Understanding Meanings of Distance in Face to Face and On-Line Adult Learning

Understanding meanings of distance in face to face and on-line adult learning

Sue Webb, University of Sheffield, UK

Paper presented at SCUTREA, 29th Annual Conference, 5-7 July 1999, University of Warwick

Time and distance: the issues of retrospection and prospection

New communication and information technologies have challenged notions of locality and proximity. For example, time and distance have new meanings when one uses asynchronous communications such as email or gains access to libraries and other information resources through the Internet. One consequence has been that a third generation of distance learning based on these communication technologies has been developing which is being portrayed as a solution to many of the structural barriers that adult learners experience (Halal and Liebowitz, 1994; Laurillard, 1993, McConnell, 1998). These include: a restricted time for study; the lack of courses at times that fit around employment or caring responsibilities; geographical distance from centres of learning; lack of transport or financial constraints; and a desire to study at local centres. This paper examines these propositions by discussing the findings of an action research study which sought to introduce networked learning into a part-time degree delivered by a University continuing education department.

The paper analyses the students’ and tutors’ perceptions and experiences of networked learning, and shows a diversity of voices. The paper discusses the finding that in this case a particular culture has developed and come to dominate the notion of effective learning in the ‘face to face’ classroom, and that this includes the need for trust, the sharing of experiences and the notion of the presentation of an authentic self. The paper considers the implications of this dominant discourse on students’ and tutors’ perceptions of on-line learning, and for their ideas of what makes good practice in the on-line environment. The case study involved students and tutors of a Women’s Studies degree, and so, it may not be surprising to find that their ideas of effective learning on-line should chime with those advanced by advocates of feminist pedagogy (Weiler, 1995) suggesting that there has been a ‘spill-over’ of identity as they managed the crossing of the boundary from face to face learning to that of on-line where notions of time and distance are disrupted.

In addition, the paper explores the way in which educational action research that utilises the biographical interview to review experiences has a tendency to produce a progressive story. Contradictions are transcended through a process of collaboration and reflective practice in which the researcher as practitioner and the researched as co-producers of explanations of the transitions in which they are participating, co-operate in producing a coherent and rational account. As the practitioner-researcher my story will show that the accounts of the students and tutors (including myself) define successful on-line learning in terms that draw on their existing ideas of effectiveness. The methodology facilitates this. Coherence is encouraged by asking students and tutors to reflect on their experiences of the classroom and of using an email discussion group, and more specifically by talking to those that eventually completed a module in Feminist Theory through on-line learning and teaching. This last group identified themselves as on-line enthusiasts and they consistently invoked connections with their previous learning selves. In other words, their accounts displayed what Shutz (1967) has argued is a ‘retrospective-prospective sense of occurrence’ which is a device that people use to produce order from their flux of experience. Stronach and MacLure found a similar tendency in their work on life stories, and accounts of the transition to becoming an action researcher showed the following:

They involve a retrospective search for the prospective significance of events and decisions, in which the seemingly innocent temporal relationship between past, present and future is compounded and displaced. (1997:126)

However, alongside my research story which found coherence and connections between the face to face classroom and on-line identities I found some gendered and age-based differences of perception about the value and organisation of on-line learning, and in particular of an email discussion group, and so two key questions emerged. The first question was about whether a learning practice that acknowledged differences could be designed and be acceptable to all, and secondly, how the story about this development should be constructed to capture the social and gendered relations of power that informed the negotiations between the practitioner-researcher and practitioners and students in introducing on-line learning. Marginalised voices were identified from the one male student and from an older female student, both of whom argued that learning on-line would be enhanced by anonymity and fluidity of identity. Again, Stronach and MacLure (1997) may have an argument that helps to make sense of these competing accounts for they suggest that interviewers and interviewees should consider other ways of telling their stories which would resist resolutions to the problem of safely getting across boundaries, and allow for a being of ‘in-between-ness’. It is with this in mind that I attempt now to tell the story of action research in which the notion of what makes effective on-line learning for students and tutors of Women’s Studies is presented as an unsettled account of ‘hybridity’.

‘Once upon a time’: the rationality of narrative accounts

Relying on ‘unadulterated voices’ is fundamentally a decoy for an extended version of dis-stance and ventriloquy. Voices are as Scott would contend, both “an interpretation and in need of interpretation” (Fine, 1994:21)

Qualitative research where traditionally the emphasis has been on naturally occurring data and lived experiences has been experiencing a crisis of representation and legitimation influenced by post-structuralism and other critical approaches including feminism (Denzin, 1997). The epistemological authority of the researcher as the knowing author who can capture the real meaning of events and experiences has been questioned, and the power dynamics of the research process in which accounts have been produced need to be examined. In this case, in which the author/researcher (myself) is both the course director for the Women’s Studies degree, and so, has both a managerial position in relation to the collaborating students and tutors, to state that the voices need interpretation is a truism. Yet, I emphasise this point because some of the phenomena studied, the asynchronous on-line communications which cross the boundaries of time and place, are even more fluid and slippery than many of the face to face communications that form the nub of qualitative accounts. The dis-stancing nature of the media permits authors and receivers to play with time and space and disturb people’s interpretations and the ad-hoc devices that we use to display our presence and identities. For example, Argyle (1996) writing about the dilemma of not knowing how to make sense of an email that posted a message about someone’s death said through this media one can change the landscape, rewriting the history of what had been.

My concern though is that in many studies of educational technology and learning this fluidity of meaning in computer mediated communications is played down in accounts that stress a rational story of progress towards greater democracy and social equality. For example, in the Further Education Funding Council’s response to the Government’s Green Paper ‘The Learning Age’, (1998) they argued that the technology will help all adults realise their potential so long as the issues of cost and access to the equipment at a local level are resolved. No consideration is given to the meaning of the communications that would follow from the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for learning. Indeed, others suggest that an apparent absence of social cues in ICT, and the disruption of time and distance provides the explanation for more egalitarian communication styles on-line, and is evidence of social equality (Hardy et al, 1994, Kiesler et al, 1984, McConnell, 1997 and Sproull and Kiesler, 1993). These are studies which have observed and analysed transcripts of on-line discussions, measured the quantity of turn taking, numbers and lengths of postings and subjects discussed and by whom, interpreted the style and form of the postings and compared these analyses the perceptions of those who wrote the messages. In other words, these are carefully constructed triangulated accounts of ‘what has been going on on-line’ working within a realist /modernist paradigm. Similarly, my story began in this way the only difference being that the data were generated in action and that during this process, I and the students and tutors sought to share our sense-making of the implications for learning of communicating on-line as we engaged in this activity.

Women’s experiences of on-line learning: version one, the rational story

'Web based learning would have some very positive aspects, particularly for Women's Studies. Being able to communicate on a national and maybe international basis with other women would inevitably increase one's knowledge of the experiences of women from very different political, social and cultural backgrounds...One could make links with feminist organisations which are actively seeking to eliminate sexist oppression, build up relationships with groups and organisations one would not come into contact with during a regular course' Isobel, (Women's Studies student, focus group 1)

'Direct communication is a vital element for Women's Studies as far as I am concerned...The lack of unspoken communication or body language would be a main drawback to discussion involving the Internet/email...although it could be with someone you know, lack of physical proximity would make it difficult. Talking with other students you didn't know would either make a false familiarity or a stand offishness exemplified by academic language (and all political correctness).' Teresa, (Women's Studies student, focus group 1)

Two different and conflicting versions of women's experiences of cyberspace can be identified in these extracts from the focus group discussions conducted for the action research. The first view is optimistic and the second is more pessimistic, although in some senses they reflect opposite ends of a continuum, and they echo the dichotomies of the literature about the Internet. On the one hand there is a story about the Internet that shows it as a liberatory and empowering technology, in which its origins in military technology and the political strategies of powerful nations have played a part in the diffusion of centres of control and regulation. The way is open for the creation of global communities that could recapture the spirit and efficacy of traditional societies (Rheingold, 1994). Feminists such as Donna Haraway, Sadie Plant and Sherry Turkle have developed these ideas, and emphasised the radical possibilities for women posed by the fluidity and construction of multiple identities through computer mediated communications, and they have valued the anarchic tendencies of the Internet to undermine existing power structures. Turkle (1996) has suggested that the medium encourages a bottom-up or a more intuitive approach to learning, what she calls 'soft mastery' or 'bricolage' which she regards as more in line with a female style of interacting (and here she is influenced by Belenky et al, 1986, who argued that there are distinct women's ways of knowing). At the most positive end of this continuum of stories is the so called cyberfeminist Sadie Plant (1996, 1997) who sees opportunities to dissolve all forms of identity on-line, and who has sought to rectify women's invisibility by celebrating women's contribution to the construction of the computers and the Internet. Haraway, (1991) similarly does not see a basis for conflict between machines and people but rather advocates that we become 'cyborgs'.

Many of these optimistic arguments are grounded in feminist theories and parallel the discourses of feminist pedagogy. This is because, they focus on the experiences of women, and challenge received knowledge, in order to "move away from the acceptance of disciplinary knowledge as objective, impartial, and neutrally discovered" (Kramarae and Spender, 1993:1). From the outset such challenges have had political and transformative overtones, and so one concern for feminist teachers like myself working to develop a Women's Studies curriculum within formal education institutions has been whether or not the Internet can create a space for women as well as increasing our knowledge about women. Within the traditional face to face classroom this has commonly been termed ‘finding a voice’, ‘claiming a space for ourselves’ or ‘rendering women visible’ (Madoc-Jones and Coates, 1996:3). Within this feminist pedagogy women's experiences have been valued as resources for learning, and as a consequence learning through critical reflection about the diversity of women's experiences has been central, and intrinsically bound up with the development of their agency to change their lives.

On the other hand, at the beginning of the action research a minority of the students from the three different sites expressed ‘disinterest, annoyance and fear’ at the idea of Internet based learning. In part these students seemed to be aligning themselves with the view that the Internet is an anathema to feminist principles and practices, and they stressed the need for the following:

‘It is important that the Web site 'voice' is not seen as being in charge of the subject and directing what needs to be discussed. It would not be feminist to maintain there is one feminist perspective or a hierarchy of acceptable perspectives.’ Teresa, (Women's Studies student).

This more pessimistic story highlights and supports a perception of the male construction and dominance of the technology, and the lack of public and free access which affects women disproportionately (Balka, 1993). Other features of this story concern the problems associated with sexual harassment, pornography, and gender swapping that may discourage women's participation (Shade, 1996; Spender, 1995), and so the liberatory possibilities of computer mediated communications (CMC) are uncertain. Further support for this story about women's low participation on the Internet draws on the well documented differences in the communication styles of women and men off-line (Tannen, 1991). Similar differences have been identified in on-line discussion groups where men have been shown to dominate on-line postings and been more likely to use 'report' talk, while women have been shown to use more 'rapport' talk (Herring, 1994; Ferris, 1996; Pohl and Michaelson, 1998).

However, somewhere between these competing stories a third position emerged during the research which showed how individuals’ stories changed through interaction with others. My reading of the following extract from a focus group shows how these students who have studied together in face to face classrooms ‘persuade’ each other that trust can be developed in email communications by using what they call ‘chit-chat’, and that through this their learning will be enhanced.

Initially caution is expressed,

'I find I think you are going to lay yourself wide open--its the vulnerability aspect of it whereas in a group situation like we have over a number of weeks and months we've built trust up between each other, we know who we are talking to I can say whatever and I don't think you are going to take it outside these four walls. But if you are actually sending e-mails and everybody is reading it and you don't know who you are sending it to and you don't know whether that person is going to be trustworthy or honour your feelings and respect your feelings and that's my worry’. (Jackie)

This is countered by a suggestion about how to build social presence and trust on-line:

'But maybe chit-chat(the social chat on-line)is a way of leading you in...'(Chris)

(to a) 'maybe a deeper friendship, deeper relationship' (Joyce)

'You don't immediately plunge in, (in classroom discussions) we didn't immediately all bond together instantly and say this is good.' (Anne)

'No, No' (chorus)

Finally, comparisons are drawn with the experience of the face to face classroom and the way that trust was developed there and it led to a consensus that this was the way to make on-line learning effective for Women’s Studies students,

'We had to get to know each other and maybe that chit-chat is e-mail's way of getting to know each other, I think we have to give it a chance, you know this is modern technology, it is a thing of the future that we should be embracing.' (Chris)

An interesting feature of this discussion is the way in which these students have transferred their understanding of the norms of the face to face classroom into an expectation of the ground rules for participating in on-line learning. For these students and for the tutors, having an authentic social presence on-line is considered essential to the building of trust, and this underpins their ability to share experiences which they regard as central to their learning, as the following illustrates,