The preferences toward constructivist Internet-based learning environments among university students in Taiwan

Computers in

Computers in Human Behavior 24 (2008) 16–31

Human Behavior

www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

The preferences toward constructivistInternet-based learning environments among

university students in Taiwan

Chin-Chung Tsai *

Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education,

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, #43, Sec. 4, Keelung Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan

Available online 7 February 2007

Abstract

Numerous educators have proposed the development of constructivist Internet-based learningenvironments for students. When creating the constructivist Internet-based learning environments,it is important for researchers to be aware of students’ preferences toward these environments.Through gathering data from 659 university students in Taiwan, this study developed a question-naire to assess students’ preferences toward constructivist Internet-based learning environments.The questionnaire, with adequate validity and reliability, included 34 items on the following sevenscales: relevance, multiple sources (and interpretations), challenge, student negotiation, cognitiveapprenticeship, reflective thinking and epistemological awareness. The questionnaire responsesrevealed that male students tended to prefer the Internet-based learning environments where theycould solve challenging problems, acquire cognitive apprenticeship and guidance from experts,and promote epistemological development than did female students. The findings also suggestedthat, if educators intend to develop Internet-based learning environments for more academicallyadvanced students, such as graduate students, care should be taken to create more opportunitiesfor them to negotiate ideas, obtain proper guidance, reflect their own thoughts, and explore episte-mological issues. Finally, students with more Internet experiences tended to demand more on manyfeatures of the constructivist Internet-based learning environments than those with less Internetexperiences.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

0747-5632/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2006.12.002

* Tel.: +886 2 27376511; fax: +886 2 27376433.E-mail address: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

C.-C. Tsai / Computers in Human Behavior 24 (2008) 16–31 17

Keywords: Internet-based learning environments; University; Constructivism; Internet-based instruction; Taiwan

1. Introduction

Currently, constructivism is an important paradigm for guiding research and practice ineducation (Bopry, 1999; Fosnot, 1996; Terwel, 1999; Wen & Tsai, 2003). The constructiv-ist theory asserts that knowledge is actively constructed by each individual, and that socialinteractions with others are also influential in the constructive process (Brooks & Brooks,1993; Tsai, 2001a). Therefore, the constructivist theory stresses the perspective thatinstruction needs to carefully consider learners’ prior knowledge as well as individualdifferences, and it should properly encourage peer as well as student-to-teacher interac-tions. The Internet technology has shaped many profound insights for the developmentof so-called constructivist learning environments. For instance, the Internet-based learningenvironments, with hypertextual structures of presenting information, provide more flex-ible ways of learning to fulfill individual needs. Students also can have more alternatives ofand control over their learning time and pace, as well as the learning objectives andoutcomes. Internet-based communications, such as e-mails and on-line discussion forums,can facilitate more peer and student-to-teacher interactions. Consequently, many research-ers (e.g., Chou & Tsai, 2002; French, Hale, Johnson, & Farr, 1999; Tsai, 2001a) have sug-gested that the features of the Internet-based learning environments and the constructivisttheory share similar facets for the improvement of teaching practice. Developing construc-tivist Internet-based learning environments may be one of valuable tasks for contempo-rary educators.

When designing the constructivist Internet-based learning environments, it is impor-tant for researchers to know students’ preferences toward these environments. That is,their preferences should be perceived as a crucial foundation for the further developmentof the environments. Chuang and Tsai (2005) and Wen et al. (2004) have developed aquestionnaire to survey high school students’ preferences toward the constructivist Inter-net-based learning environments, including the scales of ‘‘ease of use’’, ‘‘relevance’’,‘‘challenge’’, ‘‘student negotiation’’, ‘‘inquiry learning’’, and ‘‘reflective thinking’’. Thequestionnaire was called as Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment survey(CILES). CILES was mainly modified from the one proposed by Maor (2000, 2001),which assessed students’ perceptions toward the constructivist multimedia learning envi-ronments. Chuang and Tsai (2005) and Wen et al. (2004) have surveyed many highschool students’ preferences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environ-ments by using CILES. The research data derived from CILES have suggested that highschool students showed stronger preferences for the learning environments where theyare easy to use or navigate, and where they can meaningfully integrate real-life problemswith relevant knowledge. Moreover, the students having mild Internet experiencesseemed to be more critical to the preferences of the Internet-based learning environments,in which they preferred authentic and facilitated Internet-based learning environments,and their inquiry and reflective thinking should be appropriately promoted (Chuang &Tsai, 2005).

18 C.-C. Tsai / Computers in Human Behavior 24 (2008) 16–31

Nevertheless, as CILES was revised on the basis of multimedia learning environ-ments, some important features derived from the constructivist Internet-based learningenvironments were not revealed. This study believes that there are at least three importantattributes of the constructivist Internet-based learning environments that were notexplored in CILES.

First, the rich connections and various information sources were viewed as an eminentfeature for the Internet-based learning environments (Tsai, 2001a). Through the Internet,students can navigate and search abundant on-line information and then acquire usefulmaterials and relevant knowledge. However, students’ preferences toward this featurewere not addressed in CILES.

Second, the constructivist epistemology focuses not only on student individual inquiryor student-centered approach, but also on the cognitive apprenticeship provided by teach-ers or experienced peers (Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy, & Perry, 1992; Black & McClin-tock, 1996; Brooks & Brooks, 1993). As a result, the constructivist Internet-basedlearning environments should place an emphasis on the cognitive apprenticeship guidedby experts. The Internet technology, providing effectively distant communication via eithersynchronous or asynchronous, facilitates the process of cognitive apprenticeship. Forinstance, Post-Zwicker et al. (1999) have provided Internet-based learning environmentswhere high school students could conduct experiments of plasma physics and fusionenergy with professional scientists and then obtain real-time data analyses and interpreta-tions. By this way, the Internet-based learning environments can effectively offer cognitiveapprenticeships for students. As another example, Tsai, Liu, Lin, and Yuan (2001), Tsai,Lin, and Yuan (2002) and Tseng and Tsai (in press) have implemented Internet-basedlearning environments to help students enhance their learning by interactive peer feed-back. Many experienced peers have offered beneficial responses to their learning peersvia the on-line peer supportive systems. Again, the Internet-based learning environmentsestablish suitable channels for students to obtain cognitive apprenticeship from sophisti-cated others.

The third important feature ignored in the CILES is related to the ‘‘epistemologicalawareness’’ provided by the Internet-based learning environments. Epistemology is thestudy of knowledge and knowing, which deals with the nature of knowledge (Hofer,2001; Sinatra, 2001). Due to the rich information in Internet-based resources and decon-textualized nature of Internet-based interactions, Tsai (2004) claims that the use of theInternet should not be limited in cognitive or metacognitive tools; rather, it can beperceived as an ‘‘epistemological’’ tool. For example, the diverse perspectives within theInternet-based environments afford opportunities for learners to develop evaluative stan-dards to judge the merits of information and knowledge, thus exploring some epistemolog-ical issues. The use of the Internet as an epistemological tool also implies a criticaljudgment regarding the value and validity of the information on the Internet (Tsai,2001b, 2004). The constructivist Internet-based learning environments, thus, should notonly offer a plenty of information or knowledge, but also help students deeply elaborateor evaluate the nature of knowledge. In other words, the environments should provokestudents’ epistemological awareness.

As a result, this study developed a new questionnaire for assessing students’ prefer-ences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environments, called CILES-revised (CILES-R). CILES-R included all of the scales (factors) in the CILES, whichhad been proposed by Chuang and Tsai (2005) and Wen, Tsai, Lin, and Chuang


(2004), as well as three aforementioned features (factors). Also, as university studentsmay be one of the major groups using the Internet-based learning environments, thecurrent study surveyed a group of university students’ preferences. Through gatheringquestionnaire responses from 659 university students in Taiwan, the reliability and valid-ity of CILES-R were examined. Then, the students’ responses on each factor were ana-lyzed. In addition, the roles of gender, student grade levels and Internet experiences onthe preferences were investigated.

2. Method

2.1. Sample

The participants of this study were 659 university students from more than 15 univer-sities in Taiwan. The majority of the participants were studying their undergraduatedegrees (67.3%), while 32.6% were graduate school students. Among these students, 320students were female. About a half the participants (55.8%, n = 368) majored in science,medicine and engineering, while the remaining students majored in art/social sciences orrelated fields. Although this sample could not be viewed as a national sample, the surveyedstudents came from a variety of universities in Taiwan, across different demographic areasand backgrounds, and they may, to a certain extent, be said to represent many universitystudents in Taiwan.

2.2. The development of CILES-R

To fully explore the perspectives of the constructivist Internet-based learning environ-ments, this study integrated the frameworks proposed by Tsai (2004) and Wen et al.(2004), which classified the features of Internet-based learning environments into thefollowing five aspects: technical, content, cognitive, metacognitive, and epistemological.The description about these is presented in Table 1. For example, the ‘‘content’’ aspectassesses the features of the information contained in the Internet-based learning envi-ronments, and the ‘‘cognitive’’ aspect is related to the cognitive activities or strategiesinvolved in the Internet-based learning environments. The aspects shown in Table 1 alsoimply a hierarchy, an ascending priority from more fundamental or lower-order (e.g.,technical) to higher-order aspect (e.g., epistemological). In addition, each aspect includesone to three factors (or scales) for this study to develop questionnaire items (shown inTable 1). For instance, the ‘‘content’’ aspect consists of ‘‘relevance’’, ‘‘multiple sourcesand interpretations’’, and ‘‘challenge’’ scales, while the scales of ‘‘student negotiation’’,‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’ and ‘‘inquiry learning’’ are categorized as those in the‘‘cognitive’’ aspect.

For the initial development of CILES-R, a total of nine scales (distributed across fiveaspects, Table 1) were utilized. The scales of ‘‘multiple sources and interpretations’’,‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’ and ‘‘epistemological awareness’’ were newly added byCILES-R, while the remaining six scales were the same as those proposed by originalCILES. All of these scales were designed to investigate students’ preferences toward theconstructivist Internet-based learning environments. A detailed description of the ninescales, with a sample item, was presented below:

Table 1The aspects and scales considered in the development of CILES-R

Aspect Description Factor(s) or scale(s)included

Technical Assessing the technical usage in the Internet-based learningenvironments

� Ease of usea

Content Exploring the features of the information contained in theInternet-based learning environments

� Relevancea

� Multiple sources andinterpretationsb

� Challengea

Cognitive Investigating the cognitive activities or strategies involved in theInternet-based learning environments

� Student negotiationa

� Cognitiveapprenticeshipb

� Inquiry learninga

Metacognitive Assessing the possibility of promoting metacognitive thinkingby the Internet-based learning environments

� Reflective thinkinga

Epistemological Examining the opportunities of exploring the nature ofknowledge as provided by the Internet-based learningenvironments

� Epistemologicalawarenessb

a Original scale in CILES.b New scale in this study (CILES-R).


1. Ease of use scale: measuring perceptions of the extent to which students prefer that theInternet-based learning environments are easy-to-use, e.g., when navigating in theInternet-based learning environments, I prefer that they are easy to navigate.

2. Relevance scale: assessing perceptions of the extent to which students prefer that theInternet-based learning environments are authentic and represent real life situations,e.g., when navigating in the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that theypresent information that is relevant to me.

3. Multiple sources and interpretations: exploring perceptions of the extent to whichstudents prefer that the Internet-based learning environments contain various informa-tion sources and interpretations, e.g., when navigating in the Internet-based learningenvironments, I prefer that they can provide a variety of relevant web links.

4. Challenge scale: measuring perceptions of the extent to which students prefer that theInternet-based learning environments are challenging but helpful in problem solving,e.g., when navigating in the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that theyhelp me to generate new questions.

5. Student negotiation scale: assessing perceptions of the extent to which students prefer tohave opportunities to explain and modify their ideas to other students in the Internet-based learning environments, e.g., in the Internet-based learning environments, I preferthat I can ask other students to explain their ideas.

6. Cognitive apprenticeship scale: exploring perceptions of the extent to which studentsprefer to have opportunities to acquire helpful and timely guidance provided bythe Internet-based learning environments, e.g., when navigating in the Internet-basedlearning environments, I prefer that they can provide useful feedback to guidelearning.


7. Inquiry learning scale: investigating perceptions of the extent to which students prefer tohave the opportunities to be engaged in inquiry learning in the Internet-based learningenvironments, e.g., in the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that I cancarry out investigations to test my own ideas.

8. Reflective thinking scale: measuring perceptions of the extent to which students prefer tohave the opportunities to promote critical self-reflective thinking in the Internet-basedlearning environments, e.g., in the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that Ican think deeply about my own understanding.

9. Epistemological awareness scale: assessing perceptions of the extent to which studentsprefer to have opportunities to explore the value, source, merit or nature of knowledge,e.g., when navigating in the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that they candisplay the source of knowledge.

In this study, each scale included five items, which were presented in a five-point Likertmode, ranging from ‘‘strongly agree’’ to ‘‘strongly disagree’’. Consequently, a total of 45items were taken for developing CILES-R. Two experts in the field of Internet-basedinstruction commented on the items for content validity, and five university students wereselected to clarify the wording of each item.

Students’ responses were scored as follows. For the ‘‘strongly agree’’ response wasassigned a score of 5, while for the ‘‘strongly disagree’’ response was assigned a score of1. Hence, students gaining higher scores in a certain scale showed stronger preferencestoward the specific feature of the constructivist Internet-based learning environments.Then, by using exploratory factor analysis, some items or scales, which did not haveacceptable factor loadings or eigenvalues, might be finally deleted. The remaining itemsand scales would constitute the final version of CILES-R.

3. Results

3.1. Factor analysis

This study utilized the exploratory factor analysis, principle component analysis withvarimax rotation, to clarify the structure of the perceptions toward the constructivistInternet-based learning environments. An item was retained only when it loaded greaterthan 0.50 on the relevant factor and less than 0.50 on the non-relevant factor. Conse-quently, the university students’ preferences were grouped into seven orthogonal factors,which were: relevance, multiple sources (and interpretations), challenge, student negotia-tion, cognitive apprenticeship, reflective thinking and epistemological awareness. Thescales of the ‘‘ease of use’’ and ‘‘inquiry learning’’ and one item in the ‘‘challenge’’ scaledid not be kept as a result of the factor analysis. Thus, the initial 45 items were reducedto 34 items (as shown in Table 2). The seven factors retained in the CILES-R accountedfor 64% of variance. The eigenvalues of the seven factors from principle component anal-ysis were all larger than one. The reliability (alpha) coefficients, respectively, for thesescales were 0.78, 0.85, 0.71, 0.88, 0.83, 0.85 and 0.85, and the overall alpha coefficientfor all 34 items was 0.94, recommending that these scales of the CILES-R had fairlysatisfactory reliability in assessing university students’ preferences toward the constructiv-ist Internet-based learning environments. A full list of the items for the final version ofCILES-R is presented in Appendix A.

Table 2Factor analysis of CILES-R

Item Factor 1:relevance

Factor 2: multiplesources andinterpretations

Factor 3:Challenge

Factor 4:studentnegotiation

Factor 5:cognitiveapprenticeship

Factor 6:reflectivethinking

Factor 7:epistemologicalawareness

Factor 1: relevance (RE) a = 0.78RE1 0.610RE2 0.549RE3 0.675RE4 0.673RE5 0.504

Factor 2: multiple sources and interpretations (MS) a = 0.85MS1 0.654MS2 0.703MS3 0.725MS4 0.763MS5 0.730

Factor 3: challenge (CH) a = 0.71CH1 0.672CH2 0.755CH3 0.610CH4 0.635

Factor 4: student negotiation (SN) a = 0.88SN1 0.676SN2 0.671SN3 0.760SN4 0.826SN5 0.820

Factor 5: cognitive apprenticeship (CA) a = 0.83CA1 0.736CA2 0.684CA3 0.592CA4 0.683CA5 0.654

Factor 6: reflective thinking (RT) a = 0.85RT1 0.538RT2 0.725RT3 0.675RT4 0.598RT5 0.593

Factor 7: epistemological awareness (EA) a = 0.85EA1 0.533EA2 0.833EA3 0.845EA4 0.768EA5 0.653

Notes: Overall a = 0.94, total variance explained is 64.0%.



3.2. Students’ scores on the scale

Table 3 shows students’ average item scores and standard deviations on the seven scalesof the CILES-R. The students scored highest on the relevance scale (an average of 4.34 peritem), indicating that they preferred the learning environments which could make moremeaningful connections between real life situations and intended knowledge. Students alsogained relatively higher scores on the ‘‘multiple sources and interpretations’’ and ‘‘reflec-tive thinking’’ scales (mean = 4.27 and 4.26, respectively). However, they had the lowestscores on the ‘‘challenge’’ scale (mean = 3.86), implying that there were at least somestudents who did not intend to be engaged in complicated and challenging situationsand problem-solving.

3.3. Gender differences on the scales

This study further explored students’ gender differences on the scales, shown in Table 4.The results suggested that male students tended to attain higher scores on the ‘‘chal-lenge’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’ and ‘‘epistemological awareness’’ scales than didfemale students. The male students tended to prefer the Internet-based learning environ-ments where they could solve complex and challenging situations, acquire cognitiveapprenticeship and guidance from experts, and promote epistemological development.Many previous studies (e.g., Durndell & Haag, 2002; Tsai, Lin, & Tsai, 2001) revealedthat male students showed more favorable attitudes toward Internet than did femalestudents; and males were found to have lower anxiety and higher control when usingthe Internet. This study advanced these findings and further suggested that male

Table 3Students scores on the scales of CILES-R (n = 659)

Scale Mean (per item) SD Range

Relevance 4.34 0.46 2.4–5.0Multiple sources and interpretations 4.27 0.53 2.4–5.0Challenge 3.86 0.57 2.25–5.0Student negotiation 4.00 0.56 2.6–5.0Cognitive apprenticeship 4.18 0.51 2.2–5.0Reflective thinking 4.26 0.50 2.4–5.0Epistemological awareness 4.10 0.55 2.0–5.0

Table 4Gender differences on the scales of CILES-R

Scale Male (mean, SD) (n = 339) Female (mean, SD) (n = 320) t

Relevance 4.35 (0.44) 4.33 (0.47) 0.34Multiple sources and interpretations 4.28 (0.55) 4.26 (0.52) 0.48Challenge 3.91 (0.59) 3.80 (0.56) 2.55*

Student negotiation 4.02 (0.57) 3.98 (0.54) 0.99Cognitive apprenticeship 4.22 (0.50) 4.14 (0.52) 2.05*

Reflective thinking 4.29 (0.52) 4.24 (0.47) 1.28Epistemological awareness 4.17 (0.54) 4.03 (0.56) 3.10**

* p < 0.05.** p < 0.01.


students had stronger preferences for the Internet-based learning environments withemphases on the features of ‘‘challenging’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, and ‘‘epistemo-logical awareness’’.

3.4. Grade level differences on the scales

Furthermore, the differences of the students’ responses on the CILES-R in differentgrade levels were also investigated. The surveyed participants of this study were dividedinto three groups: the ‘‘freshmen and sophomore’’ group (n = 167), the ‘‘junior andsenior’’ group (n = 277), and the ‘‘graduate’’ group (n = 215). Then, a series of ANOVAtest analyses were conducted in this study. Table 5 presents the analysis between differentgrade-level groups and their CILES-R responses.

The ANOVA tests showed that the grade level played a significant role in the ‘‘chal-lenge’’, ‘‘student negotiation’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, ‘‘reflective thinking’’ and ‘‘epis-temological awareness’’ scales (p < 0.05). Moreover, a series of Scheffe tests (post hoc tests)further indicated that students in the ‘‘graduate’’ group tended to have statistically higherscore than those in the ‘‘freshmen and sophomore’’ group in the scales of ‘‘student nego-tiation’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, ‘‘reflective thinking’’ and ‘‘epistemological aware-ness’’. Also, students in the ‘‘junior and senior’’ group gained higher scores in the‘‘challenge’’ and ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’ scales than those in the ‘‘freshmen and soph-omore’’ group. However, the scales of ‘‘relevance’’ and ‘‘multiple sources and interpreta-tions’’ did not reveal significant differences among these grade groups.

There were, at least, two important trends revealed by these findings. First, the stu-dents in the advanced grade level (e.g., graduate level) tended to show stronger prefer-ences in some scales than did those in lower grade level (e.g., freshmen and sophomore).Second, the significant differences were revealed in some higher-order factors or aspects(e.g., cognitive, metacognitive and epistemological) as assessed by CILES-R (or asshown by Table 1). For instance, in the ‘‘epistemological awareness’’ scale, the graduatestudents clearly attained higher scores than the other two groups of students. This find-ing somewhat concurs with the theory of Perry (1970) that the experiences of highereducation help university students enhance epistemological thinking. This part ofresults, in general, suggested that students with more years of education may havedemanded more on some higher-order aspects or features of the Internet-based learningenvironments.

3.5. Internet experiences and the responses on CILES-R

Many studies (e.g., Durndell & Haag, 2002; Schumacher & Morahan-Martin, 2001;Tsai et al., 2001) have shown that students’ Internet experiences are related to their atti-tudes and behaviors of using the Internet. Students with more experiences, in general,displayed better attitudes and strategies of using the Internet. These studies often viewedstudents’ length of time of which they used Internet per week as one variable for represent-ing their Internet experiences. This study classified the sample students into three groupsof different levels of Internet experiences: less than 15 h per week, 15–35 h per week, andover 35 h per week. In the sample, about 187 among the 659 students (28.4%) self-reportedthat they had spent, in average, less than 15 h on the Internet every week; 260 students(39.5%) 15–35 h per week; and 212 students (32.2%) over 35 h per week. Table 6 presents

Table 5CILES-R responses on different grade level groups

Grade level Relevance(mean, SD)

Multiple sources andinterpretations (mean,SD)

Challenge(mean, SD)

Studentnegotiation(mean, SD)

Cognitiveapprenticeship(mean, SD)

Reflectivethinking (mean,SD)

Epistemologicalawareness (mean,SD)

(1) Freshmen andsophomore(n = 167)

4.27 (0.43) 4.24 (0.45) 3.77 (0.58) 3.91 (0.54) 4.03 (0.48) 4.17 (0.48) 3.96 (0.52)

(2) Junior and senior(n = 277)

4.36 (0.49) 4.30 (0.59) 3.92 (0.59) 4.02 (0.59) 4.19 (0.50) 4.28 (0.50) 4.06 (0.60)

(3) Graduate(n = 215)

4.37 (0.43) 4.27 (0.52) 3.85 (0.54) 4.06 (0.53) 4.29 (0.51) 4.31 (0.50) 4.26 (0.49)

F(ANOVA) 2.48 0.59 3.37* 3.47* 13.41*** 4.06* 15.05***

(2) > (1) (3) > (1) (2) > (1) (3) > (1) (3) > (1)(3) > (1) (3) > (2)

* p < 0.05.*** p < 0.001.

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Table 6Students’ Internet experiences and CILES-R scores

Internetusage perweek

Relevance (mean,SD)

Multiple sourcesand interpretations(mean, SD)

Challenge(mean, SD)

Studentnegotiation(mean, SD)

Cognitiveapprenticeship(mean, SD)

Reflective thinking(mean, SD)

Epistemologicalawareness (mean,SD)

(1) Below15 h(n = 187)

4.24 (0.46) 4.16 (0.53) 3.83 (0.59) 3.95 (0.53) 4.12 (0.52) 4.16 (0.49) 4.00 (0.53)

(2) 15–35 h(n = 260)

4.34 (0.44) 4.33 (0.53) 3.88 (0.56) 4.01 (0.58) 4.17 (0.48) 4.30 (0.47) 4.10 (0.59)

(3) Over35 h(n = 212)

4.42 (0.45) 4.30 (0.52) 3.86 (0.57) 4.04 (0.56) 4.26 (0.53) 4.30 (0.52) 4.19 (0.53)

F (ANOVA) 8.48*** 5.73** 0.50 1.52 3.87* 5.52** 5.46**

Scheffe test (3) > (1) (2) > (1) (3) > (1) (2) > (1) (3) > (1)(3) > (1) (3) > (1)

* p < 0.05.** p < 0.01.*** p < 0.001.

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an analysis between different Internet experience groups and their preferences toward theconstructivist Internet-based learning environments.

The ANOVA tests showed that the Internet experiences played a statistically significantrole on all scales except those of ‘‘challenge’’ and ‘‘student negotiation’’. A series of Scheffetests (post hoc tests) further indicated that students with the most Internet experiences(35 h per week) tended to be more critical for many features of the constructivist Inter-net-based learning environments than did students with less Internet experiences (below15 h per week), as the students with the most Internet experiences attained significantlyhigher scores on five among the seven CILES-R scales (shown in Table 6). The rich expe-riences of using the Internet may have guided these students to shape higher standards forthe environments. Likewise, in the scales of ‘‘multiple sources and interpretations’’ and‘‘reflective thinking’’, students with mild Internet experiences (15–35 h per week) alsoexpressed stronger preferences than those with less experiences (less than 15 h per week).This part of findings, in general, supported that students with more Internet experiencestended to display more preferences or demand more on many features of the constructivistInternet-based learning environments than those with less experiences.

4. Discussion and implications

This study developed a CILES-R questionnaire to assess a group of Taiwanese universitystudents’ preferences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environments.CILES-R was revised from CILES (proposed by Chuang & Tsai, 2005 & Wen et al.,2004), and it included the following seven scales with adequate reliability and validity: rele-vance, multiple sources, challenge, student negotiation, cognitive apprenticeship, reflectivethinking, and epistemological awareness. Two scales, ‘‘ease of use’’ and ‘‘inquiry learning’’,initially used in CILES were not remained in the CILES-R. For the ‘‘ease of use’’ scale, as theuniversity students may have acquired adequate experiences of using the Internet, the requestfor user friendly Internet-based learning environments would not become an essentialfeature for consideration for them. For the scale of ‘‘inquiry learning’’, probably CILES-R included various scales related to cognitive and metacognitive aspects of the Internet-based learning environments (such as student negotiation, cognitive apprenticeship, andreflective thinking); consequently, the uniqueness of the ‘‘inquiry learning’’ scale may nothave been well revealed, which in turn was not eventually remained in the questionnaire.

Students’ responses on the CILES-R also found that male students had stronger pref-erences for the Internet-based learning environments with emphases on the features of‘‘challenging’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, and ‘‘epistemological awareness’’ than femalestudents. Previous studies have shown some gender differences on Internet usage andattitudes (Durndell & Haag, 2002; Tsai et al., 2001; Tsai & Lin, 2004). This study furthersuggested that male students, when comparing to female students, tended to favor Inter-net-based learning environments which provided more challenging tasks, timely guidance,and promoted more epistemological reflections.

The analysis of grade level differences on CILES-R responses indicated that studentswith more years of education, particularly graduate students, may have demanded moreon higher-order aspects and features of the Internet-based learning environments, suchas on the scales of ‘‘student negotiation’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, ‘‘reflective thinking’’and ‘‘epistemological awareness’’. Their educational experiences may have guided them tofocus on these higher-order features, as they were more likely to be engaged in pursuing


the advancement of knowledge than those in the younger grade level. As a result, ifeducators intend to develop Internet-based learning environments for more advancedstudents, such as graduate students, care should be taken to create more opportunitiesfor them to negotiate ideas, obtain proper guidance, reflect their own thoughts, andexplore epistemological issues.

The findings derived from this study also supported that students with the most Internetexperiences tended to attain significantly higher scores on the scales of ‘‘relevance’’,‘‘multiple sources and interpretations’’, ‘‘cognitive apprenticeship’’, ‘‘reflective thinking’’and ‘‘epistemological awareness’’ than did those of less experiences. These students maybe a major group of using the Internet-based learning environments, because their richInternet experiences may probably help them to be highly engaged in the Internet-basedinstruction. For these students, educators should pay more attentions to developing Inter-net-based learning environments where they can obtain opportunities to solve real-lifeproblems, to explore a variety of information, to receive appropriate guidance, and toenhance reflective and epistemological thinking.

Moreover, as proposed by Chuang and Tsai (2005), a parallel version of CILES-Rshould be developed to assess students’ perceptions toward certain existing Internet-basedlearning environments. In Fraser’s (1998) terminology, this study constructed only the‘‘preferred’’ form of CILES-R, and an ‘‘actual’’ form should also be developed. Basedupon a series of studies investigating students’ views regarding classroom learning environ-ments by Fraser and his colleagues (Fraser, 1998) and others (e.g., Tsai, 2003), learners’preferences or expectations toward the classroom environments were often different fromthose in realty. If both CILES-R preferred and actual forms are available, the possible gapbetween students’ expectations and perceptions toward actual Internet-based learningenvironments can be carefully investigated. Such information will be very useful forweb content developers and instructors to improve existing Internet-based learningsystems or to conduct formative evaluations for developing new Internet-based learningenvironments. Finally, students’ learning environment preferences may represent theirlearning or epistemological beliefs (e.g., Moore, 1989; Tsai, 2000; Tsai & Chuang,2005), and thus be related to their learning strategies and outcomes. Researchers, by usingCILES-R, are encouraged to thoroughly elaborate the possible interplay betweenstudents’ preferences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environmentsand how they learn in the environments.

Acknowledgements

Funding of this research work is supported by National Science Council (Grant Nos.NSC 92-2811-S-009-016 and NSC92-2524-S-009-003), Taiwan.

Appendix A. The questionnaire items in CILES-R

A.1. Relevance scale (RE)

When navigating the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that they. . .

1. Show how complex real-life environments are.2. Present data in meaningful ways.


3. Present information that is relevant to me.4. Present realistic tasks.5. Have a wide range of information.

A.2. Multiple sources and interpretations scale (MS)

When navigating the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that they can. . .

1. Provide a variety of relevant web links.2. Discuss a learning topic though various perspectives.3. Present a learning topic by different methods.4. Offer various information sources to explore a learning topic.5. Connect to rich relevant web resources.

A.3. Challenge scale (CH)

When navigating the Internet-based learning environments, I prefer that they. . .

1. Are complex but clear.2. Are challenging to use.3. Help me to generate new ideas.4. Help me to generate new questions.

A.4. Student negotiation scale (SN)

In the Internet-based learning environment, I prefer that. . .

1. I can get the chance to talk to other students.2. I can discuss with other students how to conduct investigations.3. I can ask other students to explain their ideas.4. Other students can ask me to explain my ideas.5. Other students can discuss their ideas with me.

A.5. Cognitive apprenticeship scale (CA)


1. Offer timely guidance.2. Provide useful feedback to guide learning.3. Inspire valuable questions to provoke thinking.4. Provide experts’ guidance to facilitate advanced learning.5. Design interactive content to assist learning.


A.6. Reflective thinking scale (RT)

In the Internet-based learning environment, I prefer that. . .

1. I can think deeply about how I learn.2. I can think deeply about my own ideas.3. I can think deeply about new ideas.4. I can think deeply how to become a better learner.5. I can think deeply about my own understanding.

A.7. Epistemological awareness scale (EA)


1. Display the source of knowledge.2. Explore deeply about the nature of knowledge.3. Evaluate the merits of knowledge.4. Present the process of knowledge development.5. Display the hidden value of knowledge.

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Dr. Chin-Chung Tsai is currently a Professor at Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education,National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests deal largely withscience education, constructivism, Internet-based instruction, and human behavior in Internet-based environ-ments. His work has been published in Computers in Human Behavior, British Journal of Educational Tech-nology, Computers and Education, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, EducationalResearch, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, International Journal of Educational Development, Inno-vations in Education and Teaching International and some other educational journals.

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The preferences toward constructivist Internet-based learning environments among university students in Taiwan