Theme 2 Theoretical Models in Distance Education : Paper AC 00243

Theme 2 Theoretical Models in Distance Education : Paper AC 00243

Cooperative Connective Conversation Theory

puts limits on

Transactional Distance Theory

Dr Paul Kawachi

Open Education Network, Japan

We propose an extension to the concept of distributed knowledge within a cooperative (cf collaborative) network for co-construction of new shared meanings. This extension is based on cooperative connected group learning (Belenky et al [1] , Blum [2], von Prummer [3], and others) and Conversation Theory (proposed by Mitchell & Grogono 1993 [4] and developed by Laurillard 2002, [5]) and entails new limitations to the Theory of Transactional Distance (Moore 1993 [6], Kawachi 2004 [7] ), since it articulates the limits to desirable learner autonomy. This reduction in autonomy is mediated by affective factors in adult students. It moreover puts limits on Vygotsky’s approach to all knowledge being transferred from social interactions to the individual mind learning. The individual participant necessarily holds unique knowledge and task function that cannot be simultaneously performed by another. Some individual knowledge thus cannot be transferred through conversation or any other media (including high-bandwidth internet connection) which are far too narrow in bandwidth for such simultaneous performance of complex tasks. Autonomy is compromised by the incapability of an individual to cognitively perform more than one complex task at a time. Illustrations are given including of symphony orchestra players, and sea navigation team members. For example at least two observations are needed to co-discover if an upright pole is vertical or leaning. Three observations would give a small triangle of true-positive error, and four or more observers could narrow this to a minimum error and more clear ‘true’ knowledge determination. No one individual can perform these observation tasks simultaneously. The individual cooperating with others must compromise on autonomy in order to better achieve the task, and share in the resulting co-constructed knowledge.

INTRODUCTION

This Paper sets out to note that learner Autonomy in the Theory of Transactional Distance needs to be reduced at times in order to achieve the learning task. That Autonomy must be reduced derives from considering Conversation Theory and the limits to the amount of knowledge that can physically be conveyed to others. Various conflicting arguments have been reported for increasing learner autonomy – for example Moore & Kearsley (1996, p. 205) [8] illustrate the point that a pre-school child has a high degree of learner autonomy. During compulsory schooling, this must be then compromised, and Peters (2006, p.125) [9] argues in his chapter on Visions of Learner Autonomy that we must work to support learners “to enable them to become autonomous”. It seems clear that Autonomy is not a monotonically increasing quality of a student proceeding through education. Moreover it is hardly a quality in actuality of the adult-student in lifelong learning. Learner Autonomy generally may be a desirable goal of education. Nonetheless such autonomy must occasionally be reduced especially when studying in a group in order to learn.

This Paper first describes the Theory of Transactional Distance, then discusses the added third dimension of Autonomy. It then proceeds to discuss the concept of autonomy generally, and goes on to suggest that Autonomy as set forth in the Theory of Transactional Distance is often reduced in practice : for example, an adult bringing a high degree of autonomy to a distance education course to upgrade her or his qualifications will in practice need to suspend and put aside other higher priority tasks (such as family or work commitments) in order to contribute to student work in a pre-set course task. Not only physical space must be made in the home for such evening study, and time, but also emotional space and intellectual space. These demands are generally not the free-will of the adult-student, but an imposition, and a reduction in the adult’s autonomy. Such course providers also do not generally negotiate the syllabus, despite such negotiation being a widely recognized quality assurance characteristic in adult education courses. And the adult-student must engage tasks that may have little personal learning relevance. This reduction in autonomy is an affective factor concerned with the will of the student to set a personal learning goal and - recognizing a suitable opportunity - to engage study and learn. Accordingly the affective factors that motivate the adult-student to reduce one’s autonomy is also considered here and discussed.

METHODS

THE INFLUENCEOF CONTEXTON AUTONOMY

A few examples as case studies may be useful first here to illustrate the need for reducing Autonomy. Three cases are given ;- the first of adult-students in lifelong learning, the second of ship crew members in navigation, and the third of musicians in an orchestra. Each case will show that individual Autonomy must be reduced in order to complete the shared group task at hand.

CASE STUDY 1

There is a growing demand for teacher continuing education and in Japan for periodic teaching licence renewal. Even expert senior teaching staff will need to submit to re-training in new technologies and refresher courses in teaching and learning techniques. As indicated below, Autonomy entails freedom to choose, to direct one’s own learning, and to take responsibility for one’s continuing education. It should be clear, and will likely become clearer, that some reduction in freedom on the part of the older expert will be needed, and some humbleness too when being instructed by younger technologists. Few university administrators, tutors and professors undergo formal continuing lifelong education. Since Structure is being imposed, this involves in some cases an increase in Transactional Distance (a move say from Stage 4 to earlier Stage 3 in the Kawachi Model cited below).

CASE STUDY 2

In order to navigate a ship at sea, the chart master needs to get simultaneous bearing readings from three or more other persons. Only two will give some rough approximation to a ship’s position, and three will in most cases give a small triangle drawn at the intersection of three bearing lines drawn on the chart. Four or more readings can reduce the uncertainty and narrow the error. In the context of navigation at sea, each person can do the job of a lower skilled operator, but not simultaneously with his or her own job. Each person must also take orders and act immediately if the teamwork is to succeed. Autonomy here is limited to taking responsibility but without freedom. Each individual has a considerable amount of skill and knowledge, but the channel of communication is extremely narrow and only the absolute minimum data can be transmitted to the chart master if the goal is to be achieved. The chart master in turn cannot receive a large amount of information even though it is available. Some compromise is forced by the context Structure which limits Dialogue and reduces Autonomy.

CASE STUDY 3

Musicians may train throughout their lives and become expert in playing a number of instruments. A violinists for example may be an accomplished pianist. Notwithstanding their own knowledge and the wealth of the distributed knowledge among all the individuals assembled, the context of a symphony orchestra in concert imposes Structure, demands there be no Dialogue (other than one-way Monologue from the conductor and the other musicians) and severely restricts Autonomy to focus on one’s own contribution only.

The context of the student deeply influences the role of autonomy that can be exercised by the individual, and the amount of autonomy allowed to the individual by the institution and by the media. Context involves the learner’s environment, and the Autonomy involves the student’s control over this environment. In most contexts, if not all contexts, the student is influenced by the environment – such as in the context of the adult-student who brings prior experience plus connotations to the learning environment and who must submit to the cooperative conversation role of the student despite perhaps being of professor rank, and in the context of the navigators who must while knowing the role of the others focus on performing each his / her own complex role assigned in order that the team achieves the goal, and in the context of the violinist who while can play the piano must follow and cooperate with the roles of others in order to achieve the group goal of producing the harmonial orchestral symphony.

Teaching and learning transactions in a group are therefore limited. Although Vygotsky has asserted that in constructivist learning all personal knowledge derives from social interactions with others, it must be that in some cooperative learning, where each individual can physically contribute only a part (due to the complexity of the task), then some knowledge remains distributed and unshared. Autonomy and individual freedom are not always pursued or desirable, and already-held Autonomy may need to be reduced in order for a group learning task to be achieved.

The Theory of Transactional Distance can be summarized as a categorization of programmes according to the amount of institutional Structure imposed and the amount of educative Dialogue that transpires. A third dimension of Autonomy is involved though its definition is unclear.

TRANSACTIONAL DISTANCEAND THE KAWACHI MODEL

The Kawachi Model of Learning has four stages of decreasing transactional distance bringing the student closer and closer to achieving the learning task or goal. In particular, education is seen as bridging the psychological distance between the student’s prior status and knowing the new content. The Kawachi Model is summarized in TABLE 1 and expounded below. It has been validated in theory (Kawachi, 2005, [10] ), and in practice in open distance universities in fifteen countries (Kawachi, 2003, [11] ).

TABLE 1 : The Four Stages of the Kawachi Model

Stage / Tasks
Stage 1 Cooperative and Synchronous Media / Activation of prior knowledge and recall of relevant schema, sharing prior knowledge, giving extension and expansion
Stage 2 Collaborative and Asynchronous Media / Determine and discover reasoning underlying prior knowledge
Stage 3 Collaborative and Asynchronous Media / Consider the merits and demerits of other alternative perspectives and chose a way forward to explore
Stage 4 Cooperative and Synchronous Media / Test out new way experientially in familiar contexts and then in new contexts

In Stage 1, learning occurs in a group cooperatively, gathering and sharing information and fostering a learning community. The starting level for many online courses is at this greatest transactional distance (S- D-) characterised by no structure imposed or directed by the tutor (fully responsive to the student) and with no educative dialogue. Each student can contribute his or her own prior knowledge to a group shared forum, and all transactions are reciprocally beneficial. This situation is cooperative learning in a group. Initial self-introductions, own contexts, expectations and reasons for participating are topics here. Especially when more purposeful, the transactions that are occurring could be described in practice as ‘brainstorming’, and synchronous computer-mediated communications are most suited to this activity. The education provider could give administrative or non-academic counselling support including personal comments here (which being non-educative remain as D-) to increase responsiveness to individual needs (moving from S- through to Stage 2 with S+) which can serve to motivate students (see Moore, 1993, p.29, note 2, [6] ).

In Stage 2 at a desirable next level of less transactional distance, some structure should be introduced by the tutor, symbolised as S+ D- in which there is still no expert input from the tutor. Here the tutor can initiate the discussion by eliciting an opinion and then request clarification or supportive elaboration. There is added Structure and collaborative interactions among the students and content. This Stage is characterised by the students questioning the content, by theorising or lateral-thinking to generate and develop metaphors or create new ideas, and these supported by argument satisfying the educative demand of the institution. The demand for rationality is the added Structure. Some time is needed for reflection here, and asynchronous modes such as email and a bulletin board are appropriate (see for example Yakimovicz & Murphy, 1995 [12] ). However, current studies show that new social software applications such as Wikis or shared Google Docs can be used synchronously here.

In Stage 3 at the next level of even less transactional distance, the tutor engages the students with guiding comments in what Holmberg (1983) [13] has described as a Guided Didactic Conversation, helping the students achieve the course structural requirements of understanding the general concepts to be learnt (D+ S+). Where this conversation is the aesthetic stance reading and interacting cognitively with an assigned text then this is Internal Didactic Conversation. The tutor or the text poses questions, and students defend their formulations. This Stage is characterised by hypotheses testing and logical straight-forward thinking - termed ‘vertical’ thinking in contrast to ‘lateral’ thinking - associated with problem-solving, and is collaborative. Since the tutor is likely unfamiliar with the distant student’s foreign and individual context, the tutor can be an equal participant in this process of co-discovery and hypotheses testing. The tutor can provide input (D+) pro-actively to guide the collaborative process by commenting expertly positively with opinions suggesting ways forward to be explored such as the set text or other books or resources or negatively with counter-opinions to keep the discussion on track (keeping Structure S+). Asynchronous mode is ideal here, to allow sufficient time for cognitive connections and co-construction of new non-foundational knowledge. As in Stage 2, recently developed advanced technologies such as Wikis could be used collaboratively here synchronously.

In Stage 4 at the optimum level of lowest transactional distance, interactivity is characterised by experiential learning and is cooperative, and at minimum transactional distance (D+ S-), in synchronous mode and with teaching dialogue to assist the students to reflect on their studies. The tutor can be fully responsive to the student’s wants and fully participate with maximum dialogue. There is no direct counter-opinion, and the activity is cooperative – eliciting, valuing and sharing what has been gained (newly acquired knowledge). Maximum dialogue would suggest here that synchronous communications be used. Other experts or stakeholders may participate in these synchronous discussions. Educative discussions may be a cooperative review of the course, perhaps inviting the course-writer to be online in synchronous conferencing. Another forum may be the student presenting a summary of what has been learnt to a real conference.

At either the starting level or the finishing level, if synchronous computer-mediated communications are not available, then asynchronous can be substituted. Some educators have reported that a face-to-face real meeting of all participants could be used here (especially at the starting level), but the inherent subjectivity that entails detracts from other values : Blake (2000) [14] has argued the precise lack of face-to-face interactions has a clear advantage in online teaching since it removes the personal and subjective, and unclutters the academic objectivity and disinterestedness that should characterise the essence of higher education. However, in asynchronous mode the participants may find the threads become disjointed, entangled, confusing, difficult to follow, and troublesome to make contributions to - the discussions will appear to be unnatural and unresponsive.

CONCERNING AUTONOMY

As mentioned in the INTRODUCTION above, Autonomy has been asserted to characterize a young pre-school child as well as a post-graduate lifelong student. And definitions of Autonomy are not yet widely understood. Definitions of Autonomy in learning have in common an emphasis on the capacity to think rationally, reflect, analyse evidence, and make judgements : to know oneself and be free to form and express one’s own opinions ; and finally, to be able to act in the world (Tennant & Pogson, 1995, [15] ). These qualities characterise the collaborative thought processes of Stage 3, and also the experiential aspect of Stage 4. Stage 1 has maximal Transactional Distance, and for a student to succeed here in independent learning Moore points out that the student would need maximum Autonomy (1993, p. 27, [6] ). Autonomy is thus seen as a highly powerful and desirable quality for independent learners. Not all students bring this high level of Autonomy with them initially into their studies, and so the tutor must bring the student around to acquire this Autonomy. The Kawachi Model illustrates a cyclical process – even an iterative process – through Stages 1 to 4 to equip and bring the student to go onto independent learning in a further new cycle starting at Stage 1 in a new learning venture.

Autonomy has also been related to recognizing one’s interdependence on others (Boud, 1988, [16] ). Interdependence relates to understanding the need to learn together with others either in cooperative mode or at other times in collaborative. Interdependence is a maturity characterising an adult student, and is acquired through awareness and prior experience of the critical thinking process. Toward the end of Stage 4, the student can have acquired this sense of interdependence. So in entering a new Stage 1 iteration, the student may be interdependent (post-Stage 4) and once more newly independent (starting a fresh Stage 1). These attributes of independence and interdependence have already been found to be separate, orthogonal, and co-existing in mature students at the end their course (Chen & Willits, 1999, [17] ).

While Autonomy is defined as an attribute of the student, different distance education programmes and the different stages in the Kawachi Model relate to different levels of Autonomy for the student to be a successful learner. In a programme at Stage 2, the deployed Structure means that the student is charged with thinking rationally but horizontally rather than vertically, and is analysing already given evidence, rather than finding new evidence, so the quality of Autonomy is somewhat measured to fit the limited freedom given to the student. At Stage 3, different qualities of Autonomy for hypotheses testing are needed for success – including a mature openness to new ideas that might be in conflict with one’s previous and present conceived view of the world. The student needs to exercise the freedom to formulate or re-formulate one’s own conceptions. While in Stage 4, the quality of Autonomy should include the willingness and ability to act to test out these newly constructed ideas to see experientially how they operate in practice.