Philip Ice, Reagan Curtis, Perry Phillips, & John Wells (2007)
Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and students sense of community.
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11 (2), 3-25.
Text based online as a medium
Detached and impersonal (refs, 36,37)
Realness online
Deficit theories of online communication (refs 9,10,11,12)- P4 Online ‘ interactions occur in disembodied form’ ‘this narrow interpretation discounts the ability of learners to conceptualize being as anything other than a physical construct’
The teacher
Role
Berge (1995(– 4 roles for the tutor )
| Pedagogical | Profession-Inspirer | Promote professional dialogue among online learners |
| | Feedback-giver | |
| | Interaction - facilitator | Facilitate peer interaction |
| Social | Social rapport builder | Build online learning community |
Teacher online
Richardson & Swan (2002) Regressions analysis, 17 courses,
· 46% determines the relationship between perceived social presence and perceived learning ,
· 45% perceived learning and overall satisfaction with the instructor
· 36% perception of social presence and teacher presence in terms of amount and/or quality of the interaction.
Arbaugh(2001) instructor immediacy a strong predictor of student learning Based on Gorham(1988) verbal teacher immediacy scale, eg. Use of personal examples, humour,openness towards and encouragement of student discussion.
How to enhance teacher immediacy ?
Jelfs and Whitelock (2000) used preprogrammed auditory feedback for navigation links, students self reported that it was important for their success.
Therefore for the present study
Method
Audio feedback using Audacity, in emails to the entire class, or to small groups & feedback to individual students. Half personal feedback as text, half as audio. Masters and doctoral students (22)
Nested mixed methods research design ( quant nested inside the qual).
Data sources
1. unsolicited comments during course (16 emails from 14 students)
2. post course survey (satisfaction , perceived learning, sense of community, effectiveness of audio, I of these was an open question and analysis then informed the interview)
3. post course interview (asked about impressions of the course and the use of each type of feedback medium)
4. assessment material( based on Bloom’s taxonomy – see appendix B)
Thematic analysis, interpretive and iterative.
Results
1. Unsolicited feedback 14/16 expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the medium. 2 reported technical problems.
2. End of course survey (31 respondents)
26/31 indicated that they belived audio feedback to be more effective than written feedback
Open comment 20/31 highly positive and cited audio feedback as a primary reason for being satisafied with the course
3. Semi structured interview – 4 themes
a. Ability to understand nuance (n=19)
p13 ‘ in general, students believed that verbal feedback gave them increased insight into what the instructor was attempting to convey’.
e.g. “I would undesrand what they were saying but not the way they were trying to say it’ ‘it was all in your voice’
“to answer what I think about this I need to tell you what I did. I’ve taught one online class for my department …. Well two if you count the one I am just finishing, so obviously I was fascinated when I got the first audio files along with my work. But I didn’t want to just jump in because it was something new. What I did was sit down and transcribe what you sent over and then I looked at it. I looked at it and listened to the files again and kept doing this for a while. What I realized is that it is two completely different things. …. When I looked at the transcription there was no stress placed on any of the words or sentences. The I tried putting the stress there by adding in caps or exclamation marks and I wondered if I would have thought that you might have been yelling or something if I would have read it that way. What I figured out was that there was really no way you could have gotten the same info across in the same way’ ‘We lose so much in the written word sometimes and I think maybe we haven’t thought about that enough in our online teaching’
b. feelings of increased involvement (n=15)
e.g. ‘you feel that you are at home in your own little bubble and you are telegraphing out to all these other bubbles that other people are sitting in. The between all of you there is this cold wall type thing. It’s the course, the technology, all that stuff that makes the course. There is this barrier there. Now some of that has went away a little when we did things like being in chats, but its still kind of unreal you know?...... That said, I get this file where you put in this audio and boom! It was all a big change for me you know? It was like the bubble started getting popped in all these different places and made me feel like you were reaching in there and touching me. I know that’s probably kind of silly, but just your voice alone made me feel like it was a real class and not this big technology construct that was locking us into its parts’
c. Content retention (n=12)
9/12 related their perception to learning style
d. Instructor caring
e.g. ‘ ‘feeling the tone of your voice and knowing more about what you were trying to say than I got just the words on paper…err rather on screen.. well whatever………it gave me some idea of who you were and that made me want to be more involved…… it may me feel like you really cared about what was going on’
4. Assessment
P17/18 ‘Coding of documents revealed that students were far more likely to apply higher order thinking and problem solving skills to content for which they had received audio feedback’
