+ Page 57 + ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####### ######## ######## ########### ### ### ## ### ## # ### # Interpersonal Computing and ### ### ## ### ## ### Technology: ### ### ## ### ### An Electronic Journal for ### ######## ### ### the 21st Century ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ## ### ISSN: 1064-4326 ### ### ### ## ### July, 1994 ####### ### ######## ### Volume 2, Number 3, pp. 57-81 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Center for Teaching and Technology, Academic Computer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057 Additional support provided by the Center for Academic Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 This article is archived as MURFIN IPCTV2N3 on LISTSERV@GUVM ---------------------------------------------------------------- An Analysis of Computer-Mediated Communication Between Middle School Students and Scientist Role Models A Pilot Study by Dr. Brian Murfin Queens College Introduction It is widely acknowledged that African-Americans, other minorities and women are under-represented in the sciences. A lack of scientist role models has been proposed as one important factor which has contributed to the lack of African-American and female scientists (Oakes, 1990; Epstein as cited in Skypeck, Lee & Cox; Hale, 1978; Jay, 1977). + Page 58 + The increasing role of computers in the classroom may be able to alleviate the scarcity of role models for African- American and female students. Hiltz and Turoff (1978) found that computer-mediated communication alters the character of conversations. Perrolle (1991, p. 21) stated that this mode of communication "...alters the social norms governing conversation by removing elements of emotion and social control..." and that "It also provides the possibility of more equal participation by obscuring the visual and verbal distinction of status that give high-ranking or aggressive people an advantage in face-to-face speech." Hiltz and Turoff (1978, p. 78) related that in a face-to-face encounter ...those aspects of self that are devalued by a culture - such as being black, female, old, ugly, or disabled - have the effect of acting as a general stigma. In Goffman's sense, they pervade the social interaction and discredit the speaker in the eyes of the recipient of a communication. The stigmatized person, in turn, is likely to become aware of the prejudice of others and avoid aggressive participation in a group discussion, out of a feeling that her or his contributions will not be well received by other members of the group. Perhaps male and female scientists of all ethnic groups could communicate with children more effectively, in certain situations, using computer-mediated communication. It is possible that forms of communication such as E-mail and electronic bulletin board systems could be used to bring scientists into more frequent contact with middle school female and African-American students. This may also offer African-American children, females, introverted children, and students with communication difficulties an alternative and more effective mode of communication. The main goal of this pilot study was to determine if computer-mediated communication is an effective and useful way to + Page 59 + bring African-American and female middle school students into contact with adult scientist role models. It was proposed that the interaction between the scientists and the students might cause the students to show more interest in science-related careers. It was also expected that the data would show that individual students would gravitate towards certain scientists over time as they acquired them as role models. According to Bandura (1977, p. 12), In actuality, virtually all learning phenomena resulting from direct experience occur on a vicarious basis by observing other people's behavior and its consequences for them. The capacity to learn by observation enables people to acquire large, integrated patterns of behavior without having to form them gradually by tedious trial and error. Bandura (p. 24) went on to state that "The people with whom one regularly associates, either through preference or imposition, delimit the types of behavior that will be repeatedly observed and hence learned most thoroughly." Exposure to scientist role models through CMC may just possibly increase the students' chances of surviving the long journey through the educational pipeline to a science career. The relationship between Jungian personality type and the different aspects of computer-mediated communication was also investigated. The common stereotype of a computer hacker portrays an introverted, asocial individual. This study explored the hypothesis that heavy users of computer-mediated communication (CMC) would be classified as introverts while extroverts would use CMC less. In addition, descriptive data from this pilot study was used to increase the effectiveness and design of a later, larger-scale study. + Page 60 + Chemistry students at the University of Hawaii's University High School interviewed scientists using the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) network, computers, and a speakerphone (Edwards, 1984). Randy Allen of Gahanna Lincoln High School in Columbus, Ohio carried out a modem project with his students (Coburn, 1988). His students used various online services from Compuserve to design and conduct research projects. The National Geographic Kids Network has been operating successfully across the United States (Julyan, 1989). The students participating in this program were from the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades and they have been exchanging data, comparing observations, testing hypotheses, and discussing their results with students in other parts of the country using telecommunications software (Julyan, 1989). The Earth Lab project was supported by the National Science Foundation and was carried out by the Bank Street College of Education and Apple Computer, Inc. (Brienne and Goldman, 1990). The students were provided with electronic mail capability which was used to "...share and analyze their data, hypotheses, and results with team members, scientists, and wider audiences; access the resources of science experts..." (Brienne and Goldman, 1990, p. 27). Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff in _The Network Nation: Communication via Computer_ believe that "...networked computers will become the source of a special and new form of human community..." and that "...computerized conferencing...will revolutionize not only communications, but social and intellectual life as well" (Lehrer, 1988, p. 47). They feel that computer communication holds great potential for applications in the field of education. It seems that many projects involving electronic mail and computer communication have been carried out but no detailed analysis of the quality and nature of the communication between urban middle school students and scientists has been done. In order to justify the use of computer-mediated communication to bring African-American students and females into contact with scientist role models, the effectiveness of these programs should be evaluated carefully. + Page 61 + It was hoped that the students and scientists would both have a rewarding experience during this study. Other possible by-products of this research would be information which might help establish a scientist-student network which could expand and link with other existing networks such as the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) (Delzeit, 1992) and to help increase the career awareness of students. This network could have conferences and discussion groups by grade level, scientific discipline, e.g. biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science, by special interest, e.g. bioethics, environmental issues, a homework hotline, etc. The possibilities and potential of distance education and CMC seem to be limitless. A very large number of projects involving CMC, computer conferencing, distance education, electronic bulletin boards, and e-mail are in existence all over the world. Unfortunately many schools in the United States are not yet participating in this information revolution. There is the distinct possibility that a form of information discrimination will result if policy makers and administrators do not make a conscious effort to provide access to electronic communication to all students. However, before electronic bulletin board systems are implemented on a large scale between urban pre-college students and scientists, this type of interaction should be thoroughly evaluated so it can be utilized efficiently and made available to the students who really need it. The main goal of this exploratory, pilot study was to investigate and analyze the nature of CMC between urban middle school students and scientists on a small scale. Hopefully the knowledge gained from this study will prove useful in implementing distance education in schools. Methods The population in this study consisted of eighth grade middle-school students from an inner-city school in Columbus, Ohio. The sample consisted of eight 8th grade student volunteers, half African-American and half White, and half males + Page 62 + and half females, and four scientist volunteers and four non- scientist volunteers from the Battelle Research Institute, six males and two females. No special effort was made to include students who already had an interest in science. The reason for this was that a main goal of this study was to stimulate interest in science careers in all students. A non-scientist control group was utilized in order to determine if the effectiveness of CMC is different for varied types of adults. It was also deemed possible that there might be important differences in personality types between scientists and non-scientists. At an initial meeting between the research and the Battellites, (the name which some of the Battelle participants gave themselves), a very brief introduction to the use of the bulletin board, EBO, (The Everett-Battelle-Ohio State) bulletin board was given. The Battellites were asked to check for messages at least twice a week and to reply to any messages which they received from the students. Little guidance or structure was given in the hope that preferences and common interests and of course problems would emerge as the study progressed. The reason behind the lack of structure was the hope that topics of interest would be initiated by the students and adults themselves. In a exploratory study of this nature, guidance and organization by the investigator might have constrained and limited the possible responses by the students. The Battellites were all given the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator Form G, (self- scorable), to complete later. The students were chosen for the study by their science teacher whose criteria were that the students were half male and half female, half African-American, and half White, had reasonable school attendance, and also that their parents were not working in a scientific occupation. All students were then interviewed prior to the start of the study to determine the students' previous contact with scientist role models, which was assumed to have been minimal unless shown otherwise. It was also assumed that all of the students participating in the study would + Page 63 + have sufficient typing and reading ability to send and receive E- mail messages. After the completion of the interviews the students were given the Murphy-Meisgeir Type Indicator for Children (B). The students were shown individually and in small groups how to use the computer, a Macintosh, which was connected to a 1200 baud modem. The researcher made sure that each student had logged on and registered and successfully read and entered a few messages. It was hoped that the students would work cooperatively in learning how to use the bulletin board and in overcoming problems due to malfunctioning of the computer and mouse. This computer had a mouse which did not always function properly. This was also the first time the students had ever used a Macintosh computer as they ordinarily used Apple IIE's during their Computer Awareness classes. Initially it was envisioned that the students would be able to use the computer during their Computer Awareness classes but due to delays in the start of the project this proved to be impossible. During the first two weeks the students only had access to the computer for one hour Monday through Friday during their lunch time. It should also be noted that there were no free periods or study halls during the school day and that the students did not have access to the computer before or after school as the majority of students were bused to school. In addition, during the first two weeks of the study city-wide testing was taking place and this did have an effect on the time the students were able to devote to the project. During the first two weeks the students were to interview a Battellite. By the end of the third week the students were asked to choose one Battellite and asked to concentrate on communicating with that person, although they were free to send messages to any other person. The Battellite-student pairs were requested to work together on a small research project but this was abandoned due to time constraints. After the third week of the study the students had a spring break and the BBS (EBO) was off-line during + Page 64 + this period. Following the spring break the students were given passes to be excused from some of their Unified Arts classes to use the computer although some of these passes had to be requested by the computer or science teacher on a weekly or daily basis. Week four was the last official week of the study although the bulletin board was left functioning until the start of the students' summer vacation after this was requested by some of the Battellites and students. On May 19th the students and Battellites had a face-to-face meeting at Battelle. The students were shown where five of the Battellites worked and later had lunch together. The face-to- face meeting between the students and Battellites was delayed until all participants had first met each other "electronically." The reasoning behind this was to allow people to become acquainted with each others' personalities without having to cope with the distracting characteristics of gender, age, ethnic group, status, and physical appearance. The wisdom of this was later confirmed by a majority of the participants, who stated that they were glad they had not met face-to-face first. CMC allows communication vertically through a status hierarchy and a face-to-face meeting at the beginning of the study might have established the usual child-adult/student-teacher/dominance- submission relationships, and thus preclude much valuable communication. The main treatment in this study consisted of making CMC available in the form of electronic mail messages between middle-school students and scientists and non-scientists. These messages were sent through an electronic bulletin board system (RBBS-PC) (Bowen and Peyton, 1988), with the researcher acting as the system operator (sysop). A comparison group used computers to communicate with non-scientists. There were four independent variables involved: scientist or non-scientist CMC, male or female, African-American or White, and time in weeks. The outcomes measured were the number of messages sent (non- responses) by the students, number of messages sent (non- + Page 65 + responses) by the scientists or non-scientists, number of replies to messages by students and by Battellites, number and types of messages, the length of messages, and number of times online. These measurements were taken over a six week period in an attempt to detect any trends. Other related dependent variables which might be of interest but which will not be considered in this study were typing skill, locus of control, field independence/dependence, career awareness, and computer anxiety. The term "scientist electronic role model" refers to a practicing adult scientist, other that the students' science teacher, who communicated with students via electronic mail. The scientists who took part in the study were practicing research scientists while the non-scientists were white-collar professionals who were engaged in occupations other than science. The occupations of the Battellites are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Occupations of Battellites _________________________________________________________________ Alias of Battellite Occupation _________________________________________________________________ Snoopy Brown Computer User Service Specialist Audre Lorde Chemist Daniel Boone Acoustics Engineer Thomas More Toxicologist Book Mark Book Publisher Mr. Spock Applied Research Scientist in Mathematics and Computers Jim Lake Biophysicist Sci Fi Computers, graduate student _________________________________________________________________ + Page 66 + The effectiveness of communication was partly determined by the quality of the messages exchanged between the scientists and students. The parameters involved in determining quality included the tone of message, (friendly, neutral, or unfriendly), message content, (science, no science mentioned), and message type, (managerial, career-related, personal). All participants in the study completed instruments measuring personality type (the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator Form G for the adults and the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children (B) for the students). Data were obtained from the printouts of all communications between the students and Battellites. Because of the small sample size and the lack of random assignment of subjects to treatment groups, no inferential statistics were used. The pre-study interviews that were conducted with all the students before the study were analyzed qualitatively. Message maps were used to illustrate the distribution of the messages among the different participants in the study. Finally, a content analysis was carried out on the messages. Student interviews The interviews with the students yielded a large amount of information and as a result only a fraction of the material may be presented in this paper. The following professions were listed for the mothers of the students in the study: beautician, no mother, picks merchandise at department store, housekeeper, doesn't work, tow truck driver, not known, not working. The fathers had the following occupations: learning to be a copier-technician, none, works on motors, not working, steel worker, tow truck driver, not known, not working. The occupations of the close relatives and significant others of the students were mostly in occupations not related to science. The hobbies listed by the students seemed to be unrelated to science.. + Page 67 + There did not seem to be much reading material in the students' homes that was directly related to science. The students mainly listed sports heroes or entertainers as their heroes or heroines although one did mention a science teacher. None of the students remembered having ever met a scientist. Most of the students had been on at least one field trip to the Center for Science and Industry (COSI), the Ohio Historical Society or the Columbus Zoo. In spite of the fact that most students did not have much experience with science in their everyday lives nor show much enthusiasm for the subject, many still expressed interest in pursuing a science or science-related career. In addition, most of the students were confident in their ability to become a scientist. When asked what science matters students talk about, most really had to rack their brains for any science topics and it is suspected by this researcher that science is not normally a hot topic on the playground. The science matters which the students talked about outside of school seemed to be even fewer than in school. Again, it appears that science is a subject which only exists within the classroom for these students. It has very little importance or relevance outside the classroom. The question which asked the students to describe a day in the life of an average scientist elicited some interesting responses. Many students had misconceptions about the work scientists do, i.e. the recurring theme that scientists are always sitting around inventing things. One student expressed her feeling that science would be fun but she didn't think she could do it since she might blow something up. It does not appear that the students are aware of the tremendous variety of occupations which are related to science and this may inhibit their interest in science if they have such a narrow view what a scientist really does. + Page 68 + Message Maps A message map was prepared for each participant in the study. Examination of the maps indicated that the opportunity existed for successful communication between the members of two Battellite-student dyads. Some additional message maps indicated a strong possibility that a viable dyad might have been in the process of forming. Some individuals sent messages in approximately equal numbers to more than one individual. There was little intercommunication between Battellites and the students did not even attempt to communicate with each other. The message map of the sysop's communications illustrated that all participants were contacted at one time or another by the sysop. The number of time online for each student and each Battellite are show in Tables 2 and 3. Tables 4 and 5 contain the number of messages and words per student and per Battellite respectively. Table 2. The number of times online by each student over a six week period. ________________________________________________________________ Alias of Student Gender Ethnic Number of Times Online group ________________________________________________________________ Monitor Doolie M W 21 Billy Ross M W 13 Magic Johnson M A 3 Scottie Pippin M A 9 Fatty None F W 15 Alicia Smith F W 6 Reggie Jones F A 3 TeeTee Hardy F A 9 Average _______________________________________________________________ N.B. M= male F= female A= African-American W= White + Page 69 + Table 3. The number of times online by each Battellite during a six week period. _______________________________________________________________ Alias of Battellite Gender Ethnic Number of times online group _______________________________________________________________ Snoopy Brown F W 18 Audre Lorde F W 15 Thomas More M W 26 Daniel Boone M W 10 Book Mark M W 16 Mr. Spock M W 27 Jim Lake M W 2 Sci Fi M W 14 ______________________________________________________________ N.B. M= male F= female A= African-American W= White Table 4. The number of messages and words per student over a six week period. ______________________________________________________________ Alias of student Number of messages Number of words ______________________________________________________________ Monitor Doolie 20 898 Billy Ross 8 289 Magic Johnson 3 212 Scottie Pippin 10 970 Fatty None 10 500 Alicia Smith 3 286 Reggie Jones 4 432 TeeTee Hardy 5 602 Average 8 524 _____________________________________________________________ + Page 70 + Table 5. The number of messages and words per Battellite over a six week period. _______________________________________________________________ Alias of Battellite Number of messages Number of words _______________________________________________________________ Snoopy Brown 11 1735 Audre Lorde 23 1576 Thomas More 12 1221 Daniel Boone 5 971 Book Mark 4 522 Mr. Spock 17 1533 Jim Lake 0 0 Sci Fi 18 1622 Average 11 1140 ______________________________________________________________ The number of initiatory non-response messages, (messages which are not a response to a previous message) and responses to messages per student and per Battellite are shown in Tables 6 and 7. + Page 71 + Table 6. The number of non-response messages and responses to messages by the students. ________________________________________________________________ Alias of student Initiatory Responses ________________________________________________________________ Monitor Doolie 11 9 Billy Ross 3 5 Magic Johnson 4 0 Scottie Pippin 4 5 Fatty None 2 8 Alicia Smith 1 2 Reggie Jones 4 0 TeeTee Hardy 4 1 Average 4 4 ________________________________________________________________ + Page 72 + Table 7. The number of non-response messages and responses to messages by the Battellites. _________________________________________________________________ Alias of Battellite Initiatory Responses _________________________________________________________________ Snoopy Brown 1 10 Audre Lorde 8 15 Thomas More 8 4 Daniel Boone 0 5 Book Mark 3 1 Mr. Spock 3 13 Jim Lake 0 0 Sci Fi 9 9 Average 4 7 _________________________________________________________________ The results of the Meyers-Briggs survey are shown in Table 8 for the Battellites. + Page 73 + Table 8. Myers-Briggs Types of the Battellites. _________________________________________________________________ Alias of Battellite Personality Type _________________________________________________________________ Snoopy Brown INTJ Audre Lorde INTJ Daniel Boone ISTP Book Mark ENTJ Mr. Spock INTJ Jim Lake ---- Sci Fi ENFP _________________________________________________________________ N.B. E= extroversion I= introversion S= sensing N= intuition T= thinking F= feeling J= judging P= perceiving The results of the Murphy-Meisgeir Types for the students are shown in Table 9. + Page 74 + Table 9. The Murphy-Meisgeir Personality Types of the students _________________________________________________________________ Alias of student Overall Personality Type (U= undetermined) _________________________________________________________________ Monitor Doolie IUTP Billy Ross ESTJ Magic Johnson ENFU Scottie Pippin EUFJ Fatty None ISFP Alicia Smith EUFU Reggie Jones ISFU TeeTee Hardy ESFJ _________________________________________________________________ The results of a content analysis which was carried out on all the messages produced during the six week period are shown in Table 11. Table 11. A content analysis of all messages produced during a six week period. _________________________________________________________________ Message Tone Friendly Neutral Unfriendly _________________________________________________________________ 126 67 0 _________________________________________________________________ Message Type Career- Personal Managerial related _________________________________________________________________ 51 124 69 _________________________________________________________________ Message content Science Non-science mentioned _________________________________________________________________ 35 157 _________________________________________________________________ + Page 75 + Discussion Most of the students in this study had very little direct exposure to scientist role models prior to this experience. Not surprisingly, science was not talked about by students outside of science class and thus the subject seemed irrelevant to the students. Their conceptions of what scientists do were very vague and sometimes incorrect. The students had a nebulous feeling that somehow science was important but heroes such as professional basketball stars, kung fu artists, and rap musicians were commonly held as role models. Part of the reason for this may be that the students perceive that the trappings of success such as wealth, fancy cars, etc. are only obtainable by members of groups which are underprivileged in our society, when they participate in such stereotypical activities as professional sports or music. Science is not seen as a realistic or viable option for many children who come from the lower socioeconomic classes of our society, unless they are fortunate enough to have a professional parent or have serendipitous long-term exposure to science activities. Two of the students showed some interest in science careers at the beginning of the study. The construction of message maps was used to search for communication patterns in the large masses of data. Examination of the maps revealed successful two-way communication and also a few notable failures to communicate. In one case a student repeatedly attempted to send messages to a Battellite and never received an answer. Eventually the student termed this Batellite, and all others who did not immediately reply to his messages "ghost town dudes". In another case, a Battellite repeatedly sent messages to a student who infrequently sent back messages, without apparently having read the messages from the Battellite. The Battellite tried to engage the student in a guessing game but the student seemed to ignore this. At the face-to-face meeting when the student was asked why he did not answer he replied that he did not know the answer and got + Page 76 + frustrated. It is obvious that electronic communication can at times engender miscommunication due to a lack of visible cues. The technique of constructing message maps seems to be an effective way of organizing large numbers of messages. The majority of the scientists were classified as introverts using the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator although some of the Battellites questioned the validity of using this instrument. The personality type of the Battellites did not seem to be related the effectiveness of CMC. Of the two extroverts in the study, one produced many messages and seemed to interact very well with the students and the other started out the study by sending a fair number of messages which then sharply declined later, possibly due to disillusionment with the low number of responses from the students. The Battellites appeared to have different expectations for the amount and frequency of communication from the students. On average, both the Battellites and students met the expectations of approximately two messages per week although some individuals were far above and below this number. In any future study all participants will have to be advised that great patience may be needed during electronic communication. Due to the absence of physical cues and knowledge of each other's surroundings, misunderstandings can arise. As examples of this, the following events took place during the course of this study: city-wide testing, a loaded semi-automatic pistol brought to school, field trips, family problems with students, race riots in Los Angeles, malfunctioning computer and mouse, a student from the school kidnapped a three year old child, one student lived in a group home, some students had lunch detentions during the time they were to use the computer, some were in PEAK (a form of in-school suspension) for disciplinary reasons, a wife of one of the Battellites had a baby, there were many out-of-town trips taken by the Battellites, Battellites came down with colds and the flu, sometimes the Battellites' computers "burped", some Battellites had problems with the program itself such as the graphics parameters. Considering all the extraneous factors, it is surprising that any effective communication took place at all. + Page 77 + The students' personality types were less definitive than the Battellites as several aspects were indeterminable although every student did lean one way or another on the introvert-extrovert scale. The three most frequent communicators were White introverts, two males and one female. These three tended to send short, personal, non-science, and non- career-related messages. Three out of four African-American students were classified as extroverts. These students sent a smaller number of messages but the messages they did send appeared to be more career and science related while the two most frequent users mainly indulged in personal messages. It looked as if the introverts were using CMC as a social outlet while the extroverted children were sending more utilitarian messages either to fulfill their assignment or in order to find out more about science or careers. With regard to message quality, several trends were evident. Unfortunately, the percentage of career-related messages did not change much over time. The number of personal messages showed a steady increase while managerial messages seemed to decrease with time. These trends make sense as people tend to become more informal when they know more about each other. At the beginning of the study each participant was welcomed onto the bulletin board and test messages and announcements were sent out. Near the end of the six weeks an increased number of managerial messages were needed to organize the final face-to-face meeting. Message tone also changed over time with the percentage of neutral messages decreasing and the percentage of friendly messages increasing. The tone of the messages was determined by the appearance of the messages to the researcher and it is possible that other observers might have classified the messages differently. An esprit de corps among most of the students and Battellites did develop during the course of the study and this also probably contributed to the overall positive tone of the messages. + Page 78 + The trend in message content probably reflected the responses to the initial interaction where the Battellites gave descriptions of their jobs and interests. This occurred about midway through the study and it matched the highest percentage of science-related messages. The percentage of non-science related messages was consistently much higher than the percentage of science related messages. This is understandable since the researcher basically set up a situation where the participants were free to communicate about any topic they wished. The face-to-face meeting between the students and Battellites took place at Battelle and the students were fairly quiet and reserved during the tour of the Battellites' workplaces. When the students and Battellites finally had lunch together the interaction quickly became more spontaneous and lively. It appeared that several satisfying friendships between students and Battellites resulted from this electronic interaction and were consolidated by a face-to-face meeting. All of the students and Battellites stated in the interviews that they greatly enjoyed interacting with each other. All present agreed at the meeting to leave EBO up and running until the end of the school year to allow communication to continue to take place. CMC has intriguing possibilities in that it may be possible to electronically create a Vygotskian zone of proximal development (ZPD) between scientists and children who lack scientist role models. CMC has definite potential for fostering the development of social and communication skills and abstract thinking. Scientists and students alike could also impart valuable information handling skills as they communicate with each other. If Bandura's theory of delayed modeling has any validity, this mode of communication may hold great potential for providing groups under-represented in science with role models, although longitudinal studies would be needed to investigate this hypothesis. This pilot study did not, however, shed much light on this question, other than the observation that the possibility existed for modeling to take place in several cases. A larger sample of students and scientists would most probably be needed to determine the effects of ethnic group, gender, and personality type on CMC. + Page 79 + References Bandura, Albert. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. Bowne, Charles and David Peyton. 1988). The Complete Electronic Bulletin Board Starter Kit. New York: Bantam Books. Brienne. Deborah and Shelley Goldman. (1990). Network News. Science and Children. September: 26-29. Coburn, Janet. (1988). Randy Allen, IBM Teacher of the year. Classroom Computer Learning. September: 40-45. Delzeit, Linda. (1992) Academy One Newsletter. March 1992. Edwards, Mary. (1984). Taking Electronic Field Trips in Hawaii. Electronic Learning. Nov./Dec.: 44. Hale, F.W. (1978). An Agenda for Excellence: You Can Make the Difference. Phi Delta Kappan. 60: 204-206. Hiltz, S.R. and M. Turoff. (1978). The Network Nation Human Communication via Computer. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison- Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. Jay, J. (1977). Black Americans in the Science. In V.L. Melnick and F.D. Hamilton (Eds.), Minorities in Science: The Challenge for Change in Biomedicine. New York: Plenum Press. Julyan, Candace. (1989). National Geographic Kids Network: Real Science in the Elementary Classroom. Classroom Computer Learning. October: 30-41. Lehrer, Ariella. (1988). Network Primer: How They're Used...And How They Could Be Used. Classroom Computer Learning. Paril: 41-48. + Page 80 + Oakes, Jeannie. (1990). Lost Talent The Underparticipation of Women, Minorities, and Disabled Persons in Science. Rand Corporation. Perrolle, Judith. (1991) Computer-Mediated Conversation. National Forum. Summer: 21-23. Skypeck, D.H.B., Lee, E.C. and M.K. Cox. A Study of Factors that Influence Women and Blacks in Science Career Choice and Stability. Atlanta, Georgia: Emory University, Division of Educational Studies. (An unpublished paper) Troutner, Joanne. (1988). Tippecanoe and Technology Too. Classroom Computer Learning. September: 60-62. ---------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Dr. Brian Murfin received his B.Sc. in Biology from Bowling Green State University in 1977 and then joined the Peace Corps and ended up teaching science in Africa for the next twelve years. Upon returning to the United States he then completed his Doctorate in Science Education in 1993 at the Ohio State University. He is presently an Assistant Professor of Science Education at Queens College of the City University of New York. His current research interests are computer-mediated communication and multicultural science, African science in particular. + Page 81 + --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century Copyright 1994 Georgetown University. Copyright of individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual authors. Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by Georgetown University. It is asked that any republication of this article state that the article was first published in IPCT-J. Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to: Gerald Phillips, Editor IPCT-J GMP3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU