Motivation in Distance Learning

This week I had to post my response to questions around an article about a course given via distance. The article is dated (Nov. 1999) but I included the link in case anyone reading this would like to review it. The unit is about motivation and the responses were based on this topic. Here are the questions:

1. How has the design of the course described in the Hara and Kling article contributed to the development of the reported student frustrations? What changes would help to alleviate them?
   
   
2. Which of the sources of frustration -- lack of prompt feedback, ambiguous instructions, and technical problems -- could be attributed, at least in part, to personal motivational variables (e.g., self-efficacy, student attributions)? How could these variables be addressed in the course design? In the course management?
   
   
3. What role does self-regulation play in the alleviation of student frustrations in this context?

Here was my response to question 1:

Hara and Kling sumarize that student frustrations in the web-based course arose from technological problems, problems with feedback from the instructor, and ambiguous instructions on the Web site and in e-mails.

It seems that these students were cast adrift in this course. When problems arose they could not get them addressed and the frustrations increased. Here are some of the noted problems as I see them:

- this course was designed for the traditional classroom setting and little effort was made in the re-design of the course to account for the distance education setting (i.e. the instructor would not always be available to clarify the course expectations and assignments).

- it was assumed that the instructor was suited to teach this course online with no experience in distance teaching.

- computer technology skills of the instructor and students were not taken into consideration when offering this course online.

Changes recommended:

- include advance organizers in the course that structures the content to review knowledge about the subject that is familiar to the student (prior knowledge), move to introducing new topics in general statements that bridge the gap from what is known to what is to be learned, and then provide more concrete and specific instructions for new tasks. Part of this is to provide clear instructions and leave no room for ambiguity.

- provide an orientation that deals with a) the competency of the students’ computer technology skills which are needed for the course and b) examples of how this skills will be applied during the course.

- collaboration was a key mentioned in overcoming frustration so more collaborative opportunities need to be made available for students. A getting-to-know-you online session limited to only those involved in the course and collaborative assignments within the course.

Here was my response to question 2:

If it can be assumed that the students taking this course were capable and confident learners then the technological issues appear to have created the major problems for this course. The reason I believe this is because the course was also taught in the traditional setting and I thought a major problem with the course was the ambiguity of instruction in the online content (adapted from the original course), which could be a content issue.

While reading this article, I kept asking myself how the course online differed from that of the traditional classroom. I think a comparison would have narrowed down the sources of frustration even further. For example, did students taking the course in the traditional setting experience the same confusion that online students had concerning the course content? How did the instructor in the traditional classroom resolve the issues that were encountered in the curriculum? I am not convinced by the article that all the problems were linked to distance education methodology.

However the biggest impact on student frustration seems to have been in dealing with the technology. Hara and Kling note that “there were two foci of frustration among students in this course” (p. 129 from readings in the course binder). These were i) technological problems and ii) course content and instructor communication with students. In the category of technological problems it was noted that lack of technology support and lack of computer skills by students were problems. I would include the lack of knowledge by the instructor about using e-mail communications effectively.

Driscoll (2005) notes that building confidence is a key issue when promoting self-efficacy (p. 336). To build confidence the following strategies were recommended:

- “instructors can create a positive expectation for success by making it clear just what is expected of students” (p. 336)

It seems that the students (and even the instructor) did not have a reasonable expectation about the impact of using technology was going to have on the learning experience. Besides learning the course content they had to learn how to effectively use the technology.

- “provide success opportunities for students” (p. 336)

It would have been beneficial for some activities to be introduced into the course (preferably at the start of the course) that used the technology. Orientation type activities designed to get students comfortable with using the technology and taking courses at a distance may have lessened their anxiety by improving their technological competence.

- “by providing learners with a reasonable degree of control over their own learning and helping learners to recognize that learning is a direct consequence of their own efforts and effective learning strategies.” (p. 337)

I would venture a guess here and say that their experience with the discussion and email technology produced a sense of a loss of control over their learning environment. Designing a better web site with clearer instructions and more opportunities to work together and contact with the instructor would have created a better sense of control over their learning. In this case, success with using the technology effectively to enhance their learning would have bred success in the learning of the course objectives.

I did not respond to question 3 since I think I addressed in in my previous responses.

Learning Theories and DE Assignment

Well, just last week I finished assignment #2 in the MDDE 603 course. It was a collaborative assignment that I worked on with three other people. It was a different experience doing this type of project in a distance learning course. We used e-mail as the primary collaborative tool. It went really well because the people I was working with were very efficient and had a good work ethic. This is my second experience working with others in a distance education environment and I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time.

The assignment involved applying learning theories to suggest changes in a distance education course. The theories we chose were Cognitive information processing (CIP), Ausubel's meaningful learning theory, schema theory, and I chose constructivism. One of the complaints I have about the masters program I am doing is that it does not provide the means to participate online using synchronous technology (i.e. Elluminate Live!). I was pleased with the assignment overall and I hope we get a good mark.

Now I am starting the unit about motivation as a part of the learning process. Being a junior high teacher I have first-hand experience about the effect of motivation on learning. I hoping to learn a bit about how I can better motivate my own students.