Comparación de los tratamientos de recocido en los aceros UAC-1,3C y UAC-

presence

The students and teachers who are the subjects of investigation for this thesis are required to undertake group online, at distance and to interact with other students and the teachers asynchronously by writing using CMC. They are mature students enrolled at a national university with an open entry policy (no prior academic qualifications are required). Taken together with the research focus and the aims of the thesis, these parameters mean that the Community of Inquiry (COI) was selected as a framework of relevance for this thesis.

The COI framework was developed specifically for investigating the use of computer-mediated communication by distance students and has specified three forms of presence: cognitive, teaching, and social, with a conceptual space at the intersection of these where optimal epistemic engagement is achieved (Anderson et al., 2001; Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer.W., 2000; Rourke et al., 1999). The authors argue that when social and teaching presence are satisfactory then the student learning experience is both emotionally satisfactory and pedagogically productive (Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2004; Garrison et al., 2000; Rourke et al., 1999) i.e. the COI is relevant because it attests to the influence of affect and the importance of teaching. Furthermore, the COI’s conceptuallisation of social presence is of value because it draws attention to what is different experientially about social learning online. The thesis

investigates co-presence (a sense of others) when communicating remotely using CMC and its impact on relational space. Therefore, it is necessary to ascertain whether the COI conceptualisaton of social presence is sufficient as a representation of a sense of others and by implication, for investigating relational space in these contexts.

2.5.1 Social presence

The COI defines social presence in the context of interpersonal interaction mediated by a computer.

the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry (Rourke et al., 1999, p 50)

Social presence as a conceptualisation of how a sense of presence might be achieved when communication is mediated by technology (including the telephone) is attributed to (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). These authors defined it as follows.

[T]he degree of salience of the other person in the interactions and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships (Short et al., 1976, p 65)

a definition that implies a sense of the ‘realness’ of others when interpersonal interaction is mediated by technology and is why this concept is of relevance for this thesis. When assessing the quality of interpersonal communication using technology it was surmised that intimacy i.e. a close personal encounter for example, between family members or friends, could be compromised by the medium of communication (Short et al., 1976). A contemporary example

would be using Skype to connect with family living in a geographically distant country. However, Short and colleagues argued that a working or temporary relationship need not be compromised when using technology to

communicate, provided that immediacy is achieved. If individuals in these contexts make adaptions that overcome the limitations of the medium i.e. communicate closeness to others, it is sufficient for the needs of a relational context that does not seek intimacy. Based on this a sense of others in text based online forums will depend on the form and quality of the communicative acts by the people involved rather than the medium. Immediacy, as it pertains to interpersonal interactions online, has been developed and variously

described as mediated immediacy (O'Sullivan, Hunt, & Lippert, 2004) or verbal immediacy (Delfino & Manca, 2007; Walther et al., 2005). Verbal immediacy is defined as an adaptation of communicative style that participants employ when writing is used for interpersonal interaction.

However, some researchers who use the COI as a framework for

investigating remote social learning using CMC do not address a distinction between collaborative group work and discussion learning. ‘Learning through discussion’ can occur when students have the opportunity to hold a

discussion around a common topic, a form of social learning that typically involves many more participants than is the case for group work, and it does not involve students in sharing responsibility for achieving the task. Therefore, to comprehensively assess the contribution of the COI (and the research that

coheres around it) for this thesis, its pedagogical credibility will be evaluated from the perspective of the Conversational Framework (CF).

2.5.2 Frameworks for learning: COI and CF

The CF and its relationship to learning theory was described in Chapter 1, Section 1.7.1, it covers all the main theories of learning and the roles of all kinds of digital technologies in learning (Laurillard, 2009). Therefore the CF is helpful as a way of evaluating the COI from a pedagogical perspective and at the same time making explicit what is distinctive about collaborative learning. The authors of both frameworks, COI and CF, acknowledge the influence of Dewey, who argued for a view of learning as primarily social and interactive: that students benefit from the opportunity to take part in both their own

learning process and also that of other students (Dewey, 1933, 1959). Based on this view, discussing and sharing ideas with peers whilst engaged in action supports the co-construction of knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity, and are precisely the processes that can be supported by providing distance students with access to online text based forums. The CF models the

iterative nature of the processes that are involved in collaborative learning: the continual iteration between student and teacher, student and peers, and between the concepts and actions of each individual student. The CF makes clear that the requirement to collaborate on a learning task, as represented by an outcome that is achieved jointly, is what distinguishes collaborative

learning from co-operative learning or learning that takes place during

is that the CF makes explicit the processes involved when ‘learning through collaboration' whereas the COI is less explicit about ‘learning through

collaboration’ as a pedagogy that is distinct from 'learning through discussion'.

The role of the teacher as critical is incorporated into the models of both the COI and the CF. By using the CF a generic example for fostering best

practice, and for progressing the conceptual understanding of a student, can be specified as a pedagogical pattern (Laurillard et al., 2012). A pedagogical pattern for group work will represent the activities: monitoring progress,

providing guidance, evaluating outcomes, providing feedback, that the teacher will need to engage in when supervising collaborative learning. The value of the COI for this thesis is that it recognises that the teacher has another role: facilitating the group’s relational space alongside monitoring progress and providing feedback, and has developed a template for describing and

measuring this role. The COI describes the influence of the online teacher as teaching presence, with their role prescribed by three areas of activity: ‘design and organisation’, ‘facilitating discourse’, and ‘direct instruction’ (Anderson et al., 2001). It is the role of the teacher as facilitator of the relational space of the group and the socio-emotional experience of the individual student that is assessed and developed during this thesis.

Although some research using the COI does not make a clear distinction between ‘learning through collaboration’ and ‘learning through discussion’

nevertheless, the COI is of value for this thesis specifically, the concept of social presence and its impact on socio-emotional experience.

2.6 Methodological implications of the literature review