Participant Interaction in a Latin American Online Leadership Training Course

1. Participant Interaction in a Latin American Online Leadership Training Course Manuel E. Contreras Mary Dolan November 8 – 10, 2006

2. Outline • Context • Latin America • Methodology • Results • Frequency of postings: Overall and by gender • Learning and achievement • Critical thinking: Overall and by gender • General conclusions and discussion • Limitations and further research

3. Context • INDES within the IDB • INDES Online Course • 12 weeks, 2 sections, 33 participants • Pedagogy: • emphasis on the participatory nature of management for social development and the social constructivist approach to learning

4. Latin America • E-learning in LA • Interaction research in LA • Teacher-centered pedagogy • Hofstede: Latin America as a high power distance culture • Oral academic practice • Traditionally patriarchal society

5. Methodology • Frequency of postings • Quantitative analysis of participant-participant interaction registered by the MLS • Disaggregated by gender and type of conference (Café, Activity, Learning and Group) • Learning & Achievement • Measured learning using the results of the multiple choice pre and post tests • Determined achievement by final written grade earned in the course • Used Pearson’s correlation to assess the relationship between frequency of interaction with learning and student achievement • Critical Thinking • One author coded 3 activity conferences using the Garrison model • Disaggregated by gender

6. Frequency of Postings

7. Posting Frequency by Gender

8. Learning & Achievement Results • Comparison of the frequency of postings results for the number of student postings in each type of discussion conference (Learning, Activity and Group as well as the sum total of all of these) with pre and post-test results, as well as the final written grade. • no significant correlations were found in terms of student learning (pre and post test scores) and interaction in any of the different conferences. • correlation between the final written grade and the number of postings in the activity forums (r = .361, p < .05). • written grade and total number of postings in all forums were positively correlated (r = .350, p < .05).

9. Critical Thinking Results

10. Critical Thinking Gender ResultsLevels of Critical Thinking in All Activities (6, 11, 16)

11. Latin America(General conclusions/discussion) • Postings: • Where and why? • Gender differences: socialized behavior • Cultural differences in learning styles • Learning and Achievement • Cultural influences in juxtaposition to pedagogy and written mode • Critical Thinking • Cultural influence and attitude towards educational processes and interaction • Gender differences

12. Limitations and further research • No knowledge of outside communications such as e-mails • Issues of accounting for vicarious learners (those that participate passively as opposed to actively) • Limitations of the pre and post test, as well as the final grade for gauging learning and achievement • Instructor bias • Problems of consistency in coding • Difficulty of assigning a whole posting to only one category

13. Limitations and further research(cont.) • Use of literature predominantly pertaining to Anglo Saxon experiences (95% of referenced sources are in English) to analyze a Latin American reality • Generalizing the Latin American experience for 14 different countries/cultures • Small sample size • Gender differences regarding discussion forum preferences. • Gender implications on critical thinking.

14. Thank you for your attention. Any questions? Manuel E. Contreras manuelco@iadb.org Mary Dolan marydolan@gmail.com