Mass Media and Psychology Assignment

Application of Psychology in Information Technology and Mass Media Media psychology Media Psychology??seeks an understanding of how people perceive, interpret, use, and respond to a media-rich world. In doing so, media psychologists can identify potential benefits and problems and promote the development of positive media PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDIA: AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP? Why do so many psychologists still regard television as nothing more than a tin box generating visual stimuli, while the rest of the world is constantly digesting and regurgitating its contents? One of the reasons for psychology’s lowness in picking up on the influence of media is that, as a young science, it has been cautious in its selection of topics for inquiry. Partly this caution derives from its uncertain status as a science, so there has been a neglect of topics that do not easily lend themselves to measurement, preferably in the context of the laboratory. This caution is not peculiar to psychology. Within academia in general, the media are not considered a fit topic for academic research; many media researchers can recall snooty comments from colleagues about their interest in the “trivia” and “junk” of media culture.

This attitude has trickled down to the student body. One of my third-year students reportedly said to another, “Surely you can’t be studying reality TV for your final year project? ” These are not stuffy, fogeyish young people, but they feel that academia is no place in which to pick apart their leisure pursuits. Negative attitudes to the serious study of media pervade far beyond the academy: in the United Kingdom, even as recently as 1993, the Education Secretary of the Conservative government referred to media studies as “cultural Disneyland for the weaker minded” (O’Sullivan, Dutton, & Rayner, 1998, p. ix).

Furthermore, the media themselves are not above pouring PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDIA: AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP? 9 scorn in serious attempts to study popular culture. Every few months, on quieter news days, an end-piece story will appear about a Ph. D. student at some university who is conducting a thesis on Madonna or “Big Brother,” and newsreaders will raise a quizzical eyebrow and wonder which government body is chucking away taxpayers’ money on such frivolous pursuits. Although cultural snobbery and concerns for psychology’s scientific credibility may partly explain its lack of interest in media, there are other factors as well.

The pace of technological change over the last century, and the rapidity of associated social upheavals, have made it difficult for serious research to get to grips with either. The current climate of speculation about the future social consequences of the internet and virtual reality echo the speculation that initially surrounded radio and television. Every decade in the last 50 years has seen major developments in mass communications and media. Keeping a finger on the pulse of change is difficult when you are trying to discover universal truths about human nature. It would be unfair to claim that psychology has ignored all aspects of media.

A quick trawl through North American social psychology journals in the 1970s and 1980s reveals a large number of research papers dealing with the “effects” of television and films. Most of these studies were instigated by a concern that, far from being a harmless box of tricks in the corner of the living room, the television is a source of imagery and information that is capable of turning acquiescent and innocent little children into gormless zombies, or, worse, mass murderers. This research is largely the legacy of behaviourism, and is discussed in full in part II of the book.

It is, however, symptomatic of much psychological research that it is essentially problem driven, rather than curiosity driven. In other words, the research has been conducted in response to calls for scientific evidence for the harmful influence of media, rather than an intellectual need to understand how media in general might influence behaviour. As a result, studies have been devised that have the best chance of securing a statistically significant outcome for a causal relationship between violent media and aggressive behaviour. The resultant literature enabled Leonard Eron, one of the eading researchers in the area, to claim that the causal link between media violence and aggression is as powerful as the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer (Eron, 1993). Despite widespread agreement as to the shortcomings of much experimental research on media violence, its legacy has been bequeathed to the media themselves, and to politicians, who continue to make unsubstantiated statements about the direct relationship between media violence and antisocial behaviour (Barker & Petley, 1997). Meanwhile, in the United States in particular, media violence research has moved on, exploring eans of curbing the argued effects of violence, through advisory warnings, labelling, and blocking devices such as the “V-chip. ” The consensus here is 10 1. WHAT IS MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY? that Eron is right: There is no need to prolong the experimental investigation because it has already proved the causal link beyond doubt. Nevertheless, there are pockets of research into media violence that draw on contemporary theories and methods in social psychology (e. g. , Shaw, 2001), and to many minds the issue is far from settled. What is interesting is that Eron himself never set out to investigate media influence per se.

His initial field of research was aggressive behaviour (Fowles, 1999). Due to the lack of any established media psychology tradition, this pattern of career development is likely to apply to most psychologists who have conducted research on the influence or effects of media. The exodus of staff from psychology departments to media and communications departments in North America has given psychology the perfect excuse to ignore media: It is now another discipline’s concern. Despite the disappearance of media psychologists from psychology over the last century, the influence of the media on everyday behaviour is o insidious that it has been impossible to dispel it completely. Indeed, its effect on social change has been so rapid that references to media phenomena now abound in psychological research, and their status as media phenomena is often completely ignored. A good example of this comes from a paper on self-concept by Aron, Aron, Tudor, and Nelson (1991) who, in a study on close relationships, happened to mention that their participants found it easier to generate vivid visual images of the pop star Cher than of their own mothers! Historically speaking, this is a truly remarkable psychological finding, worthy of more than a casual comment in Method section. Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that, despite the rapid expansion of psychology toward the end of the last century, no applied field of psychology has welcomed media under its wing. For instance, cultural psychology has emerged as a clear field within the discipline (e. g. , Cole & White, 1996), and it might seem that this would be the natural home for the study of the influence of media culture on psychology. However, textbooks on cultural psychology barely give the media a mention except for the occasional remark about television’s deleterious effect on “traditional” ultures. Overwhelmingly, cultural psychology draws its data from premedia cultural contexts and from parts of the globe where media influence is less evident than in the West. There is a clear bias toward “cultural durability,” implying that technologically oriented cultures are fleeting and insubstantial, and that “culture” is not worth studying unless ingrained over several centuries. Any contemporary theory of the role of culture in psychology ought to take media culture into consideration. In effect, this book is about not ignoring media, or taking them for granted, in the study of psychology.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS AN IMPORTANT FIELD E-Learning There are a wide variety of E-learning activities, from playing five-minute digital video in the classroom to implementing a one-semester online course through the Internet. E-learning involves various technologies (e. g. , cable TV, the Internet, or palm-held computers), various forms (e. g. , virtual learning, online learning, distance learning, and Web-based learning), and various components (e. g. , e-book, e-dictionary, e-library, e-classroom, e-assessment, e-homework, and e-management). Given the complexity of E-learning and consequently the iversity in understanding E-learning, there exist various ways of defining E-learning (e. g. , Huffaker & Calvert, 2003; Mayer, 2003). We would consider E-learning in the context of history of human learning and define it as the third learning system that uses various electronic techniques as its primary medium for learning (also see Rosenberg, 2001; Snyder, 1998; Swan, Bowman, & Holmes, 2003). This particularly broad definition emphasizes on the historic significance of E-learning. Historically, there are three major types of learning systems on the basis of what medium is used in connecting learners ith learning objects. The first learning system can be called S-learning, using speech as its primary medium to promote learning. Its prominence was gradually replaced by P-learning, the second learning system that uses paper as its primary learning medium. E-learning has become a pervasive and important learning phenomenon in the 1990s and can be considered the third learning system that uses the electronic technology as its primary medium for human learning. In order to gain the knowledge of how to grow a plant, for example, S-learning may involve a conversation between a mother and her daughter in a tribe village;

P-learning may take place when a student reads books in a school library to learn that knowledge, while being able to learn from their teachers, parents, or peers; for E-learning, a learner may learn the knowledge by searching Web sites or e-mailing to experts of agriculture in the world, while still being able to learn it from teachers, parents, peers, and books. Thus, S-learning, P-learning, and E-learning essentially supplement or support each other rather than reject or replace each other. With three different types of medium (speech, paper, and electronics), however, these three learning systems iffer from each other distinctively in how knowledge is presented, preserved, and/or delivered and how a learning process takes place (e. g. , speed, timing, space, efficiency, and accuracy). E-Learning in Education and Corporations The two most active areas of E-learning practice take place in educational and corporate settings (e. g. , Bonk, 2001, 2002). E-learning activities have been widely 286 / YAN ET AL. observed in both post-secondary education and K???12 education (Riley, Holleman, & Roberts, 2000; Schank, 2002). Good examples in post-secondary education include innovative E-learning programs (e. g. MIT’s university-wide open course initiatives and State University of New York Learning Network) and virtual universities (e. g. , University of Phoenix Online and Walden University). Good examples for K???12 education include Virtual High School, Keystone National High School, and Hundred High School in West Virginia. Virtual High School, for example, offered 87 different courses to about 1,700 students in 112 schools located in 29 states in 2000 (Riley et al. , 2000). Large corporations, such as IBM, GE, AT, and Merrill Lynch, use E-learning as one of their key competitive strategies to effectively train employees nd distribute knowledge (Rosenberg, 2001; Schank, 2002). Chief Learning Officers and Chief Knowledge Officers are often appointed to manage E-learning programs in many companies (Baldwin & Danielson, 2001). Major E-learning companies, such as New Horizons, IBM, KnowledgePool, NIIT, and SmartForce, provide either E-training courses or E-training content (International Data Corporation, 2002). It is estimated that the worldwide corporate E-learning market will rise from $6. 6 billion in 2002 to $23. 7 billion in 2006 (American Society for Training & Development, 2002). Thus, the E-learning research community hould investigate E-learning in both educational and corporate settings, especially since enormous funding for the latter has lead to significant progress. The Psychology of E-Learning Given the importance of E-learning in both education and industry, it is critical to study E-learning not only as a learning system but also as a psychological phenomenon. E-leaning concerns how to improve people’s learning with information technologies. Thus, there is a need to study people’s psychological factors (e. g. , learning styles and learning motivation), process (e. g. , creative thinking and spatial cognition), and mechanisms (e. . , the dual-coding mechanism and the split-attention effect) that underlie E-learning so that the E-learning practice can move from technology-centered implementation to human-centered effective learning processes. There exists extensive literature in describing various forms of E-learning, such as virtual learning, online learning, distance learning, computer-assisted learning, and Web-based learning (e. g. , Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1995; Khan, 1997; Porter, 1997; Windschitl, 1998). Few efforts have been made, however, to systematically examine E-learning as a coherent learning system (e. g. , Schank, 002) and to effectively reveal psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms (e. g. , Mayer, 2001). Thus, it is timely to explore the psychology of E-learning, synthesize the current understanding of E-learning from interdisciplinary perspectives, facilitate exchanges and collaboration among researchers and PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 287 practitioners, and develop strong and innovative research programs to inform millions of e-learners in their everyday E-learning experiences. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD The psychology of E-learning can be considered an interdisciplinary field of tudy for two major reasons. First, E-learning is a complex human learning phenomenon that one needs to study its multiple aspects from multiple angles. It is not only an educational phenomenon but also a complex phenomenon that involves cognitive, social, developmental, neurological, and other processes. Second, psychology is a complex scientific enterprise that includes more than 50 disciplines such as cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, and neurological psychology (Kazdin, 2002; Smelser & Baltes, 2001). Studying psychological factors, processes, and echanisms of E-learning, one needs to recognize, appreciate, and integrate the exiting research literature across different psychological disciplines. In the text that follows, we briefly summarize important studies of E-learning from five psychological disciplines. Cognitive Psychology of E-Learning One of the most productive areas of the psychology of E-learning is studying the cognitive aspect of E-learning. Two classic theories, the dual-coding theory (Claik & Paivio, 1991; Paivio, 1986) and the cognitive load theory (Chandler & Sweller, 1991, 1992; Sweller & Chandler, 1994) were advanced one decade ago.

The empirical research conducted by Richard Mayer and his collaborators since 1980s (see Mayer, 2003) can be considered as one of the earliest, largest, and strongest research programs in this area. Many research groups conducted a wide variety of representative research on the cognitive psychology of E-learning, such as John Black’s at Teacher’s College, John Branford’s at Vanderbilt, Christopher Dede’s at Harvard, Roy Pea’s at Stanford, and Roger Shank’s at Northwest, just to name a very few. This is an area of study where many “superstars” exist and more rise above the horizon.

It might continue to be “the crown jewel” of the psychology of E-learning in the future. Social Psychology of E-Learning Another particularly active area in the psychology of E-learning is studying the social process of E-learning. Among leading researchers in this area include Everett Katz and Ronald Rice at Rutgers University, Robert Kraunt and Sara Kiesler at Carnegie Mellon University, Sheryl Turkle at MIT, Joseph Turow at University of Pennsylvania, and Patricia Wallace at Johns Hopkins. For instance, the ongoing longitudinal project called HomeNet (Kiesler, Lundmark, Zdaniuk, 288 / YAN ET AL. & Kraut, 2000; Kraut et al. 1998; Subrahmanyam, Greenfield, Kraut, & Gross, 2001) examines the impact of the Internet on daily lives of the average U. S. family. The findings of the first two-year study demonstrated mixed effects of using the Internet on people’s psychological well being. Based on both the fast growing amount of the research literature and the fast growing number of research groups in the area, the social psychology of E-learning is likely to become one of the most influential areas in the psychology of E-learning. Developmental Psychology of E-Learning The third important area of the psychology of E-learning is studying E-learning rom the developmental perspective. The leading research groups include Sandra Calvert’s at Georgetown, Rodney Cocking’s at NSF, Michael Scaife’s at Sussex University, Patricia Greenfield’s at UCLA, Michael Resnick’s at MIT Media Laboratory, and Jane Hawkins’ at Harvard University. For example, Scaife and his associates (Scaife & van Duuren, 1995) explored how young children represented computational devices and found that older children shifted from describing perceptually salient features to more abstract ones. In another study, Scaife and Bond (1991) examined how children used computer input devices and found hat younger children had more difficulties using the mouse or joystick than touch screen and key-push and most children mastered all the four devices at about eight years of age. Unfortunately, in the past three years, unfortunately, three esteemed developmental scientists, Scaife, Cocking, and Hawkins, passed on unexpectedly and left their celebrated legacies to the E-learning research community. School and Counseling Psychology of E-Learning Another important research area includes the study of cognitive and behavioral interventions through E-learning applications in school settings. Horan and his olleagues (Clark, Horan, Tompkins Bjorkman, Kovalski, & Hackett, 2000; Horan, 1996; Kovalski & Horan, 1999), for example, used computer-based or Internet-based intervention programs to foster adolescents’ self-esteem and to restructure maladaptive career beliefs. Bosworth and her associates (Bosworth, Espelage, & DuBay, 1998; Bosworth, Espelage, DuBay, Dahlberg, & Daytner, 1996; Bosworth, Espelage, DuBay, Daytner, & Karageorge, 2000) studied the application of computer-based violence prevention to improve students’ knowledge on how to handle conflict through the use of interactive games, simulations animation, and interviews.

Margalit and her group (Margalit, 1991, Margalit & Weisel, 1990; Margalit, Weisel, & Shulman, 1987) documented the efficacy of computer-assisted social skills learning with students with learning disabilities, mild retardation, and behavior disorders. These research examples clearly demonstrate the promise and importance of studying another E-learning application, E-intervention, in dealing with children’s mental health. PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 289 The above review by no means exhausts all the important studies across over 50 psychological disciplines. Other promising areas of research, for example, re: a) neurological psychology of E-learning (e. g. , Gazzaniga, 2000; Gerli_ & Jausovec, 1999, 2001; Kosslyn et al. , 1999; McCluskey, 1997; Mikropoulos, 2001; Rose & Meyer, 2002; Von Melchner, Pallas, Sur, 2000), b) industrial psychology of E-learning (e. g. , Norman, 1988; Shneiderman, 1998); and c) physiological psychology of E-learning (e. g. , AOA, 1995; Anshel, 1997; Quilter, 1998). It is clear that there is a rich literature about E-learning in a wide variety of psychological disciplines and there is a need for greater integration of these psychological studies on E-learning. Thus, this special issue assembles a collection f articles that is explicitly concerned with psychological processes of E-learning and provides an initial base for interdisciplinary integration. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS AN EMERGING RESEARCH FIELD Contributions to the Psychology of E-Learning This special issue has four theoretical articles. In the lead article of the special issue, Mayer explicitly proposed the concept of science of E-learning for the first time and presented his theory of E-learning based on his 15 years of research on this area. This work can be considered the first important theorizing achievement in the psychology of E-learning.

In another theoretical article, Shah and Freedman reviewed the important literature, including their own latest work, on visuospatial cognition. To our knowledge, this is the first important review that effectively synthesizes a large body of the visualization literature for general educational readers. Based on the new science of learning, Huffaker and Calvert thoughtfully reviewed a series of innovative E-learning applications, such as Nintendo, Playstation, Parkworld, Game Design Project, KineticCity. com, and Junior Summit Project. This special issue also includes five empirical studies.

Roy and Chi developed a new method called Search Diagram to quantitatively analyze children’s Web search behaviors. Chen and Fu’s experimental study analyzed specific effects of multimodal representation by looking into its type (word-only versus word-plus-picture), channels (visual-only versus visual-plus-auditory), and media (computer versus paper). Guinee, Eagleton, and Hall’s ethnographical study extensively investigated the Internet search strategies of adolescents. Thompson and Lynch’s survey study identified psychological factors underlying students’ opposition to Web-based instruction.

Bergin and his 10 collaborators explored cognitive and social effects of the Interactive Simulated Patient, a well-received computer-based medical simulation. In sum, the articles contained in this special issue deal with various psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms of 290 / YAN ET AL. E-learning and make theoretical, empirical, methodological, and/or practical contributions to the field of the psychology of E-learning. Limitations of the Special Issue While explicit efforts from both theoretical and empirical article are made to describe psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms in E-learning, less ell represented in this special issue are psychological studies focusing on both E-learning from multiple psychological disciplines and practice-based and policy-based issues of E-learning that have broad social compact. Most of the articles, if not all, in this special issue mainly examine cognitive psychology issues (e. g. , effects of multimedia learning, visuospatial cognition, judgment of learning, and navigation strategies). Only three of the articles in this special issue touched somehow non-cognitive issues (e. g. , social success, gender differences, collaborative study).

Only two were concerned with psychological studies of E-learning applications (entertainment program design and clinical simulation). None of the articles involves psychological studies of Federal and State’s E-learning policies (e. g. , the National Educational Technology Plan made by the Department of Education in 2000 and the Children’s Internet Protection Act passed by the Congress in 2000). Thus, the title of the special issue was changed from “The Psychology of E-learning: Interdisciplinary Studies” to “The Psychology of E-learning: A Field of Study,” to better reflect on the true nature of this special issue.

How to explain the phenomenon that cognitive studies of E-learning dominate the special issue? The first possible explanation could be that cognitive science and computing technologies have traditionally been intertwined, and as we pointed out before, cognitive studies of E-learning currently are still the mainstream in the field of the psychology of E-learning. The second reason could be that there was a short time period allotted in calling for articles and there was limited space that precluded many submitted articles. Starting from August 2002, the call for articles was sent to all the divisions in APA, APS, and AERA.

But among all the initial inquiries and subsequent submissions, and the final collection of the articles predominately concerns applications of E-learning or cognitive studies of E-learning, with only two exceptions that focuses on issues of clinic and neurological psychology. Thus, no substantial evidence indicates that the special issue has missed a large number of potential manuscripts focusing on noncognitive studies of E-learning. The other speculations could be: Is the field too young to synthesize much literature (e. g. , in the case of neuropsychological studies on E-learning)?

Is the time too early to generate enthusiastic responses (e. g. , in the case of social psychology of E-learning)? Or is the task of interdisciplinary research too challenging to accomplish (e. g. , in the case of the interdisciplinary studies on the Computer Vision Syndrome)? Given these speculations, however, one conclusion could be reached: Overall, the psychology of E-learning is a field PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 291 that is currently taking shape rather than in its full blossom. We believe that the resulting set of articles, submitted through an open call for papers and reviewed hrough the standard JECR editorial procedure, provides an authentic window of current status of psychological understanding of E-learning. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS A PROMISING FIELD To further build the psychology of E-learning as a promising field, we as the E-learning research community need to move forward in two important directions, “going one inch deeper” and “going one mile wider. ” “Going One Inch Deeper First, we need more empirical research programs to study explicitly various psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms that underlie the E-learning practice.

We should know better how and why some E-learning programs are successful and others are not. Second, we need more theorizing efforts to build powerful theories, like Mayer’s theory of E-learning, which can guide E-learning practices and studies. With the accumulation of research on E-learning, this need will become strong. Third, we need more systematical studies on the research methodology of E-learning. We should not only use the existing research techniques but also develop E-research that really take full advantage of modern information technologies to collect and analyze quality data on E-learning. Going One Mile Wider” First, we need more interdisciplinary studies of E-learning. It is important to both bring in theories, methods, and studies from a wide variety of psychology disciplines and reach out to ask psychological scientists in different fields for their assistance in addressing challenging research questions and important policy issues of E-learning. We should develop interdisciplinary research agendas, conduct interdisciplinary research programs, and build interdisciplinary research teams. Second, we need more policy-based research so that major policy decisions an be based on solid research evidence. Third, we need more research-based applications so that the psychological studies of E-learning can be verified in the real life world and used to guide millions of E-learners and. In sum, we need to integrate research, theories, methods, practice, and policy to develop the psychology of E-learning, a promising field that will have distinctive intellectual identity and broad social impacts. The completion of this special issue in a sense indicates another starting point rather than the ending point of an exciting but challenging intellectual journey.

Due to the time and space constraints, this special issue only includes a small number of short articles. Thus, a book project is currently under consideration with 292 / YAN ET AL. the hope to demonstrate effectively the interdisciplinary nature of the psychology of E-learning that integrates research, theories, practice, and policies. We welcome comments, inquiries, discussions, and contributions. If this special issue serves as the first base for showing that the psychology of E-learning is an emerging research field, the book project could serve as the second base for further building the psychology of E-learning into a growing.

To conclude, the psychology of E-learning is a field of study that is important, interdisciplinary, emerging, and promising. This special issue provides an authentic window of the current psychological knowledge of E-learning. We would like to thank Executive Editor of JECR, Robert Seidman, and Special Issue Editor of JECR, Karen Swan, for their vision and support; all the writers who submitted their manuscripts for choosing the special issue as the outlet of their work; all the external reviewers for their time and work, and all the authors whose work are included in the special issue for their multiple revision and mportant contributions. Without them, this special issue would have been simply impossible. E-Learning: Technology Versus Psychology Bijay Kumar Nanda State Institute of Educational Technology, Bhubaneswar, India This paper offers descriptive elaboration on the following salient points: ??? Drawbacks of ? chalk-and-talk? ??? Experimental e-learning tool ??? Pedagogical Problems ??? Learning Models ??? Courseware Design ??? Virtual Labs ??? Personality Types & Learning ??? Professor versus Student ??? Imparting Expertise ??? Web-based Learning ??? Technology-assisted Teaching ??? Teacher: A New Role SUMMARY : 1.

Web-based Learning to be a competitor to traditional class room, if Teachers? role is confined to imparting bookish knowledge. 2. Need for blending e-Learning technology with Educational Psychology for effective learning. 3. Need for building Knowledge Warehouse for technical material 4. Teachers have to SURVIVE in Darwinian terms. DRAWBACKS OF ? CHALK-AND-TALK? : A variety of studies are available to classify learners, in order to choose most appropriate style of instruction for each learner, or each group of learners. Teachers, habitually, use a mix of approaches using ‘chalk-and-talk’ in a class room environment.

A concept is presented through one approach, say giving a formal definition, and then elaborated and explained through an example and may be analogies and metaphors. At times, this elaboration may be in response to a “not understood” signal from some of the students in the class. Some students grasp concepts presented in formal abstract manner like a definition or a formula. Some needs an image to visualize, with which they can relate the concept. We know people who can concentrate better when music is played in the background; at the same time, we also know of people who finds background music to be distracting them from oncentration. It becomes evident from this description that students with varying backgrounds with lack of prerequisite knowledge are not benefited much from the ‘chalk-and talk’. It becomes a prevalent necessity to ensure that the children should have the required background to attend the class. A mediation of technology may prescribe a development in this regard to overcome the age old drawbacks of the ‘chalk-and-talk’ . Students with varying grasping power, students with diverse interests because of different personality types and the compulsory attendance at specified time re the measure drawbacks of ‘chalk-and-talk. To weaken these drawbacks it becomes important to ensure the required background to attend the class and ‘let the children learn at their own pace’ be the pieces of technology. Anytime & Anywhere learning mechanism other than the compulsory attendance at specified time with customized courseware design based on the ‘type’ ought to be worked out for reaping the benefits invested in class. EXPERIMENTAL E-LEARNING TOOL: The concept of using computer technology to enhance learning experience goes back a couple of decades. Computer Based Tutoring (CBT) systems once flooded he market with the idea that one can buy a tutor disk say, on Mathematics or Biology, and sit in comfort and privacy in front of a PC and ‘master’ the subject is quite charming. However, it turned out to be a failure for most students in most subjects and disappeared from the market. Meanwhile, researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence(ITS-Intelligent Tutoring systems-to be more specific) were attempting more sophisticated models of using computer to teach. These systems tried to go beyond the then popular page turners to build better interaction and intelligence in the system to mulate some capabilities and characteristics of a real human teacher. An ideal ITS would have a detailed model of the domain to be taught, a model to represent a given student’s understanding of the domain and associated mechanisms to update this, detailed pedagogical models to choose an appropriate concept or a lesson for discussion using an appropriate style of instruction. Of course, it was too challenging for complete automation, particularly given the computer and networking capabilities of those days. ITS, barring a few stray success stories, blurred away without making a major impact n education. An intranet based tool for experimenting on effectiveness of Work ???Based-Learning (WBL) becomes a upward need to develop a database of modules with prerequisites, topic, module duration etc. Courseware must be fortified with text, audio, video with ‘explain-again’/add-on. Linking of Virtual lab to the internet sites experiments e- Learning tools to prepare, exploratory exercise (out of syllabus questions) module for monitoring the time taken for going through a module and correlation of performance in pre-requisite tests, module test and personality type. PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS:

The problems pertaining to the pedagogy are numerous. It becomes important to induce the technology for an academic refinement to solve the shortage of learning models which are to be based on personality types. Complex courseware design distracts the interest but use of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) may be an advantage. Course content format be modeled using the portable code of Java and XML’s data as well. LEARNING MODELS: Online learning can be seen to open up a lot of new possibilities in education. With powerful software environment, learning models can be improvised with a skill to emonstrate the subject through games for easy comprehension. The varieties of methods are required to be employed for better understanding of the learners by using the technology embedded with the psychology. Learning through story-listening, storytelling, experimentation and MEMORIZATION has some immediate impact on framing the objectives of learning among the learners. e-Learning is a combination of learning services and technology to provide high value integrated learning, anytime, anyplace. e-Learning provides a new set of tools that can add value to all the traditional learning modes-classroom experiences, textbook study.

All these have to take care to decide the package materials considering meticulously the personality type of the learners. COURSEWARE DESIGN: Some guidelines address the issues faced while creating the courseware which can easily accessible in heterogeneous environments. When considering the barriers within content, accessibility issues differ somewhat for each group to test the knowledge in the prerequisites. The explanation in this regard puts to a test of “Explain-again” and addon courseware materials. Supportive graphics are to be planned with proper placement of graphics for visualization.

To support this exercise the creation of Virtual Labs becomes essential. Research on Internet and out-of-syllabus help promote exploratory education. Collaborative learning expands the meaning among the virtual learning communities. The courseware design should have a scope for post-lecture testing through objective tests. All these exercise may help create a Digital Library for making the courseware design communicable and effective. This will be a distinct possibility to envelop Multilingual content on the same web page. VIRTUAL LABS(ACADEMIC): ‘A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae xtracted from our minds’ once said by Albert Einstein gives vent the concept of Virtual Labs in modeling the technology aspect of e-Learning. Graphics for visualization, simulation for on-line experimentation, web-enabled virtual labs, Virtual Reality Modeling Language(VRML) are the major content of the pedagogy of virtual labs. VIRTUAL LABS (TELECOM): The virtual telecom lab is to demonstrate the telecom modulation techniques with Interactive modules to learn programming languages for simulation of electronic and telecom systems for evaluation of performance studies. VIRTUAL LABS(COGNITIVE):

The psychological components contributing virtual labs for the cognitive growth that help design on the functioning of brain. Teaching natural languages, teaching computer languages, graphics and visualization anatomy are the important parcels to design the technology aspect of the virtual labs. There are some specific web designs to be browsed for knowledge gain in shaping a model like www. hazelwood. k12. mo. us. PERSONALITY TYPES & LEARNING: The varieties of personality types contributing learning have identified four groups namely Introvert (I) or Extrovert (E); Sensing (S) or intuitive (I); Thinker (T) or Feeler F), Perceiver (P) or Judging (J) as popularly known Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators (MBTI). Psychological studies say that each person belongs to one of the 16 possible types such as ISTP, ENFJ, INTJ etc. A simple description of inherent human qualities on each group will define the psychological attributes in one and different personality types. Introvert (I) type avoids crowds having a handful of friends. This type gets energy from ideas. Extrovert (E) type is in much love of outgoing and partying temperaments and gets energy from crowd. Sensate (S) type, a performer who works with facts and figures.

This type is strenuously practical and loyally down to earth. Intuitive (I) personality type is upwardly imaginative and keeps interest in theory and gives general answers to specific questions. Thinker (T) types use logic and reason and do not trust gut feeling but dreams in knowing ‘How people think’. Feeler (F) types avoid conflicts but trust gut feeling and develop interest in knowing ‘How people feel’. Perceiver (P) personality type does not take decisions quickly and does not plan thingsand thus sometimes grow reckless. Judging (J) types are extraordinarily decisive, not willing to change but prefer cheduled life but organize time & effort. PROFESSOR VERSUS STUDENT: It is interesting to derive the traits from the types elaborated in a manner that designates in all activities of individuals considering their personality and corresponding profession. One such important category is Professor versus Student. Majority of Professors are of INTJ type those who have ‘Thirst for Knowledge and pursue to be Perfectionists. They have the ability and psychological strength to comprehend the concepts with excellent grasp of abstraction and more importantly they have the ability to explain abstract concepts through logic.

But they want the world to succumb to their version of logic and unfortunately most of their version of logic is correct. This rigid personality type struggles to judge things in their way for which they attain academic excellence in the midst of continuous completion. But, most interestingly the Students belong to almost ll types. IMPARTING EXPERTISE: e-Learning, one of the prominent online learning mechanisms, can be seen to open up a lot of new possibilities in education. With powerful software environment, a student working on a computer, can be provided personalized attention.

Multimedia technologies provide for richer learning experiences than what a class room environment provides. It becomes necessary to impart codification of expertise through ‘expert systems’. Expert system for very focused expertise is through Software project estimation(1000 chunks) and analysis of diagnostic reports (10000 chunks). To measure the effectiveness of Expert Systems was an issue but no longer a problem. More accurately, 70000 chunks of knowledge is the expertise of a human expert in any given field but present expert systems have just 10000 chunks of knowledge. To develop and ake available Expert Systems on the NET would be a great research area. WEB-BASED LEARNING: Web based Learning expedites simulation experiments and excellent visualization through graphics and animation (eg. www. cellsaliva. com). Virtual Laboratories may be assessed through www. technoline. com . Tool for teaching courses that “cannot” be taught in class rooms may be a challenging provisions to be put on research, in modern times. TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED TEACHING: It comprises the facility to put information on facts and figures through e-books. Teaching subjects that involve extensive graphics and animation through Computer

Based Teaching (CBT)/ Web-based testing. Subjects that involve experimentation should attain through Virtual Labs and assessment be made through on-line testing. TEACHER: A NEW ROLE: It is the need and demand of the time to dress a changed role to teachers who should act as a Mentor, Motivator and Counselor. They should attach thrust not on imparting bookish ‘knowledge’ but act on identifying the strengths and ready to play counseling to put the student in the right path of learning. Other than a guardian they should act as a catalyst to promote the potential creative abilities of the students.

The much discussed ‘Type’ indicators be the basis to act as the guideline to identify strength and weaknesses of the students. They should act as the facilitators to change the “Personality-Type” to upward the homogeneity of serving education in spirit and philosophy. CONCLUSION: The latest technology entrant to the arena of Education is the Web. It is a combination of computers and Internet communication technologies. Online learning is being seen as a killer application of Internet. Web and Internet have already affected most walks of life; and it is currently hovering around education.

It is being adapted to address many of the problems with traditional education and of the earlier approaches of computer application in education. Online learning has already gone through the hype and the field is maturing to be able to distinguish the realizable and desirable roles that such technology can play. There is wide spread realization that just by web enabling the Power point slides and lecture notes we cannot suffice to provide a learning environment. A learning environment should be built over a clear model of instruction. Instruction technology, e-Learning esign and operational psychology play major roles at this point. What is media psychology? It’s a field with no consensus definition, no clearly-defined??career??paths, and no easy answers. In spite of that, it can add value anywhere human behavior intersects media technologies. Here’s why: 1. Media technologies are everywhere 2. People of all ages use media technologies a lot 3. Young people use them most 4. Older people worry about younger people 5. Technology is not going away 6. We all worry if this is good or bad or somewhere in-between 7. Psychology is the study of people of all ages

Media psychology is using #7 to answer #6 because of #1 through #5 Psychology is key to understanding the implications of technology. Consequently, it seems like it should be pretty straightforward to define media psychology. For some reason, though, it’s not. I have had discussions with colleagues for hours (or at least it seems like it) about what constitutes media, mediated communication, and technology and what we mean by psychology in the context of media???and we’re not even philosophers. In this and the following two posts, I will discuss my definition of media psychology and why I think media psychology is so important

Both media and psychology have made major contributions to western culture throughout the 20th century. Can you imagine The New Yorker without??Freudian??references or Jason Bourne without operant conditioning? The term “media,” however, used to be confinable to a bucket labeled “mass media. ” Our awareness of media, however, has reached the collective consciousness, as if we all woke up yesterday, awakened by our programmable alarm with the iPod??attachment, and over our coffee made automatically by our coffeemaker, checked our blackberry for emails and headline news and then looked up shocked to see that our kids are doing much the same.

This awareness is leaving people clamoring for a new level of understanding. There is an infiltration of media applications and information technologies into nearly every aspect of our lives. What does it all MEAN? Just like Mighty Mouse (or maybe Underdog), media psychology emerged in a time of need. The goal of media psychologists is to try to answer those questions by combining an understanding of human behavior,??cognition, and emotions with an equal understanding of media technologies. Unlike some types of media studies, media psychology is not just concerned with content.

Media psychology looks at the whole system. There is no beginning and no end. It is a continual loop including the technology developer, content producer, content perceptions, and user response. Just as Bandera describes social cognitive theory as the reciprocal action between environment, behavior, and cognition, so does media psychology evaluate the interactive process of the system. There is no chicken, no egg to this system. They all coexist and coevolve with each other. [pic] There is no consensus among academicians and practitioners as to the definition or scope of media psychology.

This is because the field must be representative of not only the work currently being done, but also the work that needs to be done. This is a field that changes every time iTunes releases a new mobile app. The interests of the person doing the defining often drive definitions of a field. However the fact that both ‘media’ and ‘psychology’ are themselves broad and prone to misconception contributes to the definitional confusion. In spite of our awareness of media everywhere, when someone mentions media the metaphor we fall back on is often mass media.

It’s a field where you must continually define your terms. Does ‘media’ mean television or does ‘media’ include computer interfaces that facilitate information??management??and distribution? The same heuristics impact the popular perception of the field of psychology. There is a wide world of psychology beyond the narrow view of clinical applications that evoke images of Freud and talk??therapy. So it isn’t surprising when media psychology is perceived as a psychologist appearing in the media, such as the radio shrink for many years Dr. Toni Grant or the infamous Dr. Phil.

This view of media psychology also has links to the origins of first division (46) for Media Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA). Due to the prevalence of mass media relative to other media technologies, it was home for several psychologists with media venues. The initial emphasis in Division 46 on training psychologists to effectively appear in the media, how to deliver psychological information over the media, the ethical limitations of doing therapy using media, and as a watchdog for the accurate portrayal of psychologists in the media far outweighed the emphasis on research looking at media use and development.

Part of the confusion also comes from the cross-disciplinary aspects of media psychology. Not all people doing what I would call ‘media psychology’ are psychologists. In fact, much of the early work came frommarketing??and advertising and the bulk of the research in media psychology has been published in academic and applied disciplines beyond psychology, such as sociology, communications and media studies,??education, computer and information sciences, as well as business management and marketing. What has often been challenging is the lack of intellectual cross-pollination.

Media psychology seeks to address that by bringing together all these approaches and vocabularies with the recognition that communication, cognition, and emotions are pretty fundamental to human experience and therefore have, by definition, foundations in psychological thought. In the next post (Part 2), I will discuss how psychology matters to the study of media. — Media psychology uses the lens of psychology to understand human interaction with technology. Don’t believe Chicken Little. The sky is not falling.

We need media psychology because media technologies are proliferating at the speed of light with new toys and gadgets on the market every day. These technologies are introducing capabilities that are redefining the way we work, play, and communicate. As I see it, a media psychologist can add value in five ways: 1. Helping people adjust to the rapid pace of technological progress 2. Holding authors and journalists accountable to professional standards when new research reports make headlines by actually reading the ports 3. Explain the difference between correlation and causality . Remind everyone that the experience of media technologies varies by person, culture, context, and what you are trying to achieve 5. Helping people understand that the sky is not falling The rapid introduction of technology is unsettling and has triggered a spectrum of reactions, from enthusiasm to distrust. We all come to grips in our own ways with change. As technology changes our lives, we are forced to change how we view the world. Human beings are not really very good at that. Media psychology is the response to this dilemma.

It is a relatively new field and hard to define. [See "Media Psychology: Why You Should Care (Part 1). "] Media psychology seeks to understand the interaction among individuals, groups, society, and technology and make sense out of it so we can make decisions and go about our lives in the most positive and productive way possible. Media psychology only recently become an “official” academic??discipline. Yet, the last 50 years have produced valuable and interesting work in media psychology-related research and study, much of it from outside of psychology.

Our collective anxiety over the impact of media on individuals and society, such as the portrayals of violence,??consumer??manipulation, or information overload has fueled a good bit of the research. In contrast, relatively-speaking, very little research exists on the positive uses of technologies. My grandmother used to say “you find what you’re looking for. ” Fear??of change is a normal human reaction. As far back as Ancient Greece, Socrates feared that writing relied on external things and neglecting the mind and that it lacked flexibility, the written word being literally “cast in stone. Kenyon College’s President,??S. Georgia Nugent (2005)??draws an apt analogy from a narrative pattern: “Kill the bearer of the message” saying that the earliest references to the ‘technology’ that enabled writing in Western tradition are of profound distrust. Where Socrates worried about fixity, we worry about the fluidity of electronic media and the fuzzy boundaries between author and reader, consistent with St. Augustine’s reflections that language links our interior with our exterior creating permeable boundaries between self and body.

Nugent notes that that those who do not understand new technology often want to control the “facile exchange between the inside and the outside made possible by this particular information technology. “She says: “Confronted with a new technology for communication, we find, in both Homer and Plato, the fear that it will introduce dangerous secrecy, an undesirable development of privacy. Today, we worry that IT will usher in an untoward openness of communication, a lack of the privacy we have come to value. ” Nugent, 2005, para. 23) From a biological perspective, we know that human brains are hardwired to notice change because the a change in the environment increases the probability of danger. On the Savannah, it was important to notice things that moved: tigers moved and were dangerous and trees were immobile and harmless. Nothing was more important to survival, yet nothing has such potential to cause problems today. Our resistance to change is a function of how we project our cost/benefit analysis, yet old habits die hard. pic] Equilibrium doesn’t really exist, except in our fifth grade science textbooks. But we like to think it does because it makes us so much more comfortable. We like everything to stay put, like the trees. The human reaction to change–resistance–is normal. Humans also have the added gift of selective??memoryto help maintain??cognitive??comfort. We pine for the “good old days” and use memories of prior times as a baseline model for how things should work and how the world should be.

Media psychology bridges this gap by helping us better understand some of the implications of technological change. Researchers hypothesize, operationalize, and quantify the impact of media. Research in media psychology, however, is difficult; complicated by the fact that it’s hard to realistically measure things that are so integrated in the fabric of everyday life. It’s extraordinarily tricky to separate out confounding variables in our complex world. Today, we are media consumers, producers and distributors and our choices have direct impact on what others produce for us to see.

Nevertheless, as order-seeking creatures, we are looking for how to assign responsibility for change in individual and group behaviors, the social zeitgeist, and all??moral??failings. As in any field, these factors have stimulated a mixed bag of research???some very important and well done and, unfortunately, some agenda-driven research with less rigorous academic integrity. Research is, after all, largely influenced by how you ask a question, define what you measure, measure it, and interpret the findings. Reading the methodology section and statistical results of a research report is valuable and seldom done.

This is particularly important for civic responsibility because reading apparently journalists are not required to read the actual report in order to cover it in the national press. Many articles are based on press releases from the sponsoring institutions or, worse yet, on another journalist’s interpretation. [pic[pic]t of the research that we would consider to be media psychology focuses on mass media and for good reason. Mass media was a game-changer, bringing information, images, and culture to a broader segment of society and the world.

Researchers looked to understand what was perceived as a unidirectional flow of influence from media conglomerates, advertisers, and??government??bodies on the public. This media effects tradition has produced various theories???such as, the silver bullet (targeted impact), media framing (we don’t tell people what to think, we tell them what to think about), and uses and gratifications (people use media to gratify needs)–and they have evolved from viewing media consumers as a homogeneous and passive audience to one driven by individual differences and motivations.

In spite arguments for reciprocity between individuals and our cultural environment (e. g. Baudrillard,??Freud, McLuhan, and Vygotsky), few psychological or media theories actually focus on media as part of a dynamic interactive system including media content providers to media consumers, co-evolving in a social environment. Bandura’s model of social cognitive theory does this, but his earlier work on social learning is much more common as the theoretical framework for media effects research.

Recent work in neurobiology and??evolutionary psychology??has begun to shed light on the impact of social interaction on the formation of internal structures. We are beginning to indentify variations in human??brain??plasticity in response to the environment and variations in??cognitive??processing over the lifespan to achieve psychological consonance. Birth to early adulthood is a period of high plasticity in terms of brain maturation and is subject to shaping by the environment.

Once past early adulthood, change in the human brain derives from cognitive intervention???which is, as we all know, a lot more difficult. Thus, from adulthood onward, humans find it “easier” to alter the environment to suit their cognitive structures than the other way around. Human alterations include physical structures, laws, codes of behavior, language and the arts.

Every generation will make their mark on the environment to support their mental models and with the vast changes in technologies and media today, this goes a long way toward describing the discrepancy in the attitudes toward media use between generations. This is a biological description of Marc Prensky’s (2001) excellent metaphor of the young as “digital natives” versus older generations of “digital immigrants. ” Because the media survives only by arresting and holding the attendance of the audience, they deliver technology and content that viewers want.

We must recognize the evolving media environment. Part of the job of media psychologists will be to take up the challenge of training the next generation to engage positively and productively with media; part will be easing the fears of the digital immigrants about the new media world. We also need to place the study of psychological processes within the context of mediated communications and recognize the dynamic role of these processes in interpersonal relations, social interaction and social structures.

We need to acknowledge the reciprocal relationship between individuals and media, in other words, to own our own responsibility for what circulates in the system. As if that weren’t enough of a moving target, we need to keep this all in context. Individual experience is, well, individual, and depends on a number of factors. Goals??are equally individual and not always “rational” by someone else’s standard. For example, there have been recent articles about media technologies altering brain activity, particularly as it impacts attention. But before we feel compelled to draw conclusions about something