Journal of Interactive Learning Research

Volume 8, Number 2  1997

Contents

Premier Issue Preface

Rigorous and Socially Responsible Interactive Learning Research

Implications for Learning in aTechnology-Rich School

Collaboration by Design: Context,Structure, and Medium

Evaluation of the Boulder ValleyInternet Project: A Theory-Based Approach to Evaluation Design

Using Evaluation in the Design ofan Intelligent Tutoring System

Abstracts

Premiere Issue Preface

Rigorous and Socially Responsible Interactive Learning Research

Thomas C. Reeves, Editor

treeves@coe.uga.edu

The Journal of Interactive Learning Research debuts when the need for rigorous andsocially responsible research into the design, implementation, effectiveness, and impactof interactive learning is paramount. In a recent cover story in The Atlantic Monthly,Oppenheimer (1997) begins “There is no evidence that most uses of computerssignificantly improve teaching and learning....” (p. 45), and claims that computersthreaten to diminish the reading, writing, and self-expression skills of students while atthe same time crushing their imaginations and stunting their socialization. Although thisparticular attack on interactive learning is limited to the United States of America,similar critiques have appeared in other countries where large investments have been madein interactive learning systems for education and training.

Despite the polemical nature of such critiques, the interactive learning researchcommunity must face the reality that our efforts have failed to provide adequate guidancefor developers and practitioners. Others already recognize this inadequacy. In March 1997,the U.S. President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology called for“a large-scale program of rigorous, systematic research on education in general andeducational technology in particular...to ensure both the efficacy and cost-effectivenessof technology use within our nation’s schools” (p. 6). To provide guidance forreal-world practice, research must be both rigorous and socially responsible. Rigorinvolves adherence to the basic principles of science that all researchers must follow,regardless of specific methodological preferences. These include the application oflogical procedures that other researchers can apply and an openness to peer review.Scientific paradigms differ with respect to assumptions about the nature of reality andthe values placed on different methods of inquiry, but few serious researchers questionthe fundamental pillars of logical processes, verifiability, and peer review.

Social responsibility, on the other hand, is an issue open to debate. Some researchersmaintain that socially responsible research must directly address problems that detractfrom the quality of life for individuals and groups in society, whereas others suggestthat all interactive learning research is socially responsible simply because it dealswith questions of how ty is misplaced, arguing that the goal of research is knowledge inand of itself, and that whether research is socially responsible is a question that liesoutside the bounds of science.

This debate has raged for decades among educational researchers. For example, asreported by Farley (1982), Gage, a past president of the American Educational ResearchAssociation (AERA), asserted that the goal of basic research in education is simply“more valid and more positive conclusions” (p. 12), whereas another pastpresident of AERA, Ebel, proclaimed that “the value of basic research in education isseverely limited” (p. 18). More recently, Gage argued for more basic research thatwould yield “models at a level of validity and detail that will come closer to thestandards set by theories in the natural sciences” (p. 19), whereas Scriven, yetanother AERA past president, stated that the educational research community “hasalmost entirely failed to discharge its principal duty to the society that supports it.That duty...is to identify educational best practice and improve it” (pp. 19-20)(Cooley, Gage, & Scriven, 1997).

There is insufficient room in this brief introduction to examine adequately all theissues concerning the rigor and social relevance of interactive learning research.However, the following editorial policy can be stated. As guided by the distinguishedmembers of our Editorial Review Board, the Editors of this journal shall strive to ensurethat the research published herein meets the highest standards for both scientific rigorand social responsibility. As described in Reeves (1997), this journal will also publishother types of scholarly works, including “viewpoint” papers, some of which maypresent different perspectives regarding issues of rigor and social value. This debate isan important one that must be continued in these pages as well as in other researchforums.

References

Cooley, W.W., Gage, N.L., & Scriven, M. (1997). “The vision thing”:Educational research and AERA in the 21st Century. Educational Researcher, 26(4), 18-21.

Farley, F.H. (1982). The future of educational research. Educational Researcher, 11(8),11-19.

Oppenheimer, T. (1997, July). The computer delusion. The Atlantic Monthly, 280(1),45-62.

President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. (1997, March). Report onthe use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States [On-line].Available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/NSTC/PCAST/k-12ed.html

Reeves, T.C. (1997, Summer). Introducing the scope and sequence of the Journal ofInteractive Learning Research. Educational Technology Review, 7, 5-8.

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Implications for Learning in aTechnology-Rich School

Vicki L. Cohen

cohen@alpha.fdu.edu

This study investigated whether or not learning style would change after a year ofschooling in a technology-rich educational environment dedicated to a constructivistapproach to learning. The subjects were 15 gifted freshmen who had been accepted into a“magnet” high school. The subjects were given Dunn and Dunn’s LearningStyle Inventory and a questionnaire on Gardner’s Seven Forms of Intelligence beforeand after the school year. This study could not conclude that learning styles change afterone year, however, there are suggestions that learning styles are affected by factorswithin the environment, such as exposure to technology. Results suggest that the use ofcomputers affected the way the content was explored and presented. A technology-richenvironment seems to affect the social interaction of the school; a much more casualatmosphere emerged which was supportive of exploration and discourse. After one year somestudents displayed low preference for learning in this environment; this paper concludedthat instruction must encourage many different forms of learning styles.

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Collaboration by Design: Context, Structure, and Medium

Esther L. Tiessen and Douglas R. Ward

etiessen@sfu.ca

This paper describes an integration of three educational innovations which comprise theSchools for Thought project. Blueprint for Success is a video from the Adventures ofJasper Woodbury which provides a collaborative design task requiring students to workthrough geometric concepts in designing a playground. Computer-Supported IntentionalLearning Environments (CSILE) provides a powerful collaborative medium—a shareddesign and discourse space—in which students can negotiate and construct newunderstanding. The Fostering Communities of Learners project provides powerful participantstructures for students to collaborate, as well as empowering strategies for making senseof texts. Each of these innovations creates situations which require students tocommunicate and cooperate in order to complete the activities. While each of theinnovations support collaboration, there is no guarantee that students will engage in thecollaborative processes necessary for knowledge building. We argue that the threeinnovations each support collaboration in a distinct way, and, used in conjunction witheach other, leverage off each other, providing students with significant support forsustained collaboration. The instructional unit we describe here illustrates how theintegration of these technologies and strategies, by drawing on their distinct strengthsin promoting collaboration, can turn students’ communication and cooperation intosustained, productive, knowledge-centered collaboration.

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Evaluation of the Boulder Valley Internet Project: A Theory-Based Approach toEvaluation Design

Lorraine Sherry and Dianna Lawyer-Brook

lsherry@carbon.cudenver.edu

Libby Black

This paper summarizes a 2-year evaluation of the Boulder Valley Internet Project(BVIP). A wide variety of evaluation methods were used, most notably the construction of atheoretical model called the Integrated Technology Adoption and Diffusion Model thatguided data collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting. The results wereinterpreted in relation to several theoretical models of the innovation adoption processwithin complex educational environments.

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Using Evaluation in the Design of an Intelligent Tutoring System

Charles Bloom, Frank Linton, and Brigham Bell

cbloom@advtech.uswest.com

In the present paper, the authors describe the methodology used to design and evaluatethe first version of U S WEST’s Learn, Explore, and Practice (LEAP) intelligenttutoring systems platform, as well as the results of that evaluation. LEAP is anintelligent tutoring systems platform designed to train customer contact employees (CCEs)in customer interaction skills, as well as the domain knowledge associated with thosecustomer interactions (e.g., telecommunications products and services). Customerinteraction skills include conversing with customers to problem solve and sell serviceswhile simultaneously manipulating a variety of service order, billing, and repair ordersoftware applications. The evaluation contained both formative and summative areas offocus. The formative evaluation focused on the LEAP architecture and its behavior, seekingto answer the following questions: does LEAP work as expected and can CCE trainees useLEAP effectively. The summative evaluation focused on LEAP’s emotional andinstructional impact, as well as subjective feelings of ease of use, seeking to answer thefollowing questions: Is LEAP an effective learning tool, do trainees like using LEAP, andis LEAP easy to use. The evaluation was conducted over the life of the development effortand included pilot tests with new CCEs, expert inspections, and usability walk-throughswith experienced CCEs, pilot tests with naive users, and a comprehensive field test withfive CCE initial training classes. Results indicated both trainees and instructors likedusing LEAP, found it easy to use, and felt they learned a lot using LEAP (a findingvalidated by LEAP’s usage logs and student assessments). In addition, we uncoveredsome limitations in LEAP that were addressed in a subsequent version of the system (Bloom,Bell, Meiskey, Sparks, Dooley, & Linton, 1995).

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