The Success of Advanced Learning Technologies for Instruction Research and Evaluation of Hu

The development and implementation of new advanced learning technologies is an important achievement in all levels of education and in business and industry. However, the benefits of advanced learning technologies are often not fully realized until human f

The Success of Advanced Learning Technologies for Instruction:Research and

Evaluation of Human Factors Issues

Dan O Coldeway

Dakota State University

dan.coldeway@dsu.edu

Abstract

The development and implementation of new advanced learning technologies is an important achievement in all levels of education and in business and industry. However,the benefits of advanced learning technologies are often not fully realized until human factors issues surrounding the use of that technology by instructors, students and other users are recognized and taken into consideration.These issues are referred to as human factors issues and they can often become a major influence over the success of technological applications. This paper will identify a range of human factors issues of importance in a variety of settings.Recent evaluative and research information describing human factors in three graduate programs using advanced learning technologies will be presented and discussed.A summary discussion of these results and their impact on human factors interaction with technology will also be presented.

1.Introduction

During the mid1980s,a group of administrators, academics and professionals at Athabasca University(a Canada wide and exclusively distance education university) produced a musical review to add humor to on-going debates about many aspects of distance education, instructional design,etc.In that review they posed the question“if technology is the answer,what was the question?”.The not so hidden message in that quote suggests that technology alone is not the only answer and perhaps the question was not properly formulated in the first place.

The“not so hidden”factors within the message relate to the many human factors that influence advanced learning technologies(ALT),including human interaction,learner needs,technology use and misuse,learner support,the effect of technological change and development on human behavior.The human factors issue also extends to what has come to be known as the delivery truck debate(1).The start of this debate resulted form an article by Clark(2). Clark suggested that media of any type do not influence learning directly any more than the truck that delivers our groceries influences changes in our nutrition(2).Ten years later Kozma(3)took up the debate with this statement:“In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning for particular students,tasks,and situations?”The human factors issues reappeared and raised several questions directly related to the use of advanced learning technologies(4),(see Mellon(1)for a complete review).

Recent concerns about advanced learning technology are not dissimilar from the concerns over print,TV,and CAI. Its interesting to note that all of these“technologies”can be effective,including ALTs.The concerns reported years later appear to have more to do with human factors issues than they do with technological failure or effectiveness.It appears that if you build an instructional delivery system of any type,students and faculty will come to use it.The bigger question is how will they use it?

2.Methods

The data addressing the above themes come from graduate level programs that use a mix of delivery technologies.Although the content in all three programs differs,the mix of delivery,ALTs used and methods of instruction are similar.The goal of this case analysis methodology(4)is to identify common human factors issues of importance to the success of the programs and their respective ALT delivery systems.

The qualitative nature of this case analysis study has limitations.First,the information about each institution was obtained using a variety of methods and sources. Second,it was not possible to obtain a systematic sample of all student opinion regarding the range of issues under investigation.Issues concerning the use of human subjects for research and the confidentiality of evaluation data prevented a more detailed analysis of individual student responses.Finally,the comparison of information from each institution followed the modified analytic induction method(5).This method began with a formulation of potential human factors issues.As data were gathered,the issues were modified until common factors emerged.A final organization scheme was developed and information summarized for each category within that scheme.

3.Results

The methodology used in this study identified that all three categories were important in the consideration of human factors issues.The following percentages represent the relative number of comments selected for each category:

Learners:42%

Faculty/Instructors:38%

Technical Staff:18%

Three raters judged the list of comments made on interviews and questionnaires in the above categories and classified them into the sub-categories.

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Techniques (ICALT’01) 0-7695-1013-2/01 $10.00 © 2001 IEEE

The development and implementation of new advanced learning technologies is an important achievement in all levels of education and in business and industry. However, the benefits of advanced learning technologies are often not fully realized until human f

The following opinions were chosen by raters to be human factors issues in each of the sub-categories.The top two opinions are presented.

Category One(Learners):

Needs for using ALTs:

a.Problems with interaction of ALT infrastructure

requirements and home or office equipment(that could no be solved by learners).

b.The need for flexible time and alternate location for

study.

Skill requirements for using ALTs:

a.Time required to learn new updates on existing ALT

systems

b.Time required to learn new software applications

required by ALT delivery systems.

Support for problems with ALTs:

a.Faculty lacking in support skills

b.Help desk type support not always prepared for ALT

users.

Motivation to continue using ALTs:

a.Personal life issues interfering with ALT use.

b.Demand on home or office system competing with

ALT needs.

Category two(Faculty/instructors):

Perception/attitude regarding ALT:

a.A view that ALT provides a second rate system

compared to classroom teaching.

b.A view that time to prepare and use ALT far out-

weighed its benefits.

Skills in using ALT:

a.Time to mastery of skills unacceptable.

b.Changing requirements of systems require continuous

learning of new skills.

Support for problems using ALT:

a.Technical support varied and non-available for some

systems(i.e.PC versus Mac users,depending upon institutional policy and/or support systems.

b.Technical support availability for student related issues

(compatibility of word processing systems,etc.). Motivation to continue using ALT:

a.Changing ALT requirements and infrastructure

changed motivation to continued use.

b.Frequently changing content impacted use of some

systems over time.

Category three(Technical staff):

Methods of supporting students and faculty:

a.Not able to provide assistance on all software packages

used by students or required in courses.

b.Difficulty with discussing problems with users while

running ALT systems simultaneously.

Availability of staff to all users:

a.Limited help desk or support times(weekends and

evenings)

b.In-experienced support personnel or turn-around of

staff.

Range of support services:a.Limited to institutionally supported systems not

representative of all users.

b.Not often focused on individual needs.

4.Discussion

The results of this analysis indicate that human factors are inter-related to technical issues for all categories of human interaction with ALT.The direct relationship of ALT to human learning is not clear form these results. However,what is clear is that several enabling factors related to both human factor issues and ALT issues do impact learning.In other words,learning cannot take place unless certain factors are in place and under control.The delivery truck model(1,2)may not be the best way to describe the impact of ALT,but it is also not clear that ALT alone impacts learning directly(3).

Concepts of motivation,available time,and support systems are critical to the use of ALT for all categories of users.Without these enabling factors,combined with proper equipment and user-friendly software and application programs,ALT do not meet learner or faculty needs and handicap technical assistance.

The institutional programs that provided information for this study use a wide range of ALT in course and program delivery.However,it is also clear that faculty and technical staff interact with these technologies prior to the delivery of instruction(e.g.instructional design stages,instructional preparation,and evaluation tasks).Learning is taking place at these levels,especially when new or inexperienced faculty become involved in ALT programs and courses. Finally,an overall evaluation of the information in this study suggests that all the forms of ALT used by institutions included here work.However,there were problems in all cases,although many were overcome on an individual or small group basis.To assume any one ALT or ALT product is capable of overcoming all problems is naïve.Human factors will always play a part in the success of ALT and the more programs and institutions understand these issues the better they will be in preparing for future development and technological change.

5.References

(1)C.Mellon,Technology and the great pendulum of education, Journal of research on Computing in Education,1999,32(1),28-36.

(2)R.Clark,Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research,1983,53(4),445-459.

(3)R.Kozma,Will media influence learning?Reframing the debate.Educational Technology Research and Development, 1994,42(2),7-19.

(4)R.Clark,Media will never influence learning,Educational Technology Research and Development,1994,42(2),21-29. (5)R.Stake,in Jaeger(Ed)Methods for Research in Education, American Educational Research Association,1988.

(6)R.Bogdan and S.Bilken,Qualitative Research for Education: an introduction to theory and methods,Allyn and Bacon,1992.

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Techniques (ICALT’01) 0-7695-1013-2/01 $10.00 © 2001 IEEE

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