A Hierarchy: Displacement Theory and Media Comparison Studies
These questions illustrate well the displacement theory and media comparison studies, both of which view the relationship between media (i.e., all kinds of technology and teachers) as a hierarchy. The hierarchy mindset is committed to finding out which medium is the best.
The primary interests of the displacement theory are “Is B better than A?” and “Can B replace A?” Here B represents a new medium (e.g., radio, television, computers, the Internet) while A is the existing medium. When a new medium is acquired, people who embrace the displacement theory would label the new medium as a threat to the existing medium. They are eager to find out which one is better. Research that is guided by the displacement theory tends to conduct head-to-head comparison between a new type of educational technology and the existing medium, such as between radio and newspaper (Lazarsfeld, 1940; Mendelsohn, 1964), between television and newspapers/magazines/radio (Belson, 1961; E. Rubenstein et al., 1973; Williams, 1986), and recently between computers and the Internet (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2000; Finholt & Sproull, 1990; Kayany & Yelsma, 2000; Kaye & Johnson, 2003).
By the same token, the pressing questions of media comparison studies are “Is B (e.g., a new educational technology) better than teachers?” and “Can B (e.g., a new educational technology) replace teachers?” These two questions serve as the template for different versions of James Montagnes’s question. A large body of research has been conducted in an attempt to answer these two questions (see meta-analyses by Cohen, Ebling, & Kulik, 1981; C. Kulik, Kulik, & Cohen, 1980; J. Kulik, Bangert, & Williams, 1983; J. Kulik, Kulik, & Cohen, 1979). A typical study would compare the achievement of participants who learn from different media. A recent example is a study by the U.S. Department of Education on the effectiveness of reading and mathematics software products (National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, 2007). The study compared student achievement in four groups between the classrooms that used the technology products and traditional classrooms that did not. The four groups were reading in first and fourth grades, mathematics in sixth grade, and high school algebra (National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, 2007).
Both displacement theory and media comparison studies are driven by an assumption that media are a hierarchy and that we have to rank media to find out which is better in instruction. However, consistent and strong evidence has found that there are no learning benefits from just employing a specific medium to deliver instruction, from the radio research in the 1950s (e.g., Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949), to the television movement of the 1960s (e.g., Schramm, Lyle, & Parker, 1961), to the computer-assisted instruction studies in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Dixon & Judd, 1977). In his comprehensive review of media comparison studies, Richard E. Clark (1983) concludes, “Five decades of research suggest that there are no learning benefits to be gained from employing different media in instruction, regardless of their obviously attractive features or advertised superiority” (p. 450). Repeated comparison of face-to-face education and Web-based instruction seems to lead to the same conclusion. Recent results from Bernard et al. (2004) and other reviews of the distance education literature (Cavanaugh, 2001; Moore, 1994) indicate no significant differences in effectiveness between distance education and face-to-face education.
An Ecosystem: Dancing With Robots and a Transmedia Learning System
As learning differences cannot be unambiguously attributed to any medium of instruction (e.g., radio, TV, computers), we should be advised against a hierarchy paradigm. Instead, we should understand that an effective learning environment consists of a variety of media, as an ecosystem includes all of the living things (e.g., plants, animals, other organisms). This chapter argues that we need to change our perspectives on learning media. These media are not a hierarchy; they are an ecosystem.1 In an ecosystem, each organism has its own niche and its own role to play. In the same vein, in an optimal learning environment, each learnin...
