#8 Research issues

Meyer’s “The Web's Impact On Student Learning” (2003, TheJounal) touched on many aspects of current online dynamics
(or pandemonium??).

It reminds me of my IDT diagram (at left). I am organizing a framework to incorporate the salient factors (from the micro up to the macro scopes plus the time aspect) similar to my IDT chart to be a research roadmap, and try to experiment a research incorporating the idea in the following section.

The idea relating to the research issues mentioned in Meyer’s article, Senor’s “Moving Beyond Comparisons: Evaluating Online Learning in Its Own Frame of Reference” has good comments and propose feasible suggestions. He raises several questions to challenge the reviews from some authority on the comparative or some one-shot research modes. He critiques on the logical and philosophical aspects of the comparative research, such as the skepticism from Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) which calls for the typical demand on the positivistic verification on randomized experiments, production of predictive outcomes for individual learners, tests with content or construct validity, etc. on a recently rapid growth yet still in its early fledging stage of online development. He adds up that “most importantly, the comparative approach takes attention away from the improving practice goal focusing on online learning in its own frame of reference”.

There are many potentials in developing the online research instruments to conduct online’s own frame of research reference, for example he points out Swan’s content analysis instruments based on Rouke et al’s typology (2001) in assessing social presence. The indicators (SPIs) derive from affective, interactive, and cohesive typology. In addition to his suggested feasible approaches, I am thinking the “design research” which integrates design and research in one episode could be a solution as well. It is not just for IS or IDT crews but is good for online educators, practitioners, and researchers as well. It is tempting!!

Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) propose that Design research is a set of analytical techniques and perspectives (complementing the Positivist and Interpretive perspectives) for performing research- an extra tool for researcher to contemplate! They suggest that design research involves the analysis of the use and performance of designed artifacts to understand, explain and very frequently to improve on the behavior of aspects of Information Systems. Such artifacts include - but certainly are not limited to - algorithms (e.g. for information retrieval), human/computer interfaces and system design methodologies or languages. Design researchers can be found in many disciplines and fields, notably Engineering and Computer Science, using a variety of approaches, methods and techniques.

So this is another cross-fertilization of research paradigm available for deployment.