A Framework for Expanding Pedagogical Approaches to Enhancing Web-Based Instruction

Much has been made of assessing web-based classes over the past 20 years. In many research circles, the overwhelming concern has been whether traditional (face-face) classes and those taught via the web (web-based classes) fare the same in terms of student achievement and satisfaction. Others have focused on which technology is best for web-based classes, while still others are concerned with instructional design issues and determining which design features are essential for web-based courses in terms of clarity, consistency, and in ease of use. While important areas of inquiry and subsequent development, concern with instructional effectiveness, or how an instructor can best direct, facilitate, and support students toward certain academic ends (i.e., student achievement, student satisfaction) in web-based classes has received considerably less attention. One approach is research in the area of instructional immediacy. Immediacy is a well–defined and researched construct in the instructional communication discipline and has recently been gaining momentum as an area of note in several studies concerning instructional effectiveness in web-based classes. Another approach is Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seminal work, Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and its subsequent applications o