3 February 2023
From the desk of the instructor
Online education: Is its mode of learning legitimate? Part one: My disillusionment
The questions posed by the student audience following the presentation of the journal article “A
constructivist approach to online college learning” (Rovai, 2003) largely and unmistakably indicate
incredulity that a learning session belonging to a program offered by a higher education institution can
be effectively conducted using an online instructional design. To me, this is nothing new. I see it
among members of the higher education community, i.e., students and faculty, as well as in segments
of society that have some stake in higher education, e.g., politicians and parents; it seems widespread
and deeply ingrained.
As I reflect upon this condition, the question is not just “why?”. The answer to that question is,
because for the past hundreds of years learning has always been in a physical classroom, and it’s
worked just fine from the perspective of the powers that be; in other words, if it ain’t broke then don’t
fix it. Well, if one ignores the inexorable march of technological innovation in almost every other
human endeavour, then yes, there is a certain logic to that supposition. Yet, even if that were so, it
doesn’t take much digging to discover a glaring conundrum that once seen, cannot be erased from the
zeitgeist: why do the students exhibit that?
Think about it. Not only are the vast majority of students extremely unmotivated to learn while
in the higher education system, but they also spend the greatest proportion of their lives online and a
lot of that time learning. Keep in mind as I proceed with my argument, that higher education systems
of today are operated as a mass-production factories that produce graduates. It is an unarguable tenet
of mass-production systems that their outputs be majorly correct and according to specification;
quality control and a strict adherence to quality standards are mandatory aspects of any mass-
production. Thus, if a mass-production system’s output is majorly not correct, then that system is
considered broken and in need of a complete overhaul; if it can’t be overhauled, then it is shut down
and abandoned.
To the first point, the best that can be said about the students’ attitudes towards formal learning
opportunities are that they tolerate them. Their attendance at learning sessions is minimal. In fact,
even when attendance is declared to be mandatory, students can and do always find the barest of
excuses to do absent themselves. For those that do attend, their attention is upon matters that are
more than not antithetical to the material being taught, such as catching up on gossip, exchanging
notes about another subject, or arranging an outing for the evening. Further to this, students do not
what is necessary to really learn the material, meaning they do not review and/or revise the material
from their daily sessions. Instead, they cram just before the final exam, and once the exam is over,
they make no effort to retain any of that knowledge for use in whatever follows. If there is anything
that can be pointed to as being the source of motivation for the students, it is exclusively grades. The
achievement that the majority of students aim for is the highest possible grade; the highest degree of
learning does not even enter into their educational objectives.
To the second point, anyone that can’t admit to the veracity of the notion that the majority of
people alive today spend the vast part of their lives online, is simply delusional. Consider that the
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world population is expected to reach eight billion by November 2022. As of then, half of all
households worldwide will have at least one standard desktop computer at home, the number of
mobile phone users will be 7.26 billion, and the number of Internet daily users will be 5.3 billion.
Although owning a computer does not necessitate being ‘online’ per sea, owning a mobile phone
certainly does; the key enabler of being online is a broadband connection. When household and
personal computing devices started to be mainstream and affordable, learning researchers identified
that the people online were primarily young. But now, online users are not distinguished by age, only
by financial means, a condition called the ‘digital divide’. Does this pervasive access mean that all of
the time spent online is in the pursuit of learning? Of course not, but humans are “learning machines”
by necessity. The brains of newly-born humans are “designed” to be thirsty for new knowledge and
skills. Thus, setting brain abnormalities aside, all people can learn anywhere, anytime, anyhow; it can
be deliberate, but it can also be ad hoc and automatic. Whether the new knowledge is the latest
technological breakthrough, or science discovery, or specification of every warplane in World War
One, or even the latest scandal of a favourite celebrity, it’s all learning. So, yes, it is fair to assert that
the majority of time spent online can be utilized for learning.
So, with these facts now broadly and clearly articulated, the conundrum is vividly evident.
Students know at some level, even if it is just intuitively, that they can and do learn online; it is
impossible to believe otherwise. So, why then do they almost universally harbour such incredulity at
the thought of practicing online learning in higher education?
Kevin Anthony Jones, PhD
Senior Fellow HEAcademy
Associate Faculty
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