Measuring Practice and Change
A recent study (MacDonald & McAteer 2003) looked at tutor use of media within both distance and campus-based learning environments. All participating tutors recorded learning support as opposed to direct teaching interventions during key periods within a single module block or lecture unit within the courses for which they had tutorial responsibility. Intervention purpose (administrative, pastoral, conceptual support, skills development, assignment feedback, etc) was logged against media used (email, face-to-face, telephone, e-conference, paper-based).
| Intervention function | Medium used | ||||||||
| Contacts with group | Contacts with individuals | ||||||||
| bulletin board | letter | face-to- face |
CMC forum | phone | face-to- face |
letter | other | ||
| Administration or management | |||||||||
| Encouragement or advising | |||||||||
| Reinforcement of concepts | |||||||||
| Assignment preparation | |||||||||
| Assignment feedback | |||||||||
| Study processes | |||||||||
| Other | |||||||||
An adaptation of MacDonald and McAteer's logging instrument is shown here. You might find it useful to make your own record of practice over a current period of your teaching, doing the same with the following year's cohort to check changes with technology availability and use. You can download the above table as a word document for your use (opens in a new window).
The study showed that face-to-face, written and email interaction featured most strongly across all campus based and distance environments but, where VLE tools were provided, use of Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) increased. Feedback from study participants raised a host of concerns about good practice in its use.
