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This naturalistic inquiry explored the theory of transactional distance by investigating how a novice adult learner experiences an online environment. Three themes that are related to how the novice learner reduces the transactional distance space emerged from an analysis of interview transcripts: creating a voice for learning, connecting in a space for learning, and creating a time for learning. Initially, instructors play a critical role in helping novice learners develop identities as online learners and work in that dialogic space.
INTRODUCTION
The first night I sort of had willies in my stomach - you know, the funny feeling you get. Gosh, I've never [chatted] before.... How do you do it? Is it easy to figure out?
As Pat, a novice adult online learner expressed, adult learners return to higher education with complex, contradictory feelings that help form their identities as learners (Wojecki, 2007). Online environments present adult learners with an "inevitable" identity adjustment because of changes in the nature of communication and interaction (Garrison, Cleveland-Innes, & Fung, 2004, p. 61). The changes can be understood through the lens of transactional distance theory, which allows for the analysis of the experiences of adults who are becoming online learners.
Many adult learners are still novices in virtual environments. Instructors who regularly teach with technology may be unaware of the challenges novice users face in becoming familiar with course management systems and other electronic communications necessary to complete their academic work.
Novice online adult learners bring issues to the virtual learning space that can hinder learning and increase feelings of separation and distance from the instructor and other learners. They may lack online literacy skills, which include creating an online identity; communicating a cognitive presence on text-based screens; posting comments that reflect favorably on their image as competent and intelligent adult learners; and constructing their own learning from comments received from other learners, the materials, and the content (Conrad, 2002; Dixon & Pelliccione, 2004; Dringus, 2002; and Zembylas, 2008). What do novice online learners experience as they develop online literacy skills and work through their willies?
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Transactional distance is a foundational concept in distance teaching and learning. Transactional distance theory holds that the physical separation of the learner and instructor can lead...