Kozma, 1994

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Bob, Roland

Kosma's claim is a rebuttal to Clark. Kosma argues that "if there is no relationship between media and learning it may be because we have not yet made one." He argues that the phenomena we study are the "products of our own conceptions and devices." He is arguing for the study of the potential relationship between media and learning. (Paragraph 2)

Will Media Influence Learning? Reframing the Debate

Kosma's Claim

Summary of Kozma 1994

1. He says we are asking the wrong questions. The question is not if media influences learning, but can the media influence learning?

2. Current theory based on original 100 year old psychological assessment of response and stimuli.

3. Need to redefine with “First Principles” of emerging field. How are learning processes receptive to delivery method?

4. Learning strongly influenced by internal and external resources. How can these be fitted together to improve learning?

5. Need to create a theory that is grounded with social and cognitive processes as it relates to media and its attributes.

6. There are 2 successful uses of media that linked the internal and external environments.

  ThinkerTools – This method used physics as the subject to be learned. Problem set included   
  mental models that professional physicists use to problem solve such as vectors,  matrices, etc. 
  Also included were physical world objects such as pulleys, blocks, etc. These alone were 
  insufficient to solve problems. By using a combination of  abstracts and physical world objects 
  with computers as the delivery mechanism Newtonian Mechanics was taught based on 4 modules. 
  a.Motivation b. Model Evolution c. Formalization  d. Transfer

  Jasper Woodbury Series – This method addresses complex mathematics and looks at the 
  transfer problem. It uses real world objects such as money, gas cost and mileage. It uses a 
  control group that uses standard techniques and the experimental group. Different symbol 
  systems are used to operate on the media. i.e. spoken word, text, pictures. By using a TV 
  screen, maps and information can be referred to as needed in a useable format.

7. ThinkerTools benefits because of the capabilities of medium. They are used to create representations and to model operations. Jasper Woodbury Series benefits because TV is used as the medium to pose complex problems into a social context that allowed students to connect their knowledge to real world situations

8. Both methods provide the framework to assist students until they can remember and create these knowledge structures for themselves.

9. The methods described in 6, establish conditions that are sufficient to produce learning. The implication is that learning theory then must be based on conditions under which learning will occur.

10. Whereas the past experimental research sought a relation between cause and effect, methods as described above, while not yet widely used, have major implications in research. As more information on the relationship between media and learning is generated during a project, rather than before and after, more questions can be posed for research which informs theory and practice more than comparative studies.

11. New technology and its capabilities allow media designers to find new ways to engage students through interactions. These interactions may show media is indeed able to influence learning.

In conclusion, Kozma claims that if we can move from “Does media influence learning?” to “In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning”, it will contribute to the restructuring of schools and the improvement of education and training.