Interaction Patterns in Teaching and Learning with Live Interactive Television

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Interaction Patterns in Teachingand Learning with Live InteractiveTelevisionRon Oliver a & Catherine McLoughlin aa Edith Cowan University , Western AustraliaPublished online: 19 Nov 2006.

To cite this article: Ron Oliver & Catherine McLoughlin (1997) Interaction Patterns in Teachingand Learning with Live Interactive Television, Journal of Educational Media, 23:1, 7-24, DOI:10.1080/1358165970230102

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Journal of Educational Media, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1997 7

Interaction Patterns in Teachingand Learning with Live InteractiveTelevisionRON OLIVER & CATHERINE McLOUGHLINEdith Cowan University, Western Australia

ABSTRACT Live Interactive Television is a popular medium for delivering educationalprograms to students in remote areas in Australia. The medium uses television to deliver alive one-way video signal and standard telephony to provide two-way audio communicationbetween the instructor and students. Much of the potential of this medium is derived fromthe interactivity that it supports and the ensuing educational advantages to be derived.Because all interactions are ultimately student-initiated, the medium has a number ofunique and characteristic features. This paper describes a study that investigated the formand nature of the interactions evident in LIT programs. The purpose of this investigationwas to establish the impact of the interactivity on the form and scope of the instructionalsequences used. The study sought to identify different kinds of interactivity employed byinstructors and students and to investigate the impact and role of these interactions on theensuing instructional activities.

Introduction

Moves are underway in Western Australia and other states in Australia, to increasethe use of technology in the delivery of educational programs to school students inremote and rural areas. Live interactive television (LIT) has been selected as one ofseveral technologies to facilitate this. This technology appears to provide a cost-effective means to deliver educational programs in a variety of formats across vastdistances. LIT involves a one-way video link between the teacher and studentthrough conventional television delivery and two-way audio between teacher andstudents brought about through standard telephone communications.

There are several forms of technology that support the use of live interactivevideo for teaching and learning at a distance. Common forms in the local contextinclude:

• the use of broadcast and/or narrowcast television to deliver a video signal to theviewing audience and the simultaneous use of telephone communications toprovide audio interactions between the instructor and the students.

1358-1651/97/010007-18 ©1997 Journals Oxford Ltd

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8 R. Oliver & C. McLoughlin

• one-way video transmission and two-way audio using videoconferencing technolo-gies and compressed video to deliver images to discrete learning sites.

• two-way video and two-way audio in a full videoconferencing mode wherecameras and microphones provide continuous visual and audio contact among thegroups involved in the instruction.

LIT is a popular choice of delivery medium among local institutions for a variety ofreasons. It is a relatively inexpensive delivery medium and uses technologies that arewidely available among rural areas (Oliver & Grant, 1994). A key component in thechoice of this technology is the interactivity that it supports between the instructorand students and the ensuing educational advantages to be derived. The terminteractivity is used very loosely in educational settings and has come to assumedifferent meanings in different applications. In the broadest sense of the term,interactions represent a communication between parties. With computer programs,interactivity is usually considered to be in existence when the user has a degree offreedom in choosing options or paths through the software, for example interactivemultimedia. Likewise, interactive video is a technology where the user can influencethe sequence and rate of video display. Interactions can be written into text-basedlearning materials through the use of appropriate strategies in the design of learningactivities (Herrington, 1993). Students can gain feedback on their efforts andachievements in independent written activities through carefully designed coursematerials and guides. Mason (1994) describes all these forms of interactivity moreas feedback than communication. The forms of student/teacher interactions that arepossible through live interactive television are far more extensive than these andappear to provide many opportunities and advantages to the learning environment.

This paper describes a study that was undertaken to investigate the form andnature of the interactions that are evident in LIT programs. The purpose of thisinvestigation was to establish the impact of the interactivity provided by the technol-ogy in enhancing the quality and form of the instructional programs. The studysought to identify the means by which instructors use the interactive capabilities ofthe technology and the impact and role of the interactions within the instructionalsequences.

Live interactive television

Live interactive television is not a new technology. Numerous studies report the useof this instructional medium in distance and open education programs across avariety of subjects and education levels (e.g. Beare, 1989; Dillon et ah, 1991; Nahl,1993; Simpson et ah, 1993; Oliver & Grant, 1995). From these reports, it is evidentthat many differences exist in the instructional formats being employed and asignificant influence on this, is the level of interactivity supported by the technolo-gies.

Live interactive television uses a distinctly different form of instructional deliveryfrom conventional television. The nature of the programs contrasts significantly.While conventional television uses a strong visual element to present content, LIT

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Live Interactive Television 9

is mainly comprised of images of the instructor with small numbers of visual imagesinterspersed. Conventional television is carefully scripted and pre-planned. LITincludes a significant amount of spontaneous and impromptu teaching. The tele-vision is used as a vehicle to carry the image of the instructor and the learning aidsemployed, and very little use is made of the forms of imagery and presentationassociated with commercially prepared programs.

Descriptions of research among telecourses with a continuous audio link indicatethat audio interactions can be used extensively in delivering and elaborating onlesson content. Kirby & Boak (1989) performed a content analysis of the teacher-student discourse in such a setting. Their results revealed that teachers initiated thevast majority of the interactions and the majority of the discourse was didacticinstruction and explanation on the part of the teacher. Questions were used toinvoke responses in much the same way as teachers use questioning in face-to-faceteaching. The questions tended to be narrow and convergent requiring littlereflection or consideration on the part of the learners. Furthermore very littlecommunication was observed between students and very little student-initiateddiscourse occurred. This description of telecourse learning environments is sup-ported by Nahl (1993) and Pugliese (1994) who report a frequent reluctance on thepart of many learners to actively use the technology to facilitate interactions betweenlearners and instructors.

A common alternative to a full audioconferencing capability in teleteaching is theuse of a telephone communication link initiated by the student. This alternativesignificantly reduces the cost and equipment infrastructure needed to support theteleteaching program. The system enables students to phone the instructor during alesson usually on a toll-free number. Instructors provide opportunities for studentsto make the link during the lesson and when students do so, the teacher-studentdiscourse contributes to the lesson delivery. Many studies report that optimal use isfrequently not made of the interactive capabilities of teleteaching technologies. Insuch settings, students often express dissatisfaction with the lack of direct communi-cation with their instructors (e.g. McCleary & Egan, 1989; Pirrong & Lathen,1990).

Interactivity

Interactivity has become both the identifying feature and the holy grail of emergingtrends in the design and provision of distance education and open learning pro-grams. Modern technologies have the potential to overcome the isolation of distanceand open learning through the facility of communication lines and learning re-sources that are responsive to an individual's needs. Innovative applications of suchtechnologies as computer-mediated communications, multimedia and television cannow all be used to provide dynamic and customised learning environments. In thiscontext, any learning material or learning environment that provides the learner withmore than a passive learning environment is usually said to be interactive.

The interactivity in conventional classrooms that people often try to emulatein distance education and open learning through the new technologies is that

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associated with conversations between the teacher and the student. Whereas con-ventional interactions between teachers and remote students have tended to havebeen of an asynchronous nature, classroom conversations tend to be synchronousand in real-time. This is the sort of interactivity afforded by such technologies asteleteaching and live interactive television. Apart from offering support to teacher-student interactions, these technologies also provide scope to include the two othervital forms of interaction into distance education, learner-learner and learner-con-tent (Moore, 1989; Mason, 1994).

Interactivity is seen as the one aspect of conventional face-to-face teaching thathas traditionally been absent from open learning and distance education environ-ments Quler, 1990). The potential of new technologies to overcome this problemhas been met with high levels of enthusiasm by instructional designers and educationproviders alike. Interactivity offers many opportunities and advantages to the learn-ing environment. It provides a means to motivate and stimulate learners. At thesame time it provides the means for instructors to cause students to consider andreflect on the content and process of learning, and to seek deeper levels of learningand understanding of course content. Few people dispute the advantages to bederived from the inclusion of interactive elements in teaching and learning and theimplicit assumption that interactive environments are superior to others appears todrive much of the activity and development in this field.

Laurillard (1993) provides a succinct conceptual framework that describes thenature and roles of interactions in the educational process. Laurillard uses aconversational metaphor to discuss the essential elements needed in the teacher-studentdialogue for deep and meaningful learning to occur. In these descriptions, theindividualised interaction between student and teacher is critical. A one-to-one formof communication is clearly necessary for the full learning potential to be derived.

Much of the enthusiasm shown for such technologies as multimedia and com-puter mediated telecommunications comes from their capacity to provide a form ofone-to-one communication and conversation between the teacher and student. Withother forms of technology used in distance and open education, the provision ofone-to-one communication and interaction is extremely difficult to achieve as asingle teacher often needs to communicate with large numbers of external students.In such instances, the ability to sustain the forms of interactions described byLaurillard are difficult to achieve. Strategies that have been used to overcome thisproblem include a range of 'off-air' communication technologies including facsimilemachines, e-mail and telephone (Gunawardena, 1990).

Investigating instructional strategies and interactions

Several writers have performed an analysis of the forms of instructional strategiesand interactions that are supported by the technologies in live interactive televisionand similar settings. Dillon et al. (1991) identified 4 main types of teaching possiblein live interactive television: These are described as:

• instructor-centred, a didactic form of teaching with minimal discourse withstudents.

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• interactive, where teachers and students communicated freely,• individualised, where feedback was directed to individual students according to

their needs, and• experiential, where students are involved in dynamic activities supported by any

one of the three strategies described above.

In an analysis of a series of programs broadcast by the Oklahoma TelevisedInstruction System, Dillon et al. (1991) found that the majority of instructorsfavoured the first form of teaching and incorporated very little interactivity into theirinstructional programs.

Kirby & Boak (1989) describe an alternative system, SATA: System for Audio-Teleconferencing Analysis, for investigating interactions in audio-teleconferencingsettings. SATA provides the means to explore interactions in terms of the initiator,to whom they were directed, and both the content and the context of the interaction.Results of the application of this instrument once again revealed low levels of use ofthe full interactive capabilities. Questions tended to be narrow and convergent andfew opportunities were taken to extend and develop understanding through diver-gent and evaluative forms of interaction.

Henri & Parer (1993) suggest yet another framework for analysing interactionsin teleteaching environments. They suggest interactions can be characterisedin one of five forms, participative, social, interactive, cognitive and metacognitive.The main elements in the forms described by Henri & Parer (1993) are thenature and purpose of the interactions from a cognitive perspective. Theysee the interactions as being used in a supportive and collaborative contextthat promote thinking and reflection on the part of students in the learningprocess.

Many writers reviewing the instructional strategies employed by instructorsin interactive television teaching have raised the question of whether the attributesof effective face-to-face teaching are the same as what constitutes effective interac-tive television teaching (Gehlauf et al., 1991). In a study of interactive televisionteaching, Gelhauf et al. found that instructors tended to use only a narrow rangeof instructional strategies and these tended to be based on their conventionalteaching practices. There is an acceptance among many researchers that there arenew skills that must be developed to effectively teach through interactive television.Chung (1991) provides a detailed description of student perceptions of importantattributes of telecourses and a large number of the factors described by thestudents as essential relate directly to instructional strategies employed by theinstructors.

Previous research into LIT has demonstrated that this form of lesson delivery isnot necessarily inferior to face-to-face teaching, despite the reduced levels ofteacher-student discourse that can be achieved (McLoughlin, 1994). This finding islikely to be due to the fact that only minimal amounts of teacher-student interactionare observed in many face-to-face teaching settings. The instructional design pro-cesses that accompany conventional teaching planning appear to make little use ofinteractions with individual students as a means to develop lesson content. Most

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teacher-student interactions in teaching situations occur for reasons other thanproviding individualised feedback to aid individual learners. There appear to bemany different forms and functions for interactions to take (Cazden, 1988).

Research aims

The purpose of this study was to investigate live interactive television teachingstrategies with the view to determining the ways instructors used the interactivecapabilities of the technology in their lesson delivery. Initially we were interested inexamining the ways in which different instructors employed interactions in theirteaching in order to establish patterns of use and to quantify instructors' preferredforms of interactivity. Also of interest was the impact of the interactions created bythe instructors on the learning environment. The study sought to determine:

• the form, nature and purpose of the interactions in each instructional setting,• the level of student response, and• the impact of different interactive activities on lesson development and delivery,

through a detailed analysis of a range of local LIT teaching episodes andprograms.

Methodology

The investigation of interactions in LIT teaching and learning was carried out byanalysis of teacher-student discourse across a range of LIT courses and programs.Videotapes were obtained of 5 LIT courses representative of programming inWestern Australia. The courses included school, vocational and university deliveredprograms. Five consecutive lessons from each of the courses were observed andtranscriptions made of the teaching-learning interactions. A content analysis wasconducted across each of the programs to provide information to determine thenature and forms of interactions used in the instructional process.

Framework for analysis of interactions

This investigation involved the study of interactions and communication betweenparticipants, consistent with the conversational framework of Laurillard (1993).Consideration was given to procedures of classroom observation which have beenthe subject of debate and research (Flanders, 1970; Cazden, 1988). Interactionanalysis describes and categorises various aspects of instructional practices that takeplace between teachers and students in contexts where there is a teaching-learningtransaction. Such analyses are typically guided by an observation instrument consist-ing of a list of predetermined relevant categories of behaviours that observers lookfor and record. One criticism made of such schemes is that they consist of a set ofpredetermined categories that seriously limits and restricts the observers' percep-tions. In other words, using such an observation scheme would produce tunnel

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vision, because the observer would tend to see only behaviours that coincided withthe observation scheme.

A more recent scheme developed by Henri (1992), based on the findings ofcognitive psychology, aims to delve deeper into the different levels of meaning inmessages in order to study the complexity of the learning process. Content analysis,as this approach is known, is an analytical approach which highlights the criticaldimensions of the learning process: participative, interactive, social, cognitive andmetacognitive. Content analysis was chosen for the present study because of itspotential to provide a multilevel understanding of the learning process. The originalframework of Henri (1992) was developed for computer mediated communication(CMC) and as such contained components which were not entirely suited to ourpurposes. At the same time, it omitted components that we observed in preliminaryinvestigations.

The need for students to initiate interactions in LIT has the potential tosignificantly influence the type and forms of interactions which occur. At the sametime, the LIT environment with its strong visual component provides increasedopportunities for interactions of an expository nature, interactions not easilysupported by CMC. Initial analyses of our data revealed the existence of severaldistinct forms of interaction where information was being passed. We identifiedand labeled two discrete forms of Henri's interactive dimension, explanatory andexpository. A third dimension evident in LIT but not in CMC communicationswas labeled as procedural. This form of interaction describes communicationwhere administration and house-keeping are the main focus of the discussion.Henri's metacognition component describes interactions where students have causeto reflect on their own thinking and cognition. While this can be assessed in CMCenvironments, for example, from the written responses of students, it is moredifficult to judge in LIT. For this reason, we chose to include these forms ofinteractions within a single cognitive dimension. The social dimension was used in itsexisting form. Table I describes the dimensions by which we classified observedinteractions in LIT teaching and learning and provides an example and descriptionof each.

Data gathering

The videotape transcriptions for each of the courses were analysed using the aboveframework with each teacher-student communication being considered andclassified. Other details of each interaction were also noted including the number ofexchanges involved and duration of the exchanges. Most interactions were clearly ofone form and were classified with little difficulty. Some interactions, however, wereof a form that combined elements from two dimensions. For example, severalexchanges involved a social and explanatory form of communication. In such cases,it was possible to describe and classify two interactions in the one communicationepisode. In instances where there was doubt in the classification, another coder wasused to aid in the decision making.

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TABLE I. A Framework for investigating interactions in Live Interactive Television

Type ofinteraction Description Example

Social Teacher/student talkestablishing anddeveloping rapport

Procedural Teacher/student dialogueinvolving informationexchange on courserequirements andprocedures

Expository Student or teacherdemonstrating knowledge orskill in response to a directrequest from another

Explanatory Teacher using studentresponses to explainknowledge and developcontent

Cognitive Teacher providingconstructive feedback to astudent response causingthe student to reflectand to consider an alternativeperspective/reality.

T: Hello Mandy, how are you?S: Very well thank you.T: Great to hear from you, what are you

going to do for us?

S: Mr Gray, can you tell me how manypages you want us towrite?

T: I'm looking for about 2 pages in total.S: Can we use a topic of our own choice?

T: Can any one tell me the correct namefor this animal?

S: Is it raptorus maximus?T: No, but it is from the raptorus family.

T: This is how we place our fingers to playthe note A.Can you play an A for me Mandy?

S: Mandy plays an A.T: That was good but you have to blow a

bit harder and make sure your fingersare covering the holes completely.

T: Can you tell me what you think was themain reason for his actions?

S: He was angry and wanted to get even.T: But was that all? What about his wish to

improve his position and standing?S: I suppose but he did but I thought that

he would have done it differently.

Results

The following sections describe the nature and forms of interaction observed acrossthe 5 courses reviewed.

Program 1. 'Playing the Recorder'

This series of lessons involved a teacher using the television to teach remote studentsto play the recorder. The course was televised in a narrowcast format to primaryschool children in rural areas studying by correspondence. Students were invited to

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TABLE II. The number and relative frequency of interaction types in 'Playing the Recorder'

Type ofinteraction Description Number Frequency

Social Teacher greeting students as they phone in and askingquestions of a personal nature to establish and maintainrapport 19 56%

Procedural 0 0%

Expository Students playing the recorder at the teacher's requestand demonstrating to others their skills and musicality 13 38%

Explanatory Teacher using communications with a studio guest todemonstrate procedures and practices 2 6%

Cognitive 0 0%

participate in the course which acted as an enrichment adjunct to the conventionalprogram. Students electing to join in the course were supplied with course notes andmusic samples and given a program of instruction and activity to follow. Thetelevision programs acted as support for the overall course. Each lesson involved theteacher demonstrating the fingering and actions associated with playing notes on therecorder and playing small tunes. Students were invited to call through to play theirown tunes to show their skills and to demonstrate their progress.

The dialogue across five lessons was transcribed and analysed to determine thescope and extent of the different forms of interaction. The average number ofinteractions for each lesson was seven. Table II shows the number and frequency ofthe different forms of interaction observed.

All interactions in this series of lessons involved a social dimension as well assome other purpose. The teacher took the time to chat with each student who called,many of whom were known previously to him. The majority of the interactions alsoserved an expository purpose with a child playing a piece on the recorder. In almostall instances, the feedback was positive and general. There was minimal use madeof the students' playing to provide feedback that caused reflection or that causedsome change in performance or activity. There were a number of instances when thefeedback was used to make a general and explanatory point to all students. Therewere no procedural interactions. The television instruction was designed to sup-plement a correspondence course framework. Procedural matters were dealt withthrough independent interactions between the students and their course tutors.

There were some interesting observations to be made in this series of lessons. Inthe first instance, the fact that the course was attended on a voluntary basis and wasdesigned as an enrichment activity, significantly influenced the nature of the sup-porting television programs. The programs were designed to encourage and stimu-late participation. The aims of the programs were reflected in the type and nature ofthe interactions that were observed. At the same time, the nature of the course

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2

0

35

13

0

4%

0%

70%

26%

0%


TABLE III. The number and relative frequency of interaction types in 'Science Matters'


Social Presenter communicating with a viewer who had

called previously and gaining personal knowledge

Procedural —

Expository Expert responding to a direct question from a viewerExplanatory Expert and presenter discussing a science topic, the

expert asking questions of the presenter and usingthe answers in developing the lesson content

Cognitive —

content also influenced the forms of interactions that were evident and led to thestrong social and interactive type of dialogue and the absence of any exchanges of acognitive nature.

The nature of the teaching led to all interactions being student-initiated. Therewere several students who were frequent callers in this course. Naturally there weremany viewers who did not call and in order to promote more interactions, theteacher offered an incentive in the form of a prize. The offering of the incentiveclearly increased the number of callers and was a useful strategy in this instance.Because the purpose of the course was to stimulate interest, a measure of its successwas the number of callers rather than the nature of the interaction that followed.

Program 2. 'Science Matters'

Science Matters was a weekly television program broadcast by a local university toa public viewing audience with the intention of providing a series of interestingscience topics for general viewing with the support of a talkback feature to extendthe likely learning outcomes able to be achieved. A range of topics was chosen forthe course. Each program was anchored by a science teacher and involved a studiointerview/discussion with a relevant expert with viewers encouraged to call and toask questions or to answer questions posed by the presenters.

A typical session format saw the anchor person introducing the topic and alsointroducing the expert. The programs extended across a range of science fields andincluded such topics as spiders, cancer and dinosaurs. The experts tended to discussthe topics using a range of visual aids. The expert and the presenter would talk freelyamong themselves and this dialogue itself involved interactions which were import-ant in the context of the instruction. Table III shows a summary of the forms ofinteractions observed across the five types.

This series of programs proved to be quite interactive. Each program typicallyreceived 6 to 8 calls from viewers. There were few social interactions among these.

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This was brought about by the open nature of the course delivery and thechange in expert from program to program. There were only two social interactionsobserved and these occurred when viewers identified themselves as havingcalled previously and greeted the presenter in a manner that led to a socialexchange.

The explanatory interactions in the program were brought about through thepresenter and expert discussing aspects of the topic. The presenter frequently askedquestions and sought clarification in much the same way as face-to-face students doin normal classrooms. At the same time, the expert often spoke to the presenter andsought feedback as an instructional strategy.

The most commonly occurring interactions were those classified as expository.Through each episode, the students called with specific questions for the presenter.These questions were answered directly and often involved descriptions of a generalnature that would not have been given had the question not been asked. There wereno cognitive interactions observed. This was probably due to the fact that thequestions in the interactions were posed by the viewers and responded to by thepresenters rather than the other way around. The presenters gave direct answers toinformation-seeking questions.

Program 3. 'Computer Applications'

Computer Applications was a series of programs involving instruction and demon-stration in the use of a personal computer and applications software. The instructionwas well suited to television broadcast with screen displays and instructions andoutcomes clearly presented on the TV monitor. The series of programs was aimedat providing elementary computer instruction for general viewing and sought to takecomputer novices with computer hardware and software along the track to computerself-sufficiency. An interactive element was built into the course to enable viewers tocall in if there were queries and questions that arose from the instruction beinggiven.

Students did not enrol in this course. They were able to obtain course materialsat minimal cost, through the University presenting the course. Surveys revealed thatthe audience was comprised of viewers who would view the program and attemptactivities and tasks in their own time between the weekly sessions. The lessons werepresented by an experienced instructor who had delivered the course several timespreviously. The content was well organised, paced evenly and presented in aneffective manner for novice computer users.

Viewers were frequently reminded of the talkback facility and encouraged to callin with questions. The presenter tended to follow a planned course of instructionand provided little opportunity for student participation other than direct questions.Whereas in other settings, the presenters planned and sought interactions throughdirect questions, offering incentives and appropriate presentation of content, thiscourse offered a general invitation to callers but did not have an established place forinteractions in the lesson design. As a consequence, few interactions resulted andthose that did were mainly of an expository nature, being direct questions from

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TABLE IV. The number and relative frequency of interaction types in 'Computer Applications'


Social — 0 0%

Procedural Answering a question relating to course materials andnotes

Expository Teacher responding to direct questions from viewers

Explanatory Teacher using response from a question as a startingpoint to demonstrate a concept and procedure

Cognitive —

2

15

40

10%

7 1 %

19%0%

students requiring specific answers. Table IV shows the number and frequency ofthe interactions.

The form of instruction delivered in this series of lessons appeared to be veryeffective. Feedback from students suggested that most were coping well with thecourse of instruction. The instruction followed sequences and procedures given tocomputer operations. In a number of instances, the instructor presented responsesto hypothetical questions and in doing so was able to maintain an appearance ofinteractivity when students chose not to call.

Program 4. 'Women in Australian Society'

This course was a 12 week series of lessons narrowcast to an enrolled viewingaudience in local access points in towns in rural Western Australia. Studentsenrolled in this course and received course materials and information supplementedby the interactive television broadcast. The course was designed as a short course forrural students and delivered through a vocational education program. The presenterwas aware of the enrolled students and received assignments and work samples fromthem throughout the course.

The nature of the lessons from week to week was a discussion of relevant topicsinviting responses from the viewers mingled with feedback on materials and worksubmitted by the students as part of the course requirements.

The interactive component within this series of lessons formed a significantpart of the teaching and learning. The instructor relied heavily on discussingissues and problems with the students as a means of presenting the coursecontent and causing students to reflect and consider. The lessons were plannedwith interactions as a critical teaching element. An analysis of the ensuinginteractions revealed significant differences in this series of lessons to othersbeing studied. Table V shows the different forms of interaction across the 5episodes.

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10

0

0

32%

0%

0%


TABLE V. The number and relative frequency of interaction types in 'Women in Australian Society'


Social Teacher chatting with individual students as they call,

discussing such aspects as lifestyles and occupation

Procedural —

Expository —

Explanatory Teacher using student responses to develop contentand to provide examples supporting learning statements 9 29%

Cognitive Discussing feedback with individual students, probingand questioning to cause each to reflect and considertheir beliefs and attitudes and to defend positions taken 12 39%

This was a course in which cognitive interactions were evident. The presenterused the cognitive interactions to draw information from students and to cause themto consider responses and to reflect on their own impressions and attitudes. It wasevident that in doing this, the presenter was using the responses of individual callersto assist not only the caller to attend to salient aspects, but also the other viewers.Each cognitive interaction tended to involve a large number of teacher-studentexchanges. In some instances there were in excess of 20 exchanges in a single call.The instructor would challenge and question the students causing each to elaborate,clarify and defend a stance or point of view. Because this was an enrolled course andthe interactions were frequent, the teacher came to know the students and often thefirst part of an interaction involved a social exchange. The frequency and forms ofinteraction in this course were considerably different from those seen in otherprograms.

Program 5. 'Childcare'

The Childcare course was a 15 week course delivered through correspondence modeto rural students as part of an award course. The television component was asupplement to the correspondence mode and was received by the rural students atlocal access points. The interactive element provided a means for student-teachercommunication and was planned into each lesson by the instructor.

This component of the overall program dealt with the development of activitiesand materials for young children and the interactive television was used verysuccessfully to expand students' awareness of the different forms of materials andactivities that were appropriate to their needs. The instructor encouraged studentsto call and to share their work with others. This sharing included singing songs onair, sending work samples for display to the others and sharing creative ideas. Eachlesson had a large portion devoted to student interactions and it was not uncommonfor half of the lesson to be spent with the teacher talking to individual students.

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TABLE VI. The number and relative frequency of interaction types in 'Childcare'


Social Teacher chatting with individual students as they call,discussing such aspects as lifestyles and occupation 5 15%

Procedural Teacher/student dialogue involving informationexchange on course requirements and procedures 13 39%

Expository Student or teacher demonstrating knowledge orskill in response to a direct request from another 1 3%

Explanatory Teacher seeking and using student responses andcommunication to explain knowledge and developcontent 11 33%

Cognitive Teacher providing feedback to an individualstudent causing reflection and considerationand bringing about a changed perspective 3 10%

Table VI shows the number and frequency of the interactions observed for fivelessons from this series.

The form of dialogue that was encouraged saw many of the interactions being ofan explanatory form where the teacher encouraged other students to help presentcourse content. These forms of interactions tended to involve many short exchangesbetween the student and instructor. In this way a considerable part of the teachingin any session was actually as a result of student explanation with the instructorguiding. At times, these explanations became cognitive interactions as the instructorprobed and questioned students to further understanding.

This set of lessons revealed a large number of procedural interactions. Studentsfrequently asked questions relating to course requirements when they called. Theseinteractions tended to be handled quickly by the instructor who then took theopportunity to establish a dialogue with the student resulting in forms of exchangesrepresenting other forms of interactivity. Frequently a procedural interaction with astudent was followed immediately by an explanatory or expository interaction.

Discussion

Analysis of the different forms of interaction used in teaching episodes across avariety of courses using LIT revealed some interesting differences and patterns. Inthe first instance there was considerable variation in the amount of interactivity usedin the different programs. There were, on average, approximately seven teacher-stu-dent interactions per teaching episode across the five courses. The number ofinteractions varied from an average of four per lesson in Computer Applications tonearly 10 per lesson in Science Matters programs. The number of interactions was

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clearly influenced by the nature of the instruction being provided and the studentsresponses to this. Much of the content in the Science Matters programs wasdetermined by the students themselves while the Computer Applications coursefollowed a defined curriculum. There was an even level of interactivity among theother three programs but large differences in the types of interactions observed.

The most common form of interaction used in all settings was expository andinvolved answers to direct question, either teacher or student initiated. Othercommon interactions that were observed were social and explanatory. Both of thesewere seen to serve useful purposes and were used frequently by the teachers. In onesetting, there was a high proportion of procedural interactivity while most othercourses demonstrated very little of this. It was interesting but not unexpected to findthat low levels of cognitive interactivity were prevalent in most teaching settings.Cognitive interactions tend to be difficult to initiate and support with this technol-ogy. This is interesting because one of the main reasons given to support the needfor teacher-student interactivity in distance learning is based on the contention thatinteractions are able to enhance cognition and higher order learning. In LIT, the useof interactions for this purpose is not strongly evident.

The forms of interactivity evident in LIT episodes seem influenced to a largedegree by the nature of the course and the viewing audience. In courses where therewere enrolled students, for example Childcare and Women in Australian Society,the instructors tended to use the interactions as teaching instruments. Explanatoryand cognitive interactions were quite prevalent. In situations where the audience wasopen and the instruction less focused on a course, for example Computer Applica-tions and Science Matters, the interactions were expository in the main and lesslinked to a planned instructional program.

The study also found that the different types of interactions involve differingnumber of exchanges. The cognitive interactions were clearly those with the highestlevels of teacher-student exchanges. It was not uncommon to see over 20 exchangesin a single dialogue. The explanatory interactions involved many but fewer ex-changes than the cognitive interactions. Expository and procedural interactions werefrequently completed in less than four exchanges. On the other hand, socialinteractions often involved up to 10 short exchanges between students and teachers.Clearly it is important for instructors to consider the forms of interactions that willbe sought in planning a lesson. Different interaction types can have a considerableinfluence on the time it will take to adequately deal with the exchanges and as aresult will impact on the lesson delivery.

Our study found that communication with a student in a live television settingcan involve several forms of interaction. Frequently we observed a social interactionfollowed by an expository or explanatory interaction. In most instances, the socialinteraction is teacher-initiated and once complete, the student is able to initiate thedesired form of interaction. In other cases, it was observed that many student-initiated procedural interactions could be extended by the teacher to an expositoryor explanatory interaction by astute questioning or extension.

Of particular interest in our study were the large differences to be found in thetype and nature of interactions between the different types of instruction and

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program. We observed differences between all 5 of the courses studied, despitesimilarities in intended learning outcomes among many of them. It was clear thatteachers tended to use different forms of instructional design based on their ownpreferred teaching styles. Differences in interaction patterns were also likely to havebeen caused by other variations in the instructional programs brought about by suchfactors as the abilities of the students in the different courses, level of learning beingsought, the scope and nature of the support materials provided to students, thequestioning styles of the teachers and levels of motivation and engagement of thelearners.

Students were observed to play a major role in the interactive episodes in all thelessons that were observed. In the first instance, the students initiated the interactionand did so with some specific intent. This tends to be quite different from normalteacher-student interactions where the teacher is usually the initiator of the interac-tion. When the teacher initiates the dialogue, the student usually responds directlyto either a question or an imperative. In LIT settings, it is the teacher who initiallybecomes the respondent. It is only after the student's request has been answered thatthe teacher can perhaps initiate some further dialogue or communication. In thisstudy, it was clear that many instructors chose not to further the communicationafter the initial dialogue. This resulted in a large number of exchanges that tendedto be short in duration and involved low levels of cognitive activity on the part ofteacher and student. It was evident however that cognitive interactions are possibleand relatively easy to implement through appropriate instructor-led communicationand dialogue.

Summary and conclusions

Live Interactive Television is a popular medium among many rural students as anadjunct and support for open learning courses and programs. Despite limitations inthe interactivity it can support, it appears that the interactions that are achieved ininstructional applications can serve very useful purposes. Our study has found thatinstructors tend to use the interactive elements, more to create a supportive andstimulating learning environment than for instructional support. Observations of theforms of instructor-student dialogue revealed that the most frequently employedwere those of an informative and discursive nature where either party gave infor-mation to the other in relatively short exchanges.

It would appear that instructors may be under-utilising the potential of LIT asa medium capable of supporting cognitive interactions. Most instructors appear touse the interactive capability in a secondary capacity in their teaching and learning.Using the interactions for other than short exchanges in LIT has its inherentdifficulties. As stated earlier, the instructor must wait for the student to call beforeany form of dialogue is possible. Once a call has been received, the instructor has totake control of the communication in order to initiate interactions of a highercognitive order than might normally occur. This requires a degree of skill andexperience on the part of the instructor and would appear to be a skill that mighttake some time to develop. At the same time, the instructor needs to be able to

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incorporate interactive elements into the planned instructional program. In thisregard, LIT appears to require particular instructional design considerations thatcould be explicitly stated as a guide for intending instructors.

It is likely that LIT will continue to be used in the local context as a deliverymedium for a range of open learning programs. The outcomes from this researchhave demonstrated possible shortcomings in current instructional design for thismedium. Most instructors appear to make only limited use of the interactivecapabilities and there appears to be considerable potential to extend learningoutcomes. In our future research we plan to investigate strategies that can beemployed in teaching with LIT to increase the level of cognitive interactions whilemaintaining an environment that is supportive and stimulating for all participants. Inthis research, we intend to inquire more into teaching outcomes and to seekrelationships between forms of interaction and such variables as achievement,teacher satisfaction, student satisfaction and enjoyment.

Notes on contributors

RON OLIVER has a background in computer education and instructional. Researchinterests include children's information technology skills, using interactive technolo-gies for information, instruction and training, and the use of computer and telecom-munications technologies in flexible and open learning.

CATHERINE McLOUGHLIN is an instructional designer involved in the programdevelopment and instructor training for open learning courses programs deliveredthrough telecommunications technologies. Her research interests include languageand communication and she is currently researching communications and interac-tions within technology-based teaching and learning.

Correspondence: Ron Oliver, Department of Library and Information Science, EdithCowan University, 2 Bradford St, Mt Lawley 6050, Western Australia. Phone:+ 619 370 6372; Fax: +619 370 2910; e-mail: [email protected]

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Documents

Interaction Patterns in Teaching and Learning with Live Interactive Television