[quoting Hart, 22 Oct 96] (1) Richard Clark did not conduct any experiments to prove that media do not influence learning. He was one of many (Chu, Schramm, Levie & Dickie, Lumsdaine, etc.) who conducted meta-analyses of the previous 40 years of media-learning research and showed that almost all of it was based on the model of scientific objectivism (i.e., the idea that one can hold conditions constant, change one variable to observe the result, and the (totally unsupportable) view that the "results" of such an enterprise can be generalized). Even in "straight science" this view is no longer generally accepted--viz. the theory of quantum mechanics.
You are trying to generalize the results of quantum physics to instructional technology. Obviously you have no problem with generalizing from the results of experiments. Quantum mechanics only applies to extreme situations. Regular Newtonian physics works perfectly well for sending rockets to the moon, etc.
(2) Previous discussions had given me the impression that constructivism was the flavor of the month. Now, unless you are a Zen master (maybe Steve is!) you can't hold two totally opposing views at the same time (i.e., the Constructivist view that learners create their own knowledge AND the old Instructivist model of educational technology).
I am of course a Zen master, but I also believe that constructivism is false and can be shown to be such by scientific evidence. Actually I originally promised Lloyd that I would write on this subject for this paper, but my busy schedule helping people reach Nirvana and also covering up my involvement in Whitewater prevented me from fulfilling that promise.
The evidence that constructivism is false derives from linguistics and is too technical to be presented here (see Chomsky, 1986, Knowledge of Language, or (more user-friendly) Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct). For nearly 40 years linguists have assumed that human languages are too complex to be learned. If they are not learned, how can we speak? The answer is that a major part of language called Universal Grammar is built into our brains. Let me ask you a question. Is this sentence grammatical? "I wonder who a picture of is on the table." How do you know that? The answer is that the knowledge is hard-wired into your brain. It could not possibly be constructed (by a five-year old child?) and besides; why would all of us construct the same idea? The rules of Universal Grammar apply to all languages so they could not possibly be a cultural construction. Pinker argues by extension that the basic "rules" of all kinds of human activity are hardwired. So much for constructivism.
For your information I, like Stephen Hawking, am a positivist.
[quoting Gunn, 22 Oct 96] That learning is a complex phenomenon I do not doubt for an instant. That parts of that complex equation can be isolated and measured I am not so sure--the ideas of complex interactions and inter-dependencies would worry me. That any one part of the complex equation could be isolated, measured in a contrived, experimental situation and still produce generalizable results, I would have to doubt.
Are you familiar with cognitive psychology?
Do you know of the log-log law of practice? Basically it says that if you plot the time to complete a task on one axis of log graph paper and the number of trials on the other you will get a downward sloping straight line. This is quite robust and works for games such as solitaire, muscle tasks such as tracing a moving target, and cognitive tasks such as reading upside down (to take an extreme example). Why do you doubt this?
I am one of the camp that believes learning is quite importantly dependent on motivation. But, how do you account for the fact that students may find an experimental activity trivial, irrelevant, or uninteresting and still rely on the findings?
Let us assume that all my students found my experiment trivial and boring, which many may have. How do you account for the fact that the text group remembered more than the audio group?
[quoting personal message from Ron Oliver] My own personal experiences have always led me to believe that different media can have different influences on learning, but I have always considered that this is not so much as a consequence of the media themselves but by the differences in the ways the content is delivered and received. Steve, do you think we are debating a question of the form "do guns kill people?"
Well, guns kill more people than arrows, but in either case you have to aim quite carefully if you want to be effective.
I assume that how you use media is more important than which medium you use, but, still, text is generally more effective than audio, so text should be the medium of choice, if you have a choice between the two (with the usual caveats).