Abstract
This chapter aims at explaining the mechanisms of persuasion for effective communication in online educational environments. It starts by bringing awareness on the particularities of online educational environments and the psychological prerequisites of online studying. It tackles issues of digital skills as well as emotional intelligence abilities for online teaching, specific mindset and digital readiness, result expectations and assessment. Moreover, principles of microlearning and hybrid learning are explained as major approaches in online education. It then addresses issues related to technology-mediated communication with young ages vs. adults. It makes a brief analysis of mediated communication vs. direct communication in terms of adopted strategies according to age, adaptation of message, and feedback according to the online channel of factors affecting communication in online environments vs. face-to-face communication. Particular attention will be given to digital stress.
TopIntroduction
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew (Lincoln, 1862).
The humanity has been facing once again a worldwide crisis affecting all sectors of our lives, including education. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the words of Lincoln seem to remind us that each new challenge needs to be responded to with a new mentality and more creativity in finding the appropriate solutions for the new reality. After the start of the pandemic, we soon began to realize that applying old rules and norms would not help us become more effective in our endeavor, but we needed to change radically the way we think of our work online and the way we act in order to reach our educational objectives.
As a social constructivist, the author believes that one’s way of seeing and interpreting the world is influenced by ‘our emotions, intentions and purposes’, in other words, our attitude to existence (Young, 1992: 29). From this perspective, our constructions of the world determine our expectations, mediate our experience and set parameters to our subsequent understanding of experiences. In this way, making sense of the world is a construction process made in interaction with the physical and the social world. The challenge it creates is the problem of multiple perspectives as we do not all see the world in the same way; reality is not fixed or given (Richardson, 1997).
From a social constructivist perspective, understanding the issues involved in changing to adapt to the new reality involves first an understanding of the phenomena through the lenses of one’s own experiences in particular contexts, as these would determine the way further encounters will be interpreted in other contexts. Learning to adapt involves ongoing reconstruction of these representations as people make sense of the world in ways that are personal to them and each individual constructs his or her own reality (Williams and Burden, 2004). It is suggested that learners actively construct and test their own representations of the world and fit them into a personal framework, in a learning cycle (Richardson, 1997). These constructions of reality determine an individual’s expectations, mediate experiences and set parameters for subsequent learning (Fosnot, 2005). For these reasons not only thinking anew, but also acting anew is a challenge and a radical rapture from previous beliefs.
This chapter aims at explaining the mechanisms of persuasion for effective communication in online educational environments. It addresses experts, teachers, parents, students, trainers, decision-makers, researchers and ordinary people interested in education, who want to understand the phenomenon of change and the psychological prerequisites of learning in online environments and/or make informed decisions about acting in terms of their own behavior, appropriate planning, curricula or policy to increase effective communications with others.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Blended Learning: Style of education in which students learn via electronic and online media as well as traditional face-to-face teaching, each form complementing the other.
Social Constructivism: Is a theory according to which that all human knowledge and development is the result of social interaction and language use, making it a shared, rather than an individual, experience.
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): Refers to any form that communication can take when using technology to mediate interaction/exchanges among people.
Mindset: Is a set of beliefs that shape how one makes sense of the world and oneself. It influences how one thinks, feels, and behaves in any given situation.
Emotional Intelligence (EI): The theory of emotional intelligence was developed by Daniel Goleman and refers to a set of abilities in relation to ourselves (self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation) and to the others (empathy, efficient relationships), that can be developed in to gain social effectiveness.
Change: Is a process imposed by external forces and responded to with resistance, resilience and skepticism for various reasons that may vary from rational to emotional, which affects our personal psychological safety in different degrees.
Persuasion: The process in which people have the choice to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue due to a message that was deliberately elaborated to influence them. The theory of persuasion was developed by Robert Cialdini.
Hybrid Learning: Integrated online and traditional face-to-face class activities, that of systematic planning in a pedagogically valuable manner, so that online technology could assist, improve, and transform the learning process.