An investigation of communication in virtual high schools

Virtual schooling is an increasing trend for secondary education. Research of the communication practices in virtual schools has provided a myriad of suggestions for virtual school policies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the activities and processes involved in the daily...

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Autor principal:	Marley Belair
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2012
Materias:	Distance education virtual school communication Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/b892989738924af5bf3a370ffaae58c0
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:b892989738924af5bf3a370ffaae58c02021-12-02T17:00:17ZAn investigation of communication in virtual high schools10.19173/irrodl.v13i1.11231492-3831https://doaj.org/article/b892989738924af5bf3a370ffaae58c02012-01-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1123https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 Virtual schooling is an increasing trend for secondary education. Research of the communication practices in virtual schools has provided a myriad of suggestions for virtual school policies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the activities and processes involved in the daily rituals of virtual school teachers and learners with the goal of determining how regular phone calls by teachers contributed to the work habits of students. Eight virtual teachers were observed attempting to contact more than 60 struggling learners. Phone conversations with 12 of these learners showed that teachers repeatedly attempted to help them. Eleven students were interviewed and indicated preferences for written communications. Ten additional teachers who were interviewed emphasized the difficulty they had in reaching students by phone and the lack of student responses to phone-call attempts. The teachers in the study provided additional data regarding their regular communication patterns. Archival records from more than 100 contact attempts showed that approximately 20% of the students responded to teacher phone calls and less than half of these students completed the work requested. The interview data revealed that teachers believe written communications or multiple forms of communication may be more effective than regular phone calls. Future research should extend current research by expanding on sample size and investigating alternate methods of communication. Further investigation of learner responses to phone calls and of nonresponsive students could add to this data. Marley BelairAthabasca University PressarticleDistance educationvirtual schoolcommunicationSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 13, Iss 1 (2012)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Distance education virtual school communication Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	Distance education virtual school communication Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Marley Belair An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
description	Virtual schooling is an increasing trend for secondary education. Research of the communication practices in virtual schools has provided a myriad of suggestions for virtual school policies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the activities and processes involved in the daily rituals of virtual school teachers and learners with the goal of determining how regular phone calls by teachers contributed to the work habits of students. Eight virtual teachers were observed attempting to contact more than 60 struggling learners. Phone conversations with 12 of these learners showed that teachers repeatedly attempted to help them. Eleven students were interviewed and indicated preferences for written communications. Ten additional teachers who were interviewed emphasized the difficulty they had in reaching students by phone and the lack of student responses to phone-call attempts. The teachers in the study provided additional data regarding their regular communication patterns. Archival records from more than 100 contact attempts showed that approximately 20% of the students responded to teacher phone calls and less than half of these students completed the work requested. The interview data revealed that teachers believe written communications or multiple forms of communication may be more effective than regular phone calls. Future research should extend current research by expanding on sample size and investigating alternate methods of communication. Further investigation of learner responses to phone calls and of nonresponsive students could add to this data.
format	article
author	Marley Belair
author_facet	Marley Belair
author_sort	Marley Belair
title	An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
title_short	An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
title_full	An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
title_fullStr	An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
title_full_unstemmed	An investigation of communication in virtual high schools
title_sort	investigation of communication in virtual high schools
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2012
url	https://doaj.org/article/b892989738924af5bf3a370ffaae58c0
work_keys_str_mv	AT marleybelair aninvestigationofcommunicationinvirtualhighschools AT marleybelair investigationofcommunicationinvirtualhighschools
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An investigation of communication in virtual high schools

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