Communications and Media

Executive Summary
Mobile communication has strengthened the bond between the teacher and the student after experiments that were carried on 176 students and 45 students respectively. It has also consequently reduced the pressure that a student feels when learning.

Students from the west are found respond to intrinsic motivation as a way of improving their learning performance. They find it to have a positive effect. However, the Chinese students are more comfortable with extrinsic motivation which is negatively looked upon by students from the western world.

Introduction
The article focuses on how Motivation and pressure play a vital role in impacting the learning performance of a high school senior using mobile communication. Mobile communication technology is believed to be valuable in encouraging the interaction between the student and the teacher and also enhances the value of learning. Castells (2007) finds that technology is accepted by a specified culture since it fits into its pattern and therefore as the technology develops it embraces an increasingly greater fraction of its reference group which is young people. He therefore concludes that all technologies affect already existing social and cultural values (127).

Katz and Aakhus (2002) discover that among the difficulties of comprehending the cultural impact of mobile communication technology is the diversity and complexity of the cultural behavior itself (p.63).

This is a critique of the content presented in the journal article by Rau, Gao and Wu. It therefore sets out to establish whether mobile communication plays a vital role in improving contact between the teacher and the student thus increasing motivation and reducing pressure.

Importance of the Article
Rau, Gao and Wu (2006) expect that mobile communication technology will play a vital role in improving the contact between teacher and student plus the efficiency of learning in high school. This will motivate the student to look forward to learning more from the teacher since communication between that student and the instructor has been modified and made easier.
 
The authors maintain that the use of mobile technology has aided in the strengthening the bond between the student and teacher based on a comparative survey of 176 students. The effect of using individual communication technologies on the learning motivation, pressure and performance of students was studied as well as effect of the use of the combined mobile and internet communication technologies through another survey of 45 students and thus the bond was confirmed stating that instant messaging led to positive instruction process .

Rau et al. also research that when instant messaging is coupled with internet communication media, motivation of a student is boosted without it becoming the reason for high pressure. However, it is advised that communication media that calls for public expression rather than private conversation should be taken up with cautious reflection because they may cause student pressure.

Rau et al. explore the fact that students in senior vocational high school experience more pressure from future prospects. It is however discovered that vocational students in Taiwan were less motivated and unsure of themselves due to excessive academic disappointments and immense social demands, the main reason being lack of learning motivation. Therefore the article expresses the need for computer technologies and mobile communication arising in the area, to be integrated into classroom education so as to influence contact between the teacher and the student. Additionally, the necessity for mobile learning as an addition to the existing learning tools while investigating on how to combine the mobile learning tools with the internet learning tools successfully has also been articulated.

It has been researched that learning is influenced by cognitive and motivational variables, which are inseparable. It is discovered that motivational orientation of students, whether intrinsic or extrinsic is important in influencing their learning performance. The authors have discovered that the intrinsic side of the motivation has resulted in lower rate of students dropping out from school as well as higher value of learning, improved learning tactics and enjoyment of being in school. The western researchers have therefore concluded that intrinsic motivation is the best form of motivation for students.

On the other hand, the Chinese students have been discovered to prefer extrinsic motivation which had been considered as a negative approach conventionally. It has been however explored and discovered that this type of motivation is not negative towards Chinese students and appears to be a motivation that is career associated. In fact, it is interconnected with intrinsic motivation, even heartening students to implement learning strategies.

The research done by the authors reveals that motivation is improved when educational programs are adapted to the individual needs of each learner. It is deduced from an examination that an environment that was focused on the learners individual needs resulted in an improved performance and motivation that was intrinsic oriented. The authors have also voiced an opinion from other researchers who consider the importance of learning environment to participation and responsibility as the influence on motivational orientation.

Rau et al provide two concepts that are vital to communication performance and interpersonal relationships. They are media richness and social presence.
The first concept, Media richness, is articulated as being determined by four factors which are
The ability of the medium to broadcast numerous cues.
How immediately the response is received.
Diversity of languages.
Personal focus of the medium.

The authors discover that various media have been graded according to their richness. Face to face is ranked as the first while video and telephone are the second and third respectively. Other forms of media such as written communication and formal numeric text have been ranked as the last.
The importance of social presence has also been stipulated whereby this concept is asserted to be subjective feature of the medium itself by being influential to the way individuals relate with each other. The variables contributing to this aspect are Intimacy and immediacy. Intimacy is elaborated as the physical depiction of closeness while immediacy is explained as being the psychological distance between the parties communicating with each other.

Rau et al analyze how teachers have been forced to incorporate computer technology into educational practices due to a confrontation with technology progress. The authors discover that communication that is computer-mediated makes constructivism learning and individualized learning possible. Therefore students feel free to state their opinions and request for the teachers help as a result of the reduction of social cues within the mediated surroundings. Therefore, the school is supposed to focus on the students individually once they have implemented computers into the system. This concept has helped students to rely on themselves and also coach each other thus encouraging collaboration amongst the student body.

The authors investigate that there have been concerns about the acceptance of the computer-mediated environment by the students because of the information richness and system design aspects associated with computer-mediated environment that have an effect on the attitude, preference and satisfaction of the student towards the course and learning result. Therefore, these concerns should not be ignored. It is noted that student motivation plays a big role in the acceptance of computer conferencing as a learning tool. Consequently, students who believe in computer conferencing as a way of aiding in learning course materials and obtain the skill to use CC were most likely to be active online.

It has also been realized that mobile communication is becoming popular in the academic field whereby it has experienced a high penetration rate among the youth thus obtaining higher advantages where young students are involved.

The importance of mobile communication has been expressed as having aided in the social bonding and learning. An informal type of communication is recommended as instrumental to social relationships and social learning. When incorporated into the academic environment it is anticipated to support student motivation, reduction of student pressure and improvement of the relationship between the teacher and the student.

Limitations of the findings in the Article
Rau et al. make a discovery based on their research that mobile communication appears not to have all the advantages. They find that instant messaging and emails are mostly text based and therefore, they are limited in information richness (p.4). This would mean that there would be pressure to find information from another source of communication in order to obtain the desired information. It also reflects the fact that these two forms of mobile communication are more social oriented than learning oriented.

Methodology The First Experiment
The first experiment was meant to prove that the use of mobile technology and internet communication devices would not increase the pressure of the students. It set out to prove that mobile communication helped in strengthening the bond between the teacher and the student. This experiment was carried as a survey of 176 students. The limitation with this experiment is that it focused on reducing the students pressure and reducing their chances of feeling embarrassed while requesting for help. It therefore once again centered on the social aspects of mobile communication rather than the learning aspects.

Upon analysis of the results of the first experiment, it was discovered that some students felt motivated when lecture notes were sent through SMS (Short Message Service). Here, the problem would be that it would be cumbersome for the instructor to type all of the lecture notes and send them to the student.

The same results were observed for the Email group and no significant differences that had been observed between the pre- testing and post-testing evaluation. This would still prove to be cumbersome for the instructor.

The Second experiment
The second experiment involved a survey on 45 students. The independent variable used was a grouping of different elements such as wireless and internet communication tools that are used in the instruction process which were SMS and email, SMS and online forum, no use of digital media. The dependent variables used were pressure and performance of the student.

The limitation discovered was that the use of computer-mediated communication between the teacher and the student may improve the learning performance if used constantly. This means that if it is used occasionally then the performance of the student will be at a low level.

When experimenting about the pressure on the student after the lecture, it was discovered that the students experienced more pressure after the lecture even though they were motivated extrinsically.

Suggestions
The experiments should have been performed on the teachers also because they are also using the mobile communication to make contact with the student. Performing the experiment on the students only would possibly not give a very accurate result of pressure.

The increase in information richness should be focused on when using instant messaging and emails since they are stated to have limited information richness. Information richness will enable the student to reduce pressure.

The focus has been more on the side of reducing pressure than motivating the student. The use of instant messaging and emails has been biased towards reducing the pressure of students. This might result to laziness in the students.

Future Research
The research of mobile communications influence on teachers motivation should be carried out. Its relevance is that it would set out to find out if teachers are motivated to teach students and if they are under pressure to fulfill the task of improving the performance of the students. This would be a valuable piece of research since the capacity of a teacher to instruct effectively will determine the performance of the student.