Mere Vehicles—A White Paper

In 1983, Richard Clark stated that “the best current evidence is that media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” (Clark, 1983, p. 445). Since that statement many papers have been published to support or refute this point of view. The purpose of this white paper is to explicitly identify and respond to the major points that have been brought up by both sides of the debate in order to identify best practice within the classroom and, possibly, the clinic.

As physical therapy educators in entrylevel programs, your time and resources are limited. This article succinctly presents you with the arguments and the facts to help you make intelligent and founded decisions about the use of media within your classroom. With the growing number of options for educational media, it is important to know if the search for the best type of media is worth your time and effort. With the large expense of many types of technology or media, for either the program or the student, it is important to know if the added cost of the selected media will improve the students’ learning of the material. Lastly, many of the technological options require a significant time commitment to learn how to use it, to program it properly to work in the best possible manner, for set up or break down of the equipment, and to manage the inevitable technology mishaps. Also of important note is that those of us who are less familiar with technology face a greater burden in its use. This becomes even more important if we are requiring that students or peers who are not as familiar with technology are able to effectively manage the media.

The same considerations must be made in the clinic. The selection of media for patient education or for completion of home exercise programs must be carefully considered. There is face validity to the idea that highest priority in the clinic is often aligned with patient stated preference secondary to an expected increase in adherence to exercise programs or willingness to self-educate about their diagnosis if the therapist is willing to work with their preferred media choices. However, it is still beneficial to consider the effects of media on our patients’ learning as well.

When Clark stated that media was a mere vehicle to learning he was not trying to state that media has no value or that it cannot assist an instructor in relaying information to students. Rather he was, after careful reflection on present literature, indicating that there was no evidence to suggest that teaching that can be accomplished through the use of one type of media cannot also be accomplished in another way. Clark was pointing out that there are many ways to teach any material. Some opponents of this statement have provided examples of types of technology that can be helpful in certain situations. However, it quickly becomes apparent that they have not fully read his 1983 article as he states that “certain elements of different media, such as animated motion or zooming, might serve as sufficient conditions to facilitate learning of students who lack the skill being modeled” (Clark, 1983, p. 453). Clark does not deny that media can be helpful, but rather argues that it is not the only way.

Clark’s original “mere vehicle” comment was made after careful review of the current literature. Clark willingly points out that he actually began his literature review with the notion that educational technologies would have an impact on learning and his goal was to create a hierarchy of most effective media (Clark, 2001). He also notes that he was not the first researcher to identify the trend in literature that suggests that media is a “mere vehicle.” Clark identified the 1963 work by Lumsdaine (Lumsdaine, 1963) and the 1968 publication by Mielke (1968) as distinct predecessors of his more definitive statement. Both authors hinted that technology in education was just a mode of delivery. However, Clark pointed out that many of those who published the early papers on this topic suggested that further research must be done on the topic and he notes that this may have led to further controversy (Clark, 1983).

Clark argues that an instructional “method” is different from a “medium.” He defines an instructional method as “any way to shape information that compensates for or supplants the cognitive processes necessary for achievement or motivation” (Clark, 2001, p. 208). The medium (or “delivery technology”) on the other hand is what allows the students “access to the necessary information and methods” (Clark, 2001, p. 208). In other words, Clark is indicating that the ideas or examples that the instructor is trying to relay to the student do not change simply because of the manner in which they are relayed. So, to put this in very relevant terms, when looking at the course objectives for a class you are teaching, the course objective would not change simply because you were presented with a new kind of technology to use in the classroom. The instructor is still attempting to convey the same message and information, they just have a new option for how to share that information.

Haas (1989) noted that there are certainly qualities of a medium that can make it easier or more difficult to learn. She noted that many fonts that were available on computers at the time were much more difficult to read than those that were available in text books (Haas, 1989). Her argument indicated that qualities of the medium may hinder or promote learning. First, this is not unlike what Clark had pointed out when he suggested that all mediums utilized for teaching should be weighed against each other. Again, it is not the medium that causes the learning, but, as Clark indicated, the medium should be carefully selected to bring the message to the students optimally. However, it is still the teaching method that creates the learning experience.

Another researcher, Kozma, pointed out in the 1990s that the ideas of teaching and learning were changing and learners were becoming more active within the classroom (Kozma, 1994). He argues, that while Clark’s analogy of delivery works well for situations of passive learning, it no longer applies when the students are interacting with the media in a more active manner (Kozma, 1994). It is easy to see why Kozma could think that a more active role could change the findings of the research. Lots of people like to drive vehicles with flashy interiors or aftermarket radio systems that allow the driver to customize their vehicle to better suit their comfort. However, despite these customizations, the car is still simply accomplishing the goal of getting the rider from point A to point B. The car is no more effective at moving the person from A to B simply because the seats have an adjustable lumbar support or because it is possible to select the color glow that the stereo emits.

Many articles from 1982 through the present indicate that pictures interspersed within text improves recall of material (Levie & Lentz, 1982; Park & Lim, 2004). Some may take this to mean the pictures are what actually caused the increase in learning. However, with careful consideration it becomes clear that the reason for improved recall is really not so clear. Is it really the picture within the text? Could it be that switching between reading written words and focusing on pictures allows for more transfer to long term memory? Is it that the improved recall was a result of the brain applying the knowledge to the picture? The exact mechanism is unclear, but Clark is not arguing that media cannot improve learning, simply that it is not the only way. It is likely that, even within discerning the causation of the learning, the same improved learning would be able to be recreated without the use of those pictures.

When selecting educational technology in the classroom, keep in mind that there is no clear evidence that suggests that any one type of media is superior to others when it comes to student learning. Ask yourself if there is an alternative teaching method that:

• is equally as effective but financially advantageous?

• is more time efficient for you to deliver to your students?

• is more time efficient for your students?

With many different vendors soliciting new media options, it is important that we make informed decisions about the media that we use in the classroom. While many researchers continue to study the effects of new and varied types of educational technology, a clear and distinct pattern has already been identified within the existing literature. The substantial body of evidence, when closely examined, supports the theory that technology does not affect the learning of the material by the students and that technology within the classroom is no more than the mode of delivery of information to the students. Rather it is tool in the hands of a teacher that should be carefully selected based on its availability, affordability, and its ease of use for everyone involved.