When myths about the lack of embodiment online get translated to conclusions about student science misconceptions

The Institute for effective evidence (IEE) http://www.york.ac.uk/iee

is an influential filter of educational research providing ‘rigorous evaluations of programmes and practices’. It is why it is disappointing that a recent report from them on this article (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.21169/abstract

in the Journal of Science Teaching by Wendt and Rockinson-Szapkiw was notable for its lack of evaluation. The research had looked at learning outcomes (with a focus on student misconceptions about science) when instruction in class is followed by group work. The interpersonal interactions required for group work took place either face-to-face (control condition) or were enabled through computer mediated conferencing (CMC)  (the experimental condition). The researchers claim that using CMC for the group work compromised the quality of the learning outcomes; that misconceptions about science tended to persist for students who used this form of communication. The purpose of this blog post is to explain why I think that the discussion and conclusion sections of that research article are misleading.

Wendt and Rockinson-Szapkiw make several references to the lack of embodied communication, behaviours such as pointing, facial expression, as a factor might have influenced the learning outcomes of the students who used CMC for group work. However, it has been demonstrated repeatedly in the research literature that when participants use CMC for group work they adapt by using on a wide range of digital fluency practices for example; metaphor, typography and by appropriating the functionality of the technology for example, threading.  Provided that participants are digitally fluent, they are provided with appropriate facilities, and opportunity for discourse online, the quality of interpersonal interaction for learning should not be compromised by the absence of non-verbal cues.

The key to the success of CMC lies in the design for learning (as is the case for all forms of learning) and it is not a simple case of directly substituting one mode of communication (using CMC) for another (face-to-face). For the research critiqued in this blog entry group work online was presented so that all factors (other than mode of communication) were controlled. It has meant that scholarship of design for this form of learning was ignored and by consequence, professional development for online teaching appears to be lacking. The design did not take into account the constraints (more time is required) of CMC, or capitalize on the affordances. A great advantage of asynchronous discussion is that students can be given the opportunity to reflect and a full textual record of the discussion is available for them to refer to while doing so. The textual record is also available to the teacher whose feedback should be enhanced by access to a full verbal account of the discussion of all the groups involved.  The design did not capitalize on the pedagogic affordances of CMC and when evaluated in this context the conclusion, that CMC is an inferior form of communication for group work, is misleading. The IEE report will amplify the reach of these misleading conclusions and is likely to influence, negatively, the uptake of this form of communication for group work. This is unfortunate given the well-documented advantages that group work online can offer including the potential of Learning Analytics data (which are collected with more granularity and more easily online) for enhancing our understanding of student learning behaviours.

Group work as voodoo teaching: Fair appraisal or not?

In Teacher Proof, by Tom Bennett, group work is characterised as voodoo teaching:  an approach to learning advocated by armchair educationists, based on theory and evidenced by proxy measurements, while from a teacher perspective there are a considerable number of disadvantages for example, inactivity (disguised), unequal participation and too much social chat.

Don’t these behaviours occur whatever pedagogy a teacher uses for imparting knowledge?

When the aim is to improve teaching and learning oppositional conversations are not helpful. If teachers could be convinced of the value of group work then the disadvantages might morph into barriers to be overcome. However, two misconceptions need to be dismissed at the outset. Firstly, learning is not about accumulating factual knowledge and being able to recall it; understanding the knowledge and making conceptual connections are the key indicators of knowledge acquisition. Secondly, the idea of group work is not that students teach each other. The value of inter student interaction lies in the process od developing their  learning of a topic through verbalising their current level of  understanding while communicating it to other members of the group, and by assessing and/or developing the ideas of their peers. With a 1/30 teacher/student ratio it would not be possible for the teacher to undertake this process with every student.  However, the teacher’s expert knowledge is not wasted, she/he can correct any misunderstandings that persist at group level. 

Hard to learn stuff is cognitively and emotionally painful so there is value in easing the emotional strain.  In the UK we have just witnessed the annual duel between the Oxford and Cambridge university boat crews. Although both Oxford teams won easily (for the first time female crews competed on the same course on the same day, albeit not at the same time) it hasn’t always been the case. The media spend a great deal of time describing the commitment and explaining the endurance required by rowers. In 2007 when the Oxford male crew were not doing so well research was carried out that involved comparing threshold for pain when elite rowers trained individually compared with training together in a virtual boat when the physical effort involved was done collectively [1].  Physical effort is known to stimulate endorphin (opioid) release and it has been shown in other studies that high opiate activity is specific to the areas of the brain associated with mood. Could this finding be translated to a group learning context? Does working on a task collectively provide a more conducive emotional climate for the learning? Is the mood of students enhanced in a way that helps them to tackle the painful business of learning? The unknown is whether collective action without physical exertion is sufficient to achieve a positive effect on mood. I propose that it is a sufficiently important area of inquiry for encouraging further research and encouraging teachers to persevere with group work.

Teachers’ experience of group work in practice is that it can lead to a loss of control and increased disruption. Provided that a school has the technological infrastructure to support forums group work could be done online i.e. mediated by a digital device and associated software. Students would know that the teacher could be monitoring their interactions without being physically co-present in either time or space and that a persistent record of their conversations is available. That should wrest some control back to the teacher.

1.         Cohen, E.E.A., et al., Rowers' high: behavioral synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds. Biology letters, 2009. Evolutionary biology.

London Virtual Interaction Workshop

This work shop was organised by Antonia Hamilton and  Sylvia Xuini Pan, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience  hamilton lab.

Why did I attend? I study social interaction when it is mediated by a computer and takes  takes place asynchronously between distance students who have no previous knowledge of each other -  I study virtual social interaction. Many of the contributors to this workshop are studying aspects of social interaction (eye gaze, body movement, facial expression, sound) that are not available in online contexts that use computer mediated communication (CMC) but they did address processes that are common to each such as joint attention, affiliation, trust, reciprocity, turn taking (a process that is disrupted when communication is asynchronous) and the most challenging concept of them all,  synchrony. Synchrony was a concept that pervaded most of the talks therefore I was both reassured and disappointed when questions posed later in the conference - why is synchrony important for social interaction? is there a neural explanation? could not be answered by any of the delegates, apparently

What are my headlines from this event.

•   Be alert to circular reasoning (delegate)

•   Realism is not a realistic criterion - realism is a relative notion -challenge the critical parameters and values that matter (Beatrice de Gelder)

•   Joint attention - KNOWING we are both looking is the critical factor (Leonard Schilbach)

•   Important to think about social scaffolds i.e put the social into social interaction (Daniel Richardson)

•   Social interaction is a one trial problem ( Antonio Hamilton)

Ideas that arose for me that I need to pursue in order to study social interaction in a learning context

For joint tasks decision there may be a difference between situations that require a right/wrong answer as opposed to the construction of knowledge and production of a joint artefact ( the processes that underpin group work in FE and HE and organisations ) -an idea stimulated by Bahador Bahrami

An experience that is often voiced by students that use CMC is that the others involved do not seem to be real.  Therefore I need to explore the work on plausibility (as described by Mel Slater).

Antonia Hamilton seeded the final discussion session by suggesting a model for how synergy is achieved between the study of social interaction by psychologists and the HCI folk who provide the technology behind virtual interaction. Could I take anything from this that would help me develop a synergy between virtual interaction in practice ( i.e. students using CMC for group work ) and theoretical models of social interaction that are neuro-scientifically plausible?

Thanks to all those who contributed list of contributors - you  all provided great value

Experience in online networks- some massive

For one week in 2012 the emotional content of Newsfeeds from 689,003 Facebook users was manipulated; by reducing the number of positive expressions, or the number negative expressions. The findings were reported in PNAS http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr

The publication resulted in a huge outcry about the ethics of Facebook manipulating Newsfeeds in this way - see  here  and here  and comments posted directly to PNAS, as to whether Facebook users actually  give  'informed' consent for this kind of experiment and what the consequences for individuals could be. It is a debate worth having. However it seems that it was at the expense of a critical look at the authors ( A.D. Kramer, J.E. Guillory, and J.T. Hancock) claim about 'emotional contagion on a massive scale'.  From the perspective of  someone interested in social learning at a distance using computer mediated communication the article missed some key points about the emotional experience of  'written' interpersonal interaction .  So I wrote a letter to PNAS but it will not be published (yes it was rejected).  Neverthess here it is.

The outcome of the manipulation was as follows;  a reduction of positive expressions produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts with the opposite pattern occurring when negative expressions were manipulated. The authors claim that these findings show that emotional contagion can be elicited in the absence of nonverbal cues and that given the link between emotion and well being the finding could be important for public health. There are implications in another domain, education, specifically for social learning online.  In higher education an increasing number of universities and MOOC platforms are providing facilities for students to communicate with each other remotely using social media, e.g. text based forums.  The opportunity for students to  ‘learn by discussion’, to collaborate with each other on a shared task, ‘learning by collaboration’, are extremely effective ways of achieving depth of understanding (3) and also equip students for the teamwork skills required by modern organizations. However, the emotional valence of the experience is an important factor.  Reports that social interaction online is less satisfactory and experientially ‘uncanny’ (1,4) is why the findings of (2) are relevant.  Interpersonal interaction defines social learning however (2) claim that for their study contagion and social interaction are disentangled.

Two constructs are challenged: the conceptualization of emotional contagion and mimicry, assumptions about ‘direct interaction’. A taxonomy, on which to base the definitional nuance of the emotional experience that results when others share one’s emotional experience: mimicry, contagion, personal distress, affective empathy, cognition empathy, sympathy, and the criteria that distinguish each, has been formulated (5). Mimicry and emotional contagion are both characterized by affective behavior while emotional contagion involves affective experience and isomorphism. Although affective behavior was elicited the authors (based on the cross-emotional encouragement effect) concluded that mimicry, as an explanation, was not sufficient. However claiming contagion is not substantiated; they do not have any data to confirm that affective experience and affective isomorphy occurred.

That ‘emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction’ is the significance claim. However, conceptually ‘direct interaction’ is underdeveloped.  ‘Direct interaction’, as when individuals meet face-to-face, involves two shared aspects, time frame and place. Asynchronous interaction means conversational turns may be disrupted and response is usually delayed, while interacting in an online space means that multisensory information is not available and real time context is not shared. The specification of all these factors is crucial when evaluating emotion communicated online through writing.  For Facebook, a written communication from ‘friends’ will sometimes results in  ‘friends’ moderating their responses (the data that the authors collected).  That is the essence of human communication: the use of written language and metacognition. The usefulness of the study lies in the foregrounding the power of language. However, the value of this approach, theoretical and practical, will depend on substantial integration with research in two fields, emotion and computer mediated communication.

(1) BAYNE, S. (2008) Uncanny spaces for higher education: Teaching and learning in virtual worlds. ALT-J  Research in Learning Technology, 16, 197-205.

(2) KRAMER, A. D. I., GUILLORY, J. E. & HANCOCK, J. T. (2014) Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 111, 8788-8790.

(3) LAURILLARD, D. (2012) Teaching as a design science. Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology., New York, London, Routledge.

(4) ROBINSON, K. (2013) The interrelationship of emotion and cognition when students undertake collaborative group work online: An interdiscplinary approach. Computers & Education, 62, 298-307.

(5) WALTER, H. (2011) Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Empathy: Concepts, Circuits and Genes. Emotion Review, 4, 9-23.