Shinkareva, O., & Benson, A. (2006, Feb). Learning instructional technology for an online course: an analysis of the relationship between adult students’ self-directed ability and instructional technology competency. Retrieved
Summary: This article begins by describing online learning and its benefits and possible drawbacks. For example, online learning can allow adults to further their education without requiring them to give up their current career. On the other hand, the technology used may be new and unfamiliar to many adults, thus requiring additional learning on top of the course materials. If adults are required to learn how to take an online class but aren’t familiar with the technology being utilized, what should they do? How will this affect their learning of the course content? The authors explain that online learning has two sides: 1) The course content and formal instruction and 2) the use of instructional technology. When adult students need to learn about IT, it requires independence and self-directed learning. The purpose of this study is to investigate part two: “the relationships between the students’ IT competency and their SDL ability, as well as motivation and learning strategies the students use to learn the technology for an online course” (Shinkareva & Benson, 2006, p. 2). The study addresses self-directed learning (SDL) as well as motivation among adult students participating in online master degree courses.
The researchers collected their data three different times throughout the semester by using various validated questionnaires. The study was conducted at a Midwestern university that ranks high among distance education or online classes. The participants were adults who worked and were taking an online class for the first time. 73.6% of 199 people responded, but this report is only based on 28.6% of those participants because data collection is still continuing among the others. Among the completed results (57 people), the study found no positive relationship between the SDL ability and their IT competency. The students with high SDL abilities show a positive correlation with IT competency, while those with low SDL ability show no correlation. Therefore, those with a high motivation and SDL ability benefited more and were able to learn IT better.
Response: My initial reaction to this research is that the results are seemingly obvious. It seems to be apparent that adult learners with high self-directed learning abilities will benefit more when required to learn IT independently than those with low SDL abilities. If some adults are more motivated and have always been self-directed, then they will take the initiative and learn how to use the instructional technology to help them with the online class. I think the next step to consider is how we as adult educators can help those adult learners who do not have high SDL abilities. What can an adult educator do in this type of situation?
If an adult educator has time to help students learn IT skills in addition to the normal course load, that would be ideal. But in “real life” extra time is not usually a common commodity. So, what are some other options? Perhaps the educator can form some type of IT support group and ask those who are more advanced or self-directed to offer tips to the other students. Often in an online environment, posts can be anonymous so students can ask questions and others can answer without anyone knowing who’s who. It may even be feasible for the IT department of the school(s) to offer some sort of community education or one-credit course to familiarize people with common technology.
I also want to add that it seems odd to me that this paper was posted before all of the data was collected. I didn’t really find an explanation for that and it seems to take away some of the credibility of the research in that sense.
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