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[RRE]Students' Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education
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Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 01:36:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Noriko Hara
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Students' Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education Course: A Taboo Topic in the Discourse
Noriko Hara (nhara@indiana.edu) and Rob Kling http://php.indiana.edu/~nhara/
This is a 2000 word summary. The full paper is available upon request.
Recent cutting-edge technology, e.g., digital communications and learning technologies, enables universities to implement distance education to reach a diverse population and to provide open learning environments 24 hours a day 7 days a week. For example, Hanna (1998) states that "growing demand for learning combined with these technical advances is in fact a critical pressure point for challenging the dominant assumptions and characteristics of existing traditionally organized universities in the 21st century". Hence, there are substantial discussions about distance education in higher education. Consequently the number of distance education courses is growing (Hanna, 1998; National Center for Education Statistics, 1998; Rahm & Reed, 1998; Roberts, 1996). The major body of the literature favors distance education. Once consensus is reached, it tends not to be disturbed by a dissonant idea (Heylighen, 1992). Indeed, similar patterns are found in other relatively young fields, for example, in Business Process Reengineering (Kling & Tillquist, 1998) and hypertext (Unsworth, 1997) literatures. However, the studies in the computer-mediated distance education are more anecdotal than systematically empirical or critical. The current trend makes us believe that distance education will expand educational opportunities. This article queries this assumption. The significance of this study is to investigate problems with web-based distance education.
This is a case study of difficulties in learning effectively in a web-based distance education course, offered by a major university in the United States. The entire course was provided through a web site. This study is based on interviews and observations of the students in this course. Only a small portion of the literature indicates students' isolation in distance education, although many authors (e.g. Besser & Donahue, 1996; Twigg, 1997) emphasize the importance of this issue. Thus, the primary research question was: How do the students in this course overcome their feelings of isolation in a virtual classroom to create the sense of a community of learning? However, during the observations and interviews with the informants (including John), it was apparent that students' isolation was not as big of a problem as frustration in this course. Possibly because of the small class size, students supported each other and had a sense of a community of learning. The real issue in this course was the students' frustration, which was not examined in the literature. Therefore, the final research question in this study was: Do students' frustrations in the web-based distance education course inhibit their educational opportunity? In addition to the main research question, key questions examined in this study were: What causes frustrations among the students? How do these students deal with their frustrations? Are there individual differences between students who are comfortable with technology and those who are not? This article questions the current literature and advocates the importance of inquiry on problems in distance education. Throughout this present article, we refer to distance education as computer-mediated distance education.
Higher education in the U.S. is facing a challenge to meet new demands for the next century. Various criticisms against traditional classrooms appear frequently, such as lack of personal attention, boredom, outdated knowledge, lack of appropriate skills for workplaces, and inappropriateness for a diverse population (Diamond, 1997; Gardiner, 1997; Handy, 1998; Roueche, 1998; Wingspread Group on Higher Education, 1993). Many researchers advocate "solutions" such as active learning, learner-centered principles, effective use of technology, and collaborative learning (American Psychological Association, 1997; Bonk & Kim, 1998; Cove & Love, 1996; ERIC, 1998; Schroeder, 1996). Consequently, the expectation for technology is disproportionately high.
This enthusiastic attitude toward technology is not entirely new. Kling (1994) identifies "technological utopianism," which refers to "analyses in which the use of specific technologies plays a key role in shaping a benign social vision" (Kling, 1994). A similar attitude is found in the history of educational technology:
Most of what we read or hear about computers in education emphasizes only one aspect, usually the good points, but occasionally the bad, to the exclusion of other points of view. This is at least partly due to the screening effect of the popular press, who favor the excitement of extremism over the calm of rationality, preferring in the name of "reader interest" to create what Monosky (1984) calls an artificial dichotomy (Ragsdale, 1988, p. 50).
Both Kling and Ragsdale caution extreme views of technology, either positive or negative, and suggest that more socially realistic analyses are needed.
When computers were introduced in classrooms in the 1980s, "extolling the computers as a boon to critical thinking, professional educators by and large have been conspicuously uncritical about the computer itself" (Sloan, 1985, p.1). Rather than accepting the enthusiastic attitude toward technologies in education, Cuban (1986) observes an unrelenting cycle of technology promotion and adoption in classrooms by reviewing the literature on the educational use of motion pictures, radio, and television since 1920s. The cycle indicates a pattern; technology was introduced in classrooms by enthusiastic advocates, such as administrators and researchers, but teachers failed to effectively use technology because of the lack of equipment, time, and training. Cuban cautions us not to expect too much of computers in classrooms because their use may follow the same pattern as other technologies. As some authors (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1984; Ragsdale, 1988; Salomon, 1985; Sloan, 1985) criticize Computer-Assisted Instruction in K-12, recently other authors also have criticized educational computing in general, such as information technology in higher education (see Noble, 1998) and computers in schools (see Oppenheimer, 1997).
A systematic search of the ERIC database helped to locate some research about problems of distance education, such as students' isolation, lack of effective advice (e.g., Abrahamson, 1998; Brown, 1996; Rahm & Reed, 1998). However, there is little research about students' frustration in distance education. A few authors identify this issue (e.g. Dede, 1996; Freenberg, 1987; Stahlman, 1996), but these are rather "socially-thin" (Kling & Tillquist, 1998) and do not indicate the problems in social contexts. Even the few researchers who mentioned deeper social factors of the problems in distance education did not really focus on students' frustrations (e.g. Burge, 1994; Kang, 1988; Kiesler, Siegel & McGuire, 1984). This topic has never been in the mainstream of discussion in computer-mediated distance education. We question why this phenomenon of students' frustration has not been seriously studied, and analyze the following four possible reasons.
First, the researchers who study distance education may be biased toward technology. Bowers (1988) also urges that technology is not value-free. Many authors in the literature are affiliated with technology-oriented departments, such as educational technology, library and information science, or technology support centers. Therefore, they might have a favorable view of technology, such as seeing "distance education via technology as a potential silver bullet" (Twigg, 1997, p. 28). Noble (1998) asserts that "behind this effort [promoting technology in higher education] are the ubiquitous technozealots who simply view computers as the panacea for everything, because they like to play with them". In addition, the special issue of web-based learning in Educational Technology (Hackbarth, 1997) is devoted entirely to technical issues (e.g. Starr, 1997) and teachers' perspectives (e.g. Berge, 1997). McIssac and Gunawardena (1996) state that "more than 23% of the literature reviewed concerned issues related to technology and the role of the distance educator" (p. 421). Burge (1994) asserts that most of the literature on CMC in higher education is "cautious optimism to hyperbole" (p. 22). Thus, the field has not critically addressed negative implications, especially from students' perspectives in distance education.
The second possible reason that little research on students' frustration is found is because few qualitative research studies have been done (Burge, 1994; Windschitl, 1998), so that the fine-grained dynamics of virtual classrooms are unknown. In addition, McIssac and Gunawardena (1996) criticize the research literature in distance education because of lack of research rigor.
Third, students may not have had opportunities to express their frustrations with web-based distance education. At the end of the semester, students might make positive comments about the courses because of a relief of finishing a course and concern about hurting instructors' feelings. Therefore, since little research has studied their learning processes throughout the semester, students' frustrations have received little attention. That is why the results of many studies are positive, including such findings as students enjoying their experiences despite their technical problems (Gregor & Cuskelly, 1994; Yakimovicz & Murphy, 1995).
Finally, it is possible that past studies were conducted only with instructors experienced in distance education (e.g. Gunawardena, 1992), not with novices. More experienced instructors might better handle students' frustrations, technological problems, and ambiguous instructions to reduce the obstacles to distance education.
However, the history of educational technology teaches us that it is necessary to study failures as well as successes. Bryson and de Castell (1998) urge that we need to pay more attention to failures of educational innovation because it will tell us why success stories are arbitrary. Unsworth (1997) also argues that "many things that we take to be trivial, or embarrassing, or simply wrong, will be of interest to our peers in the future". He claims that people learn from errors and failures, and suggests that recording them is necessary to make progress.
From interviews and observations (thinking aloud), two interpretations were formed in this study. It appeared that there were two levels of frustration among students in this course. The first level related to technological problems. Students without access to technical support were especially frustrated. Also, students whose computer skills were inadequate had technological problems. The second level involved the course content. Students were frustrated because of a lack of immediate feedback from the instructor and ambiguous instructions on the web and via e-mail.
It appeared that there was a gap in the teacher's perspective of the students' frustration. The instructor seemed to think that she had solved the problems of students' frustration; she stated during the interview:
They [the students] thought that the problems they had were basically their own; other people did not have the same problem until we opened up the conversation and they realized that, oh, yeah, we were all in the same boat. Now, they have this peer support coming in. That [problem], I think, we took care of pretty well. (personal communication, November 18).
However, her students still expressed their frustration earnestly during observations and interviews late in the semester. Part of the reason for the instructor's misperception resulted from the fact that the students' e-mail regarding their frustrations were only the tip of the iceberg. Students did not express all of their frustrations. In summary, this study observed that in this distance education course, students' frustration originated from three sources:- technological problems- minimal and not timely feedback from the instructor- ambiguous instructions on the WWW site as well as via e-mail,
and asserted that these frustrations were so overwhelming that some students gave up on the formal content of the course. The instructor's personal reflection note revealed that two other students who began taking this course from distant sites dropped it because they could not overcome technical problems. In addition, during interviews two students affirmed that they will not take distance education courses in the future because they could not deal with these frustrations anymore. Therefore, students' frustrations were serious problems in this distance education course.
We conclude by cautioning about advertising only the virtues of computer-mediated distance education. Most of the articles in distance education (e.g., Barnard, 1997; Harasim, 1993; Yakimovicz & Murphy, 1995) discuss positive aspects of distance education, whereas only a few scholars (e.g., Bromley & Apple, 1998; Jaffee, 1998; Wegerif, 1998) examine the limitations and problems. It is acceptable to fantasize about the future when a field is young, because these discussions can propel the field forward. Distance education has great potential for providing rich environments for students; however, as history has taught us, technology is not a panacea. It has trade-offs.
It is time to seriously consider the actual experiences among students in distance education courses and to critically discuss the phenomena of distance education. As Bates (1994) states, "it is a relatively untested assumption that advanced technologies, . . ., are pedagogically more effective than older" (p. 1577) technologies. We also question if technology can improve pedagogy with little special effort. For more than a decade Clark (1983; 1994) has raised the arguments of whether or not media influence better learning.
This case illustrates the frustrations that students can experience while taking a distance education course, and how these frustrations can significantly inhibit their educational opportunity. The current trend in the literature appears to over-praise computer-mediated distance education. This "technological utopianism" (Kling, 1994) is also found in the history of educational technology in general. Clearly, we need more student-centered studies of distance education. We need research that is designed to teach us how the appropriate use of technology and pedagogy could make distance education beneficial for students. "[I]f failure isn't a possibility, neither is discovery" (Unsworth, 1997).
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