Rhetoric suggesting that the Internet has democratizing effects appears to be back in vogue. In this 2003 article by Richardson and Swan, they state in their Introduction that “the ability of personal identities to remain concealed mans that all students, regardless of race, sex, disability, or appearance are on equal ground” (p. 69). However, scholars, such as Herring (gender and language cues) and Nakamura (race and ethnicity) argue that the anonymity afforded by the Internet may be more revealing than users (and others) once hoped or believed.
Another section of this piece that made me stop to think for a moment is the one that includes the results associated with Hypothesis 4: Students’ perceptions of social presence for individual course activities are related to their perceived learning for those activities. The authors’ survey revealed that “about one-third of students indicated written assignments while one-quarter of students indicated class discussions/questions and answer activities” (pp. 79-80). Respondents to the questionnaire also mentioned that interactions and feedback were also important. The reason why this stands out is because, as the authors note, class discussions, feedback, and interaction are aligned with social presence, but the written assignments are not. As a result of this contradiction, the authors suggest that social presence “permeates not only the activities generally designated as social activities but also those activities usually designated as individual activities” (p. 80).
However, an alternative explanation may be related to their methodology. This study employed mail/online questionnaires that the students completed. Perhaps face-to-face interviews would have clarified some of these discrepancies. Interviews may have also enabled the authors to probe into the reasons behind the responses to their questions, which may have been more revealing.
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