Student-teacher rapport in video-conferencing

Education and delivery methods of this education to students are always chaning. To teach students in geographically separated locations, many technologies are being used and one of these technologies is video-conferencing. However, the human element of education must neither be lost nor forgotten as we continue with new ways of educating students of the future. That is, the value of the student-instructor relationship and the critical role it plays in effective teaching and learning must be retained by distance educators. To develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between instructors and students of a video-conferenced classroom is the goal of this study. This case of student-teacher rapport in video-conferencing was conducted over a six-week summer course. Data were collected by questionnaire, student and instructor interviews, and class observations from both sites. From these primarily qualitative research techniques, several recurring themes emerged. All of these were central to the establishment and perceptions of an instructor-student rapport. Some of these areas were crucial to this video-conferencing case study and will serve to assist futre educators. The primary result of this case study was that very little rapport was established between the instructor and his students and it was perceived by the instructor and the students that this scant amount of rapport was sufficient. The paramount themes which were revealed include: the lack of name knowledge on the part of the instructor and the students' perception that this was acceptable; the technological problems; the question-asking procedures; and the amount of side-chatter and other off-task behaviours. All of these factors compounded to suppress the existence of an instructor-student rapport in this course. Recommendations for distance educators are included.

Authors

• De Clercq, Loya Marie
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education

• Videoconferencing -- Case studies
• Teacher-student relationships -- Case studies
• Distance education -- Case studies
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/33

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/33