Learning from distance‐teaching materials: a study of students’ mediating responses

Abstract

It has been suggested that improvements in the quality of distance-teaching materials could be effected if the mental responses that mediate study of and learning from such materials were known. This project aimed at identifying the types and origins of students' convert mediating responses to distance-teaching materials during study sessions. Three one-half hour study sessions were videotaped for each of four student volunteers in a room set up on the campus. Immediately following each study session stimulated-recall interviews were conducted, the data from these being audiotaped and then transcribed for further analysis. Interview protocols revealed that approaches to study were influenced by a set of interdependent factors, which, when combined with a set of study strategies, resulted in two broad classes of study orientation. Twenty different types of mental processes were identified, seven of which were used more frequently than the others. Furthermore, textual features which activated mental processes were identified using the stimulated-recall technique, and promising suggestions for textual design were gleaned from the data. Areas for further research were also identified. INTRODUCTIONOne of the many challenges confronting those involved in the design of distance-teaching materials is how to maximise the effectiveness of such materials in promoting student learning. Distance teaching has attracted only a very modest amount of interest from educational researchers and theorists. As a consequence we have very little systematic knowledge available on how students actually use distance-teaching materials (Roe, 1981) or how they learn from them. Morgan, Gibbs, and Taylor of the 215 Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 16:24 06 June 2016 Distance Education Vol. 5, No. 2, 1984 Study Methods Group at the Open University have recently commented that 'even after almost ten years of evaluating courses, we know relatively little about how students handle our learning materials ' (1980:8). Certainly there is a body of research literature available on structuring devices such as objectives and inserted questions in textual material. The research on these and other structuring devices has been reviewed and discussed in the distance education context by Marland and Store (1982) who point out the difficulties of generalising when much of the research has been carried out within an experimental research tradition and outside a distance-teaching context.Much work has been done in recent years in attempts to describe the approach of tertiary level students to the learning task. When describing students' strategies to learning, Pask (1976) reported that some students use a holist strategy. In this approach the subject matter fitted in with other related topics, with 'real life', and with personal experience. In the serialist strategy used by other students there seemed to be an attempt to build understanding out of the component details, logical steps, and operations taken strictly in a linear sequence. Marton and Säljö (1976) ...

An approach to research on distance learning

“…The first is that mediating (or cognitive) processes are shaped by personal, text and contextual variables and interactions among them, and give rise to learning outcomes. For example, mediating processes can be triggered or influenced by, inter alia, a word or phrase in text, change in print style, time pressure, beliefs about the lecturer's expectations, or underlining in text (Marland, Patching, Putt and Store, 1984 . The second proposition is that influences among outcomes, mediating processes and students' study orientations are reciprocal.…”

Distance learners' interactions with text while studying

“…It drew on experiences gained in a pilot study (Marland, Patching, Putt and Store, 1984) and sought to document the ways distance learners use and respond to textual materials and their thought-processes during actual study sessions. This article focuses on just two topics:…”