Research summary
D
uring the spring of 2011, I carried out a research about the media consumption and usage of senior high school students partially covering with the questionnaire their sport and social activities too. The goal of the research was to test theoretical models and to help the curriculum and didactic development of the participating high schools.I used one of my previous researches as a base, and planned to carry out a longitudinal comparison. The results of the research will be delivered after the publication of this article to the contact persons of the relevant high schools.
Previous research1
In 2007–2008, I had examined certain school and leisure time activities of high school students in the ninth year of their public education. The main focus had been the quantitative analysis of activities related to literacy and media. Nevertheless, the research had gathered data also about the sport and social life of the students. The activities had been fi ltered by the choice of frequencies, social locations, genders and school types. The research has been voluntary and anonymous.
As theoretical framework I had used the concepts of Merlin Donald,2 Charles Sanders Peirce,3 Ludwig Wittgenstein4 and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi5 to be able to categorise the results. Besides their writings, I had utilised the theories of Walter J. Ong,6 Vilém Flusser and also from often cited high school teachers in the fi elds of Hungarian language and literature. Nevertheless I supplemented my arguments with neuropsychology theories which deal with translation processes from the senses to the brain and way back.
First, I had recorded the questionnaires and created a descriptive statistics and pro-ceeded with data analysis. After that I had drawn conclusions for the didactic develop-ment of teaching Hungarian language and literature among high school students.
I looked back and analysed in depth this earlier theoretical framework, methodology and research goal. I saw that my vocabulary and theoretical framework had been quite
1 Original title in Hungarian: Lehetőségek a magyar nyelv és irodalom tanításában egy középiskolások média-használatát vizsgáló kutatás alapján (2008). It would sound in English as the followings: Potentials in teaching Hungarian language and literature based on a media usage research among high school students (2008).
2 DONALD 1993.
3 PEIRCE 1973.
4 WITTGENSTEIN 1979.
5 CSÍKSZENTMIHÁLYI – KUBEY 1990.
6 ONG 1982.
meticulous. However, I concluded that for a new research stronger integration and more transparent results could be reached by defi ning cleaner vocabulary and choosing more consciously the utilised models.
To clarify the vocabulary regarding oral and written cultures, I chose Donald’s the-ory. His concepts offered – from the above-mentioned ones – an approach which takes into account both the concrete, biological and the abstract, cognitive dimension of hu-man existence based on several researches from natural sciences.
Donald’s theory on the development of cognition and evolution7 Donald takes an interdisciplinary approach in his book – Origins of the modern mind – regarding the fi elds of evolution, cognition, neurophysiology and neuropsychology. He separates four main stages with three major transitions in the development of human cognition until the present. In his model, the new stages are developed by using the previous ones and at least the vestiges of the earlier modules remain there.
The fi rst stage can be characterised by the ability to distinguish situations in a so-phisticated way. This stage is called the episodic culture. Representation of a situation remains impossible when the situation itself does not appear in the environment of the individual. The second stage – bearing the name mimetic culture – is attached majorly to the competences of mimesis and representation of a situation or situational elements for communication purposes. This was the fi rst step which allowed a certain level of abstraction in the communication procedure.
The third stage – the mythic culture – contains the appearance of oral cultures and with these the appearance of a more complex semantic. Until this moment, all of the tools necessary for any form of the mentioned communication methods could be ac-cessed inside the human body. The other crucial point by Donald that words originated in the physical world at these times, since humans had to deal with the physical compe-tition and survival for themselves plus for their group. Stories and traditions had been given on in the forms of words to ensure their preservation.
The fourth stage – called the theoretic culture – is counted from the appearance of the fi rst surfaces on which human recorded signs. It means that according to the present knowledge, the fi rst cave drawings can be used as starting points for the time-line of this time sequence. The major step here is the use of external surfaces or even three-dimensional forms for the storage of signs.
Although Donald states that external storage fi elds appeared during this stage at the fi rst time, if the terms storage is used from the perspective of an individual then external storage existed even earlier. I created a table taking into consideration two things: 1) the viewpoint of a human from her own perspective 2) and the material of the storage.
What is the new cognitive path, which appears at this stage? It is called the visuosym-bolic path. Due to this access is granted to external memory fi eld way there and back in the communication. Based on this access, the newly acquired ability is able to develop further. The connection between human cognition and external memory fi eld is impor-tant. If one cannot join the system, whether because lack of knowledge about the signs8
7 DONALD 1993. 124–382. The following chapter is based on relevant part of his work.
8 Meaning for example certain level of illiteracy.
9
or due to the lack of social or economical access or for any other reasons,10 he is unable to own and nurture certain competences. Access had been important at earlier stages too. However, at those times the traditions, rituals had been carried on by the memory of individuals and shared by actions and spoken words. In this way, the knowledge had bondages fi rst of all towards existing, living human beings who formed communities.
Donald’s theory helps to defi ne oral and written culture in a more concrete sense.
Human oral culture means communication where humans use their vocal tract to form sounds – including words, tones, melodies and prosody of all these – and might also utilise body language, including proximity. The pure use of this was typical for the fi rst three stages. Human written culture means communication where humans use external memory fi elds to record signs.
Using Shannon-Weaver’s model
I concluded that I could analyse the data more in depth if I granted a model, which has the possibility handling semiotics, literacy, cognitive psychology, evolutionary concept, media theories, didactic and curriculum development.11 For this, I decided next to
Shannon-Pictorial representation of the model from Shannon’s article (1948)12
9 In my presentation during the IV. International Grastyán Conference on 13th April 2012 I used the same table.
I clarify in a few words what I meant on the terms organic and non-organic in the table. Organic refers to the fact that the storage takes place in the organs of the human body. First of all in the brain, however other parts of the body might be also involved. Non-organic means that the storage takes place on surfaces, or in forms which are not organic part of the human body such as a piece of paper, a hard drive data storage or a usb-drive.
10 Meaning for example cognitive disorders which would effect the functioning of the visuosymbolic path.
11 I wanted to choose something which besides these examples can also handle phenomena from the fi elds of natural and social sciences too. Further researches could lead to different areas, so a more general syntax looked benefi ciary.
12 SHANNON 1948. 2.
STORAGE Inside of individual Outside of individual
Organic own memories other’s memories
Non-organic10 ? EXMF
Table based on Donald’s work
Weaver’s model.13 Shannon’s paper due to Warren Weaver’s contribution14 grants that people from social sciences can understand the underlying structure of the model.
Using this model the aural component of human talk between two individuals appears as a process where the information source is the brain of one of the participants. The person decides about the verbal message which is transmitted into a signal by the vocal apparatus. The part of the cognitive system which is responsible for sensing aural stimuli in human communication receives the signal – modifi ed by possible noise in the channel.
After this decoding takes places and the destination receives a message. From this moment the direction of the procedure turns reverse and the brain which was destination functions as information source now and the earlier information source functions as destination.15
Written culture can be represented similarly in the frameworks of this model. The brain as information source chooses the message which is a set of symbols. This mes-sage is written or typed using paper, pen, pencil, typewriter, keyboard, mouse, other user interface or the combination of these. The receiver point is the part of the cognitive system which is responsible for sensing the visual stimuli in human communication.
After receiving the signal, it alters that into a message which message reaches the des-tination. The same way as in the paragraph above destination functions as information source and the earlier information source functions as destination.
It might seem too rigorous to write down how the process turns into its reverse in terms of the information source and destination. However, if one takes a look at the following situation it appears as asymmetric compared to the earlier ones: someone is turning on and switching the channels of a TV by using its controller board. Here, the human brain and some part or parts of the TV take the interchanging functions of infor-mation source and destination. It means that the situation does not involve two separate human brains which are interchanging these functions.
It would require more thorough modelling and analysis of situations where: the in-formation source is a human brain, the destination is part of an electronic device and these two components are interchanging these functions as the direction of communica-tion goes back and forth. Due to this reason, I will concentrate in this paper on situacommunica-tions where two separate human brains function as information source and destination and in most of the cases they are interchanging these functions. Technically it is irrelevant whether the intermediary elements are human or non-human. The information source and the destination matter as endpoints. A situation which contain two separate human brain, which take the interchanging functions of information and destination is called – in this paper – communication system based on human feedback from both sides.
Complex involvement through user interfaces
My goal was to separate those media and literacy related activities which potentially require complex involvement through user interfaces. The term complexity is used in a sense that even for an outside observer of the situation itself contains indefi nite16 number
13 SHANNON 1948; WEAVER 1949.
14 The two author mutually contributed to the model which is used nowadays. Shannon described the mathematical base. However Weaver thougths helped later readers and researchers to integrate the model into social and medical sciences too.
15 See it more detailed in the paper of Warren Weaver: WEAVER 1949.
16 At present moment I do not know any research presenting an algorithm which confi rms with 100% accuracy
of potential messages from both endpoints. According to these, I selected the ones from the main activities which fulfi lled three criteria: 1) they belong to oral or written culture based on previous defi nition in my present article 2) they are communication systems based on human feedback from both sides 3) various user interface or interfaces are applied at the intermediary steps.
The activities fulfi lling the criteria are the followings: using mobile phones for talk-ing, text messaging through mobile phones, using instant message software, Voice over Internet Protocols, community and social websites, Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Games, e-mailing, creating and commenting blogs or articles.17
Hypothesis
Complex involvement through user interfaces was defi ned as human to human com-munication where user interfaces are involved as intermediary elements between two human brains which brains serve as information source and destination. I assumed that the ratio of these activities increased with more than fi ve percents compared to the data of my earlier research.
Focus of the empirical research
The goal of the empirical research was to test the above hypothesis. The questionnaire examined in a majorly quantitative way the communication and social activities of sen-ior year high school students. It aimed to cover media consumption, media usage ac-tivities supplemented with information regarding their social and physical acac-tivities.
The activities could be marked by choosing the frequency and the social space of the related activity. In this way the expected result of the research was a data matrix, which contained activities, frequency of these activities, social space of these activities and gender of the respondents.
The targeted population and timing
The targeted grown was the same which took part in my earlier research during Sep-tember 2007. My purpose was to carry out a longitudinal research. I decided to ask the students as close to the end of their high school program as it is possible. This could grant that reasonable consequences could be drawn about the infl uences during the high school years. That is why I aimed the spring of 2011.
how many potential messages appear in the human brain before it sends one. Although the potential number of messages produced by a machine could be extremely high, due to the programmed and automatic characteristics of machines this number could be described with an algorithm easier.
17 The following activities could be considered also communication systems based on human feedback from both sides: use of programming languages or Content Management Systems, application of software which allow pictorial and audio manipulation. Mostly these activities contains feedback from other human individuals sometimes in seconds, sometimes in weeks compared to time when the message was sent. This feedback can be comperatively further in time as at other cases. It would require a longer text to model and analyse fully the potentials of these activities.
The structure and the content of the questionnaire
Before contacting the high schools and sending out the sample questionnaires, I car-ried out pre-research to update the list of activities in the questionnaire. Due to this pre-research, I focused less on brand names regarding the traditional forms of media18 since it looked like students make less distinction among brand names and are more conscious about which infrastructure they choose.19
At online social activities20 and at software applications which can construct or ma-nipulate pictures plus in the case of programming languages and Content Management Systems,21 I specifi ed the samples further. The aim was to help students recalling their everyday activities fi rst of all in the fi elds of media usage and media consumption. The subtopics were sport and social activities. Sport activities covered the most relevant and sport arts according to the previous research. The social activities granted that various options like family, shopping malls and gathering with friends can be marked.
The procedure of data entry
After having fi nished the preliminary researches rewriting the list of activities and fi nal-ised the planned questionnaire, I got in touch with my earlier contacts who had helped me during the 2007 research. I introduced them shortly the concept of the longitudinal research, described the structure and content of the new questionnaire and clarifi ed how anonymity can be granted. The codes for the online questionnaire had no correla-tion with the high school code of the class, which answered them. I told them that the url-addresses would be sent to the designated contact person and would only work dur-ing the time when students answer the questionnaire.
Besides giving a detailed description how the technical procedure will go, I asked for general feedbacks, concerns from the contact persons. Some of them suggested mi-nor changes in the content of the activities. These considerations were discussed with them and according to the research goal and their requests some of the activities were modifi ed. During the talks it turned out that I could carry out the research in 12 classes instead of the original 17. Some of the school had administration or statistical duties which had not allow them to handle an additional request.22
I contacted once more those persons who confi rmed that they can help the research.
After clarifying and checking the time blocks for the online answering of the question-naires, I sent the url-addresses to the designated contact persons, downloaded the data and deleted the questionnaires as I had promised.23
18 Newspaper, radio, TV.
19 This assumption was supported later by the fact, that the possible blank places did not contain huge amount of data regarding brand names.
20 Instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocols, community and social websites, Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Games.
21 Progamming languages which appeared in the questionnaire: C, C++, Unix,Visual Baic, HTML, CSS, Linux, Java, SQL, Perl, plus Content Management Systems like Joomla, Drupal.
22 Nearly all of the places offered an additional option for the autumn period with another classes. I thanked for their help and kindness and mentioned that if I continue similar researches I might live with the option offered by them.
23 At one of the school a class had not fi lled out the questionnaire at the scheduled time. The process was repeated successfully due to the kindness of the contact person. I say an additional thank for the time and care.
Data processing, results and conclusion
As a result from the data entry questionnaires from 12 classes were recorded and saved in Excel fi le format.24 In this way the format matched with the research of 2007.
After this, I selected the items from the activities which required complex involvement through user interfaces.
Results252627
2007 Filter of analysis 2011
538 persons All respondents 204 persons
8446 (100%) Number of chosen activities
with relevant time scale 3528 (100%) 1192 (14%)
Complex involvement through user interfaces25 from chosen
activities (number of items)
There has been a comparatively high growth in the ratio of complex involvement through user interfaces which is nearly 30%.28 This means that the hypothesis is true.
It leads also to the conclusion that the constructed model regarding the growth of com-plex involvement through user interfaces can be true.
Bibliography
CSÍKSZENTMIHÁLYI – KUBEY 1990 = CSÍKSZENTMIHÁLYI, Mihály – KUBEY, Robert W.:
Television and the quality of life. How viewing shapes everyday experience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher, New Jersey, Hillsdale, 1990
DONALD 1993 = DONALD, Merlin: Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of
DONALD 1993 = DONALD, Merlin: Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of