The question of whether media has any benefits in learning has been made and substantiated many times in the past. This has attracted a great debate, with some responders, such as Richard Clark, holding that instructional teaching methods influence learning and not media directly under any conditions. Similarly, the antagonists hold that media is molded into certain attributes of media, which instead influence learning (Clark, 1994).
Various students apply these attributes of media as they are thought to enhance their cognitive process development. At the same time, protagonists such as Robert Kozma hold that media will influence learning through the application of technologies such as computers, telephones, and television in teaching and learning (Kozma, 1994). This paper, therefore, will explore Kozma’s perspective on the great media debate and provide the rationale for why Kozma’s viewpoint is favorable.
An instruction method links and enhances cognitive processes that are essential in achieving learning. Clark (1994) mentions that instructional technology seeks to evaluate the necessity and type of instructional method that is vital in providing psychological support to learners in the learning process. Clark’s argument on whether media contributes positively to learning introduces the economic perspective of media and its attributes.
According to Clark (1994), on the replaceability challenge, Clark asserts that if various media or their attributes lead to the achievement of the same learning outcome, then the cheapest instructional method should be employed. Clark (1994) proceeds to argue that the replaceability test explains the ability to replace a different set of media or attributes with another that is less expensive, although it leads to the attainment of similar learning results. Therefore, Clark’s argument that media has no effect on students’ learning outcomes can be justified.
Kozma’s argument in the media debate brings about the concept of learning as a constructive, cognitive and social process. According to Kozma (1994), learning encompasses where learners utilize available materials to come up with new knowledge through interaction with the surroundings and integrating the new knowledge with that already in the memory. From this viewpoint, learning is perceived to be a result of integrating learners’ cognitive resources with their surrounding resources. Consequently, this brings up the concept of media and learning as the interacting force that fosters the relationship between learners’ cognitive resources and environmental resources.
Media and media attributes have exemplary capabilities that enable learners to achieve cognitive resources. According to Clark vs. Kozma (2018), two pieces of research pieces of evidence came up to demonstrate the effects of media on learning. These include the thinker tools and the Jasper Woodbury Series pieces of evidence. Clark (1994) explains that the Thinker Tools are used to teach force and motion problem solutions while the Jasper Woodbury Series are used to solve mathematically related problems. The Thinker Tools, which is a computer-based learning media according to Kozma (1994), introduces four phases; motivation, evolution, formalization, and transfer phases.
The motivation phase asks the learners to predict the outcomes of forces acting upon objects in the real world, while the evolution phase pairs up the learners to solve problems presented in the motivation phase. In the formalization phase, the learners have to come up with a law that explains the occurrence of their results. The transfer phase requires the learners to answer the questions asked in the motivation phase using the formulated law. The outcome of the interaction with thinker tools was compared with a control experiment of students using textbooks and traditional teaching methods (Kozma, 1994). Students who used Thinker Tools on evaluation had higher scores and significant improvement.
Kozma’s argument on the Thinker Tools demonstrates the influence media has on learning. The computer presented dynamic elements that created representations of real-world objects (Kozma, 1994) and this helped the learners create a cognitive model of the objects. Similarly, the interaction with the computer, as it took learners’ input and processed it through moving the objects about, gave them the power to manipulate environmental resources with cognitive resources hence comprehending learning more.
The Jasper Woodbury Series is another piece of evidence used to justify Kozma’s argument on the media debate. It is a videodisk-based mathematics problem solver used by one group in the classroom using the analogy of a boat episode and the control group uses ordinary problem-solving to the same boat episode (Kozma, 1994). Clark vs. Kozma (2018) ascertains that the video story problem group performed better in tests probing the boast episode. From the research evidence, Kozma concedes that careful integration of media in learning has positive implications as the learners can connect social contexts with real-world situations.
The use of media in learning leads to the achievement of positive outcomes if the medium used is interrelated and confounding. Clark vs. Kozma (2018) avers that for media to influence learning effectively, the embedded instructional method must be appropriate to the educational media. The Thinker Tools and Jasper Woodbury Series projects observed significant learning outcomes as the computer’s capabilities and the video disk created mental representations. This enabled the integration of external resources into the cognitive processes, resulting in better problem-solving skills, retention, and knowledge comprehension.