Session 3 - Position Paper

ETEC 501

Position paper - choose either Clark or Kozma

Robert B. Kozma – Will Media Influence Learning

· Electing to take Robert B. Kozma’s (1991) position on media and its affect on learning is the position I favor. It is my understanding Kozma wrote this paper as a direct response to the position taken by Clark (1983) that media do not influence learning under any conditions. Kozma proposes the questions in his article to research what conditions media influence learning. He poses the need to consider media’s capabilities and the methods that are used as they interact with the cognitive and social processes by which knowledge is constructed.

· In review I will visit the implications of Kozma’s approach for media theory, research and practice. He proposes that perhaps, we don’t know the connection between media and its affect on learning yet. We have a tendency to write-off things that we don’t know instead of continuing to study and conduct research to determine those possible connections. The second realization noted is if we only think of the media as a vehicle it would not lead us to understand the potential relationship either.

· Kozma notes that earlier studies are missing some key elements, e.g., how the interaction works with our own mental notions or descriptions of the cognitive, affective, or social processes by which learning occurs. Determining that learning is not the receptive response to a particular delivery, but, it is an active, constructive, cognitive and social process that engages the learner. This allows the learner to manage their own cognitive, physical, and social resources to create new knowledge by interacting with information in their environment and integrating it with information already stored in memory (Shuell, 1988),

· Kozma encourages designing our interventions of characteristics of media in ways that embed media in these processes. He later analyzes the results of two important and effective instructional environments to show cause mechanisms by the media that may have influenced learning.

· In summary, I would debunk Clark’s metaphor that media do not influence learning under any conditions. If the truck that delivers the goods does not have an experienced driver the outcome would not be as expected. Just as media used ineffectively in a classroom would not offer any added benefit or lead to an enhanced learning environment.