yuliang liu

The lead investigator taught a graduate online course, ‘Research Methods in Education’, at a Midwestern state university in the United States in the fall semester of 2001. Twenty-three participants were recruited from those enrolled in an online section of that course. Participants were then asked to complete consent forms and demographic surveys. All participants were in-service teachers, and a majority were in their first or second year of graduate studies in education. This study involved a single-group, pretest-posttest design. Specifically, the participants were pretested to measure the initial state of learner characteristics before online instruction with the SoC Questionnaire in the first week face-to-face orientation in the fall semester of 2001. Subsequently, the participants were exposed to the online WebCT environment from the second week through to the final week. During the final week the participants were posttested online with the same instrument to measure the developmental state of those characteristics affected by online instruction over the semester. The mean differences on each of the seven scales in the SoC Questionnaire were statistically tested to determine whether there were any significant differences in the concerns instrument.

This case study is designed to investigate how distance education technology affects the instructor's simultaneously teaching the same course via instructional television (ITV) and traditional education (face-to-face) formats. This study involved random observations of the instructor in a graduate course in both instructional television and face-to-face classrooms. In addition, an interview with the instructor was conducted to collect more data. This study has suggested that the instructor who teaches the same course in both ITV and traditional education formats exhibits both similarities and differences among the three instructional phases (before-class, in-class, and after-class) in both situations. The results of this study will have significant implications for future distance education instructors.

ABSTRACT This experimental study indicates that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a viable mode of social-emotion-oriented communication. In this study, the effects of frequency and duration of messaging on impression development in CMC were investigated. Undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to each of the four experimental groups. For a period of 2 weeks, participants monitored discussion lists that differed in relation to the frequency and duration of messaging in asynchronous CMC environments. ANOVA results indicated that duration and frequency had significant main effects on impression development in asynchronous CMC environments. No interaction effects were found. The results of this study support the social-emotion-oriented model in CMC.

The study was designed to investigate how a study abroad program with an experiential learning experience in China affected teacher education students in the U. S. in May 2016. The study used the exploratory mixed methods design to collect data. A group of 16 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in study abroad. Student performance was assessed based on (a) participation, journals, reflection papers, and electronic portfolios as well as (b) the diversity standard of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards in the U.S. Results indicated all participants enjoyed the program and benefited professionally from it in a variety of aspects such as their increased understandings of culture and diversity, the similarities and differences between the Chinese and the American educational systems, as well as teacher’s identity and professionalism. International implications resulted from the study findings.

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars’ reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human co...

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars' reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-huma...

Abstract This article discusses how I used constructivist theory to teach the online graduate "Research Methods In Education" course. Because interactivity has been reported as a major issue in most online courses, I focused more on strategies of using constructivist theory to enhance interactivity, knowledge sharing, and building in the online course. These strategies included (1) individual weekly essay assignments/peer evaluations and (2) group projects, discussions, and collaborations via the bulletin board on WebCT. The results of the students' positive learning performances and evaluations indicate that online constructivist strategies will have significant implications for future online courses. Introduction Online education is increasing rapidly at all levels of education worldwide (Kearsley, 2000). Much research on online education has accumulated in recent literature. However, much current research has reported that online interactivity among students and teachers, as well as among students themselves has been reported as a major issue in most online courses (Arsham, 2002; Macdonald, 2001; Muirhead, 2001). According to recent research, constructivist theory, which proposed that learners could learn actively and construct new knowledge based on their prior knowledge, has been reported to be useful for improving interactivity in online learning (Rudestam & Schoenholtz-Read, 2002). According to Bruning, Schraw, and Ronning (1999), most constructivists agree on these four essential characteristics which influence learning: (1) learners construct their own learning, (2) new learning depends on current understanding, (3) learning is facilitated by social interaction, and (4) meaningful learning occurs within authentic learning tasks. Based on my recent online teaching experience, this article discusses how I used constructivist theory to teach the graduate "Research Methods In Education" course online. In this article, I focus more on strategies of using constructivist theory to enhance interactivity, knowledge sharing, and building in that online course. The article includes the following four major components: (1) a brief introduction of the course studied; (2) a brief discussion of the individualized online instructional and learning strategies; (3) a focus on constructivist online instructional and learning strategies; and (4) students' major outcomes in the course. An Introduction Of The Course Studied As one regular course assignment, in spite of no related institutional training or external incentives for an online course, I was asked to teach the graduate "Research Methods In Education" course online in fall 2001. Based on constructivist theory and my recent research experiences in distance education, I successfully delivered the course to 28 students online. Prior to this, I taught the same course in the traditional face-to-face environment. Based on my previous experience of teaching the course in the traditional classrooms, I retooled the course content and delivery strategies before the online delivery of the course. Before the start of the semester, I designed a very detailed syllabus for the course including all assignments' guidelines, due dates and my virtual office hours. In order to reduce learner's learning anxiety and to maximize learning efficiency, two face-to-face on-campus orientations were conducted in the first two weeks of fall 2001. During those two orientations, each student completed a series of the following tasks: introduced himself/herself to the class and exchanged contact information; learned how to use the common functions of the course delivery software-WebCT; learned how to use the library resources for the course, such as searching for research articles in online databases and how to request interlibrary loan services; selected group members (3-member group) based on the mutual interest and experiences for a group project; and had photos taken. …

... The use of computer-mediated communication in training students in group problem-solving and decision-making techniques. The American Journal of Distance Education, 2(1), 38-51 ... Electronic emotion: Socio-emotional content in a computer-mediated communication network ...

This trend study was designed to examine a current trend and pattern, as well as a development of teachers’ concerns about technology integration in the curriculum. The study was conducted by repeated cross‐sectional studies, applying the same research instrument to different samples of subjects at different points, over a period of four years during 2004–07. Two hundred and seventy‐five in‐service teachers in two graduate courses participated in the study at a Midwestern public university in the USA. The Stages of Concerns (SoC) Questionnaire was used to assess teachers’ seven stages of concern: Awareness, Informational, Personal, Management, Consequence, Collaboration, and Refocusing. This study found patterns of concern typical for teachers at different levels of their professional development as well as distinct and stable differences between technology user sub‐groups over four years. Specifically, (1) teachers’ concern profile as a whole were very intense in the stages of Informational, Personal, and Refocusing; (2) there were statistical significant differences in concern profile among teachers with three levels of perceptions of their technology implementation status; and (3) the concern profile for each of the three user groups did not support Hall, George, and Rutherford’s hypothesis of 1977 regarding the development of concern profiles for the three different user groups. International implications for teachers’ technology integration are discussed.

Building a strong sense of community in text-based computer-mediated communication courses can be a challenge to instructors. This article presents how a sound practical approach called STEP is implemented into one text-based fully online course and one hybrid course at a university in the northeastern region of the United States. Students' perceptions on connectedness and learning are measured toward the sense of community. The effectiveness of the systematic approach with a variety of strategies in building a sense of community in both fully online and hybrid courses has been confirmed in this study. Discussion and conclusion of building the sense of community for text-based computer-mediated communication courses are included.

This project was designed to test Mayer's multimedia theory in an elementary school to improve students' mathematics learning for low-income children. The study designed and developed two multimedia mathematics experiments in 3rd grade: 9's multiplication experiment and geometric solids experiment. The two experimental lessons were implemented in two 3rd grade classes of low-income children in the United States in January and May 2010, respectively. A one-group pretest-posttest design was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data in both experiments. Both experiments found that the participating teacher and students scored very high respectively; the participating students were very attentive to multimedia mathematics instruction; and the participating students scored significantly higher in mathematics quizzes at posttest at the end of the implementation than at pretest prior to the implementation. The project has theoretical and practical implications for inter...

This comparative study was designed to investigate how online and traditional face-to-face (FtF) students used different learning styles in a graduate educational course. A nonequivalent control group design was employed. The study involved 19 students in an experimental group (online section) and 25 students in a control group (FtF section) in a graduate course in the Fall semester of 2004. Although no significant statistical differences were detected in learning styles at pretest, significant statistical differences were found in many learning style subscales at posttest between experimental and control groups. Specifically, at the end of the course, online students seemed to have a higher preference for peer interaction, competition, interaction with the instructor, details of the course materials, independence, authority, reading, direct experiences, and clear goal setting than their counterparts in the FtF section. No significant statistical differences were detected in learnin...