0229590_C6FC0_solomon_negash_michael_e_whitman_amy_b_woszczynski_handbook

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

technological innovation in education

Despite a rapid diffusion of technology in education, its use is not guaranteed to produce greater instructional quality if not properly understood or deployed (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Johnson, 2000).

We are specifically interested in increasing our knowledge of how technology supports large and dispersed courses. It is a routine matter to provide a DE course by teleconference (Alavi, Wheeler, & Valacich, 1995; Alavi, Yoo, & Vogel, 1997; Rovai, 2001); it may even be desirable to do so in order to boost exposure of undergraduate students to keyinstructionalpersonnel,since“duplicating”a large, local live class section with a teleconference that links a second large section in a distant location has a specific impact on terminally degreed faculty coverage ratios, which is often an issue for accreditation (Stafford, 2005).

Althoughtheuseofcomputer-mediatedcourse information has become a common practice in many areas of education, this practice is a virtual necessity in large-enrollment courses (Karakaya, Ainscough, & Chopoorian, 2001). Introductory information systems courses typically cover a broad base of topic-area knowledge in largeenrollment formats, as compared to the more specialized upper-division classes, and are good contexts in which to leverage technology to expand coverage and increase student satisfaction and learning. As compared to traditional physical distribution of lecture support materials in regular classes, the wide reach and timeliness of Web-based delivery of instructional materials is compelling when dealing with a geographically dispersed group of onand off-campus students in the multisection high enrollment format of an introductory information systems course.

Students today have less time for school, and the conflicts of career, family, and personal lives require them to find ways to do more with less availabletime,specificallyinregardstoattending lectures, performing class work, and completing course assignments (Stafford, 2005). The use of

information technology can provide time-starved studentswithquickcontentaccessandtimeshifted information delivery (Eastman & Swift, 2001; Rehg, 1999), which can help overcome the time strictures of modern careers and lifestyles.

Interactive technology as part of a course enhances the learning process (Huang & Lu, 2003; Uiterwijk, Seoane, Mitchell, & Welch, 1998), but it has been shown that students tend to welcome the opportunity to work with most any form of educational technology aside fromteleconferencing (Hamer, 2001). Yet, teleconference-based DE is a leading technology (Evans, 2001), and despite student reluctance the integration of the technologyintocoursescanactuallyconvertDEprograms intodesirableandbeneficialofferingsforstudents

(Berger & Topol, 2001; Casini & Vincino, 2003; Flowers et al., 2000). Plus, completely asynchronous Web-based delivery of courses, though widely practiced by many universities and colleges, has met with limited success (Ginsberg & Foster, 1998; Johnson, 2000), apparently because students are poorly motivated to enroll and complete courses where there is no interaction with the instructor, and where course content requires frequent clarification or elaboration (Flowers et al., 2000; Gloster & Doss, 2000).

Uses and Gratifications for the internet

The U&G theoretical perspective evolved in the communications theory literature as a method for profilingaudiencemotivationsforuseofradioand earlytelevisionmedia(Katz,1950;Klapper,1963), as well as more recent television innovations such as cable television, video recorders, and television remote controls (Cutler & Danowski, 1980). It is now routinely used to understand the role of user motivations for Internet use (Stafford, Stafford, & Schkade, 2004) as well as student motivations for educational teleconferencing (Stafford, 2005).

U&G focuses on motivated use of a medium.

Thisisa“howandwhy”approachtounderstanding usage motivations, since “gratifications” are

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

typically defined as some aspect of satisfaction reported by users, related to the actual use of the medium (Herzog, 1944). The approach of the U&G perspective is what people do with a medium (Klapper, 1963), given that people are considered to be essentially motivated as opposed to random in their media use (Katz, 1950). Hence, an individual’s media choices are motivated by particularself-definedusesandgoals(Lin,1977) and these are described in the U&G approach.

Previous U&G research demonstrates a general dichotomy of user motivations, balancing the preference for media content vs. the enjoyment of the media usage experience (Cutler & Danowski, 1980; Levy & Windahl, 1984). Results from U&G research on the traditional media suggest that people are motivated by two broad dimensions which are characterized as contentgratifications and process gratifications (Cutler & Danowski,

1980),withcontentgratificationsreferencingthe messages carried by the medium and process gratifications concerning the act of use itself.

By analogy, Internet users may be motivated by enjoyment of the usage process, characterized by random browsing and site navigation (Hoffman & Novak, 1996), and users of specific Web sites might be motivated by specific site-related informational content, such as news and weather, or travel information (Stafford et al., 2004).

Studies of Internet U&G indicate a third major source of motivations in this new medium, as compared to prior traditional media research: the social interactions that the Internet fosters and the gratificationsusersderivefromtheinteractiveand communicative aspects of the medium (Stafford et al., 2004; Stafford, 2005).

Uses and Gratifications for Student

Internet Use

Social motivations for Internet use in the classroom can be important, since one of the most fundamental services that classroom technology canprovideforstudentsiscommunicative(Evans,

2001). Content gratifications for Internet use can alsobeimportant,sincemosttechnology-support- ed learning is based on some form of information content (Stöttinger & Schlegelmilch, 2002). The question is: To what extent are social and content gratificationsforeducationalteleconferencing in play, contrasted to the more basic gratification of usage processes? Three Internet U&G scales, recently validated for use in assessing Internet usermotivations(Staffordetal.,2004),areapplied here to investigate the context of user motivations for IP teleconferences in the classroom.

Method

The data collection process involved administration of a questionnaire to 85 students enrolled in two sections of an introductory information systems course at a major southern university. Students participated in exchange for extra credit points in the course.

Measures

The scales used, illustrated in the Appendix, were a previously developed set of content-validated indicatorsofthreeprimaryInternetU&G:process, content, and social (Stafford et al, 2004). Internal consistency figures for the scales were excellent, with the process factor producing a coefficient alpha of .82, the content factor producing .85, and the social factor returning an alpha of .8. Since the previously developed scales were originally developedtoassessusergratificationsforInternet use, the new context explored here—that of the DE classroom—suggests the approach of an exploratory analysis to examine the factor structure that would arise in the classroom teleconference scenario.

Data Collection

Two sections of an introductory information systems course were surveyed. Each of the two

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

sections included both local and distant rooms. The main room for the course was the origination room for a DE teleconference link, and the second dedicatedroomcomprisedofaremotefacilitythat received the teleconference transmission. Sixtytwo students were surveyed in the origination room and 23 were surveyed in the remote room, and a course Web site delivered informational content to both groups of students in the form of lecture note postings, readings, and study notes. Sixty percent of the students were male, 40% were female; 40% were in the 18-24 age group, 48.2% were 25-34, 10.6% were 35-44, and 1.2% were 4554. Analysiswasperformed usingSPSS,applying factor analysis with principle components extraction and varimax rotation. Principle components extraction was used to obtain an initial factor analysis in this exploratory research and varimax rotation was used to simplify the interpretation of the results. Four factors were retained, using the eigenvalue greater than 1 rule. These factors are displayed in Table 1.

Results

The four factors retained accounted for 70% of the variance, and the initial factor, characterized by content gratifications, accounted for 30.7% of variance. This factor was characterized by strong loadings from variables such as education, information, knowledge, and learning. This motivational dimension directly references the informational content that users seek, which is indicative of the knowledge seeking function of a DE classroom. The professor utilizes Web-based support resources to support the geographically dispersedclass,andhasnoticedthatmanystudents appear to have a strong motivation for seeking the informational content in teleconferenced classes as evidenced by use of the associated Web-based support sites.

The second factor produced 18.5% of the variance, and was characterized by strong loadings from variables such as chatting, friends, interaction,andpeople.Thisrepresents theinfluenceof

Table 1. Uses and gratifications factor loadings (item assignments in bold type)

	Content	Social	Process 1:	Process 2:
			Search	Surf
	Variance: 30.8	Variance: 18.4	Variance: 11.9	Variance: 8.9
	α = .87	α = .80	α = .77	α = .72
Chatting	-.111	.761	.013	.245
Friends	.06	.913	.063	-.025
Interaction	.003	.873	.114	.015
People	.212	.885	.004	.05
Resources	.456	.007	.530	-.105
Search Engines	.03	.002	.921	.105
Searching	.089	.009	.894	.245
Surfing	.07	.196	.307	.774
Technology	.324	.023	.099	.644
Web sites	.335	.056	.016	.839
Education	.831	.157	.10	.140
Information	.750	.05	.243	.08
Knowledge	.862	.016	-.028	.227
Learning	.861	-.04	.012	.230
Research	.04	.025	.015	.03

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

socialgratifications.Ithasbeendemonstratedthat students in DE courses are likely to feel apart from and potentially alienated from the rest of course members due to the mediated interface through which the course is delivered (Berger & Topol, 2001; Gloster & Doss, 2000); the presence of this social dimension of motivation in the teleconferenced course speaks to the need students might have to stay in touch with the professor and other students,andnotbe“outofsight”inaDEscenario. Social motivations are related to the interactive and distinctly interpersonal social environment of live-interaction classes (Evans, 1986).

The third and fourth factors appeared to be differentvariationsontheusageprocessgratification often found in U&G work. They were characterized by strong loadings from variables that have previously loaded together on a single Internet process-related factor, but in this analysis the general process factor actually diverged into two distinctdifferentprocess-basedfactors.Ofthetwo process-related factors, factor three, representing nearly 12% of variance, was characterized by strong loadings from variables such as resources, search engines, and searching. These are processoriented variables that appear to characterize the process of searching, specifically, and would relate to the DE course support Web page. In the fourth factor, the variables are characteristic of the playful process of Internet use, or browsing, also related to the course support site.

discussion

This survey assessed U&G as motivations for participationinateleconference-based DE course in IT. The key implication of the motivational dimensions found in analysis is that Internet technology serves an important support role in

DE,thoughthesocialbenefitsofteleconferencing are readily seen in the appearance of the second, social, factor. While students appear to have specific needs for Web-mediated course content in

DE courses, their needs for social interaction are

also clearly seen. As has been shown in other research,thecomputer,itself,cannotfullysubstitute for the interactive and social learning experience students receive from an instructor (Flowers et al., 2000), though computers do provide very convenient enhancements and supplements to instructor activities.

Hence, a recommended approach to teleconferenced DE is that courses ought to combine both teleconference and Web-based instructional resources in order to maximize the combined effect of instructor guidance and Web-based content delivery. The content factor is informa- tion-oriented, and its strong variance component (about 31%) shows that the content that instructors supply through a course support Web site is an important part of what motivates students in a DE class. But the social factor has important implications as well. Alavi et al.’s work (1995, 1997) suggests that fostering collaborative interactions among students in separate sections is a synergistic learning technique, and the use of teleconference can contribute to this process as can course-related Web resources. This combination of teleconferencing lectures and supporting Web sites is something we characterize as the high-tech adjunct, and this is discussed in more detail in the next section of this chapter.

the high technology adjunct

Despite the demonstrable social usage gratifications for student involvement in course teleconferences, as compared to the asynchronous and impersonal approach to Web-based learning, students on the distant end of an educational teleconference can feel more removed and isolated from class than do the students on the local end of the teleconference, who are experiencing the lecture from the room in which the lecture originates (Stafford, 2005). As this isolation can lead to greater ambiguity and uncertainty toward the educational task, it is appropriate to

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

look to media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1984) for cues about ways to enhance the social presence and more effectively change the level of students’ understanding. Despite the evidence that the teleconferences, themselves, provide social support in DE settings, there are also indications that integrating rich media Web-based course-supportsitesintotheteleconferencedclass context can ameliorate higher levels of isolation among the distant-side participants in teleconferenced courses (Stafford, 2005). Every bit, it appears, helps and this suggests the utility of a hybrid model comprised of multimedia Web sites combined with teleconference-based instruction (Allen et al., 2004). We call this approach “the high-tech adjunct.”

the Problem of supporting large and diverse enrollments

Although the use and distribution of computer generated lecture material has become a common practice in many areas of education, this practice is a virtual necessity in large-enrollment courses (Karakaya et al., 2001), simply because the Web is the only delivery mechanism that brings wide reach and timeliness of availability to a diverse group of onand off-campus students. In large sections, the volume of assignments generated for grading can also be a logistical challenge.

Use of Internet technology to display, complete, and submit homework assignments has a dualsynergyinmanagementinformationsystems (MIS) classes, sincestudents usetheverytechnology for their assignments that they are learning about in class and will later use in industry (Allen, Wedman, & Folk, 2001; Alavi et al., 1995, 1997). Hence, online multimedia technology is both the delivery agent and also the supplemental agent in assuring the successful execution of pedagogical and contact plans (Lincoln, 2001).

Students welcome and even seek time-saving approaches to education (Stafford, 2005). These can include nonsynchronous delivery (Eastman

& Swift, 2001; Rehg, 1999) and synchronous-in- teractive technologies (Uiterwijk et al., 1998). To students, the key benefits of converged Internet support in the DE class are more accessibility, heightened communication, and better access to class resources (Seepanski & von Wahlde, 1998); increased learning motivation arises from such student-centered environments (Miller, Martineau, & Clark, 2000).

From the delivery side, the key problems to be solved in an introductory MIS class are the size of the classes and the difficulties in ensuring consistency of delivery for topical material. When students have similar educational experiences, delivery of an assured body of knowledge can be represented to accrediting agencies, and courses for functional area majors can be based on an assumption of commonality of background knowledgeonthepartofthestudent.Itisbeneficial that the technology which is used to deliver largeenrollment DE courses also can serve to motivate students enrolled in such programs, if used synergistically. That approach is demonstrated here in the context of a case study of a large multisection introduction to MIS course at a major Southern university. We consider the convergence of Webbasedasynchronoussupportwithteleconferenced synchronous delivery modes in the form of what we characterize as the high-tech adjunct to such large enrollment courses.

Method

The approach used to demonstrate the high-tech adjunct is a case analysis of the large enrollment introduction class to MIS in a major southern university, the same course that was studied in the U&G research. The approach is interpretive and the observations made are meant to illustrate the theoretical concept, under development, of the high-tech adjunct to the DE classroom. The study spanned an academic year of course coverage for an all-majors required introductory MIS course in the College of Business.

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Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

Level of Students

Most of the students exposed to our course are sophomores who are completing the course as a prerequisite to other courses they require for their specific academic majors in the College of

Business. The course is also taken by students in majors other than business in order to meet the university’s computer literacy mandate. While it cannot be denied that all sorts of students, both graduate and undergraduate, can benefit from innovativeinstructional approaches that integrate technology into the curriculum content and delivery, the specific impact of the course discussed here is at the undergraduate level.

Number of Students

Enrollmentsforbusinesscoursestypicallyfluctuate with market conditions closely related to the nationaleconomy.Whiletheeconomicconditions in the United States have been generally good, the period of time associated with the introduction of the uniform, technologically-integrated curriculum that is discussed here roughly corresponds with the recent academic marketplace for the MIS undergraduate major.

Enrollments for the design year under discussion, considering all sections offered in Fall, Spring,andSummersemesters,were984students. Age and demographic characteristics are generally characteristicofundergraduates everywhere, that is, somewhat skewed toward the 18-24 age group, ethnically mixed, but largely Caucasian, and evenly split between men and women. Our city is the home of several large corporations, and offers plentiful part-time and full-time employmentopportunitiesforundergraduatestudents,so many are involved with work at local firms.

Major Educational Objectives

The high-tech adjunct is the concept of utilizing theInternetandassociatedtelecommunicationsas

the venue for the construction of virtual partnerships with publishing house and corporate media support resources, such that course support sites at a university can provide seamless linkages with content provider sites. Text materials, readings, assignments, even student submission of homework and supplemental professorial support in learning can all be technologically mediated though technological course adjuncts such as are described here.

It is known that the in-class lecture is still a potent vehicle for learning purposes. This is particularly the case when the instructor is a subject matter expert, and leverages that expertise by describing personal experiences or sharing pertinent anecdotal information (Miller et al., 2000). Yet, beyond that context, students tend to differgreatlyanddifferencesaremostpronounced in the large section courses, where the evidence tends to suggest that technological approaches to education work well when they are student-cen- tered (Young, 2001). This means that technology must serve the needs of students in learning, and in the large course contexts, where technology mediated learning might provide incrementally more advantages and improvements in the learning experience for the broad majority of students (Karakaya et al., 2001), the opportunity to reach greater numbers of students with the efficacy of technological innovations is potent.

Indications are that computers and information technology make the greatest contribution to the process of learning when they are integrated into instructional approaches, as opposed to being designated as the conduit of instruction (e.g., Flowers et al., 2000). To that end, these are the educational objectives of the integrative instruction technique practiced in this large-enrollment computer literacy course:

•The full utilization of professorial World Wide Web sites as a central delivery point forcourseancillarymaterials,suchaslecture files,copiesofcourseassignments,andeven distribution of course syllabi.

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

•	To utilize information technology in the		delivery are developed between the text publisher,
	classroom on a daily basis, including		the instructors, and the virtual partnerships
		Presentation of lecture materials	discussed here under the rubric of “high-tech

Provision of technology demonstraadjuncts.”Theserepresentanimportantaspectof







tions in support of lecture topics Demonstration of technological skills to be utilized in class assignments Demonstration of Web-linked resources provided by virtual partners to the course, specifically,

The course text publisher

the approach used in the course sequence for the provision of live class lectures on and off campus integratedwithtechnologically-mediatedlearning and telecommunication aids.

In this particular case, three levels of Webbased course support were integrated. There was a master site for the multisection course,

The online resources of a major busiforming a repository from which homework as-

ness news organization

The outcome of the provision of course content in the manner suggested is the realization of increased technological literacy levels among undergraduatestudentsattheCollegeofBusiness. An ancillary outcome and pragmatic objective is also the increased recruitment of undeclared and undecided majors to MIS, achieved through the delivery of a compelling and motivating educational experience in the required introductory course taken by nonmajors.

unique features of the approach

TheinstructionalWebsiteisacentralaspectofthis approach to course delivery, but teleconferencing is also used to provide lecture section access to the diverse student groups. Both in-person live sections and teleconferenced live sections of the class are available for enrollment, as the student desires. Yet, there are actually three unique constituencies in provision of technology-mediated education, of which only one is the student. The university and the publisher of course materials also share common interests and can be brought together through the course support page to meet the increasing demands of content production and course delivery (Muniz, Billingsley, & Brill, 2002). That is the approach practiced here, where technologically-facilitated partnerships for common cause content production and educational

signments and assigned supplementary reading material could be distributed, but there were also individual instructor course pages cross-linked with the course master site to more uniquely serve the needs of individual course sections. Finally, each site—both the course master site and indi- vidualinstructorsites—werecross-linkedwiththe coursetextpublisher’ssite,wherestudymaterials, interactive practice tests, media linkages, and homework assignments were delivered.

Impact of the Approach

Distance education courses offered by teleconference can boost exposure of undergraduate students to key instructional personnel, since

“duplicating”alarge,localliveclasssectionwith a teleconference-linked, second large section in a distantlocationhasaspecificimpactonterminally degreed faculty coverage, which is often an issue for business accreditation.

What goes beyond the ordinary is the way in which the sections are integrated with each other and with the instructor and with the learning materials at hand. Access to digitized course content (Seepanski & von Wahlde, 1998), and the general digitization of the course resource base

(Hill & Hannafin, 2001) are critical aspects of the modern DE approach. In this case, where a DE section of the course is combined under the direction of a single professor with several other large local sections of the high-enrollment course,

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

it is the instructor’s course Web site that serves as the nexus for publisher, instructor, and student access and contact in the course.

Designed to facilitate single-point access to the full range of digital resources, the instructor’s site is extensively hot-linked to the sites of the course partners,whereextracurricularreadingsandonline homework assignments are provided, in addition to pedagogical tools including chapter summaries and practice tests. The instructor site also serves as the origination site for copies of lecture presentations, downloadable descriptions for all course assignments, and demonstrations of technologies to be used in the assigned projects.

Since several large-enrollment sections are offered by a single instructor, asynchronous telecommunications is often useful in the delivery of the course, so homework that is assigned by Web link and completed online at a business media partner site is also delivered by e-mail to a central grading address. Students are able to use e-mail to make inquires of the instructor about course matters, but are also encouraged to download (through a site-provided link) and make use of instant messaging software, since instructors typically interact with students by providing support and answering questions most times they happen to log on to the Internet.

While the use of instant messaging is best thought of as a convenience for students, who appreciate the ability to quickly ask questions about class matters and receive online chats about technical tutorials and live-time remote software demonstrations, it is the student on the distant end ofthesemultiplesectioncoursesthatbestbenefits from the combination of synchronous and asynchronous telecommunications utilities. Receiving lectures by teleconference, these distant-end students also like e-mail and instant messaging for increasing their social presence in the course activity. These students typically do not drive to the main campus for in-person meetings with the instructor, nor do they have the opportunity to interact in person during class presentations,

otherthanacrossthemediatedteleconferencelink, so additional and supplemental synchronous and asynchronous communications are useful.

The converged mix of teleconference and Web-based course resources was also used to serve the special needs of a deaf student enrolled in the course. This student was provided with American Sign Language interpreters to translate the lecture, but frequently used instant messenger

(specifically, America Online’s AIM client for instant messaging services) and e-mail to interact directly with the instructor, because interpreters were not provided for out-of-class discussions. These were carried on by IM and e-mail, which were provided as part of Web-mediated course support.

Course Content

Course content was provided in the form of an introductorytextininformationsystemspublished by a prominent academic business press publishing house. Content for lectures was delivered in the form of Microsoft PowerPoint ™ slides, but unlike the typical situation in which professors provide students with local PowerPoint™ handouts or local downloads, in this case the slides, study guides, and self-tests used for the course were linked in through the publisher via a link on the instructor’s course support instructor site.

The publisher content also provided linkages and integrated content from the online edition of The Wall Street Journal, which was used for purposes of stimulating class discussion, for extracurricular reading, and as frequent content focus points for online homework assignments. Thoughthiscontentwasprovidedthroughthetext publisher, the instructor provided hotlinks to the Journal companion site resources from his course support site, so that students had the convenience of a single point of contact for all Web resources across the virtual partnerships. This unique use of newsmedialinkagesresultedinanonline“reading room”areawherestudentswereassignedspecific

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

technology articles to read, and then required to complete an interactive homework assignment on the article topic to be forwarded by e-mail to the instructor for grading.

Course Organization

The organization of the multisection courses is unremarkable in its simplicity. Since the instructor Web site serves from the very first day of the course as the primary conduit of class information outside of live lecture (no paper syllabi are distributed; the Web site provides the only student access to course descriptions and schedules), it is a common matter to direct students to the Web site for ongoing scheduling information regarding test times, assignment deadlines, and lecture schedules.

Any number of media outlets might support any number of publishers of textbooks and course materials, both of which, individually, could be generally combined in a form best characterized as custom electronic course packs to provide content support for the instructor.

Presentation of Course Material

In the technology-mediated classroom, the instructorevolvesfromaninformationdeliverertoa learning environment creator, and a facilitator in a problem solving process (Allen et al., 2001). Even thoughtheprominentdeliverymodeofmaterialin the course is the physical lecture format, in both live and teleconferenced synchronous versions, therearenumerousasynchronous“adjuncts”tothe lecture process in the form of ancillary readings and resources provided by the virtual partners, as well as both synchronous and asynchronous off-hour telecommunications links with the instructor, using e-mail and instant messaging. It is a common event to supplement discussion and demonstrations of computer applications in class with later, off-hour interactions via instant messenger where the professor guides students

on a step-by-step basis through some particular computer application, each operating from a home personal computer with the application activated for examination and a common point of reference.

Hence, it can be said that the presentation of material in lecture, even though it is delivered to one of two simultaneous sections by teleconference, is rather traditional. It is the use of telecommunications to enhance the after-class informal interactions that distinguishes the particular combination of methods in the approach of the high-tech adjunct. Often, examples and tutorials found on the Web site can provide quick answers to student questions about how to use a specific application discussed in class; when this does not suffice,studentswillfrequentlybypassthetraditional office hour in-person visit to the professor for guidance in favor of an Web-mediated chat to learn how to work with a specific technology.

This has the dual synergy of using technology to learn about technology, which has been shown to beparticularlyusefulforbuildingconfidenceand job skills in students (Alavi et al., 1995, 1997).

effectiveness of the approach

Itisclearthatstudentslearnmoreabouttechnology when they use technology as part of the learning experience. Whether this high-tech adjunct approach—utilizing extensive Web site linkages to off-campus virtual partners, and Internet chat utilities to supplement the delivery of course content to off-campus distant classroom sites—is more or less effective than standard “chalk-and- talk”approachesremainstobeempiricallydemonstrated. Anecdotally, technology integration in the classroom works (e.g., Young, 2001); however, leadingedgeeducatorsaresobusydevelopingand delivering content that their literary documentation processes have tended to lag their practice, since the development of Web-enabled courses is substantially more time consuming than normal course preparation (Miller et al., 2000).

Exploring Student Motivations for IP Teleconferencing in Distance Education

discussion

Our introductory MIS concepts course is technologically integrated with Web resources of a university,apublicationhouse,andamediaoutlet. The professor weaves together the resources provided by the virtually-linked partners through a centralcourseWebsiteinordertoprovidestudents withseamlessaccesstoawidevarietyofmaterials supporting and supplementing the course and its text. Part of the supplementation involves interactive access to the media outlet resources as graded exercises which not only provide students with a compelling and intuitive technical interface for doing homework, but also stimulates greater use, interest, and experience with a key technological resources linked to career success. Enhancing instructor contact with off-hour synchronous and asynchronous communications over the Internet ensures that students will enjoy the maximum learningbenefitfromthecourseatanytimethey choose to apply themselves to its content, either in or out of class.

PRefeRences foR distant and local teleconfeRence sections

The live interaction experiences students receive from an instructor provide important social cues that contribute to understanding, which cannot be fully duplicated through computer-based learning (Stafford, 2005; Stiefelhagen et al., 2005, Hara, 1998). A critically important goal, then, of technology-mediated DE systems is to increase the amount of social presence in order to provide participants with the sense and benefits of a traditional classroom or seminar room (He et al., 2004), thus overcoming the frustrations that students tend to feel when they are not able to directly interact with instructors and classmates (Hara, 1998).

There are customer satisfaction issues with live teleconferenced delivery. Not all sections of DE teleconferenced classes are perceived equally. Students on the remote end often tend to feel isolatedfromthemainoriginationsection,despitethe ameliorating social presence effects of two-way teleconferencedinteractions(Lemak,Shin,Reed, & Montgomery, 2005; Stafford, 2005). Student ratings of teacher effectiveness have also been seen to suffer on the distant end of a teleconference (Lemak et al., 2005).

Lemak and colleagues (Lemak et al., 2005; Lemak,Reed,&Montgomery,2003)characterize the challenge of student motivations for course participationandevaluationsofcoursedeliveryas oneof“transactionaldistance,”whichisaninteresting expansion of the social presence literature in DE research. The sense of this approach is that students tend to feel apart from a DE-delivered course if dialogue (two-way live interaction with the instructor) is low, and if structure (construed as formulaic provision of material not customized to the current course) is high. In view of the transaction distance perspective, a cut-and-dried arrangementof“canned”coursematerialsdelivered by an instructor who does not seek response and interaction from students will possess a very highleveloftransactiondistanceandresultinpoor student motivation. Technically speaking, even the live local section of a DE course can suffer from transaction distance issues if the preparation is by rote and the instructor does not take care to interact with the students. Even so, we expect that the greatest transaction distance challenge will be on the distant end of a live DE delivery.

demographic differences

In view of changing demographic trends among students,therewilllikelybedifferentialresponses from students in terms of their preferences for technology-mediated DE courses. Evidence from the field shows that younger students are more