Student Problems with Hypertext and Webtext:
A Student-Centered Hypertext Classroom?One concern of good teachers, and of student-centered pedagogy, is the question "will they [the students] like it?" In User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts, Robert Johnson espouses, as the title suggests, a user-centered theory for technology that values the user's perspective. Part of valuing their perspective is also valuing what "works" and doesn't "work" for them. This is an idea that fits nicely into current pedagogy theories that argue for student-centered classrooms and learning. If we draw this concept into the hypertext classroom we must begin questioning almost everything they, and we, do.
It seems like countless teachers, researchers, and others love hypertext. It certainly has many benefits. Bolter, in Writing Space, states that electronic text, including hypertext "permits the reader to share in the dynamic process of writing. The text is realized by the reader in the act of reading" (5-6). LeCourt and Barnes see value in the classroom for hypertext as it is part of a "pedagogy that highlights the gendered nature of textual production in other ways" (69). Also, LeCourt and Barnes suggests another benefit of hypertext is that it allows students to examine authority and speak in alternative voices; "what the students may learn in the process--the need to interrogate the discursive grounds of achieving authority such that they can writer differently in the other contexts which would silence both their alternative voices and the challenges those voices might make to the context's ideology" (70). Haraway, LeCourt & Barnes, and Sullivan see the potential for hypertext to rewrite not only our ways of reading and writing, but also in our ways of thinking and the existence of the Modest Witness in the sea of current traditional life. As Sullivan and LeCourt & Barnes suggest, hypertext allows an examination of objective and traditional authority by focusing on situated knowledge and the mingling of voices with and without traditional authority. Sullivan contends that connections between objective writer/researcher and object are made more visible in hypertext. She believes contrasts between the voices of traditional authority (generally white males in positions of some power: doctors, scientists, leaders) and the personal voices of experience can be more explicit in hypertext and greater values can been seen in the personal voices. There are countless other benefits to hypertext, many of which are discussed in other texts.
But the big question in our user/student-centered classroom is what do students think of hypertext? Some love it. But many of our students have more of a love/hate relationship with hypertext as they struggle to read and write hypertext in their writing classrooms. Smith et al. discuss some of the problems users have interacting with hypertext. These problems include: frequent returns to the first screen; a reluctance to search thoroughly; deliberately exploring one category to find information they believe should be there, even though they should have already realized it is not; wandering off subject hoping to still find information; confusion over links linking to things different than their expectations, and the consideration that link structures illogical (70). Rouet and Levonen site a 1989 Foss experiment where readers flipped through the nodes of a hypertext without reading them, a result of a disorientation problem (16). Rouet and Levonen also point out hypertext requires a higher cognitive load as the readers attempt to remember their location in the text, make decisions of where to go next, and remember pages previously visited (17). Gary, also sited in Rouet and Levonen, found several navigation problems that students have.
In " Hyper-What?: Some Views on Reader Discomfiture with Hypertext Fiction "; and the related KMTA MOO log, it is clear that students, and other readers of hypertext fiction, have problems with the hypertext. Some of the problems the students admit to having in the KMTA log are:
- getting lost due to too many paths or "millions of alternate possibilities at their finger tips" (Chuck) and/or being overwhelmed by the options
- as one student put it "I hate getting lost in the links" (Catzilla)
- content not interesting
- the possibility of missing information, such as ending up in a place and not being able to backtrack or go where the student expected
- medium is not user-friendly
- no closure with the texts
- not entertaining or popular
- story interpretation issues
- hypertext needs "more work and polishing, and I don't think its up to standard with what I've been taught is good literature" (Catzilla).
These problems match closely to the interface problems Smith et al, Rouet and Levonen, and Gary found in their research, and most deal with navigation issues. Dias, Gomes, and Correia contend that navigation problems, a common problem with hypertext, is due to (dis)orientation in the hypertext (93). The causes and types of disorientation should be more thoroughly examined so we can discover why these problems are happening and either how to prevent such problems or work the problems into the theory and pedagogy of hypertext.
A student-centered classroom should not only be aware of these problems, but be looking at ways to solve these so students can take full advantage of the benefits of hypertext. One place to begin is by looking at similar type of writing and media the students don't have such problems with. The Web is a medium many students spend countless hours surfing, searching, buying, and downloading their way through. For many of my students the Web seems to be a hobby, or others an addiction. But why, when faced with "hypertext" that is not some "cool" Website on their favorite band, do students begin having problems? Perhaps we can learn more thorough a comparison of the Web and hypertext.