C OMMUNICATION AND T EAMWORK

A critical component of any course, whether face-to-face or online, is the ability to effectively communicate and interact between instructors and students, and between the students themselves. Faculty perceptions of the quality of communication available via online methods could influence their perceptions of usefulness and implantation of online engineering courses.

Anderson (2003) states that interaction serves a wide variety of functions in education, including allowing for learner control, allowing for different forms of participation, and can be both formal and informal. The online distance education course experience can be very different from a classic classroom environment. There is little or no face-to-face interaction, video or text-based information delivery can limit the richness of communication, and other methods of synchronous and asynchronous communication can limit student-instructor and student-student communication. In addition, technological issues can interfere with the learning process (Tanner, Noser, & Totaro, 2009).

In support of the critical nature of communication in engineering programs and communications as a skill engineering students need to achieve, ABET has included a requirement in their criteria for accreditation regarding the evaluation of student outcomes: “(g) an ability to communicate effectively” (ABET EAC, 2012, p.3).

A meta-analysis by Bernard et al. (2009) of 74 studies concerning distance educational methods verified that three critical types of communication in distance education as described by Moore (1989) - student-student, student-instructor, and student-content - were associated with increasing learning outcomes. It is interesting that the strongest interaction was between the students and the content, providing guidance to designers to provide strong associations with the online content. This research also

analyzed the studies for any influence in distance course delivery method, whether synchronous, asynchronous, or blended, and results indicated a strong association between achievement and asynchronous courses.

Communication and interaction between student-instructor and student-student is a key part of social constructivist learning theory. As described by Vygotsky (1978), learning is a social, collaborative activity focused on the connections between people and the sociocultural context in which they act and interact through shared experiences.

Based on his observations and the literature, Anderson (2003) developed an equivalency theorem concerning the three methods of interaction:

Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student–teacher; student-student; student-content) is at a high level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even eliminated, without degrading the educational experience. High levels of more than one of these three modes will likely provide a more satisfying educational experience, though these experiences may not be as cost or time effective as less interactive learning sequences. (p. 4)

Anderson (2003) expands upon this theorem to an online learning context, providing other implications concerning interactions. For example, student–teacher interaction is perceived as having the highest value amongst students, student–student interaction is critical for constructivist learning designs and collaborative tasks, student- instructor interaction is the least scalable and can be time and labor intensive for large courses. Some student–instructor interaction can be facilitated by videos, animations, etc., thereby changing from student–instructor to student-content interactions. The ability to provide these interactions adequately in an online environment, whether from a

technology, development, training, or a support perspective, may influence faculty concerns and perceptions of the capabilities of online learning.

There are generally two major types of interaction in learning situations. Synchronous communication is a situation where student-student or student-instructor interaction is occurring simultaneously, such as in a face-to-face class or when multiple students are online at the same time. Asynchronous communication is the opposite; communication is isolated in time and one way, with some time gap between message and response. Additionally, asynchronous classes allow students to interact even if no one else is online at the same time.

In their review of online teaching research, Tallent-Runnels et al. (2006) noted that synchronous communications provided a direct, immediate environment for responses, while asynchronous methods provided for more focused and purposeful communications, reasoning that students in asynchronous discussions had more time to think and reflect on responses. Designing a learner-focused course and developing a community of learners by establishing connections, working groups, and modeling effective communications was critical for successful online courses. Moderation by an instructor of online communications is also critical to address misconceptions, guide students learning, and to encourage participation, and the online presence of the instructor requires a certain amount of work, even in an asynchronous course.

In research on perceptions of students and faculty in online social science courses, Osborne, Kreise, Tobey, and Johnson (2009) found that effective communication methods are critical for online courses. Faculty believed that interactions in online courses are less effective than in face-to-face course. A pilot study of engineering faculty and students based on the work by Osborne et al. (2009) showed similar results, with faculty and students agreeing that online courses have fewer opportunities for

communication, less effective communication than face-to-face courses, and that it can be difficult to ask questions or clarify information in an online course (Kinney, Liu, and Thornton, 2012).

A case study by Abler and Wells (2005) describes an implementation of synchronous online communication, including audio, video, whiteboard, and application sharing, between students and engineering experts, allowing students to benefit from the knowledge and practical field experience of topic experts beyond the normal confines of a classroom or campus.

Another advantage of online education is distributed learning or remote access and sharing of resources across a number of campuses within a system or between institutions. AlRegib, Hayes, Moore, and Williams (2008) described the challenges of providing synchronous delivery of courses to an integrated system of campuses worldwide. The system utilized streaming video between campuses, and the authors identified three primary concerns in their design: minimizing constraints on teaching style, minimizing any sense of loss of remote student connectivity in that the student who is removed from the live classroom should not become detached or be neglected, and providing a rich set of technological and online tool choices for student participation and engagement to address limited engagement opportunities.

Building on the issue of communication is teamwork, a factor that is also important in modern engineering education. It is exemplified in team projects, team lab exercises, and in capstone course projects. The perception of faculty as to the ability for students to communicate with each other in a robust and meaningful as a team may be an important factor in evaluating the usefulness of online education.

To emphasize the importance of teamwork in engineering programs, ABET has included a requirement in their criteria for accreditation regarding the evaluation of

student outcomes: “(d) an ability to function on multidisciplinary teams” (ABET EAC, 2012, p.3).

In research summarizing engineering design thinking in a team environment, Dym et al. (2005) stated:

Constructivist theories of learning recognize that learning is a social activity, and both cornerstone and capstone project-based courses are seen as opportunities to improve students' ability to work in teams, as well as their communication skills. As a result, campuses now incorporate many of these dimensions in their design classes, ranging from cornerstone to capstone. (p. 107).