5 THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF

AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA

A Simple Division

We propose not to discuss slide projection, overhead projection, and slide-tape

series here - all techniques that employ static images. In forms of education in
which print constitutes the preferred vehicle of instruction, such functions can be
fulfilled by pictures, maps, and diagrams added to the written components (see
chapter 4).
At first glance, slide projection and overhead projection appear to constitute
purely visual means of instruction. In practice, this is seldom the case. Information
in visual form almost always occurs in combination with (spoken or written)
language (as discussed in chapter 4). In slide-tape series, language and image are
combined. These can be considered as alternatives to illustrated textbooks, or oral
lessons supported by slide projection. Since in the context oflearning at a distance
the combination with print is to be preferred anyway, these alternatives will not be
pursued. 1
The question, then, is: what do we wish to include in our definition of
audiovisual means of instruction? We propose the following division: (a) means
that only record and reproduce sound, (b) means that only record and reproduce
moving images, and (c) means that record and reproduce a combination of sound
and moving images.

61

T. M. Chang et al., Distance Learning

© Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing 1983
62 DISTANCE LEARNING

Auditory Registration

There are two types of auditory registration to be distinguished: (a) linguistic

registrations, henceforth simply termed speech registration, and (b) nonlinguistic
registrations, henceforth termed sound registration. The distinction is important
because in the case of speech registration there exists the alternative of representa-
tion in print, whereas there is no such alternative in the case of sound. 2

Registration of Speech

What can be spoken can also be written, and vice versa. Insofar as this is true,
spoken and written language share the advantages and disadvantages inherent to
language itself. Inasmuch as the characteristics of written instruction mentioned
there also apply to oral instruction, we shall leave these tacit. Here we shall only
discuss certain characteristic differences between speech and writing. The mode of
speech has certain didactic advantages compared with writing, but also certain
disadvantages.
We shall start with the advantages. Speech has something more to offer than
writing: diction. By changes of intonation, shifts of tempo, studied pauses, the
speaker can manipulate his audience's attention and provide additional clues for
comprehension that are difficult to realize in the case of text. It should, of course,
be added that one might attempt to achieve similar effects in text by typographical
means.
We also expect spoken language to capitalize less upon the student's literacy.
Most people have more experience in listening than in reading. One should keep in
mind, however, that it is not quite feasible to compare written and spoken language
on the assumption that their contents are exactly the same. Quite often, one speaks
differently than one writes. Spoken language is usually more circuitous, more
redundant than written language. Its vocabulary, and especially its grammar, is
often simpler. But these differences can be erased completely by a teacher who
simply reads some text in front of him.
As a third advantage of speech, one might consider its lesser remoteness.
Speech suggests some sort of contact, a physical presence of the teacher that is
difficult to achieve in the case of written delivery. 3 Inasmuch as the teacher only
constitutes a neutral vehicle of factual information, not much is gained. If,
however, the teacher also happens to be a prominent scholar in the discipline in
question, the psychological reduction of the distance between teacher and student
might also serve to enhance the didactic effects of the message delivered. We shall
return to this.
Opposed to these, perhaps somewhat vague advantages of spoken versus
written materials, are a number of disadvantages. First, auditory registration, as
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 63

compared with printed materials, cannot readily be combined with images. What
cannot be described in words also cannot be transferred by means of auditory
materials. Hence one runs a greater risk that the information will merely remain
conceptual knowledge, devoid of episodic content.
A second possible disadvantage is that the student is bound to the pace of the
spoken delivery. If tape recordings are involved, rewinding and relistening, of
course, are possible. In the case of written materials, the student can simply adjust
his reading speed to the degree of difficulty of the text. He can survey parts to
follow or review earlier parts without being compelled to attend to everything: he
may limit himself to the headings, the sections italicized, or to the portions he has
marked himself. Similar flexibility is hardly possible with auditory recordings of
text.
As mentioned earlier, one of the most important advantages of written instruc-
tion is its independence of place and time. The fact that the reproduction of spoken
text requires a special apparatus places limitations in this regard. Tape recorders
are not carried around or consulted as easily as books. If delivery occurs by means
of radio broadcasts, then the student is also bound to the time of broadcasting.
(This, however, may turn into an advantage as well: radio broadcasts at regular
intervals enforce a certain pace of study, which the student might try to extend to
the study of other materials.)
Surveying the various pros and cons, there would appear to be little reason to
make use of spoken materials. On the contrary, these seem to give rise to more
problems than they solve - unless, of course, there are indications that students
learn more from spoken materials than from written ones. There are no such
indications, however. Carroll comments, "I am not aware of any thoroughgoing
studies on the subject,' '4 an opinion shared by Schramm5 and Flood Page. 6 For the
moment, we shall conclude that the spoken medium has no possibilities that print
lacks, apart from applications of a more specialized sort.

Registration of Sounds

Students occasionally may have to recognize, name, or perform more extended

analyses on certain sounds or patterns of sounds where it is not possible to express
these sounds adequately in symbolic form. In these cases, recordings of such
sounds constitute an ideal means of bringing these within the student's grasp,
without resorting to direct experience. One might think of auscultatory diagnosis
(registrations of heart beat, breathing, etc.) in medical training, the identification
of animal and bird sounds in biology, or recordings of extinct or uncommon
musical instruments in art history. In our estimation, these applications only
concern a small number of cases, which therefore have relatively little quantitative
import.
64 DISTANCE LEARNING

Special lippI/cartons

Language labs and practicals form such an obvious instructional application of

sound recordings that we shall treat these separately.

Language Labs. Language labs do not constitute a single, well-defined means

of instruction; rather, they comprise a variety of different configurations of
apparatus and "software." In a typical arrangement, a space is divided into an
array of booths, each equipped with a tape recorder, a pair of headphones, and a
microphone. The student can use the microphone to record his utterances on parts
of the tape designed for this purpose. All booths are connected to a teacher's booth
outfitted with headphones, microphone, and a control panel. The teacher can
contact any booth, talk to the student practicing there, and listen to what is said.
The number of booths to be served by a single teacher depends on the average
amount of teacher-student interaction time desired per student, and per teaching
unit.
The exercises in language labs can be roughly divided into speech exercises and
listening exercises. Speech and listening are the oral counterparts of writing and
reading, the skills practiced on paper. Speech exercises usually take on the
following form: the tape offers a stimulus, then a pause follows allowing the
student to respond, then the correct response is provided for by the tape, and
finally, a second pause occurs during which the student can try an improVed
response. Such a series of learning cycles is usually preceded by instructions,
informing the student how to respond to given stimuli. If the student is merely
required to repeat vocal stimuli, an exercise of pronunciation results, with the
student trying to imitate the teacher's utterances, usually a native speaker. But
productive-speech exercises are also possible according to this pattern. The
stimulus may, for example, consist of a question, the student being required to
respond with a grammatically well-formed negation in the same language.
Listening exercises consist of recordings of dialogues or spoken text that the
student attends to and tries to reproduce verbatim in writing. To acquire a simple,
but adequate measure of listening skill, one simply counts the number of words
correctly reproduced and converts it into a percentage.
For those studying a language, speaking and listening are skills just as impor-
tant as reading and writing. They constitute skills, moreover, that cannot be
practiced by means of written materials alone. Before concluding that language
studies will always require labs of the sort sketched above, it's worth investigating
how far one can get with such an inexpensive and simple provision as a cassette
recorder. Clearly, for listening exercises no more is really needed than such a
recorder and a tape of a foreign radio broadcast.
If the cassette recorder is to be employed for speech exercises as well, there will
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 65

be no teacher listening along and correcting as necessary. One may rest assured
that this function is not an unimportant one, since many students are likely to
remain unaware of their errors of pronunciation when these are not pointed out
explicitly, whereas other students do notice their errors, but cannot correct them
without the assistance of a teacher. Nevertheless, it is not at all unusual for
language labs to operate without the assistance of teachers, and such is generally
the rule for televised courses and courses employing records or cassettes.
Thus it would appear that face-to-face forms of teaching are not strictly
necessary for the exercise of skills that only involve listening and pronunciation.
As regards conversational skills - productive dialogue - matters are quite
different. The common experience here is that language labs alone afford too few
possibilities. Speech can only truly be mastered by entering into actual conversa-
tions, into dialogues taking unpredictable turns. Hence language labs are usually
supplemented with conversation groups.

Recordings of Lectnres. Above, we have concluded that in the case of speech

recordings, there is little reason to favor oral over written delivery of the same
lesson. If this is true, it follows that lectures, as employed in traditional higher
education, have little if any raison d' etre. What is being voiced there also exists in
print, or at least has the potential of existing in print. Accordingly, lectures as a
means of instruction have often - and rightfully so - been criticized. 7 Since this
critique is both general and oflongstanding, one may wonder why the method was
not abandoned long ago. Because of tradition, perhaps: lecturing is simply ex-
pected from lecturers. But that cannot be the whole explanation, since lectures are
not only delivered, but attended as well.
In chapter 3, we have sketched a function of lectures that might explain their
continued educational significance: their paradigmatic function. This function
does not refer to what the teacher actually says or mentions during the lecture - its
informative content - but to the skills he shows or demonstrates during his
lecture. Discussing a problem of physics, he shows how a trained physicist thinks;
analyzing an actual case of illness, he may display not only a real-life patient, but
also his clinical thought. It is mainly this paradigmatic function of lectures, in our
opinion, that has prevented them from becoming extinct.
In chapter 4, we have mentioned the possibility of imitating the paradigmatic
element of lectures and other forms of face- to-face teaching by a special, discur-
sive style of writing. In other words, the author should attempt not only to sum up
the results of his or other people's thinking as concisely, systematically, or even
elegantly as possible, but also to reconstruct the thought processes that actually had
or could have had led to such results. Although it is quite feasible to simulate this
paradigmatic element in written text, the spoken medium appears to us the more
obvious choice, particularly since one will tend to use the more direct language of
66 DISTANCE LEARNING

speech when thinking out loud, and this language is more readily spoken than
written. Presumably, this greater spontaneity afforded by spoken language makes
it more suited to the direct expression of thought processes than written language.
Moreover, it may be expected that the psychological distance between teacher and
student is reduced in the case of spoken, as compared with written instruction.
Accordingly, this will make it easier for the student to identify himself with the
teacher, hence facilitating imitative behavior.
We consider paradigmatic instruction to constitute an undeniable asset for the
teaching of skills, particularly operations on knowledge. Although it is possible to
provide for this type of instruction by means of written materials, we still think that
it deserves consideration to supplement such materials by auditory ones. Through
radio broadcasts or tape recordings oflectures, preferably by prominent teachers or
scholars, students can be made familiar with exemplary methods of thinking in a
way not easily accomplished through other instructional means.
One might be inclined to think that video recordings of such exemplary lectures
would fulfill the described function much better than simple auditory recordings.
This is probably true, but the question is whether the presumably greater effective-
ness of the video medium would justify the undoubtedly higher costs. We shall
return to this.

The Technology of Auditory Registration

Three techniques for the recording and reproduction of speech will be considered
here: phonograph records, audio tapes, and radio broadcasts. The entire process of
information transfer by means of sound can be divided into three stages: recording,
distribution, and reproduction. We shall compare the three techniques for each
separate stage.
As regards recording, it makes little difference which technique is chosen. It
does matter whether one wants to record speech or nonlinguistic sounds, music in
particular. For recording speech, a fairly simple acoustic studio will suffice: a
microphone, a simple tape recorder, and a sound-dampened area adequately
shielded from noises without. This will hardly do for the recording of music, but it
seems very unlikely that musical recordings will be made explicitly for the aims of
instruction alone. For the recording of nonmusic sounds, the equipment used for
speech recordings will suffice in most cases. However, there might occasionally be
a need for specially trained personnel. We do not expect such a need to arise very
often.
Inasmuch as the educational institution has to provide for its own sound studios,
these will primarily be used for speech recordings. Assuming that, in the case of
radio transmission, direct broadcasts are not involved, the final product of the
mE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 67

recording stage with all three techniques will consist of a tape. This tape comprises
the starting point for the next stage, the stage of distribution.
With regard to distribution, the three techniques differ considerably. If records
are chosen as an intermediary, the tapes have to be converted into press matrices.
Records are produced from these by means of relatively expensive, large-capacity
machines. For the operation of these machines, trained personnel are required. It is
not likely that an educational organization can manage all this by itself in an
economically feasible way. If records are to be chosen, the production of these will
have to be left to the specialized, commercial sector.
Audio tapes, especially in the form of cassettes, afford more do-it-yourself
possibilities. The simplest method of multiplying tape recordings, which requires
no special apparatus, is to hook up two or more recorders to one another. In such a
case, copying the tape requires the same amount of time as playing it. Should this
be too slow (not at all improbable if large numbers of copies are required) special
apparatus will then be necessary. The simplest such arrangement can provide for
three copies in about one-fifteenth of the playing time. 8 When more than 300
copies are required, it becomes economically worthwhile to seek commercial
reproductions. This is a matter of comparing costs, which will be discussed later.
Providing for copies, of course, is but one aspect of distribution. Records or
cassettes have to be delivered to the student. Important in this connection is
whether the recorded materials are left with the student or must be returned for
reuse. This question is not only an economical one, but has didactic aspects as
well. As for the economic aspect, it is not at all certain that the savings gained from
repeated usage will outweigh the administrative and mailing expenses involved in
returning the records and cassettes. On the didactic side, returning the materials
makes it impossible for the student to replay the lessons for refreshing his
knowledge or for purposes of reference. The student might attempt to circumvent
this problem by duplicating the recordings on his own initiative, but this would not
represent genuine savings - only a reallocation of costs.
Finally, there is the alternative of broadcasting as a means of distribution. The
absence of costs for duplication, storage, and distribution of records and cassettes
may appear to be a considerable advantage. However, a radio transmitter is
required. Things are simplest when the broadcasts can be handled by an existing
radio station, provided that they can be scheduled conveniently for the students the
lessons are meant to reach.
Distribution by means of radio can cause problems too. First of all, the students
are bound to the predetermined times of broadcasting. Repeated broadcasts of the
same lesson may reduce this problem somewhat, but will obviously increase
expenditures. Another solution is to have the students who are unable to follow the
programs at the scheduled times ask someone else to record the lessons for them, or
do so themselves by means of a time switch. Modern cassette recorders can easily
be used to this purpose.
68 DISTANCE LEARNING

Recording the programs at home at least would solve the second problem
associated with broadcasting: their transient nature. If, however, one assumes that
the students are going to record the broadcast themselves, one should realize that
part of the financial gains of distribution through the air is lost, and also some
advantages with respect to pacing.
As regards the reproduction of the auditory contents, each of the three tech-
niques above will require its own specific apparatus. Such apparatus, however, is
present in just about any household, and if not, their price is hardly prohibitive.
* * *
In summary, it is clear that the crucial difference between the three techniques
rests in their respective methods of distribution. Assuming that only speech
recordings are involved, the phonograph record may be eliminated as an alterna-
tive. Although the acoustic fidelity of records is better than that of cassettes, such
fidelity is hardly necessary in the context of education, and this advantage,
moreover, is negligible in comparison with the greater possibilities of duplication
that cassettes afford. Audio cassettes clearly constitute the better alternative.
Radio transmissions, however, are a quite realistic alternative to cassettes. In
the case of language studies, these will involve speech and listening exercises; for
the remainder, paradigmatic lectures delivered by distinguished scientists or other
persons prominent in the field. In both cases, the use of radio is just as appropriate
as that of cassettes. The choice can thus be made on purely economical grounds,
which will be examined in detail in chapter 8.

Visual Registration

Before embarking on the possible didactic applications of moving images, or,

more particularly, of instructional television (lTV), there are certain matters we
propose to dismiss.
The first of these is the moving image deprived of sound: silent movies or
soundless television. It must be borne in mind that these do not (contrary to what is
commonly thought) constitute self-sufficient, purely visual carriers of informa-
tion. Moving pictures without sound, just as still pictures without written text,
hardly occur as independent means of instruction, but almost always in some
context of verbal information: previews or reviews, explanatory subtitles, com-
mentaries inserted in between. For this reason, moving images without sound do
not actually differ from moving images with sound. Moreover, at the present state
of technology, there is hardly any reason to skimp on sound when working with
moving images. We shall therefore neglect this distinction.
A second distinction we consider of little import is that between film and
television. Although both techniques may differ considerably in production and
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 69

image quality, they are wholly interchangeable as far as didactic functions are
concerned. Since television is considerably easier to produce than film, we shall
limit our discussion to the educational possibilities of the former.

Comparative Studies

Some idea of lTV's characteristic features might be gained by comparing it with

other instructional media. Does lTV lead to better results than, for example,
traditional classroom teaching? This type of research has been carried out on a
large scale; several hundred studies have been devoted to the subject. Fortunately,
investigators have taken the trouble to read them all and recapitulate the results.
The best known survey is probably that of Chu and Schramm, who examined 421
studies in which lTV was compared with traditional face-to-face teaching. 9 In 308
studies there were no differences in didactic effects, in 63 studies lTV led to
superior performance, and in 50 studies face-to-face teaching came out best. In
surveys by Stickwe1l 10 and Dubin and Hedley,11 smaller numbers of comparative
studies were used, since these investigators only considered research that satisfied
minimal requirements of methodological thoughtfulness. But this made little
difference: the results followed quite the same pattern as Chu and Schramm's. 12 In
most cases the differences were not significant; where they were, one method just
as often had the upper hand as the other. All of this has been reaffirmed in a recent
book by Schramm. 13
It seldom is very clear, however, what is matched against what in such
comparative studies. The usual strategy is to compare an oral presentation with a
televised delivery of the same lesson. Preferably, the instruction is simultaneous:
one group of students attends the live lecture in a classroom; the other watches the
televised form on monitors in an adjacent room. Should the two groups of students
be expected to perform differently on a subsequent achievement test? Certainly
not, and that is hardly surprising.
lTV and face-to-face teaching are in fact different instructional media, built
upon different systems of coding. 14 The prominent code in the case offace-to- face
teaching is the symbolism of spoken language. In the case of lTV, it is the
combination of moving visual images and sound. By limiting these to the teacher's
appearance and his vocal utterances, the two media are rendered equivalent in a
wholly artificial way. And this is retlected in the resulting effects on learning.

The Possibilities of lTV

Allowing lTV to exploit its inherent coding possibilities to the full, does it then
yield results superior to those of face-to-face teaching? Whether or not it leads to
70 DISTANCE LEARNING

better results we do not know (this is largely a matter of definition), but we do

know that it leads to results that are (at least partially) different. Deriving knowl-
edge from verbal instruction calls on skills other than drawing knowledge from an
arrangement of images. Different media favor and obstruct different cognitive
operations. The knowledge gained in this way may, but need not, be equivalent.
Verbal media, written or oral, yield knowledge that is primarily of an abstract,
conceptual nature. This need not be a disadvantage if the student is able to fill in the
missing episodic gaps himself, which again is a matter of previous experience.
Information gathered from lTV will more often be of a concrete, episodic charac-
ter.15 This again need not be an important disadvantage if the student is well versed
in skills of generalization and conceptualization, a matter now of his level of
literacy. Whether or not students are proficient enough in the skill of abstraction (in
the case of lTV) or in that of concretization (in the case of written instruction) will
depend in part on the nature of the subject and the proposed goals of instruction.
This might explain why research results sometimes favor one medium, at other
times the other.

Instructional Television at the British Open University

When the particular subject or instructional aim is left out of consideration, it is

hardly possible to make hard-and-fast statements on the didactical possibilities of
lTV. Nonetheless, that is precisely what is sometimes essayed, for example, in
quarters of the British Open University. A list has been offered there containing
rules presumably defining the appropriate circumstances for the use of lTV. We
have come across this list in a number of variants. Schramm16 proposes a version
differing only slightly from a mimeographed communique of the Open Univer-
sity.17 The latter's first rule opens as follows:
To demonstrate experiments or experimental situations, particularly:
(a) where equipment or phenomena to be observed are large, expensive, inaccessi-
ble or difficult to observe without special equipment;
(b) where the experimental design is complex . ...
Actually, four interrelated rules are involved in the statement above. Consider first
rule (a), which says that lTV should be used when direct experience is too costly,
or difficult, or impossible to bring about for some other reason. But this rule
neglects the possibility of describing the experiment or experimental situation in
words, or through some combination of words and still pictures. Scientific jour-
nals are loaded with such descriptions, and there are apparently no problems of
TIlE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 71

communication there, although it should be admitted that this concerns communi-

cation between experts.
Rule 3 is similarly biased toward television, proposing to use it:
to record specially events, experiments, species, places, people, buildings, etc.,
which are crucial to the content of the units, but may be likely to disappear, die or be
destroyed in the near future.
Here, too, the possibility of using television as a substitute for direct experience is
emphasized, but again without considering the alternative of producing the same
effects by means of other media: verbal descriptions, drawings, photographs.
Moreover, phenomena that are "likely to die, disappear, be destroyed, etc." are
typically of the sort displayed in the televised news every day, the recording of
which need not concern organizations with a primarily educational function.
The important thing to find out is just what constitutes lTV's distinctive
instructional features, the possibilities it has that are not shared by other, simpler.
instructional media, particularly written instruction. Before attempting to formu-
late some of these, presumably unique possibilities, we would like to observe that
apparently the British Open University herself does not really seem to stick to her
own rules. In the same mimeograph quoted earlier, the statement occurs:
For courses whose presentation spans the whole teaching year the minimum alloca-
tion will be 1 radio and 1 television programme every 4 weeks (giving 8 + 8
programmes); and the normal maximum allocation will be 1 radio and 1 television
programme per unit. IS
Each course, therefore, regardless of what is said in the decision rules, can take
television or radio support for granted. The issue, rather, is whether or not more
can be gained than the allocated minimum. For television productions the Open
University receives an annual, fixed sum, which is directly transferred to the
B.B.C. It is hardly a problem to exhaust this sum. There is a greater demand for
television productions on the part of the course designers than can be satisfied
within the usual budgetary limits.19 Thus it is only in the resulting weighing of
priorities that the rules cited earlier may play a role.

Some Criteria for the Use of IN

We shall now attempt to formulate certain criteria of our own for the use of lTV,
criteria that should guarantee that lTV is only used for instructional purposes that
cannot be achieved through other (particularly less expensive) media of teaching.
72 DISTANCE LEARNING

We shall list four such criteria first, clarifying them afterwards.

lTV may be used in order to:

1. Display a visual process that cannot, or only in part, or only in a circuitious
manner, be described in words or static images.
2. Display a visual process that by itself can be described in words or static
images, but are not easily interpreted by students lacking the necessary
experiential episodes.
3. Provide the student with vicarious experiences of visually perceivable
phenomena, which they can use to practice skills of observation.
4. Suggest a personal tie between the student and distinguished scholars who
may serve as models for identification and imitation.

Let us try to elucidate these rules. In our view, the first two are the crucial ones:
they should guarantee that lTV only be used for the support of written instruction
when such support is absolutely necessary. In both rules, mention is made of visual
processes, that is, visible phenomena with a temporal dimension. But more than
that is needed to decide on the use of lTV: either parts of the process are difficult to
express in words (rule 1), or students may not be able to grasp the necessary
episodes by means of verbal description alone (rule 2). (For a more detailed
treatment of this, see chapter 4.)
We shall try to give some examples in which rule 1 might apply. A lot can be
told about the behavioral patterns of people suffering from schizophrenia.
Psychiatric textbooks are amply implemented with such descriptions. These de-
scriptions are nevertheless too incomplete, in many cases, to be of any help in
distinguishing actual schizophrenics from "ordinary" people. One will hardly
have the chance to experience the "praecox feeling," on the grounds of which
experts claim to recognize these patients, before having seen a few of them,
witnessed typical patterns of behavior, and attended to certain inadequacies in their
responses.
Often, the limitations of verbal descriptions are especially obvious when
descriptions of psychomotor skills are involved, as in instruction manuals for
the operation of machines. A single practical demonstration often has more effect
than an elaborate commentary on how to proceed. This does not mean, however,
that watching a skill constitutes a sufficient condition for performing it correctly.
Watching someone maintain his equilibrium on a bicycle - and also seeing him
fall - perhaps is more instructive than an elaborate set of instructions on how to
ride a bicycle, but it nonetheless hardly constitutes a substitute for repeatedly
performing the necessary operations oneself.
Rule 2 is an extension of rule 1, but with a difference. Rule 1 proposes to use
lTV when language itself is inadequate; in the case of rule 2, lTV is not intended to
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 73

alleviate the limitations of language, but those of the student. That is, for the
processes to be described, there may exist a fully adequate symbolism, but to the
student this may be of no use, because he lacks prerequisites in matters of
experience. This may be due to the particular phenomena being too exotic -
relatively rare, only observable at inaccessible places and with the help of special
apparatus, being too large or too small, changing too slowly or too quickly. For
example, the description "an intense flash of light brighter than the sun, an
ascending cloud slowly taking on the shape of a mushroom, several miles high"
amply describes the explosion of an atom bomb. There are no parts of the process
that cannot be described in familiar phrases - at least to the average contempo-
rary. Yet prior to Hiroshima, people hardly could have gained an adequate
impression of the event this description purports to describe. Their episodic
memory would have been empty in this regard.
We said before that rules 1 and 2 are connected. This is because there is no
generally accepted answer to the question of whether language has the potential of
adequately representing every phenomenon conceivable. Such, in fact, depends
on the experience of both the speaker/writer and the listener/reader. One might, for
example, be inclined to think that words fall short for the description of smells and
tastes (rule 1). For most people this is true, but wine connoisseurs apparently are
quite able to communicate with one another - by means of a verbiage that may
appear weird to outsiders - as to the different savors and flavors of wine.
Assuming this to be the case, words only fall short here for the uninitiated, and not
at all when the necessary experience is present (rule 2). .
Rules 1 and 2 are supposed to guarantee minimal application of lTV, that is,
they define just those cases in which written instruction has too little to offer
didactically, and lTV can provide for what is missing. From the research literature,
indications can be derived that these also comprise just those cases in which
students truly appreciate the use of television, whereas in other cases their feelings
tend to be "mixed. "20
Similar to written instruction, lTV only permits vicarious experiences of
reality,21 although of a different kind. Written materials require reading, and all
the cognitive operations the word reading implies. The resulting knowledge will
bear the marks of these: it will be bookish, of a predominantly verbal-abstract
nature. lTV requires viewing and listening and all the skills these words likewise
imply. Here, too, the resulting knowledge will bear the traces of the skills giving
rise to it: it will be iconic, incorporating predominantly concrete, perceptual
paradigms. This need not mean that the two types of media will result in totally
different kinds of knowledge. People are accustomed to and practiced in supple-
menting their abstract-conceptual knowledge with concrete images (drawn from
their episodic memory or imagination), and in raising iconic knowledge to
abstract-conceptual levels (with the aid of their semantic memory). Knowledge
74 DISTANCE LEARNING

differences resulting from the use of different instructional media often will only
be a matter of differences in stress (as discussed in chapter 2).
In institutions of distance learning, written instruction will usually constitute
the master medium, since it is presently the only instructional means independent
of both place and time of delivery. This will have consequences for what the
students are going to learn, albeit not very revolutionary ones, since in traditional
education learning also predominantly takes place by means of text, or through
face-to-face teaching, which is also predominantly of a verbal sort. In situations
where written instruction constitutes the privileged instructional medium, rules 1
and 2 specify the cases in which lTV may be used.
As substitutes for direct experience, lTV and written instruction have in
common that they only allow operations on knowledge: lTV is equally incapable
of providing for genuine interactions with reality. Among the operations on
knowledge that are possible with vicarious media, there is only one type that lTV
specifically does - and written instruction does not at all - permit, and that
occasionally figures as instructional objective: the observation of processes.
Actually, this concerns not a singular skill, but an aggregate of skills, skills that
vary in nature, moreover, depending on the kind of processes being observed.
Systematic observation of processes may form an instructional aim in such
different subject areas as psychology, drama, biology, anthropology, and
medicine. Such skills cannot at all be practiced by means of written instruction, but
easily by means of lTV. That is what rule 3 refers to.
Rule 4 follows quite straightforwardly from the considerations in the section on
"Recordings of Lectures" above. One might consider supplementing a course
with a number of televised paradigmatic lectures of prominent teachers or scien-
tists, on the rationale that seeing the lecturer will offer something in addition to
merely hearing his voice. Now a distinction should be made between two ways in
which images can add to mere sound in the context of paradigmatic lectures. The
first is relatively obvious: one can have the teacher write something on the
blackboard, show some relevant items (instruments, specimens), or highlight his
talk with suitable pictures. But then the principle of maximal parsimony in the use
of instructive media has been abandoned, the principle that rules out use of more
expensive media when a less expensive medium will serve just as well.
The second way in which images can add to mere speech is when the visual
appearance of the teacher effectively reduces the psychological distance between
teacher and student. Paradigmatic instruction, after all, has the primary function of
offering the student a model for imitation. Imitative behavior would seem more
likely to occur when the model has a face as well as a voice. Research evidence,
however, does not provide much support for this seemingly plausible supposi-
tion. 22 Students do not appear to learn more from live lectures than from audio
recordings of these lectures. But these findings concern "normal" teachers,
delivering "normal" lectures.
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 75

We have our doubts about rule 4. Practically everyone we have consulted or

read on this topic maintains that adding lTV to written instruction - and oral
lessons to traditional self-study - will result in "a sense of belonging," "less
impersonal study," "identification with the teacher. ' '23 But virtually no one can
provide actual evidence to back up these opinions.

The Technology of Visual Registration

At present, there are four possibilities for the recording and reproduction of
images: film, videotape, videodisc, and broadcasting. Of these four, we again
propose to dismiss film at the outset. Producing film is a considerably more
complicated affair than producing video. The most important (but not sole)
disadvantage of film as compared with video is that exposed film has to be
developed before it can be viewed, whereas video recordings can be inspected on
the spot. As regards the final results, the two techniques boil down to the same, a
combination of sound and moving images. Film affords better image quality and
consequently the possibility of larger viewing screens, but this does not make
much of a difference with respect to didactic effects. 24
We shall, then, consider only video and broadcasting. As in the above discus-
sion of sound registration, we shall divide the total process of visual information
transfer into three stages: recording, distribution, and reproduction.
As regards recording, it again makes little difference which technique is
chosen. Assuming that educational broadcasts are never live programs, the record-
ing stage will always amount to the production of a videotape. Relatively simple
apparatus - camera, microphone, recorder - can be used for this, but we want to
caution against the idea that producing lTV will be a simple matter. First, there is
no reason why the high technical standards commonly applied to commercial
programs should suddenly be slackened in the case of lTV. Moreover, if one
wishes to employ lTV for just those subjects that are "inaccessible" or "dif-
ficult to observe without special equipment," one will need more than merely a
camera and microphone. One will have to make recordings in out-of-the-way
places, in bad lighting conditions, and often with special apparatus and specialized
personnel.
As regards distribution, the three techniques differ considerably. If one decides
on videotapes, the original tapes will have to be copied and multiplied. The
simplest solution is to join two or more video recorders together, which presents no
problems. What can cause problems is that the process of duplication cannot be
speeded-up. With present technology, should one wish to produce a few hundred
- or even thirty or forty - copies of some original, one will have to dispose of
either a large number of recorders, or oflots of time, or some combination of both.
76 DISTANCE LEARNING

These problems, and the additional ones of storage and delivery to the students
of the tapes, can be circumvented by choosing the alternative of broadcasting. But
then one has to secure a television transmitter and sufficient broadcasting time.
Various possibilities are conceivable then (which we shall discuss in the section on
reproduction) .
Meanwhile, some observations have to be made on distribution by means of
videodiscs. 25 Videodiscs can best be described as a kind of video phonograph
record, in which the appropriate signals (video as well as audio) are reproduced by
means of a laser device reading off these signals, which are similarly arranged in a
continuous spiral. One' 'turn" of such a spiral contains the information for a single
image, illustration, or page of text. Several playing modes are possible, such as.
fast forward, slow motion, and static image. Static images are produced by having
the laser jump back one "groove" after each tum of the disc. A single disc
contains 45 ,000 frames on each side, enough for half an hour's program of moving
images or 45,000 static images or pages of teXt. 26
At present videodiscs can only be produced by the specialized industry. But
there is no reason to doubt that videodiscs will soon be as easy and cheap to
produce as phonograph records, and certainly easier and cheaper than videotapes.
Yet one important practical feature of videodiscs must be mentioned. Since the
signal track is scanned by optical means, the disc itself can be protected by a
transparent plastic coating. This makes the disc less susceptible to damage during
transport and use.
For the reproduction of images stored on tape a videotape recorder (VTR) is
required;27 videodiscs, accordingly, require special playing apparatus, which we
shall term VLP (video long-play). Both additionally require a monitor for viewing.
For receiving broadcasts, of course, a television set is required with an antenna or
cable connection.
VTRs have been available on the consumer market for a number of years now,
without having penetrated very widely. In principle, they can be used in three
ways: (a) one may record television broadcasts, (b) one may play prerecorded
programs on sale in cassettes, or (c) one may, provided with a video camera, shoot
and play one's own programs, similar to the way amateurs produce their own
movies. The first possibility undoubtedly is the most widespread at the moment;
(b) occasionally occurs, but the range of programs available to the general public is
still quite restricted at the moment; (c) is relatively infrequent.
At the moment, VTRs hardly constitute a standard household item. With
respect to the near future, more optimistic sounds can be heard from the side of the
video industry, but it is not clear how seriously such expectations can be taken. In
any case, it appears improbable to us that students at present will be willing to
purchase a VTR for study purposes alone.
VLPs were introduced on the consumer market in 1979, but at present are only
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 77

available in the U.S. The possibilities listed for VTRs do not apply to VLPs-
only a variant of (b), the playing of prerecorded programs. VLP does not afford the
currently most widespread use of VTR, the recording of broadcasts. But it does
afford possibilities lacking in the case of VTR: the slowing-down and speeding- up
of movements, the freezing of an image, and reverse playing. Also, as mentioned
before, videodiscs do not wear.
On the audio market, phonograph records and audio tapes exist side by side.
Undoubtedly, there is some competition between the two, but there are no indic-
ations whatsoever that one system will definitely push the other out of the market.
Here the record was the first to arrive, the tape later. In the case of video, the
reverse is true. Nevertheless, the video industry foresees that the videodisc will
win its own place next to the videotape. We share this expectation. Because VLPs
can only be used in combination with prerecorded programs, its introduction can
only occur when a wide range of programs is available, too. The fact that such a
strategy has not been followed in the case of videotapes, or could not have been
followed because of price, might well have been responsible for the relatively slow
growth of the VTR market.
Meanwhile, there is no reason to expect that VLPs will have reached a
substantial penetration rate before, say, 1985, nor to suppose that students study-
ing at a distance will have such apparatus in their homes, although the price of a
VLP will quite probably be substantially lower than that of a VTR. If the
distribution of lTV were to take place by means of videotapes or videodiscs, the
educational institution would have to provide for regional study centers, equipped
with the necessary viewing apparatus. This would mean that the students would
have to visit such centers to view the programs, requiring additional investments of
their time, not to mention the costs of apparatus, staff, and space involved in
setting up and running such centers insofar as this would be on the account of lTV
alone. We shall return to the possibilities of regional study centers in chapter 7.
At any rate, working with VTRs or VLPs would not appear to be very
attractive. Consider, then, the seemingly much more attractive possibility of
broadcasting the programs and having the student watch these on his television set
at home, which we can assume to be present in every household. 28
In such a case, a television transmitter is necessary. Not considering costs for
the moment, the simplest solution would be to employ a special, educational
broadcasting station, perhaps in cooperation with other educational institutions.
Should one wish to employ existing transmitters, problems of scheduling are
bound to arise, since the peak hours (i.e., the evenings) are also the times best
suited for the (part-time) students. Assigning educational programs to the
weekends, particularly Saturday and Sunday mornings, would solve part of this
problem. Admittedly, these are not the most pleasant times for studying, but if this
alternative eliminates the necessity of regularly commuting to a study center
78 DISTANCE LEARNING

possibly far from home, sfudents might very well be prepared to put up with it. The
British Open University also makes use of existing transmitting stations. Weekday
broadcasts start at 6:40 A.M., weekend broadcasts an hour later; in total, about
thirty- five and one-half hours per week (1976). There are no indications there that
the broadcasting schedule influences viewing density in a negative way.29 As to
this viewing density, on the average two-thirds of the students following a course
of the Open University watch the television programs associated with it.30 But
how many viewers does this mean in an absolute sense? This can be inferred quite
simply from some recent course popUlation figures of the Open University: "By
1976 a quarter of the University'S courses had populations of less that 300, while
half had less than 500 students. "31 One quite obvious conclusion is that a mass
medium is being used in this case for groups of students who hardly can be
qualified as "masses."
As far as we can see, the choice between distribution by means of broadcasting
and distribution by means of viewing apparatus in study centers can largely be
made on the basis of costs alone. This on the assumption that two mornings per
week is sufficient for the entire educational program, 32 and that lTV constitutes an
instructional means which is indispensable in every respect.

Some Special Applications of Audiovisual Media

The VLP As a Teaching Machine

We have noted that a VLP can be made to produce a static image by having the
reading unit recurrently switch back to the same track after a turn is completed.
This is referred to as thefreezeframe option. It is just as feasible, however, to have
the reading unit jump to an adjacent frame, or another, more remote one by user
command. The switch to a more remote track might require somewhat more time
than switching to an adjacent one, since the reading unit has to be displaced
mechanically, but the differences are for all practical purposes negligible. We
earlier referred to this option as random access, a feature recently available with
some VTRs, but with substantially longer search times.
It is this property of fast random access that makes the VLP an ideal teaching
machine for linear as well as branched programmed instruction. By joining a VLP
with a microprocessor and a simple key set, it can easily be arranged that certain
tracks - and thus certain information - can only be accessed when certain
conditions have been satisfied by the student beforehand. For example, one might
program the machine so that the student cannot arbitrarily look up answers to
questions, but only after some attempt, wholly or partially correct, to find a
solution. Similarly, one may have the machine direct the student to various levels
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 79

of compensatory explanation, contingent upon his previous performance, afford-

ing programmed instruction of the branching type.
The VLP, by virtue of its feature of random access, is an ideal teaching
machine; a bit costly, perhaps, but affording a unique combination oftelevised and
programmed instruction. We believe that its didactic possibilities will show to full
advantage when used as part of a comprehensive instructional system, governed
by a computer. (We shall return to this in chapter 6.)

Interactive Videotex

Viewdata, Prestel, Teletel, Datavision, Telodon, Captains, and many others are
different brand names for the Interactive Videotex Communication system, by
means of which subscribers can dial a centrally located computer for information,
which is then displayed on a television set connected to the subscriber's telephone.
Besides a telephone and television set, two additional implements are required to
make the system function: a control panel to specify the kind of information
wanted, and a decoder to convert the computer signal into text. The system cannot
provide for pictures, static or in motion, although a crude sort of diagrams are
possible, constructed from a limited number of points. As regards the software,
routines may be used through which the client can gain access to information
stored in the computer's memory, to subroutines (especially computation pro-
grams) stored there, or to a combination of both.
For Videotex, three kinds of uses are foreseen: (1) consultation, (2) communi-
cation, and (3) information processing. Consultation involves drawing informa-
tion from the computer's memory. Mter reporting in, the client receives an index
of headings on available information. The client then· chooses a heading; the
computer offers a new, more specific subindex; a subheading is chosen; and so
forth. By means of such a series of hierarchically ordered choices, the client will
finally arrive at the specific information desired. This information will then appear
on the screen in maximally twenty- four rows of forty characters. In such a manner
one can gain access to the kind of information presently provided for by newspa-
pers, catalogues, timetables, encyclopedia, and so forth.
In the educative context, these consultative possibilities of Videotex are not that
interesting. This also seems to apply to its communicative possibilities (i.e., the
possibility of exchanging messages with other subscribers). It is the possibility of
information processing that at the moment appears most interesting, since this
could provide each subscriber with computer-assisted instruction in his own home.
It would be interesting to examine this possibility in more detail, but as matters
stand, such instructional possibilities form but a small part of the many pros and
cons of Videotex.
80 DISTANCE LEARNING

Writing by Telephone

For the sake of comprehensiveness, we shall briefly mention a new technique of

information exchange by telephone, which might be of some interest in the context
of consultatory or advisory activities. At present, telephones afford only voice
contact. While telephones that also permit visual contact are well beyond the
prototypical stage, their introduction thus far has been prohibited by the limitations
of the existing telephone network, which is incapable of transmitting the complex
signals necessary for forming visual images.
Meanwhile, however, the Philips Company has developed a couple of sys-
tems enabling written communication by telephone. These systems, termed
Scribophone and Electronic Blackboard, have been developed by different de-
partments of the company and differ as to their technical construction, but their
result is quite the same: what one person writes or draws on a special pad,
connected to the telephone, can be seen by the other on his television receiver, also
connected to the telephone. Such a system could obviously be of help to students in
consulting their teachers. Both systems only exist as prototypes, and little is yet
known about how much they will cost.

Conclusion

What Are the Possibilities and Shortcomings of Audiovisual

Media as Compared with Written Instruction?

As for auditory registration, speech and sound recordings in particular deserve

attention (see note 2). In the study of language, speech recordings significantly
extend the possibilities of written instruction. Although adding speech recordings
to written text will not make much of a difference for the acquisition of know ledge,
it will aid in the practice of skills. Written instruction only permits the elaboration
of reading and writing skills. Speech recordings afford the possibility of practicing
listening and speaking - the latter only to a limited extent, though, since true
proficiency of speech requires dialogue with relatively unpredictable partners, and
speech recordings no more provide for this than written materials. In this case,
there is no vicarious medium that can replace direct experience.
To formulate this more precisely: In language studies, speech recordingsforma
significant expansion of the didactic possibilities of written instruction, since they
afford the possibility of practicing indispensable skills, which, moreover, cannot
be exercised by means of written instruction alone. Nevertheless, even the combi-
nation of the two will not suffice to meet all the aims vital to language instruction:
for speaking skills, supplementary modes of instruction will be required.
TIlE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 81

Outside the domain of language instruction, speech recordings, no less than

written materials, constitute vicarious means for direct experience. In these cases,
the didactic possibilities and limitations of speech recordings differ from those of
written materials. What cannot be written cannot be voiced, either. We have earlier
stressed certain slight differences between the two modes of representation. Some
skills cannot be explicitly described, but only demonstrated. In chapter 3, we have
used the term paradigmatic to describe the kind of instruction featuring in the
demonstration of such skills. In chapter 4, we have referred to the possibility of
employing a paradigmatic style of writing, and thus to the possibility of delivering
such a type of instruction by means of written instruction. In the present chapter,
we have suggested that spoken language may be more suited to instruction of
the paradigmatic type than written language, since, among other things, the
psychological distance between teacher and student might be reduced in case of
speech. Finally, in this chapter, we have mentioned the possibility of further
reducing this distance by adding the visual image of the teacher to the registration
of his speech. In view of all this, lTV would constitute the medium suited best for
paradigmatic instruction, although there is little empirical evidence to support this.
In formulating an explicit rule, we prefer to be more conservative: Outside the
domain of language instruction, speech recordings barely afford didactic pos-
sibilities not already offered by written instruction.
In this conclusion one cannot substitute "sound recordings" for "speech
recordings," that is, nonlinguistic sounds for utterances of language. Sound
recordings of a nonlinguistic nature can indeed extend the possibilities of written
instruction alone, but we do not expect such cases to be very frequent.
As for visual registration, we have previously observed that the addition of
moving images will occasionally greatly enhance the effects of written instruction.
This is particularly true when one wishes to have the student witness things that
either cannot be (completely) described, or are too "exotic" for the student to
visualize to himself on basis of the written description alone. Of course, we are not
suggesting some all-or-nothing, dichotomous categorization here - phenomena
either possible or impossible to describe in words, episodic backgrounds either
adequate or inadequate as supplements to descriptions - but differences that are
rather a matter of degree. Moving images for phenomena with a temporal dimen-
sion, and static images in other cases, readily support linguistic description, and
this support becomes more vital as language serves less satisfactorily as a vicarious
representation of reality. When or whether such visual support becomes indispens-
able depends largely on the kind of reality involved. In certain subject areas, visual
registrations will be sooner necessary than in others.
All of this can be stated as follows: Visual recordings extend the didactical
possibilities of written instruction by supplementing language's primarily concep-
tual character with episodic elements. The necessity of such supplementation will
depend for the most part on properties of the subject area in question.
82 DISTANCE LEARNING

Teaching situations in which visual support is obviously appropriate are those

involving the exercise of manipulative skills. In such situations it may be quite
possible to describe the sequences of operations concerned in words, but these
descriptions are apt to be so unwieldy that they hardly form a basis for learning to
perform the skill. A single practical demonstration may have more effect than a
who Ie textbook of instructions. We hasten to point ou t, however, that just watching
a skill being performed will barely suffice to gain proficiency in it.
Similar to written instruction - and verbal instruction in general - visual
registrations only afford vicarious representations of reality. The advantage of
vicarious modes of instruction is that reality, inasmuch as represented by these, is
brought under our control. We can deliver the vicarious experience to the student at
the time and place most suited to us, or to the student. This is a tremendous
practical advantage. But on the other hand, reality is not actually brought within
reach of the student, and he consequently cannot use his (presumably) acquired
knowledge to operate on it and observe the results.
Thus: Even visual recordings of reality do not permit operations with knowl-
edge. Operations with knowledge, in the last instance, are possible only through
direct interaction with reality.

How Often Will an Institution of Distance Learning Need

Audiovisual Media?

For language instruction, audio media are indispensable. For other forms of
instruction, they may be of some use. Visual registration may usefully supplement
the possibilities of written instruction. Does this mean that distance learning
requires both types of media? We are not too certain of this, in view of the costs
involved.
The problem of costs need not be too pressing in the case of auditory regis-
trations. In language instruction, one can use cassettes, which are not very costly.
Moreover, considerations of cost can hardly be decisive here, since auditory
registration will be necessary anyway.
Things are more difficult when one additionally wishes to employ audio media
for paradigmatic lectures. Such lectures can be made available to students by
means of broadcasts, or through cassettes. But both cost money; much less, it is
true, than the use of visual media would entail, but quite a lot in view of the rather
uncompelling case we have been able to make for spoken lectures. One might
consider the financial costs versus educational benefits ratio much too low here;
which would seem a legitimate approach.
Considerations of cost will be more important yet in the case of visual regis-
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 83

trations, since such costs invariably turn out to be high. But the arguments in favor
of visual media again are much stronger because in certain instances they can
considerably extend the possibilities of written instruction. Given certain instruc-
tional aims, and proceeding from the decision rules stated in the present chapter
("Some Criteria for the Use of lTV"), there will occur only a limited number of
cases in which one will have to decide that visual registrations are wholly indis-
pensable. Moreover, the phrase attached - "given certain instructional aims" -
provides for additional decisional latitude. Should the number of cases in which
visual support is needed be relatively small, then the educational organization
might also consider the alternative of simply relinquishing those subject areas or
instructional aims in which visual support would be needed. A small decrease of
educative scope might well result in a large decrease of costs. For this reason, we
are not too sure that lTV will be necessary, after all.

How About the Opinion of the Students?

In a recent publication by Gallagher, some data are reported on the way students of
the British Open University respond to the radio and television broadcasts supplied
by this institution. 33 We would like to make some brief observations on this study
- brief because the Open University does not employ strict criteria for the use of
these media, which makes it difficult to generalize from their results to situations in
which lTV is used more parsimoniously.
The findings in the report that are crucial to our purposes concern student
opinion on the comparative utility of the different instructional means employed at
the Open University. We cite two conclusions:
- The correspondence texts were by far the most highly rated component in every
faculty, with more than three-quarters of the students finding them very helpful. The
only other aspect of the courses to come anywhere near this sort of rating were set
books and summer schools which - overall - about half the students rated very
helpful, although there were substantial inter-course differences here.
- Television was on a par with set books and summer schools in the Science Faculty.
Elsewhere it was found very helpful by not more than a third, with only about a fifth
of students in Social Sciences and Educational Studies finding it very helpful. 34
In light of these findings, the dilemma posed at the end of the previous section
only becomes the more pressing. Written instruction has a formidable didactic
potential, but also some clear and essential limitations (as discussed in chapter 4).
Striking an intermediate balance, the conclusion seems unavoidable that au-
diovisual media have little to add to this. Much more is needed in order to
compensate for written instruction's most vital shortcomings.
84 DISTANCE LEARNING

Notes
I. Whether or not something is lost in the process of switching from a spoken to a written
mode of delivery will be discussed below.
2. Which does not exclude the possibility of expressing sounds by means of a special
symbolism, such as musical notation. It should be observed that pronunciation exercises in language
labs actually involve sound recordings, whereas speech production exercises employ some combina-
tion of speech and sound recordings.
3. And which, presumably, is more pronounced yet in cases when the lecturer can be seen, too
- for example, when video recordings are used.
4. See Carroll, J. B. The potentials and limitations of print as a medium of instruction: In D.
R. Olson, ed., Media and Symbols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974, p. 167.
5. Schramm, W. Big Media, Little Media: Tools and Technologies for Instruction. London:
Sage Publications, 1977, p. 32.
6. Flood Page, C. Technical Aids to Teaching in Higher Education. London: Society for
Research into Higher Education, 1971, p. 18.
7. Such a critique has been described - and refuted, in part - by J. McLeish. The lecture
method. In N. L. Gage, ed., The Psychology of Teaching Methods. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1976.
8. Acoustic quality suffers somewhat from such speeding-up of reproduction, but this hardly
matters for speech.
9. Chu, C. G., and Schramm, W. Learning from Television. Washington, D.C. National
Association for Educational Broadcasters, 1967.
10. Stickwell, D. W. A Critical Review of the Methodology and Results of Research Compar-
ing Televised and Face-to-Face Instruction. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1963.
II. Dubin, R., and Hedley, R. A. The Medium May Be Related to the Message. Eugene:
University of Oregon Press, 1969.
12. Proponents of aptitude-treatment interactions might object here that differences will not be
found, either, as long as differences between students are neglected. But there are no indications of
such differential effects of media on students. See Gagne, R. M. The Conditions of Learning. New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965, p. 364.
13. Schramm, op. cit.
14. See Salomon, G. A cognitive approach to media. In 1. Ackerman and L. Lipsitz, eds.,
Instructional Television: Status and Directions. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977.
15. lTV not only featuring some teacher voicing a lecture, but exploiting its visual potential to
the full.
16. Schramm, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
17. The paper's title is "Criteria and Guidelines for the Allocation of Broadcasts," and it
additionally carries the code BC/14/6c. It is addressed to the Course Teams and probably has been
issued by the Sub-Committee for the Allocation of Broadcasts of the Open University.
18. A "unit" requires approximately ten hours of study.
19. This budget is managed by the B.B.C. itself, and there are no detailed figures available as
to costs per (type of) program.
20. See Coney, J. E. R., Hewitt, C. L., and Ives, J. TV for an integrated course in thermo-
dynamics. The Engineer 227:286-89, 1969.
See also Page, op. cit., p. 16.
21. Unless the registrations themselves constitute the topic of study.
22. Popham, W. J. Tape recorded lectures in the college classroom. AV Communication
Review 9: 109-18, 1961.
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIOVISUAL TEACHING MEDIA 85

Popham, W. J. Tape recorded lectures in the college classroom, II. AV Communication Review
10:94-101, 1962.
Menne, J. W., Hannum, T. E., Klingensmith, J. E., and Nord, D. Use of taped lectures to
replace class attendance. AV Communication Review 17:42-46, 1969.
23. We quote here from the paper referred to as "Criteria and Guidelines," op. cit.
24. Research carried out by Rich, Poll, and Williams. Discussed in Campeau, P. L. Selective
review of the results of research on the use of audiovisual media to teach adults. AV Communication
Review 22:5-40, esp. 23-24, 1974.
25. The system described here is the one developed by Philips and MeA.
26. The characters displayed on the screen have to be quite large in order to be readable. Hence
a television' 'page" only comprises about one-third to one-fourth of the amount of text of a printed
page.
27. Video recorders that do not employ cassettes usually occur only in a professional context.
28. Black-and-white receivers, at any rate. Problems may arise when the use of color is
essential to the educative programs. At the British Open University only 55 percent of the students
had access to a color receiving set in 1976, although this figure is increasing fast. See Gallagher, M.
Broadcasting and the Open University Student. Milton Keynes, Eng.: Audio- Visual Media Re-
search Group, Institute of Educational Technology, Open University, 1977.
29. Gallagher, op. cit., p. 82, no. 45.
30. Gallagher, op. cit., p. 80, no. 14.
31. Gallagher, op. cit., p. 2.
32. The maximal duration of a televised lesson appears to be half an hour. See Flood Page, op.
cit., p. 16. Assuming that broadcasting starts at 8:00 A.M. and ends at 1:00 P.M. for both weekend
days, a total of twenty lessons is possible, which does not seem unreasonable.
33. Gallagher, op. cit.
34. Gallagher, op. cit., pp. 80-81, nos. 24-25.