Subject of Interaction

Today I have been trying to find information on the nature of interaction. I couldn't find much but I did find out some interesting things. I was reading Anderson (2004) chapter in the handbook and he made reference to Burnham and Walden (1997). It was just a conference proceeding but it gave me some good insight. The first is that what we have been calling nature he has been calling subject which I think in someway is more accurate. They also talk about Learner-environment interaction which Anderson said could include family. I think that this may be helpful when I talk about parent interaction. Anderson also talked about how he doesn't consider learner interface interaction to be a distinct types of interaction but a part of all other types of interaction. The following is my synthesis of what I found:

Burnham and Walden (1997) stated that "interactions have objects (things learners interact with that influence the learner) and subjects (things that the interactions are about). These two elements can and should play an important part of any classification of interactions" (p. 52). Several researchers have attempted to move beyond the types or objects of interaction and have tried to classify the different subjects of interactions. For instance Gilbert and Moore (1998) grouped interactions as either social or instructional. They defined social interactions emotional or informational communication that does not directly result in an improvement of student content understanding but can have a positive effect on the learning environment. Instructional interactions were defined as being content focused with the explicit goal of improving student content understanding including the direct presentation of learning materials and formative verbal assessments (Gilbert & Moore, 1998).

Similarly Huang and Wei’s (2000) review of social psychology literature found that group communications are commonly categorized as either task or social interactions. They also provided the following definitions, “Task interactions of a group are directly related to the group’s tasks and are involved in asking for or giving information, suggestions, directions, and possible ways of action, whereas social interactions are directly related to relations between group members or internal needs (or preferences) of members” (p. 183). Huang and Wei’s definition of social interactions differs from Gilbert and Moore (1998) in that it does not explicitly include informational exchanges regarding progress. Olson et al. (1992) added that interactions focused on the progress and procedures necessary are better grouped into a different category they term management or executive interactions.

In the context of a virtual high school setting, Hawkins (2011) grouped interactions as either social/supportive, instructional/intellectual, and procedural/organizational interactions. Social/supportive interactions are used to motivate, encourage, and create a sense of closeness. Instructional/intellectual interactions are centered on the course content and include providing clarification and feedback. Procedural/organizational interactions are focused on policies, procedures and progress.