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Article Excerpt
Education is a social practice and the ability to interact socially is important to social cognitive learning and social learning. Online education is frequently criticized because it lacks social interaction, a sense of social engagement, and the benefits of learning with others. Social ability with computer-mediated social mechanisms is key to participation and contributions in online learning environments. What is social ability in online education, and can it be measured? The purpose of this study was to explicate and develop an instrument to measure the construct of social ability in online learning. The findings demonstrate construct and predictive validity for a measure of social ability in online learning, indicate that the instrument has power for measuring social ability and underlying factors, and suggests that the instrument may be a valuable tool in technology research for collaborative and networked learning.
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Education and most occasions of learning are recognized as social practices. At a philosophical level an appreciation for the social nature of learning has developed across the fields of pedagogy, anthropology, psychology, sociology, communications, and linguistics. For example, Dewey (1916, 1938) argued that education is an interactive or transactional process. Similarly, Vygotsky (1978) explained children's thought and language development as a result of a child's social practice. New models of how humans make sense of information even more firmly situate understanding and activity within contexts (Lave & Wenger, 1991), so too do new models of learning reemphasize that learning occurs in and is influenced by social contexts (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Resnick, 1987). Social theories of learning argue that we learn through participation in activities and that knowledge should be measured by our ability to contribute to valued practices (Wenger, 1998). This "turn to the social" in our understanding of learning, the learner and the learning context raises challenges for online learning systems that are frequently characterized as lacking social interaction or a sense of social presence. Given that online education has become a substantial and growing part of higher education (Tabs, 2003), and that education is a social practice, there is a need for new constructs and instrumentation for building knowledge about how learners experience the sociality of online education. Similarly, online educators are challenged, but have little evidence-based guidance, for creating online environments in which the teacher and students are socially able to achieve their goals and the goals of the course and program.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
Social Ability
Nearly all theories of human activity posit that actions are taken to fulfill motives. When participating in a social activity, the social participation may be a motive in itself or seen as a way to facilitate achieving other possible motives. Baumeister and Leary (1995) presented the "need to belong" as a fundamental human motive. Others (Maslow, 1962; McClelland, 1951; Smith & Mackie, 2000) have also postulated a fundamental human need for belonging or affiliation. From this standpoint, participating in social activity is its own reward. Of course this does not mean that every social activity is rewarding, just that as humans we desire social interaction and derive satisfaction and enjoyment from it. Stevens and Fiske (1995) provided an evolutionary perspective on belongingness as a need.
In addition to a sense of belonging, the role of social context is also utilitarian for meeting other motives. Being a member of a group, which has been the basis of workplace studies (Luff, Hindamarsh, & Heath, 2000; Hinds & Kiesler, 2002), is probably most recognized for helping achieve results on the basis of teamwork or shared resources (that would have been impossible or less probable alone). For example, teamwork is valued for flying an airplane, running a restaurant, carrying out research, or developing new software. An additional motive of being in a group is the ability of the group to increase its own capacity for benefiting the members. The term "social capital" refers to how levels of trust and norms for work and interaction become a basis for achieving valued outcomes (Spagnolo, 1999). Social capital (Coleman, 1990; Putnam, 1995, 2000) is a construct of social units, which facilitates collective action. It consists of features, such as interpersonal trust, norms of mutual aid and reciprocity, and networks of association. Just as financial capital is a basis for achieving more wealth, social capital is a basis for achieving social benefits. Thus, social activity is valued for simply being social, for its utility for performance objectives, and for its contribution to developing more capable groups through building social capital.
Wenger (1998) advanced the idea of a social theory of learning to articulate the implications of the social context for understanding "learning by doing." The author focuses upon learning as social participation. Participating in a social unit provides meaning to experiences and engagement in the world and provides shared perspectives and resources for sustaining engagement in activity. Thus the social nature of the experience is both a key motivation and a method for engagement. Being competent in a social setting provides a means for social learning (Bandura, 1973, 1997), building social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), accomplishing tasks that require shared resources, and building social capital. To the extent that educational activity is not social it fails to benefit from these values achieved in social interaction. Many implementations of computer-mediated work and online learning are criticized for failing to provide sufficiently engaging interaction so as to create a sense of social presence. In particular, while online...
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