Literature Review

ENGL 6702

Spring 2016

This assignment was a literature review in which a topic was chosen, the focus was narrowed,
and the literature discussed on this topic through a technical and professional communication
lens. I chose the topic of online education.

I am pleased with the articles I chose and most of all the organization of the topics. I outlined this
paper while researching articles on online learning in technical and professional communication
to ensure that the literature review flowed well with so many sources. Since there were so many
sources, I believe that my writing could have been stronger as trying to keep from being
repetitive was difficult at times.

This literature review led me to my portfolio topic of service learning and being an online
student and instructor, these articles have helped me gain a greater appreciation of online
learning. The chosen articles are all modern sources with information that contributes to the
fields understanding of online learning. Each subtopic is covered equally and the reader can
gain a sense of what topics are of focus in online education in technical and professional
communication.

Highly Dissatisfied Highly Satisfied

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Review of the Literature in Online Education

Introduction
Technical and professional communication is a field that readily uses new technologies and
online learning. Teaching the field has resulted in many online courses and degrees offered
entirely online. With this rise in online education, new developments have emerged in how one
learns in an online classroom. This method of learning has allowed students from across the
world to communicate with each other creating online collaborations. These collaborations
happen through various technological means including learning tools which are available
specifically to aid this collaboration or help with the online learning process. With much
emphasis on technology and online learning, technical and professional communication has
opened itself up to many different people in a variety of fields. Being open to so many people,
the field has recently focused on the accessibility of online classes. This concept is still in
development and along with a focus on online learning tools and collaboration with cross-
cultural communication, the future of teaching technical and professional communication online
looks bright.

Themes of the Review

Accessibility in Online Education
Accessibility is a theme that has been seen in many technical and professional communication
publications. Focusing on those with disabilities in online classes, accessibility, or how able one
is to use all online tools, is becoming a topic of discussion in the technical and professional
communication community. Oswal and Meloncon (2014) write of accessibility in online
education in their article Paying Attention to Accessibility When Designing Online Courses in
Technical and Professional Communication stating that while TPC scholars have been leaders
in discussing online education in general they have not readily taken up issues of disability and
accessibility in a sustained way (p. 272). The authors praise how the field has handled the use of
technology in online education, but say that if accessibility is an issue, then the flexibility of
online learning is lacking. By studying two nationwide surveys from the 2010 Conference on
College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee for Best Practice in Online
Writing Instruction (OWI), Oswal and Meloncon found that less than half of the online
instructors who responded in the surveys stated that they have not taught students with
disabilities and that over half claimed their courses were not accessible. This survey led the
authors to the conclusion that the overall picture emerging from the results of this nationwide
survey beckons toward a gap in institutional leadership and a certain degree of indifference
among online instructors (p. 285). To solve the issue of accessibility in online education, Oswal
and Meloncon urge instructors to pay attention to how accessible their online courses are and
request that technical and professional communicators engage themselves with these issues.

Accessibility in the online classroom not only affects students who are disabled, but it also
impacts older adults and non-native speakers. Cleary and Flammia (2012) in their entry
Preparing Technical Communication Students to Function as User Advocates in a Self-Service
Society echo Oswal and Meloncons statement that it is in the hands of the online technical and
professional communication instructors to determine how online education will be accessible.
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Cleary and Flammia write that these educators should serve as advocates for students who are
struggling with self-service documents, or online documents that require use from the reader.
Students dealing with accessibility problems are the users that are most at risk for being left
behind in the digital age. The authors recognize that online instructors are not the only ones who
should be encouraging accessibility, but that students themselves should function as advocates
for user groups who have been disenfranchised (p. 306). According to Cleary and Flammia,
current technical and professional communication students need to become familiar with
accessibility tools through student research projects such as virtual teams. With these student
research projects, future technical and professional communicators will learn the tools necessary
to help online learners access every aspect of their online courses.

The theme of accessibility reaches more online users than older adults, those who are disabled or
non-native speakers. In Building a Playground: General Guidelines for Creating Educational
Web Sites for Children Meloncon, Haynes, Varelmann, and Groh (2010) cover an online user
who is little mentioned in technical and professional communication scholarly articles: children.
Children represent a growing number of online users but there is a gap in the literature of an
understanding as to how children interact with Web interfaces (p. 399). There are several
technical and professional publications with a focus on how to build websites for adults, but
designing a website for an adult versus a child is much different and technical communicators
cannot use the same template when designing for children. In their article, the authors found that
the lack of empirical research and the lack of children-centric design guidelines were why so
few articles regarding website design for children were published (p. 411). Meloncon, Haynes,
Varelmann, and Groh mention that this may be a large undertaking considering that children
range in many different ages each with their own abilities to learn. Children represent a growing
number of online users and if they cannot properly access information, then technical and
professional communicators need to place more emphasis on this crucial demographic.

Although covering a variety of users, these sources land their focus on the accessibility of online
education courses. The flexibility of online learning draws many different users from individuals
with disabilities to children and the authors of the abovementioned sources all agree that more
work needs to be put in by technical and professional communicators to give these users equal
access to online education tools. To provide users with greater accessibility, the authors note that
responsibility not only lies with technical and professional communication instructors, but also
with the students.

Service Learning in Online Education

Service learning in online classes is a topic which has not been researched much, especially in
the field of technical and professional communication. Soria and Weiners A Virtual Fieldtrip:
Service Learning in Distance Education Technical Writing Courses (2013) looks at what they
see as a major gap in the literature in technical and professional communication service learning
publications. According to Soria and Weiner, the only research about service learning that has
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been conducted has been in face-to-face undergraduate classes. Their article set out to provide
online technical writing students with the same benefits of service learning as their face-to-face
peers. Soria and Weiner studied an online technical writing class where service learning took the
place of many of the students homework assignments. The authors stated that the virtual
experience of an online course became a real world experience on several levels (p. 195). Even
though the students were not face-to-face with the community partners they were working with,
they still gained the benefits of creating assignments to be used in the community, worked to
solve real problems, and made connections between service learning and course assignments.
Soria and Weiner showed technical and professional communication instructors that service
learning can be done in an online environment and that their students will gain the same
experiences as those in face-to-face classes.

Written a year after Soria and Weiners article, Bourelles Adapting Service-Learning into the
Online Technical Communication Classroom: A Framework and Model (2014) notes the new
term of service-eLearning and like Soria and Weiner, Bourelle looks at an online technical
communication course that has implemented service learning. Since service learning was not
entirely new when Bourelle was writing her article, she was less focused on how service learning
was handled by students in online classes and more so on what the students gained from service
learning and how that translated into their workplace. In her service-eLearning study, Bourelle
found a drawback in online service learning of communication between the service partner and
the students (p. 260). This caused students to feel unheard during their projects and left them
wondering about feedback from their service partner. Bourelle responded to this by quoting
Kastman-Breuch (2001) that seeking affirmation is somewhat problematic, as it may not
provide students with realistic feedback on workplace documents (p. 260). Even the downfalls
in service-eLearning may prove to be beneficial to students because it provides a real world
example, although it may be harsh. Overall, Bourelles article found that service eLearning
was a benefit to online students because they carried on the skills they learned into their
workplace.

Service learning in an online classroom, or service-eLearning as later coined by Bourelle, was

proven to be successful in an online classroom and proved valuable to online students. Being in
an online environment may cause some communication issues, but as Bourelle pointed out, this
will only prepare students for the workplace. Soria and Weiner also noted that service learning
proves beneficial to not only the students, but their community as well.

Cross-Cultural Communication and Collaboration in Online Education

Two themes in technical and professional communication that are closely linked are
communicating across cultures and collaborating using online educational tools. Both share a
focus on digital collaboration in the online classroom with some concentrating on
communication within ones own culture and others on cross-cultural communication. One of
these articles that deal with online collaboration within ones own culture is Behles (2013) The
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Use of Online Collaborative Writing Tools by Technical Communication Practitioners and

Students. Behles found a gap in the literature addressing the lack of empirical data about the
use of online collaborative writing tools by technical communication practitioners and students
alike (p. 30). In her entry, Behles put together two surveys with one given to technical
communication practitioners and another given to students to find how these user groups use
online collaborative writing tools (OCWTs). Her study concluded that OCWTs are prevalent in
technical and professional communication online classrooms and are used for a variety of
collaborative tasks. Still, Behles mentions that technical communication teachers need to expose
their students to other collaborative tasks which can carry over into the workplace. Collaboration
within ones own culture, as Behles studied, frequently use a variety of OCWTs and
collaborative tasks, but technical communication practitioners need to work on how many of
these tools they teach to their students.

The article Activity Theory, Speech Acts, and the Doctrine of Infelicity: Connecting
Language and Technology in Globally Networked Learning Environments (2010) by McNair
and Paretti follows Behles thought that students, through the help of technical communication
practitioners, need to be able to communicate and collaborate by a variety of practices. McNair
and Paretti however concentrate on the use of globally networked learning environments
(GNLEs) in cross-cultural communication. The authors push for instructors to use GNLEs in the
online classroom because the workplace is becoming more global and online in nature. They also
look at globally networked environments (GNEs) as activity systems which consist of students
with language and communication technologies as tools. By thinking about GNEs as an activity
system, tools of language and technology bind these tools and the activity to create a usable
framework for learning. Using this activity system, students will prepare to communicate
effectively in global virtual teams (p. 325).

As mentioned in McNair and Parettis work, virtual teams are also the emphasis of Brewer,
Mitchell, Sanders, Wallace, and Woods entry Teaching and Learning in Cross-Disciplinary
Virtual Teams (2015). Feeding off of the abovementioned works under the theme of cross-
cultural communication and collaboration in online education, this article agrees that students
must be better educated by their instructors in online communications and tools. Discussing the
importance of such skills, the authors note, A distinct set of communication skills is needed to
work successfully in these virtual teams, and few universities or companies provide structured
education and training in virtual teamwork (208). The article states that universities or
companies provide training by picking just one area that helps communication, like team skills or
virtual communication, but training needs to be done in many areas, like infographics and social
media, to best serve communications. The authors studied cross-disciplinary student learning
through their own experimentations and found that virtual teams supported student learning
among all disciplines and prepared these students to become effective communicators. While
virtual teams are helpful to student learning, the authors concluded that technical communication
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practitioners must prioritize teaching more specified communication skills to their students in
order to prepare them for future virtual teamwork.

Once students in online classes have been taught communications skills vital to working in
virtual teams, the aspect of social presence needs to be addressed. Wang and Wangs (2012)
article Place Existing Online Business Communication Classes into the International Context:
Social Presence from Potential Learners Perspectives viewed students in online global learning
environments and how social context impacted their learning. The writers mentioned how
participants in online learning can be located anywhere in the world and that these online courses
allow students to interact with different cultures in a global context. Because of this, the issue of
social context in online courses has risen, but little research has been conducted to investigate
global learners perspective on the social context in online courses with learners located around
the world (432). Wang and Wang recognize that there is a gap in cultural dimensions which
suggests possibilities for failed communication and misunderstandings in communication
(435). To prevent this gap and possible failed or misinterpreted communication, the authors
studied a survey taken by Chinese business students in which they reviewed an online course
taught in the United States. The survey found that these Chinese learners viewed online classes
as effective for establishing social presence regardless of instructional and cultural traditions.
Wang and Wangs entry determined that global learners, at least the Chinese business students
surveyed, were comfortable in terms of their social presence in online classes.

Meeting cultural expectations is not a method only used by students in online classes.
Practitioners also meet cultural expectations and by revising something such as a website, this is
known as localization. In An Application of Robert Gagns Nine Events of Instruction to the
Teaching of Website Localization, Zhu and St. Amant (2010) reviewed the concept of
localization and applied it to a course designed to familiarize students with it. Using Robert
Gagns nine events of instruction, the authors developed a course that examined a range of
ideas related to culture and communication while website localization served as the focus of
the class (339). Under these nine events of instruction merged with a focus on understanding,
the course resulted with students being able to apply the skills learned in class to the workplace
and with learned understanding applying to the students short and long term benefits. When
designing a course like the one in the study, Zhu and St. Amant state that an instructor needs to
use an approach that focuses on the transition of acquiring new knowledge to the application of
that knowledge to skilled tasks (359). The authors recognize that students vary in skill set and
learning ability, so the application of the nine events of instruction to teaching website
localization gives practitioners an approach that works with students of all levels.

Conclusion
Online learning mixed with the growing field of technical and professional communication
creates literature that is focused on these booming topics. These topics then create subtopics such
as accessibility, service learning, cross-cultural communication and collaboration in online
learning. Accessibility is a theme in technical and professional communication which has not
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been of much study or concern by instructors in the field as seen by authors like Oswal and
Meloncon. To create more of an understanding between students with disabilities and their
online instructors, these entries suggest instructors pay attention to online education tools and
how accessible their online courses are. The theme of service learning has been viewed in
technical and professional communication, but little research had been done on this theme in an
online classroom setting. In the review of service learning, the literature showed that online
students responded well to this theme and future practitioners in the field should consider
implementing service learning in their online classes. The dual themes of cross-cultural
communication and collaboration are closely linked and are emerging topics in the field. The
formerly mentioned authors covering these themes all agree that online education exposes
students to more cultures than ever and communications and collaborations amongst students of
different cultures should be at the forefront of technical and professional communication. With
these themes in hand, practitioners of the field need to develop a further understanding of their
online student body. By understanding the needs of their online students, instructors of technical
and professional communication will create the best learning atmosphere and in turn, teach their
students in a way that fosters an understanding of the field and a real life application with that
understanding.
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References
Behles, J. (2013). The use of online collaborative writing tools by technical
communication practitioners and students. Technical Communication, 60(1), 28-44.
Retrieved from http://www.stc.org/publications/technical-communication
Bourelle, T. (2014). Adapting service-learning into the online technical communication
classroom: A framework and model. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(4), 247-
264. doi:10.1080/10572252.2014.941782
Brewer, P.E., Mitchell, A., Sanders, R., Wallace, P., & Wood, D.D. (2015). Teaching and
learning in cross-disciplinary virtual teams. IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication, 58(2), 208-229. doi:10.1109/TPC.2015.2429973
Cleary, Y., & Flammia, M. (2012). Preparing technical communication students to function as
user advocates in a self-service society. Journal of Technical Writing and
Communication, 42(3), 305-322. doi:10.2190/TW.42.3.g
McNair, L.D., & Paretti, M.C. (2010). Activity theory, speech acts, and the doctrine of
infelicity: Connecting language and technology in globally networked learning
environments. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 24(3), 323-357.
doi:10.1177/1050651910363275
Meloncon, L., Haynes, E., Varelmann, M., & Groh, L. (2010). Building a playground: General
guidelines for creating educational web sites for children. Technical Communication,
57(4), 398-416. Retrieved from http://www.stc.org/publications/technical-communication
Oswal S.K., & Meloncon, L. (2014). Paying attention to accessibility when designing online
courses in technical and professional communication. Journal of Business and
Technical Communication, 28(3), 271-300. doi:10.1177/1050651914524780
Soria, K.M., & Weiner, B. (2013). A virtual fieldtrip: Service learning in distance
education technical writing courses. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication,
43(2), 181-200. doi:10.2190/TW.43.2.e
Wang, J., & Wang, H. (2012). Place existing online business communication classes into the
international context: Social presence from potential learners perspectives. Journal of
Technical Writing and Communication, 42(4), 431-451. doi:10.2190/TW.42.4.f
Zhu, P., & St. Amant, K. (2010). An application of Robert Gagns nine events of instruction
to the teaching of website localization. Journal of Technical Writing and
Communication, 40(3), 337-362. doi:10.2190/TW.40.3.f