And one of these instances is in virtual environments research. I was totally psyched to read "Online Instructor Immediacy and Instructor-Student Relationships in Second Life" by Traci L Anderson. I would go so far as to say I actually enjoyed the first four pages.
I agree with Anderson's comment that "immediacy behaviors bring about a sense of psychological and/or physical closeness between people" (101). I also agree when Anderson invokes research that states that "educators must work toward integrating a greater variety of immediacy behaviors when teaching in online environments" (101). The fact is, I have quite a few stars in the margins of these first four pages, which is always an indication that I am connecting with the text.
However, it all goes down hill for me after this. For instance, Anderson informs the readers that "in this research the alpha coefficient for modified 9-item perceived immediacy measure was .86 (M = 21.6. SD = 8.31)" (106). Now I know that those who are familiar with quantitative methods understand all of this mumbo-jumbo, and I'm good with that because I knew there would be explications in the Discussion section. But things continued to go south for me even in that section.
In the Results, Anderson states that "as student perceptions of instructors' nonverbal immediacy in Second Life increased, student motivation increased" (107). This sounds good, right? Well . . . maybe not. The next paragraph states that "although student motivation was assessed in this study, the specific factors that motivate students were not" (108). Huh??? Didn't Anderson just say that immediacy increased . . . motivation increased? How can Anderson claim that if specific factors were not assessed?
The rest of the text is similar. Everything is positive but then maybe not so positive. By the end I was wondering what exactly the research proves. Bottom line: maybe I do need to know what all those numbers and initials mean, or maybe, just maybe the research needs to be more clearly presented!!
I agree with Anderson's comment that "immediacy behaviors bring about a sense of psychological and/or physical closeness between people" (101). I also agree when Anderson invokes research that states that "educators must work toward integrating a greater variety of immediacy behaviors when teaching in online environments" (101). The fact is, I have quite a few stars in the margins of these first four pages, which is always an indication that I am connecting with the text.
However, it all goes down hill for me after this. For instance, Anderson informs the readers that "in this research the alpha coefficient for modified 9-item perceived immediacy measure was .86 (M = 21.6. SD = 8.31)" (106). Now I know that those who are familiar with quantitative methods understand all of this mumbo-jumbo, and I'm good with that because I knew there would be explications in the Discussion section. But things continued to go south for me even in that section.
In the Results, Anderson states that "as student perceptions of instructors' nonverbal immediacy in Second Life increased, student motivation increased" (107). This sounds good, right? Well . . . maybe not. The next paragraph states that "although student motivation was assessed in this study, the specific factors that motivate students were not" (108). Huh??? Didn't Anderson just say that immediacy increased . . . motivation increased? How can Anderson claim that if specific factors were not assessed?
The rest of the text is similar. Everything is positive but then maybe not so positive. By the end I was wondering what exactly the research proves. Bottom line: maybe I do need to know what all those numbers and initials mean, or maybe, just maybe the research needs to be more clearly presented!!
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