The role of online education in developing students' personal autonomy with an emphasis on social constructivism

Moradi, A.; Zarghami, S.

doi:10.22061/tej.2022.8465.2675

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

A. Moradi ¹
S. Zarghami ²

¹ Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Farhangian University, , Iran

² Department of Philosophy of Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22061/tej.2022.8465.2675

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Online education is done on a virtual platform and through the Internet and its purpose is to provide opportunities for learning, and students' personal autonomy in the teaching-learning process is one of the contributing factors to achieve this goal. Therefore, one of the missions of universities is to educate students with personal autonomy to live in harmony with the values they have accepted and if they are not successful in educating such students, they will not achieve much success in the two fields of education and research. On the other hand, online education technology is not a neutral tool and can grow and develop some other dimensions in exchange for weakening some aspects of students' experience. The expansion of online education in universities can create emerging educational and upbringing opportunities for students, which requires philosophical study. There is no consensus on the role of online education in fostering personal autonomy. Some argue that the development of individual personal autonomy in online education has been neglected and they basically do not find online education suitable for simulating educational activities. Contrarily, the proponents believe that through the abundant equipment, facilities and capabilities of online education, the growth of students' individual self-government is possible. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the role of online education in deeloping students' personal autonomy with an emphasis on social constructivism.
Methods: The present study is philosophical and of the type of conceptual and linguistic analysis and logical analysis. In the first step to answer the research question, our method is conceptual and linguistic analysis, which includes the analysis, interpretation and clarification of the concepts of online education on the one hand and the analysis of the concept of individual self-government and social constructivism on the other hand. In the second step, using the method of transcendental logical analysis, we examine the logical condition of using a concept. In the third step, the inferential method and the type of theoretical analogy are used to infer constructive and non-constructive evidence of online education in cultivating personal autonomy. The community of research resources included all documents, credential and resources related to online education, personal autonomy and social constructivism and sample sources included documents and evidences in Persian and Latin, print and electronic, valid and related to the subject and concepts of the research. Due to the nature of the research, the tools and methods of data collection included Fish sheets and using the Fishing method from the mentioned sources and the method of analyzing the collected data was qualitative and based on philosophical and logical analysis.
Findings: Based on social constructivism, online education, on the one hand, with the development of lifelong learning, changing the teaching- learning process, the growth of the dimensions of personal autonomy and Flexibility in learning and the possibility of anonymity and concealment of students' identity has provided the ground for individual self-regulation. On the other hand, Online education due to the extreme trust in student ethical judgment, promoting student-centeredness, the prevalence of eclectic choice instead of conscious and free choice, students' pursuit of personal desires and the extreme growth of self-centeredness have played a non-constructive role in fostering individual self-government.
Conclusion: Based on social constructivism and the simultaneous agency of technology and human beings, online education through changing the nature, interests and intentions of students can play a constructive or non-constructive role in cultivating their personal autonomy. But online education is not read in a specific compulsory format and can be read by different actors in different ways. Thus, it is possible for its actors to intervene, modify and direct the development process of online education in cultivating individual self-government. As a result, the non-constructive role of online education in fostering personal autonomy can be reduced and turned into opportunities by making more use of multimedia technologies and making the online learning environment more interactive.

Keywords

20.1001.1.20080441.1401.16.4.8.6

Main Subjects

e-learning

COPYRIGHTS
©2022 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

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