Studying Invisibly: Media Naturalness and Learning

This study examines differences between two learning environments : audio-written conferencing and traditional face-to-face instruction . We investigated whether medium richness [media richness theory ; Daft and Lengel (Research in organizational behavior. JAI, Greenwich, 1984)], medium naturalness [media naturalness theory ; Kock (IEEE Trans Prof Commun 48(2):117–130, 2005)], and invisibility influence students’ achievement, satisfaction , and behavior. In two research settings, a field study and a laboratory experiment, students were taught face-to-face and/or via an audio-written conferencing system; subject matter and teacher were constant. We found similar achievement in the two environments. Significant differences, in favor of face-to-face communication, were found regarding learner satisfaction. In addition, invisibility increased certain kinds of students’ behavior: participation, risk taking, immediacy feeling, and flaming. These findings were explained in terms of differences in media naturalness and as an effect of invisibility.

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