Distance no barrier in building empathy, says researcher

Distance learners can feel more confident interacting online than they would in the classroom, new research shows.

Dr Wayne Duncan graduated last week with a Doctor of Education. His thesis examined the nature and function of empathy in synchronous multimedia conferencing.

Dr Duncan, deputy principal at Northern Southland College, says with the advent of the Internet teachers and learners are creating new ways of interacting online.

He examined two case studies; both distance education classes. Each group consisted of a teacher with Year 13 students dotted across the country.

“I looked into how students and teachers interpreted someone at the other end,” Dr Duncan says. “That’s a key social relational mechanism in any teaching environment – the teacher’s ability to relate, and that empathy, or the ability to interpret, is what teaching and learning is about.”

Dr Duncan examined how students built up relationships, despite having never met in person. Through interviews he conducted over a six-month period, he found participants experienced empathy using a range of strategies.

“The students were actually able very readily to interpret quite accurately, people at the other end, but more so it actually gave students more confidence in their learning and teaching,” Dr Duncan says.

“Some of the students actually said they are more confident to ask questions and to share online than they ever would have been in a classroom. They are the sort of people that sit at the back of the classroom and don’t say anything, but online, they asked the questions, they text each other and interacted a lot more. That bodes well for engaging a great cross-section of students.”

Dr Duncan says the research is highly relevant and with the Government spending $1.5 billion on broadband technologies, this online learning and teaching will only rise, as the traditional classroom morphs into a worldwide classroom.

The doctorate took Dr Duncan, an extramural student, four years to complete. He was awarded a study grant from TeachNZ, enabling him to work part-time last year to finish the research. Dr Duncan has completed an undergraduate diploma, a Master’s in Educational Psychology with Honours and now the Doctor of Education from Massey University.

“The depth of support that Massey University College of Education has provided me in the completion of my doctoral thesis, can be credited to the quality of staff I have been able to work with. I could not have asked for greater support and guidance from my doctoral supervisors or the team at the Massey library.”

“I now know what a huge undertaking a doctorate is and how important such support has been,” Dr Duncan says.