. The needs of these spheres of practice are, and perhaps always will be, in conflict, but hopefully a productive one. It assumes that learning is not a distinctly human capacity but that humans have evolved a reflective consciousness that allows us to examine the past, present, and future and to share experience. We give order to our world and recognize in doing so that we leave traces of our activity that can stimulate, guide, or constrain learning for ourselves and for future generations. We also still maintain the capacity to forgo using this reflective consciousness in favor of instinctive action. Life can be seen as a dance between these two capacities. This paper will try and perform this dance in terms that are meaningful for the field of Educational Technology.
The story of learning and technology is a young one but by no means a simple one. In regards to research on distance education, for example, it is �chaotic and confused.� (Micas & Gunawardena, 1996, section 3. 2). On one hand this sort of comment � and these riddle the literature � may be taken as a sign that we should focus our efforts on technical systems and research more. On the other hand � and this is something we don�t hear much � perhaps democracy is a messy affair. The tension implied here forms what we find in the educational technology, including that literature found in instructional design, media studies, distance education and the like. In 1996, AECT published a handbook that sought to give shape and direction to the field. This paper begins there.
Vaney and Butler (1996) develop a history of the field through a discourse analysis of textbooks and records of research dating from the 1910�s to the mid 90�s. Briefly, they found �no other educational field, or many early academic fields, so tied to machines and technology and, therefore, market economics.�(De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 5. 4) Further, they trace very strong ties between the field and the military through Instructional Technology research and practice. Educational Technology is partly a product of the military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about at the end of World War II (Noble 1989, 1991). Further, the story isn't cut and dried. The story is one of people working as teachers, administrators, and researchers in schools, the military, and in business, often moving among these fluidly and taking their experience from one sphere to another. Theirs is also the story of people struggling to validate and further their work, reaching out of education, reaching back into a transformed education and starting something new. At some point all this activity started to come together into a field as novel developments occurred from that field.
The story of Learning Technology often begins in the American 1920s between the two great wars, though later chapters were to be written from activity that was fomenting elsewhere then. During these periods, certain metaphors became an important means by which to explain both the field and its objects. American society began to express two seemingly irreconcilable aims through the Audio/Visual field, which would coalesce into the Association for Educational and Communications Technology. These two competing aims are described in various ways but can be summed up as social efficiency, on the one hand, and humanism on the other.
Between the two wars
This period overlaps World War I and marks both the burgeoning of the Industrial era and also the beginning of a conflict of aims in America's �laboratories� -- that would affect children in schools, adults in workplaces, and society more generally. Women gained the right to vote then, largely under the aegis of humanism. �The National Academy of Visual Instruction (NAVI) merged with the Department of Visual Instruction (DVI) under the auspices of the national Education Association (NEA).� (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4) Contemporary modes of research were in their infancy.
Even though the modern field of educational technology emerged from training research of World War II, the objects of study, basic concepts, and intended audience had been circumscribed in the period between 1918 and 1941.
Audiovisual texts produced between the two wars were of several types. Late 20s and early-30s faculty research reports, published by university presses, were representative of prevailing scholarship of the decade. While seldom addressing the learning theory that informed their method and design, these texts reflected a heightened interest in connectionism and a growing reliance on statistical measurement, which was prevalent in the new departments of educational psychology�.
The applied audiovisual texts of the late 20s and early 30s reflect little research or learning theory. Rather, they are concerned with the operation of machines in public school classrooms, buildings, and districts. This direction was, of course, necessary, since most practitioners and potential practitioners were ignorant of the operation of these machines.
A different type of text, however, emerges in the late 30s and continues through the 40s. It is a text that attempts to ground audiovisual instruction in a learning theory and describe the manner in which theory suggests certain pedagogical practices. (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 3.1)
These types of texts were often �how-to� textbooks and technical reports concerning people building audio/visual systems, and though largely atheoretical, some researches were by those researchers taking the various tacks associated with social efficiency and humanism using theories derived from both pragmatic and analytic philosophy.
A great deal of the intellectual groundwork for Educational Technology was developed during this period and so this section will cover some introduction to it, though we will have to wait for later sections to explore them in detail. During the early 20th century, however, American theorists then articulated two main lines of thought and experimentation: humanism and behaviorism. It is untrue to say that either of these broke from (European) positivism completely (nor that they are even mutually exclusive) but it is more accurate to say that they took on a peculiar flavor in the United States as both pragmatic and analytic philosophies worked out their programs through them in various ways. In short, social science and psychology took an empirical turn and empirical theories � largely but not purely pragmatic � won the bid for �best theories� in Educational Technology. There were portents of constructivism in the air. European theorists were developing related programs of their own and yet we find evidence of their use in Educational Technology only later.
American authors of these theories were John Dewey, Charles Peirce, William James, Edward Thorndike and John Watson. Among Europeans were Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Jean Piaget, Bertrand Russell, Lev Vygotsky, Ferdinand Saussure, etc., but we can�t cover all of this here. We can�t even give these people crisply precise positions in what have become the traditional categories of �behaviorism, cognitivism, and social/constructivism.� We can say that different conceptions of mind and of knowledge were being extended then which informed metaphors we use today to describe different positions within the field. Let�s explore some of these authors and hopefully begin to get a feel for these metaphors and the forces we assume act on them.
It is obvious that John Dewey, philosopher and founder of the Experimental Laboratory School, put the �education� in educational technology. In 1910, he published How We Think, one of the most significant contributions to epistemology and psychology made then. He later links his educational program specifically to the aims of society in Democracy and Society:
It is the very nature of life to strive to continue in being. Since this continuance can be secured only by constant renewals, life is a self-renewing process. What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession� As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill. (Dewey, 1916, n.p.)
Here we can begin to see the sheer magnitude of his contribution, though we risk the danger of misinterpretation in doing so. For Dewey, humans are technological beings; people are, at their very core, scientific and in fact yearn to be more so. This assumption of human nature finds its expression partly in Dale's work in the 30's and in constructivism later, but is only one voice among several at this time. Other theories and concepts were advancing as well, in Gestalt, cognitive and social learning, and in behaviorism.
In 1912 Max Wertheimer, the founder of the Gestalt movement, published a paper on the visual perception of movement.
Gestalt theory has to do with concrete research; it is not only an outcome but a device: not only a theory about results but a means toward further discoveries. This is not merely the proposal of one or more problems but an attempt to see what is really taking place in science. This problem cannot be solved by listing possibilities for systematization, classification, and arrangement. If it is to be attacked at all, we must be guided by the spirit of the new method and by the concrete nature of the things themselves which we are studying, and set ourselves to penetrate to that which is really given by nature. (Wertheimer, 1924, n.p.)
Gestalt theory informs later work in both constructivism and cognitive science and, as we will see, the work of Gagne:
The principles of Gestalt are closely related to those of cognitive constructivist. J. S. Bruner, a proponent of the Constructivist Instructional Design Paradigm considers thinking the most important outcome of cognitive development. "The mind creates from experience generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and possibly fruitful predictions" (Driscoll, 1994, p. 208). "The Constructivist paradigm states that learning occurs because personal knowledge is constructed by an active and self-regulated learner who resolves conflicts between ideas and reflects on theoretical explanation. The Constructivist value errors, see the teacher as an intervener and provide learning environments that allow for play and discovery and are responsive to learner explorations by providing immediate feedback" (Seels, 1989, p.13). This theory is closely related to the concepts of insight and the affect of prior experience on the building of trace systems used in Gestalt theory.
I should note here that �traces� are as much a matter of Thorndike�s concern as the Gestaltist�s, but let�s continue�
1914: Wolfgang Kohler, a Gestalt psychologist, performs landmark investigations with chimpanzees:
Two sets of interests lead us to test the intelligence of the higher apes. We are aware that it is a question of beings which in many ways are nearer to man than to the other ape species; in particular it has been shown that the chemistry of their bodies, in so far as it may be perceived in the quality of the blood, and the structure of their most highly-developed organ, the brain, are more closely related to the chemistry of the human body and human brain-structure than to the chemical nature of the lower apes and their brain development. These being shown so many human traits in their "everyday" behavior that the question naturally arises whether they do not behave with intelligence and insight under conditions which require such behaviour. (Kohler, 1925, as cited in Cooks, R., n.d., n.p.)
Here, a Gestalt scientist considers behavior, but with the intent to connect the intellect with action. These lines of inquiry here that will serve to connect Gestalt psychology with both cognitivists and constructivists through information theory, but these lines are emerging with a dynamic that though part pragmatic, part analytical, does not consider the intellect in nearly the same terms.
In 1913, John B. Watson took the lead for the analytic tradition as an early pioneer of the behaviorist revolution and says
�Psychology as the behaviorist views it,[�] is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent on the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.� (WGBH 1998, n.p.)
While throughout the 1910 and 20�s, Edward L. Thorndike leads the establishment of the field of Educational Psychology (Gale, 2001) and develops the theory of connectionism:
He believed that through experience neural bonds or connections were formed between perceived stimuli and emitted responses; therefore, intellect facilitated the formation of the neural bonds. People of higher intellect could form more bonds and form them more easily than people of lower ability. The ability to form bonds was rooted in genetic potential through the genes' influence on the structure of the brain, but the content of intellect was a function of experience. Thorndike rejected the idea that a measure of intelligence independent of cultural background was possible. He carries out the first major scientific study of the adult learner and the learning process used by adults. (Plucker, n.d., n.p.)
The behaviorist manifesto � though radically different in expression � may be seen connected at their assumption of human nature. Both Watson and Thorndike would set the tone for instructional technology, strongly at certain points, with an aura of science about them, but one, especially in the latter case, conditioned by beliefs in forms of determinism. Whether and why this paradigm came to fruition within the field when it did is accessible, as far as I can tell, largely through understanding that educational technology composes both markets and niches military/industrial systems that, frankly, weren�t interested in whether �users� or �subjects� could reason well. Certain other authors were, though, and Jean Piaget among them.
During the 1920�s Jean Piaget conducted early psychological studies with his children, forming his theories of development AND cognitive, experience-based learning:
His researches in developmental psychology and genetic epistemology had one unique goal: how does knowledge grow? His answer is that the growth of knowledge is a progressive construction of logically embedded structures superseding one another by a process of inclusion of lower less powerful logical means into higher and more powerful ones up to adulthood. Therefore, children's logic and modes of thinking are initially entirely different from those of adults. (Smith, L., 2000, n.p.)
In 1934 Lev Vygotsky dies from tuberculosis. His works were suppressed by the Soviet regime until 1956. As we will see later, Vygotsky's ideas were rediscovered in Europe and have been adopted in the United States.
Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)
Though we�ve taken a �snapshot� of theories here out of the context of their development, they are a portent of things to come. In these descriptions we can see the seeds of learning theories that were to inform the field of educational technology: in Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky, humanism, cognitive, and developmental theories; in Thorndike and Watson, behaviorism; and in Wertheimer and Kohler, Gestalt theories that would merge with information theory into cognitivism. Saying this, of course is to miss historical connections. We have no choice but to do so. We continue.
Most any current educational method is going to retain aspects of their roots in these and we will see how so later. But first, we focus on what are seen to be the catalysts by which these theories took root in educational technology. By catalysts I mean movements, which largely speak to the role of ideology:
By ideology here is meant not an explicit, comprehensive, and enforced code of beliefs and practices to which all members of a group are held but rather a set of implicit, often vague, but widely shared set of expectations and assumptions about the social order. (Kerr, S. T., 1996, section 1.1.3)
Theories derive from movements and movements provide the impetuous for their diffusion into and transformation of society, where of course, they are also transformed. To get an idea of how movements gave form to the field, and thus affecting with theories, we�ll set up the basic tension between social efficiency and humanism as we explore the historical development of the field itself.
To begin, social efficiency may be read as a general movement towards efficiency as a bottom line. Many people believe that its earliest progenitors were Edward Ross and Frederick Winslow Taylor whose work �spawned interest in the comparable studies of behavioral psychology and mental measurement� (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.1). It is no doubt an attractive notion in that it promises a comforting, almost utopian notion of societal control. Ironically, though the concept of �ideology� seems hopelessly abstract, it might help us examine the fuzziness that seems to lie between theory and practice very concretely:
The greatest abuse of Scientific Management has come from applying the
techniques without the philosophy behind them�. Taylor acknowledged the potential for abuse in his methods. "The knowledge obtained from accurate time study, for example, is a powerful implement, and can be used, in one case to promote harmony between workmen and the management, by gradually educating, training, and leading the workmen into new and better methods of doing the work, or in the other case, it may be used more or less as a club to drive the workmen into doing a larger day's work for approximately the same pay that they received in the past. [17] from
http://www.quality.org/TQM-MSI/taylor.html
One way to explain this discrepancy � between philosophy (or theory) and practice � is by suggesting that we only really recognize the discrepancy in retrospect. Given the paltry working conditions Taylor addressed, we can be reasonably sure that he developed theory and instrumentation to try and improve them. We can�t be sure, though, that Scientific Management caused improvements in U.S. factory working conditions; we can say with equal ambiguity that Scientific Management � regardless of the philosophy behind it �was nothing more than an expression of those same conditions � albeit a refinement, but an expression nonetheless.
This sort of retrospective ambiguity can lead to hand-wringing at the very level of epistemology, but the kinds of arguments that the humanists levy against social efficiency are not without striking evidence. One warrant they claim underlies their arguments is that language represents social order. To be sure, this is NOT the same thing as saying that there is a direct correspondence from word to thing: it is to say that words are powerful organizers of the human experience (again, simplistic, but adequate hopefully).
As mentioned before, the movement basically runs according to the same logic that ran the military and factory systems of that era. It was successful in these spheres, however, as difficulties arose because it moved into what Habermas calls the public sphere and what Dewey called the public:
Early in the century, we hear John Franklin Bobbitt talking about the �scientific management� of education, the �elimination of inefficiency,� the �platoon system,� school superintendents as �educational engineers,� and the school as �plant�(Kliebard, 1987, pp. 97-99, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.1). While it was Taylor (1911) who actually introduced the business world to the twin gods of efficiency and effectiveness, it was Bobbitt and other early educational researchers and administrators such as Ellwood and Ayers (Kliebard, 1987, pp.103-104) who graced the national educational discourse with that indelible metaphor of the school as a �factory.� (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.1)
One way of reading this is that the issue with which educators are concerned is spillover from the military into society at large. Where the military represents its own sphere, schools represent the public sphere and this, plainly, is upsetting to a lot of people who see the American project as one of democracy. To try and somehow deal with the ideological differences implied here, let�s examine more closely what some of the concerns were about.
Social efficiency figures into Educational Technology by way of mental measurement and related learning theory. Thorndike is typically given credit for directing social efficiency into education by way of IQ testing �as a vehicle of social control, not just a diagnostic test� (Kleibard, 1987, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.3). What one may consider progress � sorting military inductees into appropriate jobs by way of IQ testing � was considered by some a danger to general intellectual growth. For our purposes, it is important to note that a great deal of this danger was felt in public schools, wherein social efficiency made marked gains by way of instructional technologies. Thorndike published The Psychology of Learning in 1913 and thus gained for behaviorism a significant foothold in the nascent field of Educational Technology by way of Educational Psychology:
Educational psychologists were not only influencing technology research but also publishing in the field. Hilgard, a popularizer and synthesizer of behavioral theory, contributed an important chapter in an influential audiovisual text, New Teaching Aids for the American Classroom, and is often cited in World War II research. Thorndike's name and, consequently, his brand of behaviorism, connectionism, appears in 30s audiovisual research reports. Hull's systematic behavioral theory appears in the 40s and 50s research of Neal Miller (1941, 1957). Another disciple of Hull whose work influenced educational technology scholarship was Albert Bandura, upon whose human modeling theory Gagne and Briggs (1965) based their Conditions of Learning. (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.5)
The effects of early social efficiency experiments in the military found their way into school and into the more general fabric of the US citizenry. One reason for this, for our purposes, is because some educational technologists looked to educational psychologists, who had borrowed extensively from animal behavior sciences, to bring rigor to their process of scholarship. However, this is not to say that humanistic approaches were early pushed out of the way, nor that humanistic approaches were entirely humanistic, for that matter.
In response to the social efficiency movement, educators like Hall and Kilpatric (in association with Dewey) felt that �education should be considered as life itself and not as a mere preparation for later living.� (Kleibard, 1987, p. 162, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.2)
Like the social efficiency educators, child developmentalists believed that public school curriculum needed reform; students needed to participate in purposeful activity. To this end, Kilpatrick, diverging from his teacher Dewey, introduced the Project Method of education, which was to address, in an integrated manner, the problems of living. Child interests and their life activities were used as curriculum guides.....
The utilitarian and pragmatic curricula were not the sole domain of elementary or secondary schools but were influential in determining experimental education at colleges such as Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, and a general college at the University of Minnesota (Brubacher & Rudy, 1968). We see the humanistic and pragmatic influence of this movement in the late 30s and 40s in the work of Dale and other. (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 4.2)
During the 20�s humanists developed a spate of programs and developed curricula based on �learning plans,� a concept that Gagne, et al (1992) would later integrate with methods of learning styles analysis and cognitive skills teaching. Learning plans are essentially contracts for learning that once agreed upon would be facilitated by a teacher and pursued largely at the student�s own pace. Ironically, Gagne, who as we saw above is sometimes put into the efficiency camp, was later to develop his work in part based on that by the humanists that surrounded Dewey. To understand how this confusion occurs, let�s take a closer look at the issue.
The tension between humanism and social efficiency can be stated as one of collaborative practices versus independent, rote, or �machine learning� practices. To problemetize this simple dichotomy even further, though, is warranted given the intense interest in collaborative and cooperative methods employed today. Though largely geared toward composition teachers, Mara Holt�s (1994) analysis of both the Project Method and the Dalton Plan, as they were developed and deployed in the 1920�s, serves as a good case study.
Holt introduces a basic dichotomy between military/industrial interests and those of society against the backdrop of an educational system that is largely grounded in Taylorism. The progressive movement had then answered Taylor with a range of experiments, including The Project Method and the Dalton Plan, both of which were developed in close relation to Dewey. While detailing some of the contributions these attempts made to progressive education, Holt also examines how these efforts were pulled into positions that, in retrospect, seem antithetic to progressive ideals.
Although these models incorporated some aspects of what Lawrence Cremin refers to as "Deweyan progressivism," such as an emphasis on education as experience and the hope for education as a means of social reform, their descriptions of student interaction and teachers' roles suggest a model of a benevolent dictatorship of elite experts, rather than Dewey's participatory democracy.
In one case, students were given their lesson plans � thus violating a humanistic precept � while in the other case, students who were given complete free reign competed against their peers (think �Lord of the Flies� here), formed into power-cliques, and basically reproduced the same sort of (mertiocratic or, dare I say, counter-productive) power relationships to which they were supposed to respond.
To be sure, Deweyan progressive education measured the worth of any educational innovation in terms of a �dialectical relationship in which individuals were both formed by their society and in turn gained the skills and abilities to interactively transform aspects of their culture.� Both the Project Method and the Dalton Plan aspired to be productive collaborative models in this sense. However, their deployment � that is their actual practice � revealed an important consideration: �The Project Method and the Dalton Plan shared two fundamental oppositions to Deweyan educational discourse: their lack of engagement between individuals and groups, and their one-sided emphasis on freedom at the expense of authority in the classroom.�
Some of the biggest issues in IT revolve around collaborative learning and so the case is instructive on two fronts in addition to the obvious one of group dynamics and pedagogy: it suggests that pedagogies are technologies � artifacts of inquiry and that they are, like other innovations, subject to reinvention and, secondly, that technologies primarily involve practices � that is, their power is limited to how they are understood and used. It is increasingly, and for good reason, an era of collaborative learning: social and constructivist learning theories are coming into prominence as the Internet promises unprecedented reach across the globe, connection to other people, and access to information. The fact that two projects were carried out so close to Dewey and yet missed their mark should sound a note of caution as we take up the work of learning and technology. In both cases � that of the efficiency movement and in the humanism movement � we find a breach exposed between philosophy/theory and practice.
The breach, though, was addressed by a student of Dewey�s, Edgar Dale, who never seemed to experience it in the same way. When Dale was asked why he did not do experimental research, for example, in which a scholar attempted to prove over and over that students learned from radio or film, he replied: "It always bothers me, because anybody knows that we learn from these things (media). There's no issue about that.... Well, I supposed in any field, to be respectable you have to have a certain kind of research" (Dale, 1977, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 8.9).
Dale (1946) developed his cone of experience by looking at learning as experiential and mediated. The cone itself illustrates cognitive leanings � a spectrum of media, from text to experience, and how they afford learning as the student interacts with more of them, in greater richness. Related, it was his student, James Finn, who conceived of the field in broader terms, desiring to see it become a full-fledged profession whose members were capable of leading systemic change initiatives (Seels & Richey, 1994, p. 15). He was instrumental in bringing a process view to the field, by way of Dewey, and for securing the �education� in �educational technology� in the sixties.
So far, we�ve discussed how during the late 1910�s and 1920�s Dewey had set out a vision of democratic and scientific education with his release of �Democracy and Education.� At this time Thorndike, a student of the pragmatist William James, and John Watson developed the beginnings of empirical work on human and animal behavior and established the basis for operant conditioning and Behavioral Psychology. Thorndike went on to develop some of the basic principles of what Knowles would later call �Andragogy� and of �active learning� while Watson would go on to experiment with learning machines (and a research assistant, but that�s another story). Both Thorndike�s work led to a reconsideration of instructional design from content organizing to process design while Watson developed an increasingly media-centric view of psychology during his work in advertising. 1
Further, objectives surfaced in the wake of the efficiency movement of the 1920�s. Ralph Tyler (1922) produced a study of objectives for learning and Franklin Bobbit led the social efficiency movement in 1918 as he developed the beginnings of both job and task analysis with the notion that expertise could be transferred to other learners through curriculum design. He is known to have said that "Education is a shaping process as much as the manufacture of steel rails." -- Franklin Bobbitt 2
World War II, the 40�s and 50�s
This era � a mere two generations ago � is commonly known as the peak years for the field. Instructional Design emerged. Though Dale and his colleague�s humanistic work continued to make advances in public and community education, the behavioral and social psychological sciences flexed their muscles and gained credibility for the nascent field. Fighting a world war generated two large directions of research: (a) persuading the enemy and soldiers on the front; and (b) controlling the human resources back home. Media effects research on audiences, therefore, found itself in a boon, as did work done in military training that culminated into the Training Within Industry Program. Much of the groundwork had been already lain and it was time to further develop and refine predictive and controlling instrumentation.
Examples of this work includes curriculum design work in the 40's where �vocational education and courses such as physics and mathematics were restructured to place �greater stress on aeromechanics, aeronautics, auto mechanics, navigation, gunnery, and other aspects of modern warfare� (Smith, 1942, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 9.1.). Ralph Tyler completed an 8 year �life adjustment� study that was informed, as early as 1931, with the assumption that �it was crucial to define clearly the types of behavior that needed to be taught.� Congress passed the report as a resolution and the curriculum enjoyed massive funding. �By the 1950s, the life adjustment curriculum was well entrenched in the schools (Becker, 1990, as cited in De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 9.1). One benefit of this work was that it loosened up criteria by which different curricula were measured, thus allowing for more mobility into college (point of interest: �Bodkin�s life skills training� and DARE).
The Motion Picture Project, by Charters (who had once chided film research) examined the power of film as a cultural tool. Hollywood gained power in education, industry, and military at this time. Educators, like Charles Hoban (1942) began to use both statistical measures while approaching children and students during evaluation for their answers as well (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 9.3.1). AV research continued in other venues as well.
The school AV curricula then, developed by Dale, include little mention of behaviorism and substitutes an �experiential experimentation� for that of behavioral experimentation and he mixes �the humanistic and experiential aspects of the child development curricular and learning movement with the sequential and hierarchical structure of task analysis [components]" (De Vaney & Butler, 1996, section 9.5). Perception theory begins to gain ground in AV scholarship. Ames (1952) develops his perception room in 1946.
From the research on media during the war, two new academic fields emerge: Communication Arts and Educational Technology (1.10). Much of the early work was informal and did not find a bona fide academic home until the 1960�s. It �included behaviorism, specifically connectionism; mental measurements, specifically early IQ work ascendant in the 40�s,� and, in retrospect, constituted a vast line of work that still continues today (see below) under the aegis of the �No Significant Difference� phenomenon (Russel 1999). Communication media studies assumed that �learning could take place anywhere� and focused on both macro and micro levels of analysis.
These studies were carried out through all the threads mentioned here so far:
The Payne Fund studies explored many of the ideas later popularized by other writers in regard to the three types of learning that have become dominant in studies of media and learning: (1) knowledge acquisition or the reception and retention of specific information; (2) behavioral performance, defined as the imitation or repetition of actions performed by others in media portrayals; and (3) socialization or general knowledge, referring to attitudes about the world fostered by repeated exposure to mass media content. (Krendl, Ware, Reid, & Warren, 1996, section 2)
However multi-threaded, they generally followed a path of �sender centered� research assuming a �silver bullet� conception of communication as described by early information theorists. Communication and information theory would be expanded to include more sophisticated notions of feedback with the work of Weiner; Shannon and Weaver; and Sapir and Worf.
Post War
During the years after the war, instructional systems design (ISD) develops, some say, into a field within IT. Cognitive science blends with both behaviorism and humanism to form variants of constructivism. Cybernetics and systems theory mark a confluence of the cellular and nervous systems, energy and material. The Internet and the World Wide Web emerge. Educational Technology would meet its greatest challenge: learning. It�s a period of convergence.
James Finn "was a father of the instructional design movement because he linked the theory of systems design to educational technology, and thus encouraged the integrated growth of these related fields of study. It was Finn who made educational technologists aware that technology was as much a process as a piece of hardware" (Seels 1989, 11). We may note here a connection between these two eras in terms of systems. That process was Instructional Systems Design. Military training and manufacture largely took on the methods of instructional systems design and, eventually, would give rise to Human Performance Technology, or HPT with its emphasis on competency whereas General Systems Theory would emerge with an emphasis on complexity.
Much of this work stems, then from both behavioral science and, increasingly, information and systems theory. Information theory, or communication theory, says simply that "communication means that information is passed from one place to another" (Miller, 1951, p. 6) and lowers entropy as it organizes information; communication, then involves open systems. This theory and its emphasis on feedback put the �systems� in instructional design and the then-nascent organizational and diffusion research as well.
1946: Kurt Lewin develops experiential learning theories through his work with T-groups. Founds Social Psychology and practices in communities and organizations.
The creation of an empirically verifiable theory, Lewin knew, was the essence of science; research, therefore, had to be guided by the need to develop an integrated concept of the processes of group life" (Marrow, 1969, p.183). (Greathouse, n.p., n.d.)
Importantly, Lewin�s work will inform change theories in socio-technical systems. He thus provides at this point some crucial work that will be used in the field later.
Gains were also made in 1954 when B. F. Skinner, an advocate for the behaviorist approach, publishes "Science and Human Behavior." Advances theories and methods first explored by Watson and Thorndike in terms of operant conditioning, (behavior is also affected by its consequences, but the process is not trial-and-error learning) and towards the solution of social problems:
The experimental analysis of operant behavior has led to a technology often called behavior modification. It usually consists of changing the consequences of behavior, removing consequences which have caused trouble, or arranging new consequences for behavior which has lacked strength. Historically, people have been controlled primarily through negative reinforcement that is, they have been punished when they have not done what is reinforcing to those who could punish them. Positive reinforcement has been less often used, partly because its effect is slightly deferred, but it can be as effective as negative reinforcement and has many fewer unwanted byproducts. For example, students who are punished when they do not study may study, but they may also stay away from school (truancy), vandalize school property, attack teachers, or stubbornly do nothing. Redesigning school systems so that what students do is more often positively reinforced can make a great difference. (B. F. Skinner Foundation, n.d.. n.p.)
Bloom took up these advances and others in cognitive science in 1956 when he and co-authors, M. Englehart, E. Furst, W. Hill, and D Krathwohl, published their Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for the Cognitive Domain. Initiated as a support for cognitive assessment, the Taxonomy was to prove extremely valuable in the specification and analysis of instructional outcomes and the design of instruction to attain them. The intention was to develop a classification system for three domains: (a) the cognitive, (b) the affective, and (c) the psychomotor. The major idea of the taxonomy is that statements of educational objectives can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
The science of motivation develops markedly when Abraham Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesize a large body of research related to human motivation from William James� work in psychology (Wahba & Bridgewell, 1976). Keller (1983) identified four categories of motivating factors in his ARCS model: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. The "motivation = expectancy X value" rule implied designers should assume responsibility for motivation. This line of research marked another lasting relationship of applied psychological research and ID in terms of refining the relationships between motivation and sequencing.
Mallow�s hierarchy of needs is refined with knowledge of links between need (uncertainty) and information. His original theory was thought vague by some and has gained some analytical ground as some information theorists (Norwood, 1999) propose an information/uncertainty component to Mallow�s original hierarchy. However, several elements of these theories were to be applied simultaneously in one of the first innovations (after Dale�s �cone of experience�) that sprang from the field of educational technology proper: ISD.
All told, this early work in the 60�s set the stage for development in Instructional Design as it kept pace with the increasing speed and efficiency which it strived to create then. Skinner (1954) published The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching (Reiser, 2001, p. 58) and develops formative evaluation along with his programmed instruction model. The 60's marks the addition of this work to instructional design and criterion-referenced testing to set the stage of ISD�s hay day. The birth of AECT and the proliferation of models of instructional design was notable as well as the development of needs assessment procedures by Kauffman and others.
What happened during the 60's was that a field of study was born. Educational technology yields an innovation from within its ranks that will have lasting and global impact. In 1965: Robert Gagne published The Conditions of Learning and developed 5 types of learning (verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills, and attitudes) and 9 significant events and corresponding cognitive processes:
(1) gaining attention (reception)
(2) informing learners of the objective (expectancy)
(3) stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)
(4) presenting the stimulus (selective perception)
(5) providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)
(6) eliciting performance (responding)
(7) providing feedback (reinforcement)
(8) assessing performance (retrieval)
(9) enhancing retention and transfer (generalization).
Meanwhile, in 1966, Jerome Bruner describes discovery learning in Toward a Theory of Instruction. Promotes criterion-referenced evaluation rather than norm-referenced. Used instructional systems development in standard training procedures (Gagne, 1962).
The advances in cognitive psychology continue in 1968, when David Ausubel presents his Theory of Meaningful Verbal learning published in Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View and Atkinson and Shiffrin develop Information Processing Model for human memory.
During the 70's ID models mature and Gagne�s model develops with advances in both the cognitive and the systems approach; it gained force in its adoption by business and industry after success in the military (Branson, et al., 1975, as cited in Reiser, 2001). Parallel adoption in academia marks an interest in instructional improvement using technology and the media. The work of Ausubel, Bruner, Merrill, Gagne and others on instructional strategies dominated this decade. Advances in cognitive methods influence instructional designers when in1972 Bernice McCarthy develops the 4MAT System as learning styles research begins, for example, identifying connections between this cognitive style and learning (Messick, 1976).
1980 and 90's.
The 80's and 90's are marked by significant focus on computers and distance education on one hand, and instructional design and practice on the other. Consequently, constructivism rises and represents a convergence of both technologies and practice.
Micro computers begin to influence instructional design and professionals turned towards computer-based instruction and take a beginning look at both computer interactivity and automation of instructional design tasks". (Reiser, 2001, p. 62) In 1984, David Kolb, an advocate for experiential learning, publishes Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. This trend continues through the 90's as online learning explodes and constructivism gains significant popularity in the field.
These changes evidence themselves instructional design. Although ISD still enjoyed success in the military and industry sectors it had minimal impact in both schools and higher education. Rapid adoption of instructional systems by American businesses is complimented by Performance Technology (Gilbert). In response to an industry-wide need to make instructional design more flexible the 1990�s most popular models were the Dick and Carey ID Model (1990); the Layers of Necessity ID Model (Wedman & Tessmer); the Rapid Prototyping: An Alternative Instructional Design Strategy (Tripp & Bichelmeyer, 1990); two �classroom models� by Classroom-Oriented Models (Gerlach & Ely, 1980) and (Kemp, Morrison, & Ross, 1994). As a professional practice, instructional design took on more and more sophisticated roles, as noted in AECT�s Domains of the IT Field (Seels & Richey, 1994) including Theory and Practice, design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation.
These trends mark an IT an increasingly greater environmental view of instructional design scope and the concomitant rise of the Human Performance Technology paradigm. The ASTD largely represents the HPT paradigm mentioned above, that evolved in parallel with ISD.
HPT is a systems-based approach (e.g. individual, group, and organizational levels) to the analysis, selection, development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions to manage improvement in the performance of human behavior.
An engineering approach to attaining desired accomplishments from human performers by determining gaps in performance and designing cost-effective and efficient interventions (Gilbert, 1998).
Its models tend to be more organizational, though it�s interventions borrow from ISD, and range from the �Cause and Analysis Fishbone� model, a basic cause and effect model, to the classical HPT model (Deterline & Rosenberg 1992) which adds complexity and intervention to the basic model. It focuses on identifying the gaps between actuals and optimals (Rossett) and whether the discrepancy was due to lack of incentive, lack of knowledge or skills, or, importantly, lack of environmental support. This trend continues as experiential and cognitive methods edge towards convergence with behavioral ones in terms of facilitating objectives and the idea of performance support with a more user-centered design takes hold. (Sherry & Wilson, 1996).
Analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation are sometimes carried out by teams who have little contact with end users in the field. Such teams may end up designing a product to meet the requirements of management, rather than having direct, empirical feedback from ordinary users. Grudin (1991) identified several problems arising from this division of labor which adversely affect the end user:
1. market researchers query managers, rather than typical end users;
2. designers use rational analysis rather than a creative, situated, empirical approach where human users of a human-machine interface can lead to very unpredictable results;
3. by the time empirical data on usage gets back to the designers, the developers may already have moved on to new products, and the documentation, support, and marketing may already have been cast in concrete. (Sherry & Wilson, 1996)
We may think of aspects of this in terms of postmodern instructional design that incorporates and extends elements of instructional design above (Wilson, 1995a), for example, Situated Instructional Design (Wilson, 1995b). But a more careful look points us towards a more general critique of the validity of classic instructional design and a move towards cognitive and constructivist models.
Classical instructional designs (to use Brock Allen's term) have very little verification. Component display theory, ID2, and elaboration theory have been researched very sparingly. There are, at best, only handfuls of studies on each. Those studies provide a weak "scientific" foundation for implementing those models. The same can be said of newer instructional designs, however, there is a difference. The most consistent experimental findings that I have read in my 27 years in the field are those reported on transfer effects from constructivist learning environments such as cognitive flexibility hypertexts and anchored instruction.
So, to claim that instructional design is an empirically validated discipline, I believe, is wishful thinking. (Jonassen, n.d., n.p.)
This is not to critique Instructional Design as somehow good or bad in general so much as to point to a shift in both conditions and in our collective awareness of those conditions. The concern was also popularized:
Computers in classrooms are the filmstrips of the 1990s," Clifford Stoll, the author of Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway (1995), told The New York Times last year, recalling his own school days in the 1960s. "We loved them because we didn't have to think for an hour, teachers loved them because they didn't have to teach, and parents loved them because it showed their schools were high-tech. But no learning happened.(Oppenheimer 1997, n.p.)
And it is even more problematic than that. A 1999 analysis of �The No Significant Difference� phenomenon indicates that most studies done under this umbrella terms were inconclusive:
It should be emphasized that the review provided striking evidence of the fact that there is a relative paucity of true, original research dedicated to explaining or predicting phenomena related to distance learning. The more limited group of original research on the effectiveness of distance learning addresses a variety of issues. Three broad measures of the effectiveness of distance education are usually examined in the original research. [These include: Student outcomes, such as grades and test scores; Student attitudes about learning through distance education; and Overall student satisfaction toward distance learning.] (Russel, 1999, n.p.)
And thus both media research and also instructional design are dealt powerful blows.
The basic lesson to be learned from the �no Significant Difference� phenomena is that, like Dale, we don�t need to compare media. But if we probe deeper into the research agenda that surrounds the phenomenon, we see a major conflict.
On one hand, we see a need for prediction, control, and generalizability � classic research questions. We need more! The mantra goes.
- Much of the research does not control for extraneous variables and therefore cannot show cause and effect.
- Most of the studies do not use randomly selected subjects.
- The validity and reliability of the instruments used to measure student outcomes and attitudes are questionable.
- Many studies do not adequately control for the feelings and attitudes of the students and faculty�what the educational research refers to as �reactive effects.�
On the other hand, we need to both broaden our focus and also narrow it down to contexts and particular styles:
A. The research has tended to emphasize student outcomes for individual courses rather than for a total academic program.
�In addition to cognitive skills, and verbal, quantitative,
and subject matter competence, outcomes with regard to critical thinking skills, attitudes and values, moral development, etc. need to be addressed."
B. The research does not take into account differences among students.
�Gathering samples of students and amalgamating them into averages produces an illusory 'typical learner,' which masks the enormous variability of the student population.�
C. The research does not adequately explain why the drop-out rates of distance learners are higher.
D. The research does not take into consideration how the different learning styles of students relate to the use of particular technologies.
E. The research focuses mostly on the impact of individual technologies rather than on the interaction of multiple technologies.
G. The research does not adequately address the effectiveness of digital �libraries.�
A quick analysis of this situation yields a conflict between generalizability and particular situations. However, there is no mechanism implied here for engaging people and in fact reproduces some of the same problems it seeks to address (D and C). It is still a media-centric enterprise. The notion that education is fundamentally a science of practice and the practice of science does not inform this research agenda. All the problems associated with NOT making this assumption are evident and have been evident in the agenda and yet still require further attention. For instance, don�t you think that B and C above may be related and that, further, their resolution would suggest a conflict with those items listed above them?
One way of examining this situation comes from an analysis of the diffusion of innovations and educational technology.
Robert Holloway (1996) reports from a meta-analysis of diffusion research in educational technology that �[r]esearch methods in studies of diffusion and adoption reflect the same strengths and weakness as other research foci in educational technology� (p. 1108). These take the form of: (a) descriptive surveys of equipment diffusion; (b) correlational studies of technology and demographic variables: and (c) constructivist and action research on adapting technology.
Survey research is most often done because it is cheap and simple, not because it is effective. Secondly, the best survey research is done by marketing companies. Third, political decisions are made using survey research almost exclusively. Therefore,
- Professional and high quality survey should be studied as a secondary resource. Doing so will yield far higher value than completing more cheesy surveys. Primary survey research will still form the �grist� of many dissertations.
- Survey research should be thought about meaningfully.
Correlational studies �moves the focus from descriptions of 'what is' and 'how many' to relationships between decision makers and technology choices." Correlational studies lead to tentative hypotheses about why and what kind of technology exists in an educational setting. These are your typical �S� shaped diffusion studies. Learning and change are not common variables. These give empirical support to logical speculations of surveys. They help to describe relationships but not causality. Therefore they should be used in a �mid-level� and are typically focused on �developing generalizations and tentative hypotheses" about change. At the empirical level, theory is not used as a guide. However, practitioners frequently use the data to support a theory borrowed from another area, especially psychology, such as Bandura�s theory of self-efficacy or Lewin�s change theory, to categorized data. (p. 1120)
Action research is designed to bring about change. Constructivist and qualitative work help us understand why adopters do what they do. Kemis (1988) defines the term as reflection on praxis. A formal requirement is that truth is determined by the way it relates to practice (p. 43). The proactive aspect of � these approaches implies that knowing the subjective view of the population of interest can lead to understanding motivations and the reason for adopting and adapting, among other things, technology. Generally, the belief is that �major alteration in the school�s behavioral and programmatic regularities � in short, educational innovations, requires changes in the culture of the school� (Schmuck & Runkel, 1985, p. 5) This kind of research is good for bringing about technical, social, and policy change.
Essentially, we are back to the beginning, with a strange desire pulling us in two different directions: towards efficiency, on one hand, and towards freedom on the other. On one hand, we want crispily precise knowledge and on the other, perhaps, wisdom. On one hand, we want certainty, on the other, justice. On one hand, time on task, on the other understanding. Efficiency versus humanism.
The story now, as I write this today, is still one of epistemological hand-wringing of the highest order. In some sense, we may be sharing it with our predecessors � the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle � and it may be a good idea for us to not only go back to these early voices and interpret this situation, to recover a lost sense of understanding, but also to entertain the notion the conflict itself may be not just an epistemological one, but an ideological one. That is to say, that we admit that behaviorism, for example, is in fact highly effective but conditionally so � that the deployment of its technologies not only requires but in fact creates the conditions of its source in order to be effective. In other words, the rigorous deployment of behaviorism effects and requires environmental changes. When it can do this, it succeeds, when it cannot, it fails. The notion of transfer is not one of skills but in fact of culture, or what actually is happening around that skill transfer.
For example, a small text, in the form of an e-mail or letter is perhaps the simplest form of media (Dale, 1946) we can imagine. �Yes� or �No� are perhaps the simplest words in our language and no doubt inform our behavior. The context that you are in completely defines the meaning of that text. This poorest of media may be of more significant value to you than the richest possible media experience. So much for an entire line of research. The question of cost effectiveness becomes then, how much are we willing to spend to change a particular culture? If the current activity in the middle east suggests an answer, it would be A LOT both in terms of financial expenditures and in terms of what we�re willing to risk.
Is this to say that US is an �objectives� culture? One argument that scholars typically make against the progressive movement is that pragmatism not only opened the doors for a crass sort of industrialism but also that it represented a sort of American �whatever works� kind of attitude. In fact it did. The efficiency movement can easily be traced to the pragmatist William James and his student Thorndike, who operated under the assumption that class differences were in fact genetic differences. On the other hand, in fact it didn�t. The pragmatist John Dewey has been interpreted as the quintessential American humanist who championed diversity and democracy. The answer lies neither just in the theories, nor their success, but in the conditions that inform them and guide them. As this essay has been framed, those conditions were represented as catalysts or movements involving ideologies.
The story of Learning and Technology is one of three theories: (a) behaviorism, (b) cognitivism, and (c) social/constructionism. It is a story of movements affecting and controlling people and territory using these theories, appropriating from them, and of people moving about the world and sharing the experience of doing so through their work and lives. We have seen that:
- People � like Dewey, James, Thorndike, Watson, or Taylor � set out to explain the world around them philosophically. During their inquiry, they also engage the world around them in different ways, in ways that shape their subsequent inquiries.
- The students of these men (not to bely the significant work done then by women such as Jane Adams) borrowed from what they learned and applied that experience to the world in ways that were shaped by their theories. Early on, in the first generation of Deweyan, these experiments departed from �the way.� The case is no doubt similar between James and Thorndike or Taylor and those who did the same with his work. Need I mention Plato and Aristotle or Freud and Jung?
- Much of this subsequent work can be explained in terms of catalysts which drive the understanding and use of theory or method in ways that are �explicit, comprehensive, and enforced code of beliefs and practices to which all members of a group are held but rather a set of implicit, often vague, but widely shared set of expectations and assumptions about the social order.� (Kerr, 1996, section 1.1.3)
- Specific representations of these catalysts � social efficiency and humanism � were evidenced throughout the history of educational technology, affecting the users' (be they theorists, practitioners, or whomever else) decisions regarding which types of questions to ask, which types of research were appropriate and which types of methods to employ. We may also assume that these catalysts mediated the users' subsequent refining and extension of their own work and that, further, they converged and diverged in the process.
Therefore,
- Philosophical claims are subject to their subject matter � that is the conditions that inform them and their objects of inquiry,
- We are capable of exercising not only meta-theoretical research � that which can evaluate theories � but also meta-catalyst research and we can do so as we experience the application of that research,
- That meta-catalyst research is in turn formed by experience and power.
In essence, then, philosophy works from the bottom up. And the top down. We have empirical proof of this.
Secondly, two entire lines of research � that of media effects and that of instructional design � have been proven impossible to adequately research relying heavily on methods of experimental research. Further, the story of educational technology suggests that this sort of research was, for a great while, largely used to legitimate practice, not prove efficacy, whether we knew that then or not.
The points are barren, however, until we consider them in terms that are relevant to the field. Two important issues now concern distance learning and constructivism.
We haven�t even begun to explain what happened over the last several years with the Internet and the World Wide Web. It sprouted and took off like wildfire across the whole globe. This is not place to discuss the general ramifications of the Internet, but we can afford to comment on how the rise of distance learning and constructivism seem to be connected and what the ramifications of this may be for our discussion.
Distance learning and distance education is nothing new. What is new is the Internet. We�ve passed through the media effects literature with I hope enough to suggest that now research focus has turned to different matters. A recent survey suggests that constructivists tend to be wired to the Internet and use it more than non-constructivists (). One explanation for this is because, as a researcher, teacher, manager, student or whatever online, you get the impression that learning is a different game than it was before the Internet. You learn to trust your inate ability to seek information and solve problems. The (new) view of learning that this suggests is constructivism. It is post-industrial and not largely behaviorial, though behavioral analysis of nearly Internet activity could be fruitful. From this situation, though, have risen some of the first theories of distance education.
- Transactional distance: �Moore�s (1990) concept of �transactional distnace� encompasses the distance that, he says, exists in all educational relationships. This distance is determined by the amount of dialogue that occurs between the learner and the instructor, and the amount of structure that exists in the design of the course.�
- Saba and Shearer (1994) conclude that �as learner control and dialogue increase, transactional distance decreases� (Micas & Nirmalani, 1996, Section 13.3.1)
- Interaction: According to Moore (1989) there are three types of interaction essential in distance education. Learner-instructor interaction is that component of his model that provides motivation, feedback, and dialogue between the teacher and student. Learner-content interaction is the method by which students obtain intellectual information afrom the material. Learner-learner interaction is the exchange of information, ideas, and dialoge that occur between students about the course. (Section 13.3.1.2)
- Control or �Locus of Control:� (Altmann & Aramasich, 1982; Rotter, 1989) conclude that students who perceive that their academic success is a result of their own personal accomplishment have an internal locus of control. (Section 13.3.1.3)
- Social Context is where learning takes place. �Media, materials, and services are often inappropriately transferred without attention being paid to the social setting or to the local receipeint culture� (McIsaac, 1993). (Section 13.3.1.3)
These basic constructs have been used extensively throughout the study of distance learning and have also been extended to address learning styles issues. The major findings of this latter work concluded that �learning styles do not impact how students interact with media and methods of instruction, their instructor, or other learners. But learning styles do affect satisfaction with activities involving other learners.� (13.6.1) Motivation studies also are coming to the fore and involve applications of Maslow�s and Knowle�s theories. The conclusion shared by distance education researchers is that, when all is said and done, ��personal, environmental, and social factors� must be taken into account when predicting academic success in distance learning programs.� (Section 13.6.4.1)
We could go on and discuss a great deal of findings, but what this suggests is that a great deal of the same kind of research that has gone on for the last several decades has been transposed onto distance learning. What is interesting about the emerging constructivist paradigm is that it represents what could be a convergence of this sort of research and that which assumed its findings a long time ago, that of the humanists. What makes this confluence productive, though is an examination of the very point at which these two paradigms meet. On one hand, humanistic theory has informed that of efficiency, while on the other hand, the effeciency movement has provided the humanists with a workable action-centered language and means of establishing the validity of knowledge. Much of our discussion has focused on not just the concepts and findings of this latter literature but rather the conditions and appropriateness of its methods.
�Many mediated educational activities allow students to participate in collaborative, authentic, situated learning acitivites (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989).� The trend is to consider that all of them do. Learning is mediated by tools and signs (Vygotsky 1978) and is inherently social. Further, (Even Skinner (1968, pp. 172-73) encourages learners to analyze the contigencies that control their behavior and [to]deliberately manipulate them so as to become self-reliant and self-managing. The mechanism by which this occurs is reflection (Schon 1987). (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996)
Both distance education theories like Moore�s and those surrounding authentic learning (above) form a great deal of the intellectual currency that shapes constructivist programming now. Of note are similarities that guide instruction-centered theories and construction-centered theories, for example those between elaboration theory and scaffolding. But what makes these similarities distinctive, though, are the grounding assumptions that keep them in tension.
At this point, we go back to our original case concerning collaborative learning projects in the early 20th century. Then, some people were practicing collaborative learning assumed a great deal of what is now being proven emprically. The question is, now, control of the actual problems that people engage in. Who defines those problems and to what end? What means are to be used to solve them? We cannot answer these, regardless of our philosophical leanings, without asking two important questions involving domains and freedom.
The first issue, that of domains, represents the standard and proven practices of a given occupation/profession. We glaze over a host of literature and note that the actual process of learning about this domain differs markedly from the process of learning to work within it. In the former case, we need only employ classic instructional design to achieve learning outcomes, but in the latter case we have a significant question to ask that resembles the questions that began this essay. The question concerns freedom and democracy.
Dewey never claimed that letting students run amock was productive. This sort of thing not only just looked undesireable aesthetically it also produced outcomes which were of significant concern. In his The Child and the Curriculum Dewey (1905) suggests that there is no gap between the child (the personal) and the curriculum (the impersonal). The two must be balanced for reasons that are geared toward producing certain effects. The question becomes what effects are we trying to produce?
In conclusion, the answer perhaps lies in the problems we undertake. As researchers and practicioners we are trying to solve certain problems within our domains. We are trying to build credibility for ourselves, our department or organization, and our field(s). The eminent issues, though, are larger. The problems we are facing involve the entire world and facing these WILL change the nature of our methods. When we turn our attention to problems that actually subsume those of our self, department/organization or field, we become more flexible and exercise leadership of the highest sort. This implies a different way of locating the �cutting edge� of research altogether. On one hand, you can look at your work as though you were on the �cutting edge,� embracing collaborative methods as they emerge onto the scene like you would a new plasma monitor if given the opportunity. On the other hand, your problems may of the more general sort and you look at the present day not as a newer day, but as an older one, in relation to the past. In this latter view you appreciate voices from the past and from elsewhere. In essence you subscribe to determinism on one hand and something else � maturity perhaps � on the other. In the former case, a text is information to reduce uncertainty, in the latter, perhaps wisdom.
References
Ames, A. (1952). The Ames demonstrations in perception. New York: Hafner Publishing
Cooks, R. (n.d.)
Edward Thorndike's rejoinder to Romanes' methodology for studying animal intelligence: An excerpt from Edward Thorndike's animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative process in animals (1898). Retrieved from
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/thorn.htmDewey, J. (1902). The School and Society: The child and the curriculum.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Duffy, T.M. & Cunningham, D.J., (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the Design and Delivery of Instruction (chap. 7). In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.).
Handbook of research for educational communications and technology. New York : Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Retrieved from
https://www.aect.org/Intranet/Publications/edtech/index.aspGery, G. (1995). Performance support source readings. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 8(1), 100-106.
Gilbert, T. (1978). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance. New York: McGraw Hill.
Keller, J. M. (1983). Motivational design of instruction. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.). Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Krendl, K. A., Ware, W. H., Reid, K. A. & Warren, R. (1996). Learning by any other name: Communication research traditions in learning and media (chap. 4). In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.).
Handbook of research for educational communications and technology. New York : Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Retrieved from
https://www.aect.org/Intranet/Publications/edtech/index.aspMarrow, A. F. (1969). The practical theorist: The life and work of Kurt Lewin. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Messick, S. (1976). Individuality in learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Seels, B. (1989, May). The instructional design movement in educational technology. Educational Technology, 29(5), 11-15.
Seels, B., & Richey, R. (1994). Instructional technology: The definition and domains of the field. Washington, D.C.: Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
Sherry, L., & Wilson, B. (1996). Supporting human performance across disciplines: A converging of roles and tools [Electronic version]. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 9(4), 19-36.
Vygotsky, L. S. 1978.Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Wahba, A., & Bridgewell, L. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, 212-240.
Wilson, B. G. (1995). Situated instructional design: Blurring the distinctions between theory and practice, design and implementation, curriculum and instruction. In M. Simonson (Ed.), Proceedings of selected research and development presentations (pp. ??-??). Washington D. C.: Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
Wilson, B., Teslow, J., & Osman-Jouchoux, R. (1995). The Impact of Constructivism (and Postmodernism) on ID Fundamentals. In B. B. Seels (Ed.), Instructional design fundamentals: A review and reconsideration (pp. 137-157). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
