This study examines the pedagogical
dimensions of text-based computer-mediated communication
(CMC) and human-computer interaction (HCI) using a hermeneutic-phenomenological
method of inquiry.
This methodology understands CMC and HCI as opening up experiential
"life-worlds" to their users much in the same way as a novel
opens up an imaginary world to its reader. It tries to capture
the phenomena or particularities of such experiences in
the form of writing that is powerfully recognizable to readers,
and as linking these written accounts together interpretively
or hermeneutically. In this way, it is able to grasp and
clarify embodied, affective and relational aspects of educational
technology use that are can be as critical to its success
as measured inputs and outcomes. This method is informed
by the human sciences tradition as articulated by Gadamer
and Heidegger, as interpreted in the context of contemporary
technologies and politics by scholars such as Ihde, Dreyfus
and Grosz, and as adapted as an explicit research methodology
as used in my investigations by van Manen.
This research involved open-ended phenomenological-hermeneutic
interviews of university students participating in both
face-to-face and text-based computer-mediated educational
contexts. The interviews themselves will be conducted both
face-to-face and online, enabling students from a variety
of institutions to reflect in a very direct and oriented
manner on their experiences of communication, mediation
and learning. I also used conceptual and etymological linguistic
analysis (van Manen, 2000) to draw out meanings that are
obscured or revealed through terms like "virtual class"
or "face-to-face" and looking at the experiences of computer-mediated
learning specifically as ones which are always embodied
and situated in particular temporal, spatial and relational
contexts.
