The Effects of Facilitation on Cognitive Restructuring in Online Discussion

This study compared the effects of system-initiated (low-level) facilitation with that of facilitator-initiated plus system-initiated (high-level) facilitation on cognitive restructuring and learning achievement. Graduate students participated in facilitated online discussion within a web course for one semester. This study found no significant effects by employing an online facilitator to provide extra facilitation in addition to the system-initiated facilitation. This finding suggests that well-designed system-initiated facilitation in cognitive restructuring may be sufficient for effective online learning. This study also found a significant correlation between cognitive restructuring and learning achievement, which confirms the importance of facilitating cognitive restructuring for effective online learning (Ausubel, 1963a, 1963b; Piaget, 1980; Vygotsky, 1978). This finding suggests that creating online interaction for facilitating cognitive restructuring should be incorporated into online pedagogy for optimizing online learning effectiveness. Introduction Online learning has grown rapidly in higher education (Dillon & Gabbard, 1998; Koedinger, Anderson, Hadley, & Mark, 1997; Lewis, Farris, Snow, & Levin, 1999). The total number of online college students in the United States grew from 0.75 million in 1994-1995 to 1.9 million in 2002-2003 (Allen & Seaman, 2003; Olgren, 2000). Along with the rapid growth of online learning, researchers have expressed their concerns regarding the need of facilitation for effective online learning (Leem, 2002; Lewis et al., 1999; Northrup, 2002). Online facilitation is an important factor for effective online learning from both students’ and researchers’ perspectives (Chang, 2004a; Gibson, 1998; Hmelo, Guzdial, & Turns, 1998; Northrup, 2002) and has been implemented in most online learning systems (Aleven, Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, & Wallace, 2003; Grasel, Fischer, & Mandl, 2001; Slotta & Linn, 2000). The most common type of online facilitation is on-demand help that responds to students’ requests for help (Aleven & Koedinger, 2000; Grasel et al., 2001; Shute & Gluck, 1996; Slotta & Linn, 2000). However, this type of help depends entirely on student-initiated request for help, which may become an obstacle to the effectiveness of online learning, especially for less-able students who may not be aware of the need for help or how to initiate a request for help (Aleven et al., 2003). As a result, students did not use on-demand facilitation effectively or even ignore it, although it is believed that on-demand help is useful when used appropriately (Aleven et al., 2003; Brush & Saye, 2002; Renkl, 2002; Wood & Wood, 1999). The effectiveness of online facilitation on learning achievement may become clearer when an online facilitator, instead of a student, initiates more facilitation. The online facilitator can overcome the obstacles of relying on students’ initiatives to request for on-demand help. Facilitation initiated by online facilitators can increase online interactions, provide extra helps to meet student needs, and, the most important, stimulate cognitive restructuring while students are constructing new knowledge (Chang, 2004a, 2004b). Facilitating cognitive information processes, such as storyboard scaffolding process, is perceived highly associated with better learning outcomes (Brush & Saye, 2002). Also, facilitating cognitive restructuring can enable students to develop a personal meaning of learning materials for enhancing learning achievement considerably (Ausubel, 1963a, 1963b; Piaget, 1980; Vygotsky, 1978). However, there are no known empirical studies revealed the influence of facilitator-initiated facilitation on cognitive restructuring. In this study the effects of system-initiated (low-level) facilitation is compared with that of facilitator-initiated plus system-initiated (high-level) facilitation to discover its impact on cognitive restructuring and learning achievement. Theoretical Background This section reviews previous studies concerning cognitive restructuring, collaborative learning from cognitive perspective, and online facilitation. Then, the purpose and significance of the study is described. Cognitive Restructuring The following presents the definitions of cognitive structure and cognitive restructuring. Then, it discusses the approaches for developing cognitive restructuring through instructional activities. It also describes how collaborative learning supports cognitive restructuring in previous studies. Cognitive Structure. Cognitive structure is a learner’s overall memorial structure or integrated body of knowledge, which is made up of sets of concepts and ideas that are organized hierarchically and by themes (Ausubel, 1963a). Cognitive structure is also known as structural knowledge, which is the pattern of relationships among concepts in memory (Preece, 1976). Learners’ cognitive structures determine how they interact with the learning materials and environments (Jonassen, Beissner, & Yacci, 1993). It is believed that transferability of learned knowledge and skills largely depended on the adequacy of existing cognitive structure. In this light, cognitive structure is viewed as an overall framework into which new knowledge is integrated (Driscoll, 2000). Cognitive Restructuring. Cognitive restructuring is the heart of educative process that influences the existing cognitive structure for maximizing meaningful learning(Ausubel, 1963b). Cognitive restructuring generates meaningfulness by building insightful relationships among learning materials, providing anchorage for new materials, and constituting the most orderly, efficient, and stable way of retaining it for future availability (Ausubel, 1963a). Development of Cognitive Restructuring. Instructional activities can facilitate the development of cognitive restructuring, such as learning by teaching, scaffolding, reciprocal teaching, and online discussion. Students in the teaching condition perform better than students in the no-teaching condition, because preparing to teach someone else could produce a more highly organized cognitive structure than only trying to learn the material for oneself (Bargh & Schul, 1980). The teaching process may have caused the “teacher” to cognitively restructure or clarify material on the spot because teaching allowed the “teacher” to view the issue from a new perspective and enabled him or her to see previously unseen new relationships among the elements. Computer-based instructional scaffolds were found useful in supporting articulation, reflection, and revision of explanations and interacting effects (Brush & Saye, 2002; Carr, Gardner, Odell, Munsch, & Wilson, 2003; Land & Zembal-Saul, 2003). Reciprocal feedback from teachers was reported as an effective learning activity for cognitive restructuring (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). And online discussion can facilitate cognitive development for adult learners (Cecil & Winking, 2004). Collaborative Learning and Cognitive Restructuring. Collaborative learning that encompasses group activities is especially helpful in supporting cognitive restructuring. Group activities create situations for group members to process, weigh, and reformulate information and augments presented by other members, which is crucial for internalizing concepts that contribute to learning achievement (Myers & Lamm, 1976). Cognitive restructuring stimulated within a learning group encourages reshaping ideas and learning new concepts that students may not learn on their own (Gall & Gall, 1976; Myers & Lamm, 1976; Slavin, 1977). The Cognitive Perspective of Collaborative Learning The following describes cognitive elaboration and development from the cognitive perspective of collaborative learning theory. It discusses the challenges associated with implementing cognitive elaboration and development. Then, it proposes online facilitation as a solution to overcome these challenges Cognitive Elaboration and Development. Collaborative learning refers that group members develop and share meaning about a group work (Webb & Palincsar, 1996). The cognitive perspective of collaborative learning theories focuses on knowledge restructuring by group members through cognitive elaboration and development processes. Cognitive elaboration emphasizes on group activities that promote cognitive information processing (CIP) (Dansereau, 1988; O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992). CIP activities include assimilation and accommodation that connect newly learned materials to prior knowledge, restructure existing knowledge structures, and verbalize learned knowledge with group members (Driscoll, 2000; Piaget, 1980). These CIP activities facilitate learners to establish meaningful learning and enhance learning achievement (Ausubel, 1963a; Wittrock, 1986). Cognitive development focuses on learners’ development of new cognitive structures within groups. Vygotskians’ view of cognitive development is that cognitive structure is developed in the process of interaction through a combination of mediation and modeling from group members (Brown & Ferrara, 1985; Tudge, 1990; Wertsch, 1979). For maximizing learning achievement, the task given to a learner should be within the learner’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). Scaffolding instruction and reciprocal teaching are pedagogies founded on the Vygotskian cognitive development (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Piagetians‘ view of cognitive development is that conceptual growth occurs through the processes of disequilibration and re-equilibration within group interaction (Driscoll, 2000; Piaget, 1969). The cognitive development process starts from social interaction, to cognitive conflicts, to resolving conflicts, and ends at cognitive restructuring (Piaget, 1969). Challenges in Implementing Cognitive Elaboration and Development. When implementing cognitive elaboration and development for cognitive restructuring, two major challenges emerge that affect learning achievement. One challenge is participation in activities, which is influenced by various factors, such as group size, group composition, status, gender, and member ability (Berger, Rosenholz, & Zelditch, 1980; O'Donnell & O'Kelly, 1994; Webb, 1989; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Without active involvement, learners will not constantly test their perceptions of concepts and may benefit less from collaborative learning experience for knowledge growth. The other challenge is learners’ ability to facilitate group members. Group members may not have advanced knowledge and scaffolding, social, and metacognitive skills to provide effective help to each other (Ellis & Rogoff, 1982; Radziszewska & Rogoff, 1988; Webb, 1989). Facilitation as A Solution. To overcome these challenges, increasing and facilitating interaction for cognitive restructuring is suggested. Facilitation, such as providing prompts, suggesting alternatives, requesting explanations from students, selecting tasks, organizing learning environments, creates opportunities for cognitive elaboration and development toward cognitive restructuring (O'Donnell & O'Kelly, 1994). Exemplar pedagogies for facilitation cognitive restructuring in face-to-face instruction are Scripted Cooperation (Dansereau, 1988), Jigsaw (Aronson, Stephan, Sikes, Blaney, & Snapp, 1978), Structured Controversy (Johnson & Johnson, 1987), and Student Team Achievement Divisions (Slavin, 1978, 1987). Apparently, these pedagogies in face-to-face learning can be and have been applied to online learning through various types of online facilitation. Online Facilitation The following describes three types of online facilitation by its initiation. They are student-, system-, and facilitator-initiated facilitations. Then, it discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each type of online facilitation. Student-initiated Facilitation. Online facilitation is widely implemented in most online learning systems (Aleven et al., 2003; Grasel et al., 2001; Slotta & Linn, 2000). The most common type of online facilitation is on-demand help that responds to student’s requests for help (Aleven & Koedinger, 2000; Grasel et al., 2001; Shute & Gluck, 1996; Slotta & Linn, 2000). While having students initiate help requests is likely to provide just-in-time explanation for constructing new knowledge (Renkl, 2002), it requires students’ ability to seek help in an appropriate manner (Aleven et al., 2003). This requirement may impede effective learning for less able students who mostly need help but are not good at seeking help (Aleven et al., 2003; Renkl, 2002; Wood & Wood, 1999). System-Initiated Facilitation. Alternatively, placing help initiation under the online learning system is to implement a computer tutor whose job is to provide contingent help according to the learner’s needs, like human tutors do (Wood & Wood, 1999). But, it is difficult for a computer tutor to judge when the learner is indeed in need of help, since a computer tutor has no judgment and is unlike human tutors who can pick up verbal and nonverbal cues. As a result, students did not use on-demand facilitation effectively or even ignore it, although it is believed that on-demand help is useful when used appropriately (Aleven et al., 2003; Renkl, 2002; Wood & Wood, 1999). While both student-requested help and system-initiated help reveal inherent weaknesses, further research to uncover a better balance between these two approaches is recommended (Luckin & du Bailay, 1999). Facilitator-Initiated Facilitation. Online facilitation can be implemented through not only system-initiated on-demand help, but also facilitator-initiated online help (Chang, 2004a, 2004b). Online facilitators, or online mentors, were trained to offer extra assistance for students in comprehending course contents in addition to instructors’ instruction, to initiate online learning communities, and to support technical problem-solving. Online facilitators could make judgment to offer additional help to needed students, compared to computer systems which has no judgment. Online facilitators could also provide more effective help, compared to student group members who might not have sufficient scaffolding, social, and metacognitive skills to provide useful help to each other (Ellis & Rogoff, 1982; Radziszewska & Rogoff, 1988; Webb, 1989). The contribution of online facilitators in assisting online learning and teaching was recognized greatly by both students and faculty. Also, students received assistance from online facilitators achieved higher course completion rates and learning achievement then students who did not (Chang, 2004a, 2004b). Purpose and Significance of the Study Purpose of the Study. This study examines the effects of online facilitation (low-level or high-level) on cognitive restructuring and learning achievement. Low-level facilitation provides system-initiated facilitation. High-level facilitation employs the course facilitator, an online facilitator, to provide extra help based on the facilitator’s judgment on students needs for help and to respond to student-requested help, in addition to the low-level facilitation provided by the system. It is expected that students with the course facilitator’s assistance, in addition to the system-initiated facilitation, may perform better in cognitive restructuring and learning achievement. Significance of the Study. This study departs from existing studies in several important aspects of the research design. First, this study examines the impact of facilitation on cognitive restructuring during online discussion, which serves as the intermediate factor to explain online learning achievement. Second, this study employs a course facilitator who can increase interaction by providing extra facilitation based on his/her judgment on students needs for help with or without students’ requests, in addition to the low-level, system-initiated, facilitation. Third, this study compares effects of two levels of facilitation. Low-level facilitation provides system-initiated facilitation and high-level facilitation provides facilitator-initiated plus systeminitiated facilitation for cognitive restructuring during online discussion. Method Research participants were 29, 21 female and 8 male, graduate students enrolled in a graduate course in the College of Education at a large southeastern state university in the Spring 2001 semester. Participation in this study was voluntary. This study was conducted in a single graduate online course taught by an instructor and assisted by a course facilitator, who has advanced knowledge of the course content and facilitation skills to assist online learning. This course consists of two separate course sections, and each section is contained within its own course website. The two course websites were identical and had exactly the same instruction, activities, assignments, and online discussion questions. However, online discussion of each section was held within its own course website without cross-section online discussion. Online facilitation for one section was constrained within that section in a particular stage of this research study. The Research Design Intact classes were used for treatment groups in this study. Students in the two sections of this course formed the two research groups. Random group assignment was not applicable in this study because that the enrollment office at the university, rather than the researcher, assigned students to these two sections according to the university enrollment policy. Repeated measures design, which all participants received both levels of treatments (Myers, 1972), was employed in this study. Due to the limited number of participants (29 in total) and using intact classes for treatment groups, a repeated measures design was chosen so that the observations were doubled and the potential impacts of individual differences might be alleviated.