LA PSICOPEDAGOGÍA MARXISTA DE LEV VYGOTSKY

broadly through research in educational media to determine the impact of instruction on mental abilities, feelings, values, interpersonal skills, and motor skills.

It may interest you to know that a useful summary of research validated principles from the bahavoural sciences that can be applied to the design of educational media has been prepared by (Fleming and Lerie, 1978). In it, over 200 principles and corollaries relate to areas of perception memory, concept formation, and attitude change, in the next section, you will be presented a selection of the major conclusion concerning principles of perception.

E.

F.

Use the visual channel for presenting spatial (space) concepts and the auditory channel for representing temporal (time) concepts.

Perception Capacity.

1. For different material presented aurally, use short sentences, redundancy, and excellent technical quality.

2. The most compatible modes that permit the highest information level are simultaneous auditory and visual presentation of a subject provided by slides and tape, sound film, and video recording.

Perceptual distinguishing, grouping and organizing

1. Use lines around, under, and between, to cue groupings; accentuate and relate elements in a visual.

2. Facilitate recognition of similarities and differences by representing several related objects together.

3. Make the organisational outline of a message apparent (subtitles, transitional statements)

G. Perception and Cognition

The better an object or event is perceived (by means of applying the above stated and other perception principles) the more feasible and reliable will be memory, concept formation, problem solving, creativity and attitude change. (Fleming and Levie, 1978),

The important thing here is as you design, produce, use or research on educational media. Keep in mind the importance of providing carefully for desirable perceptual experiences in terms of the learner‟s experience background and of the present situation. Such production elements as method of treating the topic (expository, dramatic, inquiry, or others), vocabulary level, kinds and number of examples, pacing of narration and visuals, and graphic techniques can each contribute to successful perception. In this way communication will be more effective and learning should be positive. However, you should bear this in mind that perception leads to communication. And in all communication, whether simple or complex, a sequence similar to what you learned here occurs.

At this stage we shall go over to the next section to discus communication theories.

But before then attempt to answer the self assessment question below.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

How does perception relate to:

the design of educational media.

Research in educational media

3.2 Communication Theories

The hypodermic needle hypothesis: according to Hoban (1974) the hypodermic needle theory states that “messages enter directly into the blood stream of cognition, affection and conduct of a target audience. This implies that just like when a drug is injected into the body, messages when communicated to a target audience have direct effect”. (. 32) But this postulate does not hold as individuals engage in considerable selectivity in processing their information. Two bodies of theory have been drawn upon to explain how this selectivity come to exist. The first is

reinforcement. Briefly stated, this theory suggests that people will process information that promises to be rewarding and that they will avoid selecting information which does not promise a reward. Reinforcement theories suggest that people seek reinforcement for their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours but avoid a state of inconsistency such as would exist when information would be incompatible with prior or present behaviour. The second theory is consistency theory which also explains selectivity. Hoban explains that consistency theory suggest that when an individual‟s cognition is consistent he seek for new information to resolve the inconsistency. It suggests that people will avoid processing information which will

create inconsistent cognition. Thus it is expected that people seek information which is consistent with their own attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviour. The converse of this is that people will avoid conflicting information. Kinbler (1987), explains this

tendency in people as “Selective exposure” by this people selectively expose themselves to information on the basis of whether they consciously or

unconsciously believe that the information will be reinforcing. Considerable research such as (Gardner, 1972) and (Gardner, 1974) indicated these expectations as correct. When however, exposure to inconsistent or unrewarding stimuli occurs, Gilkinson (1955) said “there is a tendency to pay selective attention” (p. 60). To him selective attention is the tendency for people to pay close attention to information

that is consistent with their attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviours and little attention to stimuli which are inconsistent.

Cooper and Johada (1947) observed that “people tend to perceive what they want to perceive or what they expect to perceive, whether or not perception are in accord with what other people might consider reality to suggest selective perception (p.125). Thus attention to stimuli does not guarantee that the stimuli will be perceived in accordance with what we might call “reality” they explained. Dunn and Dunn (1972) discussed selective attention and posited that “even though stimuli may survive the three preceeding selective tendencies: (selected exposure, attention and perception) there is still no assurance that they will be retained by individual for any period of time” (p. 35). There appears to be a tendency for people to forget unrewarding or inconsistent stimuli, and remember those which are rewarding and consistent. It appears, from this account, that humans tend to simply reject information that is inconsistent or unrewarding, and hence may not recall ever having been exposed to that information at any earlier time. They concluded that new information which is consistent with prior information or perceived to be

potentially reinforcing is likely to be processed by the individual and retained; new information which is inconsistent with present information or is perceived to be potentially non-reinforcing is likely not to be processed or retained by the

individuals.

On another note, Dunn and Dunn discussed the principle of “Homophility” and

“heterophily” as biggest barriers to our acquisition of new information. He explained that homophily is the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are similar in certain attributes (beliefs, values, education, social status). Simply put, the principle of homophily is that acquisition of information most frequently occurs between a source a receiver who are alike. The reciprocal of this principles also holds the more “heterphilous” (unlike) are source and receiver, the less likely there will be acquisition of information. It merely means, for instance, that a peasant farmer is more likely to acquire new information from another peasant farmer than he is from a University professor. A ruralite is more likely to acquire new information from another ruralite than from an urban resident person, given the existing homophilous state.

In the classroom situation, (Wittich and Schuller, 1967) identified communication barriers that invalidate hypodemic needle theory. These include: verbalism, referent confusion, day-dreaming, limited perception and physical discomfort (p. 174). A failure to understand the communication process itself, the existence of barriers to effective classroom communication, and the means by which these barriers may be eliminated usually results in such failures as are evidenced through pupil disinterest, low levels of comprehension, and in extreme cases actual school drop-out. These can be avoided at a large degree by improving instruction through multi-media utilization of educational media.

From the foregoing, the hypodemic needle hypothesis which states that messages enter directly into the blood stream of cognition, affection and conduct of a target audience does not hold and (Garbner, 1974) has proposed the cultivation hypothesis to suggest that message and message systems cultivate our priorities, our values, our patterns of perception and our very grounds of reality.

Hoban (1974) sees the cultivation hypotheses as more productive and consistent, provides for continuity, cumulation and tender care, all of which are essential in education and classroom communications. He believes that the future hope of developments in classroom communication process lies in the further development of the cultivation hypothesis into a full blown theory. Which over time, can be tested empirically, and explicated more fully so as to lend itself to practical applicability. Hoban believes that implicit in the cultivation hypothesis is that the multi-media generally have the solution to all the barriers to effective

communication and have a major impact on the diffusion of new information.

According to this author, there are so many media and in real life various media are used in combination, that is we live in a multi-media world. He went further and

identified three basic propositions or constructs about media:

Each medium carries its own inherent message with long range psychic effects;

Sensory limitations of input information from any one medium is completed by internal arousal of complementary sensory responses.

The audience participation subjectively in message formulation and becomes co- source or co-author in its transformational and complementary participation.

These media constructs perhaps may have helped to conceptualizing multimedia uses

SELF – ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Identify the barriers that invalidation hypodemic communication theory in the classroom situations.

3.2.1 Communication Sequence

In the last section, you learnt communication theories. In this section you will learn

communication sequence „particularly in the classroom and the implicit problems.

In all communication, simply or complex, a sequence naturally occurs various writers graphically illustrated with a model. In our discussion, the emphasis will be

on the elements, the actors of noise and redundancy, and how they function to affect the success of your efforts to communicate effectively.

The sequence in all communication whether simple or complex, starts with a message originating at the mental level, generally in the form of information, in the brain of the source or sender. This encoded or converted into transmit table form like a thought verbalized, as for conversation by being turned into sound waves or

words written for a script. The message then passes through a transmitter like print, slide, videotape, via a suitable channel or media (air, wire, paper, chart, light, etc to the receiver‟s eyes, ears, and other sensory nerve endings and then to the brain of

the receiver where the message is decoded or converted into mental symbols. (Kemp and Dayton, 1985).

Effective Communication depends upon participation of the receiver. The receiver reacts by answering, questioning or performing mentally or physically. There is then a return, or response loop of this cycle, from receiver to sender. It is termed feedback. It happens through words, expressions, gestures, or other actions. This reverse communication advises the originator how satisfactory the message was received. Feedback enables the originator to correct omissions and errors in the

transmitted message or to improve the encoding and transmission process or even to assist the recipient in decoding the message.

In this communication sequence, what ever interferes with the transmission of the message is called NOISE. The factor of noise can have a serious impact on the success or failure of communication. Noise can be created internally within the

receiver, to upset satisfactory communication for example, a lack of attention. At times noise cannot be avoided and in planning educational media, the factor of redundancy is often used to overcome the effect of evidence or anticipated noise.

Redundancy refers to the repeated transmission of a message.

Possibly in different channels, to overcome or bypass distracting noise. Some

examples of redundancy are showing and also explaining an activity, projecting a visual and distributing paper copies of the same material to study, and providing multiple applications of a principle in different contexts.

Bear this in mind that in working with instructional media you should understand where the media as channels of means of communication fit within the framework and process of message movement between sender and receivers. Then you should know how the various elements, along with factors of noise and redundancy, function to affect the success of your efforts to communicate effectively.

SELF – ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

Explain the meaning of noise, and redundancy in the instructional process with examples.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit you have learnt perception and communication theories. You have also learnt communication sequence and the implicit noise and redundancy factors their functions, problems and the remedies. You will also note that other theories exist and serves as theoretical framework to research in educational media. These will now form part of our discussion in the next unit.

5.0 SUMMARY

The main points in our discussion in this unit include the following:

1.

2.

3.

The communication theories reviewed revealed various novice factors in the instructional process.

The communication sequence also identified various noise and redundancy factors that can make classroom communication ineffective.

In situations were media are used and are validated by media research they offer solution of problems of communication barriers.

ANSWERS TO SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Perception is the internal awareness that a person develops for recognizing an event or object in the environment. (Discuss)