Review by: Ramanau, Ruslan (2004-10-19)

This article aims to analyze the impact of different scaffolding instructional interventions on the students’ ability to regulate their learning of complex science topics with hypermedia. Its main focus is on investigating the effectiveness of various scaffolding techniques for enhancing the learners’ ability to shifting to more sophisticated mental models and regulating their learning. The authors define scaffolding as “providing assistance to student on a as-needed basis, fading the assistance as the competence increases” In their view, although the use of scaffolds in hypermedia environments is quite common, there is paucity of empirical research on the subject, particularly with respect to exploring the impact of various types of scaffolding techniques on supporting learning of complex topics. The article describes an empirical study at one of the Mid-Atlantic universities in the United States, which was intended to address the need for such inquiry.

During the study 51 undergraduate students were trained to use the Microsoft Encarta Reference Suite to learn about the circulatory system. All of them were randomly assigned to three scaffolding conditions – AS (adaptive scaffolding), FS (fixed scaffolding) and NS (no scaffolding). In the AS condition students had access to a human tutor, who helped them enact various aspects of self-regulated learning. The students in the FS group were given the same overall learning goal and a list of 10 topic-specific questions with no access external support, while learners in the NS condition were learning about a complex science topic in the absence of any scaffolding interventions.The participants were given 45 minutes to use the hypermedia environment, completed a pre-test and a 30-minute post-test on their understanding of the topic. The revised Chi’s model of mental modes and Azevedo’s model of SRL (self-regulatory behaviour) were used to analyse student scores and transcripts of audio and video recordings from all 51 participants, who gave extensive verbalisations as they were learning about the circulatory system.

Based on the results obtained from the 3x2 repeated measures ANOVA on the pre-test and the post-test data and a series of chi-squared tests, the authors concluded that students in the AS condition gained a deeper conceptual understanding of the circulatory system and used fewer SRL processes to regulate their learning with hypermedia, than the FS and NS students. However, they stated that these results provide a major challenge to existing technologies, since it is currently impossible for any hypermedia system to emulate the role of the tutor. Hence, more investigation in the context of hypermedia environments other than the one used in this research will shed more light on the significance of the current study for facilitating learners’ ability to regulate their learning.