Writing power into online discussion

Computers and Composition 23 (2006) 108–124

Writing power into online discussion Bill Anderson Department of Learning and Teaching, Massey University College of Education, PB11-222, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Abstract This article considers the way in which control of interaction emerges as a function of personal agency and external factors in a group of students engaged in online asynchronous text-based communication in a distance education program. It is structured around the argument that control is partly related to the power that individuals have to give effect to their wishes, but also acknowledges that this sense of agency is always in relation to the powers of others and more structural constraints. A picture emerges of the choices students make in deciding when to initiate discussion and respond to others, and about decisions concerning whose messages they would read and when. The impact of other students, of online groups, and instructors seems to play an important role in determining how participants participate in online interaction. Consideration of broader issues shows how the context in which students engage in interaction impacts the nature and extent of that interaction. The article concludes that being aware, and taking advantage of the socially grounded nature of online interaction provides the basis from which educators can act to ensure that interaction in online learning communities is enabling for the learning of all students. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Community; Distance education; Online learning; Online interaction; Power

1. Introduction In distance education discussions of power have concentrated on the notion of control, defined as “the opportunity and the ability to influence, direct and determine decisions related to the educational process” (Garrison & Baynton, 1987, p. 5). This concept has a history grounded in ideas Sharan Merriam described as having a “blinding focus on the individual learner” (Merriam, 2001, p. 11). Distance education is said to allow choice and flexibility for learners in their decisions about where and when they study, allowing them to control the place and time of their engagement in formal education. Discussion of distance education can also be rooted in concerns for learner autonomy or independence (Eastmond, 1995) expressed ∗

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in varying degrees of learner control within the student-teacher relationship. Critiquing the foundations on which this approach is based, Merriam (2001) wrote: Based on humanistic psychology, Knowles’s version of andragogy presents the individual learner as one who is autonomous, free, and growth oriented. Critics have pointed out that there is little or no acknowledgement that every person has been shaped by his or her culture and society, that every person has a history and that social institutions and structures define, to a large extent, the learning transaction irrespective of the individual learner. (p. 7)

Merriam’s acknowledgement of this criticism and acceptance of the role of history, culture, and structures in individual learning echoed the call of T. Evans and D. Nation (1989) for consideration of the wider social world that distance learners inhabit. The concept of control in distance education that Myra Baynton (1992) articulated includes not just a sense of what the learner can do within the learning transaction but also acknowledges the importance of a number of direct and indirect factors related to the institutional and wider social contexts facing students. Control is not just seen as the power that individuals have to give effect to their wishes, but also acknowledges the relations of power within which individuals exist and takes account of the range of forces that impact on their ability to attain their goals. Chere Gibson (1998) connected the immediate world of the learner with the range of other worlds that impinge on the work of learning at a distance. For the distance learner, education is primarily a local event, taking place in a milieu that includes demands from and interests in an instructorlearner relationship, an educational institution, a family, friends, a workplace, and community organizations. These demands constrain both when and where learning occurs. The distance learning environment is ultimately local, but the relationships that enclose it give rise to power and negotiations that impact the time and space in which learning activities are undertaken. The point that Merriam made, placed alongside that of Evans and Nation and Gibson, reflected the sociological debate concerning the relative impact of structure and agency—the “relationship between the subjective powers of human agents and the objective powers of the realities they have a hand in producing” (Parker, 2000, p. ix). Humans have agency to act, a power to direct their efforts to take control of their lives, but this power is always in relation to the powers of others and of social structures (Parker, 2000). Evans and Nation (1992) articulated this relationship using the metaphor of dance, “open and distance educational institutions actually choreograph the lives of their students. Like all good dancers. . . students at a distance add their own interpretations and movements and sometimes they demand of the choreographer that the movements be changed” (p. 9). Anthony Giddens (1977) described just such a relational view of power, one that recognizes the contributions of an interdependence between the objective social structures and the subjective powers of agency of people. For Giddens, people are able to exercise their powers of agency through access to structures—rules and resources—of which language is a paradigmatic example. Structures in turn have their effect through being used by people. In particular, Giddens’ work is relevant to distance educators because of his recognition of the importance of time and space, and the impact of authoritative structures, in understanding the situatedness of social interaction and the negotiation of power (Giddens, 1984). Giddens used the term “distanciation” to express the way in which the processes linking agency and structure are related to the development and maintenance of social systems. John

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Parker (2000, p. 61) described it thus: “[R]ules and resources facilitate relating the immediate momentary and proximate qualities of action situations, to what is more remote in time and space. Structures therefore ‘stretch’ situations and ‘bind’ them to others; ‘distanciation’ involves the ‘dissolution of the restraints of time and space.’ ” This dissolution engenders regularities that extend beyond immediate action and “enables agents to draw upon a wide and relatively reliable set of resources to cope with the contingencies of life” (Parker, 2000, p. 61). Understanding and using resources in this manner enables people to enhance their power to control outcomes. The concept of distanciation helps us to understand the nature of distance education. Students studying in their various contexts are each involved in the situatedness of their own immediate context. However, each of these students is a part of a whole—a group bound together through a common curriculum, common study materials and common processes for interacting with the institution. In some cases, common study timeframes bind students even closer to the institution and to each other, especially in the case of synchronous distance study, or “paced asynchronous” as much online distance study is. Power over the use of time, and of place, are concessions that distance institutions often make to students. Distance students take advantage of the framework of authoritative structures set up by institutions to study at their own pace, at their own place. When students are engaged in online study a stratum of social interaction with other students is overlaid on the foundation of personal autonomy and independent study that has characterized much of distance education in the past. Students will seek to integrate and structure the range of encounters that occur online. In doing so, they will create their own political space—in the language of online education, their online community.

2. Online community as a political space Steve Jones (1998a) was very clear about the importance of considering the issue of power in online discussions. Noting that the idea of communities emerges strongly in the wider literature on computer-mediated communication (CMC), Jones (1998b) wrote “communities are defined not as places but as social networks, a definition useful for the study of community in cyberspace. . . [since]. . . it focuses on the interactions that create communities” (p. 20). Jones went on to say that “just because the spaces with which we are now concerned are electronic there is not a guarantee that they are democratic, egalitarian or accessible and it is not the case that we can forgo asking in particular about substance and dominance” (p. 20). Issues surrounding race and gender have been investigated in a number of computermediated communication studies, showing that difference does exist and is visible online. Susan Herring’s work has provided the most useful empirical analysis of the impact of gender in CMC (Herring, 1993, 1996, 2000). Herring conducted most of her work using publicly accessible mailing lists and Usenet mailing lists and has also drawn widely on a range of studies of gender and CMC in her writing. She suggests that the number of findings of gender disparity in the nature and extent of CMC use “raise an apparent paradox: how can gender disparity persist in an anonymous medium which allegedly renders gender invisible?” (Herring, 2000, p. 3). Herring’s work, supported by the findings of many others (e.g., Baym, 1996; Hall,

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1996; Hert, 1997; Savicki, Lingenfelter, & Kelley, 1996; Smith, McLaughlin, & Osborne, 1996) showed that gender is far from invisible in online discussions; and that gendered nature of discussion has ramifications for the structuring and control of CMC (see also Murray, 2000). Simeon Yates (2001) summarized these ramifications by saying “The ‘democratic’ model has not won out and, as with face-to-face education situations, gender has a key role to play in structuring the interactions so as to marginalize women’s contributions” (p. 27). Researchers into race in cyberspace reach largely similar findings as those within the area of gender research. The conclusion offered by Beth Kolko, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert Rodman (2000) is that You may be able to go online and not have anyone know your race or gender—you may even be able to take cyberspace’s potential for anonymity a step further and masquerade as a race or gender that doesn’t reflect the real, offline you—but neither the invisibility nor the mutability of online identity make it possible for you to escape your “real world” identity completely. Consequently, race matters in cyberspace precisely because all of us who spend time online are already shaped by the ways in which race matters offline, and we can’t help but bring our own knowledge, experiences, and values with us when we log on. (pp. 4–5)

This conclusion comes from the introduction to a collection of work that describes the various ways in which race is presented online, and in other circumstances pointedly ignored, because to acknowledge its presence would be disruptive. In relation to this last point, the authors in this collection argue that often in the spaces within which Internet interaction occurs, the race switch is kept in the “off” position or at the very least is kept in a default “White” position (Lockard, 2000). When the race switch is “on,” when questions of race are a focus, the same matters of language style and use emerge as identifiers. Using Usenet groups Byron Burkhalter (1998) demonstrated how racial identity is made visible online. Burkhalter described how self-disclosure and the use of language serve to provide ways in which one’s racial identity is disclosed. These examples for race and gender show clearly that interaction on the Internet is not necessarily the free, open, and unhindered passage of ideas and opinions that a democratic model might lead us to expect. The words of the MCI television commercial, “There is no race. There is no gender. There is no age. There are no infirmities. There are only minds. Utopia? No, Internet” have a hollow ring to them. Though most studies have concentrated on the immediate situation of use, it is possible to look more widely at the structures and relationships that are carried into the online environment. Cheris Kramarae (1998) wrote that “Cyberspace can provide freedoms of various sorts, but they are designed and constrained by powerful structured forces of assumptions and goals; they are not equally friendly environments or opportunities for everyone” (p. 113). Also looking beyond the immediate, Thomas Erickson (1997) noted that properties of the medium that encourage particular communicative features he saw in his analysis of online discourse could easily support alternative features. He suggests that what prevents the alternatives from occurring are primarily social factors (nature of the online “community”) and institutional factors such as the policies related to managing the discourse. Nancy Baym (1995) is another who looked more widely for forces that might shape discussion, noting the need to consider the structural features of the tools of use as resources used to create an online culture.

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The earlier work of theorists in the area of computer-mediated communication was characterized by a sense of technological determinism that more recent work has shrugged off. Quentin Jones (1997) provided a full argument to support the rejection of technological determinism saying, “the particular form that an individual virtual community takes is not determined by technology but rather is dependent on its social context” (p. 10). Although technological deterministic approaches can be rejected, social forces underpin the design and use of technology. Because of the social origins of their design, all technologies bring their own affordances to their use and these affordances will have an impact on the way technologies are used. In addition, in the immediate situation of technology use, the dynamics of power relations still exist and must be examined in all online communities for learning.

3. Interaction in online communities for learning At the heart of a community of learners lies the communication that takes place between its members. That communication serves two main functions. In the broad terms that James Gee (1999, p. 1) uses discussing language, those functions are “to scaffold the performance of social activities (whether play or work or both) and to scaffold human affiliation within cultures and social groups and institutions.” Gee reminds us that these functions are connected; that ultimately “language-in-use is everywhere and always ‘political’ ” (p. 1); and that the political nature of language-in-use implicates it in the creation and distribution of social goods such as power, status, and worth. In online learning, the technological mediation of interaction must also be considered. Consistent with the analysis of the previous section, Simeon Wertsch (1991, p. 6) noted that an account of the role of interaction must consider the relationship between human mental processes and their cultural, historical, and institutional settings. Here, higher mental functioning derives from a social plane, and human action, both individual and social, is mediated by tools and signs (Wertsch, 1991). As Wertsch (1991) indicates, it is more sensible to speak of “individual-acting-with-mediational-means,” although an analytic distinction may be possible between the two (actor and means). The mediational means (both language and the computermediated communication context) are immediate and historical concerns. An implication of a sociocultural approach is that individuals use mediational means in their actions but those means “shape the actions in essential ways” (Wertsch, 1991, p. 12). Jointly, Gee and Wertsch remind us yet again of the nature of the dynamics of interaction between people. They alert us to the social constraints that infuse interaction, and signal both the historical nature and immediate construction of the meanings that arise through interaction, in line with Wenger’s comment that “Meaning is not pre-existing, but neither is it simply made up. Negotiated meaning is at once both historical and dynamic, contextual and unique” (Wenger, 1998). Studies of online learning reveal aspects of the dynamics of online interaction, but most are conducted without specific focus on the carefully negotiated nature of the relationship between individual agency and the social structures within which people operate as agents. For example, Rupert Wegerif (1998) reports on the concern British postgraduate students express about the style of messaging online, and in a totally different context, that of Japanese speaking (and

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writing) professionals in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Paul Matsuda (2002) has reported a similar phenomenon. Anthony Picciano (1998) found that, in a course with experienced students, concern about “speaking” in class was evident. “While some students prefer speaking up in class, others do not” (Picciano, 1998, p. 11). Students recognized that their responses were open to more scrutiny because they were available for continual review. The remainder of the paper will examine aspects of the nature of power in interaction within the teaching and learning process in an online distance education course, using as data the perceptions of online interaction of a group of students. This examination is structured around the argument that individuals have power to give effect to their interactional intent, but that their sense of personal agency is always in relation to the powers of others, as well as more structural factors that can be seen as both resources and constraints.

4. Describing power in interaction within an online learning community The study involved students in a teacher education program offered entirely at a distance. Students in the program are predominantly mature students. At the time of the study only 8% were aged less than 25 years; 70% were in the 30–45-year age range. The group was overwhelmingly female. Ninety-one percent of the students in the program were female. All students in the program are required to participate in online discussion. The program uses WebCT for Web-delivered components and online interaction. Students also receive print material and other resources at the beginning of each semester. The participants were relatively experienced online learners, being in their second or third year of full-time online study. As a full-time student, each participant studies five or six courses in a semester. Each course’s study guide describes activities written to encourage discussion online in small groups of five to seven members. A student works with the same small group of people in all courses for a semester, after which time the groups are changed. The discussion spaces within which students interact online in each of their courses are largely similar, arising from a templated structure. They contain forums within which different threads of discussion occur. As a minimum for each course, every small group has its own forum, the class as a whole has a forum, and there is a forum accessible only to students. Guidelines for online discussion are provided in the course material. Interaction within the forums supports learning and enables the students to provide affective support for each other. Interaction in the class forum is focused on course learning activities and largely initiated by course lecturers; in small group forums, students initiate discussion and report that course activity and social communications freely mix; in the student only forum discussion is largely socially oriented (Anderson, 2004). Most courses require that each week, following small group online discussion, groups use each course’s WebCT site to report the results of their course learning activity to a whole class discussion space. Additional class-wide discussion occurs in that space. Initial hour-long interviews were undertaken with 25 students, chosen to represent the range in the number of messages sent by class members. The age and gender distribu-

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tion of this group was similar to that of the full group of students. Twenty of the initial interviewees participated in follow up interviews. Research data comprised transcripts of interviews with those students. Quotations from those interviews are identified by a code representing the interview number and a transcript paragraph number. All names are pseudonyms.

5. What I can do In their engagement in online interaction within the program, at the simplest level, students have the power to post messages in the small group and whole class discussion spaces, or not post them, and to read messages in those discussion spaces, or not read them. These spaces are those formally associated with class work in the program. Additionally, students can engage in interaction beyond the confines of the “authorized” (small group and whole class) discussion spaces in a number of ways. 5.1. Posting or not posting Participants constructed choosing to post as two different activities—initiating a discussion, or responding to a message. Initiation was inevitably an activity that occurred less frequently than responding. Across the class forums the ratio of initiating messages to responses ranged from 1:4 to 1:12. Participants gave similar reasons for undertaking each activity. Regarding initiating a thread Nickie (2, 40) said “I myself only would initiate something, like, that I thought was really relevant and really interesting” with Joy (1, 173) commenting, “and initiating conversation, um. . . I don’t do that very often when I think about it. And it would once again be a burning issue.” The importance of “sufficient interest” motivating a student to initiate an online discussion is reflected in comments about when students respond to messages. Jan (1, 232) said, “it just hits you generally, certain things that you do feel you need to respond to,” and another student remarked “definitely if I feel strongly about something I will get in there and put my ten cents worth in” (Judy, 1, 231). Equally important as making decisions to post was, it seems, making decisions not to post. The common thread in this context was avoiding “clogging up the works” (Joy, 1, 173) with numbers of unnecessary messages. Jan talked about knowing when not to post, knowing when “it’s already been said or you just don’t need to add anything else to it” (2, 21), illustrating how participants made judgments about the time when a discussion had been saturated with ideas. 5.2. Reading or not reading Students must read messages before responding. For the second-year students, the total number of messages posted in the class discussion spaces of the program during the semester of the study was over 5000. For the third-year students, it was over 3000. This message count is limited to class discussion spaces and does not include spaces where students undertook required group work, or private email.

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Four students did report reading all posted messages, but did so through a filtering process. Joy (1, 137) said, “I will select all of the messages and compile them and then you can just scroll through on that particular day.” Her filtering process consisted of printing off messages from her lecturer and group, and any that gave her “light bulb moments” and then, “marking them all as read,” a software procedure that effectively removed them from sight. Not surprisingly, most students were selective readers. Typical of these, Ngaire indicated that there were messages that she didn’t bother to read: “[W]ell, if I want to read it I open it and if I don’t I just bypass it, so it’s my choice” (Ngaire, 1, 364), a decision she shared with others. Active choices to read particular messages were made. Lecturer’s names appeared on the site in capital letters, which made them easier to perceive in the collection of messages (Ngaire, 1, 390) and target for reading (and printing) first. The messages posted by one’s group were also prioritized for reading. After noting that she would read and print off anything posted by the lecturer, Judy went on to say that she would read all her group work, “because they’re my, yeah, sounding blocks and I like to think that I’m theirs as well” (1, 260). Beyond lecturer and group messages, around 80% of participants reported choosing to read, or not read, messages based on the name of the writer. Margaret, for example, was talking about a small group of people in the course and said “after I see a person’s name and before I even read their message I have already formed an expectation of what kind of comment it actually is, if it is something interesting or, ‘Oh her again,’ sort of thing” (1, 189). Being selective had value. Brenda remarked [I]t is people that will challenge what you have got to say or what you think. . . they might have a slightly different viewpoint on something that really is quite valid and worth exploring, and you just got to know who those people are. (1, 190)

and Esther said that she had discovered “a couple of people whose work is always surprisingly insightful and I quite like their view on the world and so I generally read their work if I can” (1, 409). Conversely, Sally talked about how a small group, of which she was a part, had identified several students as highly active contributors to the bulletin board. She went on, “[T]he other four don’t read these people’s messages. They’d like identify these people and they would just blank them out.” When asked to clarify this she said “. . . [T]hat’s a personal thing that they’ve decided, ‘Look, I’m sick of reading what she’s got to say,’ ” (1, 182–186). The picture revealed thus far is of a group of students whose personal agency empowers them to pursue paths of self-interest in discriminating ways, while also remaining committed to the small group of people with whom they work regularly. Their empowerment is dependent on institutional decisions that create regularities such as grouping and typographical signals, which students employ as resources to control their interactions, to unite with some and to exclude others. Features of the (computer) tool employed to enable communication also enable students to remove from their purview whole sets of messages. In a way not possible in faceto-face communication, students, based on name alone as a signal of identity, ignore messages and create their own bounded virtual study space. Yet, other people impact on this personal space as section 6 illustrates.

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6. Working with others Freedom to post, or not, and freedom to read, or not, seem to provide a strong recipe for effective, open, communicative interaction. However, Rachel provided an insightful comment on this matter. [W]hat I meant by everyone has a chance to contribute is of course the people who would normally get squashed, who can’t speak out verbally in a classroom situation, have the chance to, so there’s that option. I didn’t actually mean that everyone has a chance in that it’s a democratic, you know everyone’s equal. (1, 279)

That people were not “equal,” that interaction was not ideally open, is reflected in a comment Megan made, saying, “Some people just come across much more articulately online and that in itself differentiates people” (1, 160). Participants also clearly articulated ways in which others involved in their study lives had a relatively direct constraining influence on involvement in online interaction in their course of study. 6.1. The (potential) impact of responses The essence of online interaction—its responsiveness—was summed up by Joy when she noted that even before a message is sent, its author might be thinking about how it will be received and whether it will be acknowledged. If you type a message and send it there’s also a sense of how will that be responded to? Will it be responded to at all by anyone? Will anyone actually respond? (1, 277)

The impact of responses, as potential rather than fact, was a consideration that affected willingness to post. Joan said “I’ve sat quite a number of times with a message typed, thinking shall I post it or shall I not?. . . There’s been a number of messages I’ve deleted before I’ve posted and thought no, I’m just not game enough to post that” (1, 166). The extra care taken in composing messages was also evident in a comment from Ruth: [Y]ou’ve got to be careful what you say. Yeah, it’s that fear of offending somebody by the written word. That’s a very real thing. And also, yeah, you can’t be honest in what you say online. You have to think through what you say. . . you do hold back on things because, you know, people have been told off for saying things, you know, online. (2, 79)

Participants seemed to attempt to make sense of the fact that they would receive “negative” responses to their messages, by suggesting that they had been misunderstood. Message construction was often blamed for this misunderstanding. Sally noted: [Q]uite often too, people are misinterpreted. Like if they are not really good at putting up what they are saying they can put up a message meaning something and it can be read to mean something different. Yeah, I mean they’ll have people jumping on them for saying something they didn’t actually intend. (2, 118)

but also added that misunderstanding wasn’t as prevalent in the third year and that third-year students were quite specific when they worded their messages (2, 120). The care required to avoid misunderstandings was illustrated by David’s comment that “[Y]ou get the odd misun-

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derstanding. So I tend to type in Word, always have Word open, type it, check it for major errors, groom it and then post it. Now I will do that for a blimming two line posting usually” (1, 133). He later gave an example of his grooming process “if I’m trying to sort of say something in a way that I don’t want to be misinterpreted as telling someone or pushing my viewpoint I’ll go through and I’ll change the ‘I have’ to ‘I’ve’ ” (1, 192). Time spent waiting for responses also impacted interaction behaviour. Joy noted that waiting “drove her nuts” and went on to describe the feeling of waiting as being “like having a conversation and the person ignoring you and, you know, that’s how it feels” (1, 301–309). To avoid this uncertainty and delay, participants indicated how they moved away from the bulletin board to other types of interaction. Joy turned to private email (1, 301), Dianne mentioned how she would use the chatroom (1, 209) and Sally talked about the value of the phone as a means to get instant replies (1, 521). The effect of responses, or nonresponses to bulletin board messages can be quite marked. It can drive people out of the realm of bulletin board interaction into both silence and potential isolation or into interaction through other means. When discussing the care with which they would post to avoid misunderstanding, several participants mentioned the difference between posting in a group forum and the main class forum. “I’m a lot more cautious about what I put into a main site. . . but in my group site. . . I might put in different things and go down different tacks” (Moana, 2, 29). This reticence to engage in the class site was echoed by others. Joy noted, “[E]ven now I will take care when I am posting, usually, unless I’m in my group. If I’m posting on the main forum I’m very careful about what I say” (1, 221). This differentiation draws attention to the ways in which groups tended to provide a more supportive environment for students. However, groups themselves also developed practices that regulated the interactions of their members. Moana commented that “we’ve established the relationship patterns in that we know we’re not stepping on anyone’s toes” (2, 23), showing how group members shape or accommodate behaviour to accept the differences of group members. Working with other students seems to involve two main forms of constraint. The first is viewed as a sense of thoughtful discrimination—attending primarily to messages sent by a small number of people from the cohort as a whole, while ignoring others. The second entails self-censorship to insure against the possibility of rebuke. These constraints hint at a community of people involved in practices of normalization, a flattening of perspective and approach across the cohort. The exception is the existence of the formal small groups within which participants operate. In effect many participants may lead two lives, one potentially involving the exchange of open, challenging, thought provoking messages; the other probably involving more cautious irregular interaction with relative strangers and a flattened, restricted, more cautious dialog. 6.2. Responses from lecturers Lecturers imposed the requirement for each group to post responses to activities. The need to be seen online, reflecting the requirement to participate was put clearly by Heidi, “I respond at all because I have to. And you’ve got to be noticed by your lecturers. Bottom line: you’ve got to be seen to be interacting” (1, 222).

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Participants did not always want to be under surveillance. Sometimes students meant discussions to be private—for the group only—although students in the program were advised that lecturers had access to their formal small group discussion spaces. Five students spoke directly about the impact of an authoritative gaze. Megan (1, 255) was aware of the lecturer hovering in the background, and of not saying some things publicly as a result, while Liz also felt the gaze of the lecturer was sometimes oppressive and showed this in saying that some “tutors are there all the time and you sort of feel like they are watching you too much and you don’t get to have that freedom of conversation” (1, 56). Participants had to cope with the fact that lecturers saw their public online interaction, and had to accept its openness to scrutiny. Heather talked about whether she expressed her view on a topic when it ran counter to a lecturer’s, “[P]robably in the beginning I did. Yeah. But. . . when you learn that your comments are shot down and things like that, then you just tend to go with the flow” (2, 85). Going with the flow, acquiescing to the view of the lecturer, was a theme commented on by just over one-third of the students. Initially, a student worked out how to respond to the lecturer: “I think everyone picks up on the lecturer at the beginning. . . or perhaps begins to work them out over a couple of months, and then responds accordingly” (Judy, 2, 91). Having done this, students were still cautious during interaction. Dianne talked about how knowing that a lecturer had a strong view about a topic “makes you circumspect about your input” (1, 189). Not all lecturers demanded such acquiescence, however. David spoke of one lecturer as follows: “There’s a strong feeling that. . . when you post something up, that (lecturer’s name deleted) is not going to knock it” (2, 81). Students also recognized the way that lecturer input could lead to extensive engaging interaction. Joy (1, 333) said, “I think that we look to them to extend our discussions and. . . maybe open up new avenues if we haven’t considered them” and David commented, “[T]he quality of the interaction is spurred on by the lecturer”(2, 81). Heather noted the support and feedback lecturers provide and added, “[T]hey make us think critically, they put questions up that make us. . . gain a deeper understanding” (1, 198). The deeper understanding students gained appeared to be a constrained understanding, however. The online interaction was valued because it ensured participants were “on the right track” in their approach to study. The importance of “being on the right track” was noted by just over 70% of the students. Being on the right track implies that students are taking the “correct” meaning from the material they are studying, and the right track, participants said, was something that belonged to “them.” With no prior reference to any particular group, Jan said that the right track involved answering questions “in the way that they wanted them to be answered” (2, 85); Judy indicated that it required her to “say what they want to be heard” (2, 207). That “them” was the lecturers was clear from other comments. Nickie (2, 52) said it is “what your lecturer is expecting”; for Joan, “It’s definitely a 100% the lecturer’s track” (2, 181). T. Evans (1994) wrote about the influence of lecturers, and how “the learner needs to ‘keep in’ with the teacher to survive and succeed” (p. 68). Writing in relation to the production of course material he noted that “the authority of the teachers is actually solidified in the printed and other texts in a way which can, in effect, render them less challengeable than if they were face-to-face with their students” (p. 68), thus, depicting the potential for institutionalizing

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practices of control. The question at issue is whether or not the use of asynchronous online interaction between student and lecturer provides space for students to shape their own learning, or whether the textual commentary that lecturers provide, with or without request, extends their control. Participants in this study seemed to recognize that they were in an educational system learning to speak the language of teaching, constrained to do so through the authority of their lecturer’s voice and control of their success. The fact of a permanent ongoing record of participant comments provides lecturers who want it with a very effective means of surveillance and control—the opportunity to scrutinize the interaction of students and if necessary move them along to the safe haven of teacher education normality. Joseph Janangelo (1991) wrote of this possibility of teacher control in a computer-mediated communication environment. He invoked Foucault’s discussion of Bentham’s panopticon as a metaphor for the ways in which surveillance of students is making them “responsible for their own subjugation and intimidating them into obeying us for fear of being ‘seen’ and ‘punished’ ” (p. 49). Simon Kitto (2003) has also acknowledged the potential for surveillance in online courses, and noted that “the lecturer can to a large extent monitor and control a student’s access to the course, the types of participation undertaken and the conditions of access in terms of time and accessible functions” (p. 5). The affordances of computer-mediated communication enable the development of an environment in which lecturer control can be relatively easily exercised to enhance professional socialization of students during their course of study. Techniques of control are not the sole constitutive element of student subjectivity. Kitto (2003) suggested that students employ “tactics of resistance” (p. 8) and Robin Goodfellow (2005) has noted the “bi-directionality of the relation between the technical design of an environment and the social practice it has been developed to support” (pp. 124–125). Participants in this study have described how institutional practices such as grouping and a requirement of online interaction, along with tool features such as the asynchronous nature of communication and editing tools, interact with personal agency to shape communication in particular ways. Although computer-mediated communication enables a controlling environment, it does not create it. Erickson’s (1997) point that it is social and institutional factors that largely shape the nature of online discourse suggests that alternatives are possible.

7. Wider constraints on interaction Factors beyond the immediate bounds of the study program and technology use itself both impacted online interaction within the program. Two aspects are considered. First there is a small complex of factors related to the way demands of study and of students’ daily lives are balanced across the time available. Second, the mediation of interaction by technology has implications that affect the interaction that occurs. 7.1. Time Participants worried about time—60% of the students spoke as if they never had enough: “The biggest thing that I that disappoints me a bit is that, no matter how hard you try unless

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you’re going to be working 24 hours a day you just cannot give everything what it deserves” (Jan, 1, 80). The competing demands of the program (course reading and assignments) and of family life affected the extent of interaction. There were different ways in which time was discussed in relation to its effect on interaction. Heather commented, “I’ll read through the notes. . . and I’ll want to argue the point and I’ll think oh no goodness I don’t have the time to argue the point” (1, 89). Assignment writing was a particular aspect of the workload that several mentioned. Mary said, “I mean basically what sort of stops me from going online is when I have assignments due it stops me participating one hundred per cent” (1, 186). Time was not an issue for all students. Although Susan (1, 233) felt the pressure of time, she saw that some students appeared not to: “Some people are really responsive. There are some names that come up all the time and are really helpful and I admire them because they give a lot of their time.” Some participants noted that time was played off against interest in the topic. Moana noted that, even if bogged down in assignments she would involve herself in discussion if she enjoyed the topic (1, 256), as did Ngaire (1, 430). There was also explicit recognition that the pressure to be involved with family had an impact: “Do I really need to do all this, read all these messages, or can I skim over them and spend some time with my children. . . when I’ve ignored them for the last four hours while I’ve been doing what I have to do” (Bev, 1, 399). Bev talked about creating the balance between family and study. Alison mentioned about days she missed going online “. . . that would be because there was something else happening on that day. Something at the kid’s school and I have an appointment and something like that” (1, 399). Alison had a preference to go online that was sometimes overruled by her commitment to family. In contrast, Heather’s commitment was acknowledged and shared by the family: “I’ve decided this is what I’m going to do in my life and that’s it, unfortunately it comes first,. . . if I’m going to go and sit in my room and yeah work online and all that (my family) don’t bother me” (1, 140). The issue of time had an impact on participants either through decisions about which aspect of their study to focus on, or through decisions about time studying or time with family. When there was “not enough time” online interaction that was not required was, in most cases, sacrificed to the demands of required tasks or family interaction. 7.2. Technology issues Technology use has direct and indirect impacts on interaction, some of which have been noted previously. In line with Baym’s (1995) point that the technological tools themselves act as resources and constraints, several additional technology-related factors that directly impacted on interaction can be noted. For the small number of remote students in the program, accessing the site and staying connected was difficult. When the second interview with Ngaire was almost over, she responded to a question about the weather with the remark that “It is absolutely hosing down. That is why I haven’t been online all day because I can’t get on(line) when it is raining” (2, 164). The value of asynchronous communication is that students can enter a discussion at any time. However,

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the program in which these students are engaged is clearly more appropriately described as paced asynchronous. They must participate in relatively brief but ongoing discussions from which an output is required, and must do this in each of the (normally five) papers in which they are enrolled. Inability to access the web sites is one factor that delays responsiveness. The textual nature of communication was a barrier that some participants noted, because of the time involved in creating and crafting messages and in reading them. Megan said “[T]hey want discussions going which would happen on-campus but those discussions take time because it’s all typing and it’s copying and pasting and it’s posting documents to a site” (1, 76). The permanence of the messages on the bulletin board was also a drawback noted by some, especially when returning to view messages after even a short absence. Susan recounted how, after her computer had broken down she “went online. . . to clear all the sites, and it just took hours and hours because you miss a day and there’s lots (of messages).” Two aspects of the direct value of asynchronous interaction were commented on. David noted its value given the varied commitments people have: I found that people tend to like the bulletin boards. One of the reasons for that is that a lot of people have commitments during the day, dropping children off, picking them up, all of these sorts of things. . .. But the bulletin board gets around that, you know, the very nature of a bulletin board. (1, 74)

The visibility of messages in terms of topic and author was the second point mentioned. This was best described by Rachel who talked about being able to select, for reading, certain messages and “ignore the others is also a form of structuring your own learning, it’s filtering out the rubbish” (1, 283). Participant reports indicate that the technology involved in their experience of asynchronous online interaction impacts on the interaction that occurs in their program. Participants noted the difficulties of accessing and staying connected to the site, of reading and posting messages in a way that does not involve frustrating delays, and of the drawback of a text-based system of communication for their discussion. However, the value of the bulletin board system in enabling students to fit study into life was also clear, as was the use of the tools and structure within the system as a means to contain and structure one’s workload. Time and technology act as both constraint and resource. The demands of the immediate context of student lives are clear, but so is the way students have power over the use of time, and use the affordances of technology to assist them to meet the competing demands of study and family life. Resources constructed from the technology allow them to transcend their situatedness and bind themselves to a wider group—to stretch themselves beyond the constraints of time and space.

8. Conclusion This examination of the nature of power in interaction in an online learning environment was structured around the argument that the power individuals have to give effect to their intentions is always in relation to the powers of others and structural constraints. Being aware, and taking advantage of the socially grounded nature of interaction provides the basis from

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which educators can act to ensure that interaction in online learning communities is enabling for the learning of all students, not just some. L. E. Sujo de Montes, Sally Oran, and Elizabeth Willis (2002) have noted three actions that can be taken by individual educators, actions that are broadly supported by the findings of this research. First is the need to teach students to critically reflect on their own words and interactions online. Expecting such reflection of students is conditional on the construction of online environments within which students can safely examine the relationship between their personal history and their online behaviours. Therefore, second, instructors must develop the skills that enable them “to make explicit what is implicit in people’s words, actions, and expectations” (p. 269), and third, instructors must be “willing to analyze their own biases and assumptions, first when they build online courses and then when they interact with online students” (p. 269). Two examples of such actions are noted here. First, experienced lecturers questioned the given templated structure of their course web site interaction framework. They understood that students needed to develop their own spaces to enable the practices necessary for ongoing learning, and realized that such spaces would build depth in interaction rather than create division. Accordingly they were open to requests for short-term private forums for transitory groups and long-term forums for “special interest” groups. Additionally they recognized the value of multiple means of communication within the learning process, not requiring students to lay bare all their thinking online. It was evident that students used a range of communication technologies and some met face-to-face while undertaking learning activities. Second, in this teacher education program considerable emphasis was placed on students reflecting on their development as beginning teachers. Within a journaling process students were encouraged to link their beliefs about learners and learning, their knowledge of course concepts, their work in classrooms, and the development of an understanding of teaching. Part of this work involved consideration of the ways in which their interaction with others online had impacted on them or revealed insights about themselves. Such personal action must run alongside consideration of the impact of the structures instructors create online and the policies that are given effect within online courses. Arrangements for grouping, requirements to interact, the creation of student-only online spaces are examples arising from consideration of this research of structures and policies that will shape the nature of interaction. Instructors must examine the affordances and features of the technologies of communication and use them to support the educational goals of students. Yates (2001) wrote of computer-mediated communication, it is only when “the technology is socially and educationally organized in ways which [students] can adapt to their own norms,” that it can, “provide a very useful basis for educational interaction” (p. 33). Dr. Bill Anderson is a Senior Lecturer at the College of Education at Massey University. He has researched and published in the online learning field for the past seven years. One of his significant recent publications was the Handbook of Distance Education (2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) coedited with Prof. Michael Moore (Penn State University). His research expertise is in the area of online learning communities and interaction online

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and his extended research interests include the design of online learning environments, teaching strategies in online environments, and the development of virtual schools. Bill is currently involved in researching the impact of distance delivery of teacher education on learning to teach and he teaches online in undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

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