The media debate
Definition
The great "media debate" has been started by Richard Clark and Robert Kozma in the early nineties. The questions is
== Clark's arguments
{{quotation | "are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition" (Clark 83: 445)
Clark argues that it is the underlying instructional methods that shape the learning process (not the medium) and that similar learning outcomes can be achieved through the use of difference media.
== Kozma's arguments
Kozma's argument is that certain media “possess particular characteristics that make them both more and less suitable for the accomplishment of certain kinds of learning tasks.” (Kozma, 1994) and he refers to Salomon who argued that “media can be analyzed in terms of their "cognitively relevant" capabilities - i.e., in terms of those characteristics that affect the ways in which individuals represent and process information.”.
These capabilities relate to three aspects of each medium:
- Technology: the physical, mechanical, or electronic capabilities that determine a medium's function.
- Symbol system(s): sets of symbolic expressions by which information is communicated according to specific rules and conventions: spoken language, printed text, pictures, numbers, graphs, and musical scores exemplify symbol systems.
- processing capabilities: a medium's abilities to operate on symbol systems in specified ways-for example, by displaying, receiving, storing, retrieving, organizing, transforming, or evaluating whatever information is available through a particular symbol system.
Each medium can be defined by a set of attributes that define its function, in particular how it allows representations and how it supports the learner to construct and to operate on mental representations. In other words, the assumption is that learning with media is a complementary process within which a learner and a medium interact to expand or refine the learner's mental model of a particular phenomenon.
Therefore Kozma (1994) concludes “If we move from "Do media influence learning?" to "In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning for particular students, tasks, and situations?" we will both advance the development of our field and contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning.”
The debate goes on
DSchneider believes that:
- Media do have different affordances and therefore media do belong to instructional method, e.g. are part of a pedagogic strategy.
- However, we would agree with Clark that most instructional design models could be implemented with a variety of media.
Links
- The media or the message: The Clark/Kozma media effects debate
- Comments from Richard Clark to participants in the Media and Methods Debate
- The Great Media Debate: Media are mere vehicles of instruction
- Media and Learning: A Review of the Debate
References
- Clark, Richard C., "Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media," Review of Educational Research 53 (Winter 1983): 445-59.
- Clark, R.E. (1994). Media will Never Influence Learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.
- Kozma, Robert B. (1991). "Learning with Media," Review of Educational Research 61 (Summer 1991): 179-211.
- Kozma, Robert B. (1994), The Influence of Media on Learning: The Debate Continues, School Library Media Research, Volume 22, Number 4, Summer 1994. HTML
- Koumi, J. (1994). Media Comparison and Deployment: A Practitioner's View. British Journal of Educational Technology, 25(1), 41-57.
- Gavriel Salomon (1997). Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning, San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1979.