Use of Instructional Dialogue by University Students in a Distance Education Chemistry Course

It was found that all students initially chose individual study characterized by intrapersonal dialogue, only when individual study failed did students opt for interpersonal dialogue, conflicts with the assumed importance often ascribed to interpersonal dialogue by some distance education theorists.

Abstract

A distance education system may be viewed in terms of intrapersonal and interpersonal instructional dialogues that mediate the learning and instructional resources that enable such dialogues. Instructional resources include self-instruction texts, tutorial sessions, instructor availability, Web sites, and more. This study investigated the kinds of dialogues engaged in by Open University students and the kinds of resources they used while studying an intermediate-level chemistry course. Research objectives were to document (a) what study strategies if any, involving which resources and dialogues, were generally used by students; (b) what dialogue types, enabled through which resources, were specifically used by students to overcome conceptual difficulties; and (c) how the use of resources and dialogues in the chemistry course compared with students’ experiences in other science courses. It was found that all students initially chose individual study characterized by intrapersonal dialogue. Only when individual study failed did students opt for interpersonal dialogue. This finding conflicts with the assumed importance often ascribed to interpersonal dialogue by some distance education theorists. Un systeme d’education a distance peut etre vu en termes de dialogues pedagogi- ques intrapersonnels et interpersonnels qui servent d’intermediaires entre l’apprentissage et les ressources pedagogiques qui rendent possibles de tels dialogues. Les ressources pedagogiques incluent les textes d’autoapprentissage, les sessions de tutorat, la disponibilite du professeur, les sites Web, etc. L’etude a examine, dans le cadre d’un cours de chimie de niveau intermediaire dans une universite par correspondance, les types de dialogue qu’engagent les etudiants et le type de ressources qu’ils utilisent. Les objectifs de l’etude etaient de documenter (a) quelles strategies d’apprentissage, si existantes, impliquant quelles ressources et quels dialogues, etaient generalement utilisees par les etudiants, (b) quels types de dialogues, rendus possibles par le bais de quelles ressources, etaient specifiquement utilises par les etudiants pour surmonter les difficultes conceptuelles, et (c) comment l’utilisation de ressources et de dialogues dans le cours de chimie pouvait-elle se comparer avec les experiences des etudiants d’autres cours de science. Les resultats ont montre que tous les etudiants avaient initialement choisi l’apprentissage individuel caracterise par le dialogue intrapersonnel. Les etudiants ont opte pour le dialogue interpersonnel seulement quand l’apprentissage individuel n’avait pas reussi. Ce resultat de recherche entre en conflit avec les idees de certains theoriciens en eduction a distance qui, souvent, attribuent de l’importance au dialogue interpersonnel.