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Scaffolding students: suggestionson how to equip students with thenecessary study skills for studying in ablended learning environmentAnne Jelfs a , Roberta Nathan a & Clive Barrett aa The Open University , UKPublished online: 06 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Anne Jelfs , Roberta Nathan & Clive Barrett (2004) Scaffoldingstudents: suggestions on how to equip students with the necessary study skills for studyingin a blended learning environment, Journal of Educational Media, 29:2, 85-96, DOI:10.1080/1358165042000253267

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Journal of Educational Media, Vol. 29, No. 2, July 2004

Scaffolding students: suggestions on

how to equip students with the

necessary study skills for studying in a

blended learning environment

Anne Jelfs*, Roberta Nathan and Clive BarrettThe Open University, UK

In this paper we consider the implications of moving from a paper-based delivery of study supportmaterials to electronic delivery. The paper is based on telephone interviews with 60 students whohad received a range of study support materials from a series of ‘student toolkits’, which areprinted resource booklets for students of the UK Open University. McLoughlin (2002) sees theintegration of electronic delivery at the primary, secondary and tertiary education levels asrequiring an extension to current concepts of scaffolding. The extension we propose in this paperis the need to establish study skills plus the ways and means to seek support in a resource-basedenvironment. However, there is a delicate balance between increased provision and overloadedprovision in resource-based learning.

Introduction

The Open University (OU) in the UK is one of the world’s largest distanceeducation deliverers and, as such, has to blend its teaching into students’ alreadybusy lives. The impact of studying part-time and at a distance needs additional,different and distinctive support compared with that provided in traditional univer-sities. The nature of that support is in itself complex. Students at the OU can starttheir studies without prior qualifications and, whilst they are frequently maturereturnees to education, they come from a wide range of backgrounds and require avariety of support mechanisms to enable them to study successfully. Many of thesestudents face difficulties in reconciling the demands and needs of family, work andstudying to maintain a life balance, which, if not achieved, could potentially lead todrop-out. The policy of allowing open access to university courses raises issuesabout how to support adult students and when it is appropriate to offer support.Students may need a package of study skills support, such as additional information

*Corresponding author. Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall,Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: a.e.jelfs@open.ac.uk

ISSN 1358-1651 (print)/ISSN 1469–9443 (online)/04/020085-12©2004 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1358165042000253267

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on essay writing or note taking, along with assistance on how to organize andapproach higher education studies. However, should the support be student de-mand-driven or student support-driven?

The major focus of this paper is upon how to blend support into student learningand their current workload and at the same time how to present these resources inthe best possible way. We aim to identify how scaffolding can complement learningfor users who are based either in traditional higher education or in distanceeducation institutions.

With the technological advance and growth in personal computer ownership,there has been a growth in the number of universities providing courses on-line.Moran and Myringer (1999) suggest that the days of wholly distance education orwholly face-to-face education are numbered, as distance education methods areconverging with those of face-to-face teaching. It will be interesting to see how muchtheir prophecy comes true over the next few years. Our suggestion is that theinfluence of this convergence will result in the development of electronic studysupport materials that complement any face-to-face provision.

The growing interest in electronic student support materials was highlighted at arecent conference held at the University of Central Lancashire (Holistic Approachto Student Support and Guidance, 10–11 June, 2003), where papers were presentedfrom many universities discussing the issue of electronic material provision andface-to-face support for traditional campus-based students as well as their part-timedistance students. Now that more universities are offering a mixture of face-to-faceand distance education, this can be considered as a form of ‘blended learning’. Oneexample of ‘blending’ technology-enhanced learning with traditional face-to-faceteaching is that of the UHI Millennium Institute: Rennie (2003) comments on thebenefits of ‘not putting all your eggs in one basket’ and the lack of reliance on onesingle medium of support, either human or technological. This allows the resourcesto be always available, which, Rennie says, is particularly attractive to part-timestudents with family and/or work commitments.

Blended learning has a number of definitions. It has been referred to as a mix ofmedia and tools in an E-learning environment or the combination of face-to-faceteaching with on-line activities or the mixture of instructional approaches (Driscoll,2002). Blended learning has frequently been based on training in a human resourcesmode, where the objective is to solve a problem. For example, if the problem is poorsales performance the objective is to increase sales and staff motivation (Paynich2003). However, for some in the business sector, blended learning now refers to alearner-centred approach that is sensitive to the real needs of both learners and thecontext in which learning takes place (Helmer, 2002). Blended learning is alsodefined as the continuous process of job experience, knowledge gathering, guidanceand counselling with re-enforcement and performance feedback (Cheese, 2003).This meaning is more in keeping with our own assumptions that learning has to beincorporated into students’ own lifestyles, careers and learning experiences. How-ever, we would go one stage further and suggest that not only is it the blending ofthe technology into the delivery for re-enforcement of learning, it is also the blendingof the learning into students’ lives. Indeed, this is the significant challenge for those

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Scaffolding students 87

designing and delivering student support resources in a higher education environ-ment which incorporates on-line provision.

To recap, when it comes to ‘blended learning’ there appear to be many interpre-tations. It is the merging of the technology and face-to-face teaching, it is theblending of instructional approaches and, for us, the blending of learning intostudents’ lives, where our primary activity is the bringing together of learning withthe appropriate study support materials in a distance learning context.

For the OU, the approach to supporting students is best represented by the term‘scaffolding’. Scaffolding has been defined as an activity in which teachers or moreexperienced learners provide support and guidance, in a similar vein to the work ofVygotsky (1978), in which the more experienced person helps the less experiencedto move from assisted learning to independent and non-assisted learning. In thispaper we have used the term scaffolding to refer to planned support and the differentelements of resource which form the student support. We see the materials weprovide to support our students as something that is essentially planned andintegrated into our provision. The materials scaffold our students until they caneventually study more effectively without the support of the study skill materials andthereby become independent learners. Scaffolding has, however, far broader conno-tations and can be provided by a range of other elements in the learning process, forexample learning resources, interactive technologies and/or other learners (Oliver,1999). Scaffolding also describes support and assistance provided to students as theyattempt to find meaning and construct their own knowledge (Oliver, 1999). Theessence of scaffolding is that the assistance and help is gradually reduced as thelearning progresses to the point where the learner is finally able to act independently(Oliver, 1999).

Most scaffolding and support of student learning relies heavily on constructivistprinciples of dialogue, such as those identified by Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky(1978), where students need to construct knowledge with more experienced others.Vygotsky called it the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD is ametaphorical distance between what the learner can achieve independently and whatcan be achieved with the assistance of a more skilled partner (McLoughlin & Oliver,1998). For a large number of students the skilled partner is the tutor, where supportby the teacher can be a powerful motivator for learning and persistence in thelearning activity (Care, 1996).

However, individual tutors may be ill prepared to provide the level of scaffoldingneeded to support students and the move to on-line support may be more appropri-ate for some students, rather than inadequate face-to-face support (Ludwig-Hard-man & Dunlap, 2003). Realistically, we are not sure that full competence can everbe achieved. Rather, it is an ongoing process in which some students will be morecompetent in certain aspects than others and where some aspects are closer torefinement in approach and application. Our aim in developing guidance materialsfor OU students is to provide timely and relevant support. To be most effective thesupport should be tailored to the needs of each learner (Phillips, 2003).

McLoughlin (2002) sees the integration of electronic delivery at the primary,secondary and tertiary education levels as requiring an extension to current concepts

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88 A. Jelfs et al.

of scaffolding. The extension we propose in this paper is the need to establish studyskills and ways to seek support in a resource-based rather than demand-led environ-ment. However, there is a delicate balance between increased provision and over-loaded provision in resource-based learning. We are quite aware of the need for thisbalance and therefore take it into consideration when providing materials to stu-dents. If all the material is provided at once, then although it is ready for the studentto use, they may feel overwhelmed by the materials or offended because they did notneed them. Anecdotal evidence as well as research with ‘new’ students (Beaty &Morgan, 1992) suggests that learners frequently comment that they feel obliged tocomplete every activity they are sent by the university and have guilt feelings if theydo not. This influences their perceptions of work overload and suggests that a moretargeted release of study support materials might be preferable.

Other types of delivery provide the materials in a ‘drip feed’ form, whereby it istargeted at particular points in the course, for example when the first assignmentis due. This could trigger the offer of support relating to essay writing skills. It isanticipated that in the future the OU will provide E-mail notices to students,offering support at particular key points within the course, e.g. revision skills priorto the exam period. At the same time we are looking at ways to reuse orre-engineer parts of our support materials for on-line delivery. At the moment ourprovision is primarily paper-based, but as more of our students come ‘on-line’, wesee electronic study support as a means of delivering appropriate materials tostudents, encouraging the retention of students and supporting students’ personaland professional development. On-line delivery may also make it easier for stu-dents to blend study skills into their study strategies and improve their learningexperience.

What value does on-line delivery offer? One underlying assumption made bymany institutions is that on-line delivery is cost-effective and releases teaching stafffrom some of the more mundane aspects of teaching. Sims et al. (2002) suggest thatit is also perceived as an economic solution to restrictions in government funding forhigher education and to increased teacher workload. Oliver (1999) agrees on theeconomies of cost, but also says that new technologies appear to offer greater levelsof access to students, more flexible teaching and learning approaches and enhancededucational opportunities. However, not all the materials need be on-line. Oliver(1999) suggests that in a constructivist approach the use of conventional materialsalong with electronic sources can provide the diversity often required by students,particularly those who value mixed approaches to learning. Diversity is not alwayswhat students want or embrace. Research conducted by Jelfs and Colbourn (2002)found that integration issues surrounding on-line learning were the most frequentlycited concerns for students. Providing study support materials via the Internet is aconcern when many students do not possess well-developed skills in using comput-ing and information technology. A sceptical paper on access to information technol-ogy and students’ self-guided study by Crook and Light (1999) highlights anotherconcern: that many students continue to want, and need, face-to-face contact withpeers and tutors, even in an information and communication technology (ICT)-richenvironment.

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Scaffolding students 89

Recognition of needs

The types of students we are primarily concerned with are part-time higher edu-cation students who study at a distance. The UK OU, as one of the largest distanceeducation providers, has an ethos of being ‘open as to people’. It offers open entry,so that large numbers of students enrol without any previous qualifications. Cur-rently those students without any formal qualifications make up 5% of the totalstudent population (i.e. 5% of nearly 144 000 in 2001–2002). In addition, a further8% of students do not provide data on their qualifications. In total, over a third ofpeople starting courses in 2002 had qualifications below conventional universityentry requirements (Open University Facts & Figures 2001/2002). The OU thereforeenrols students with a variety of challenges to the likelihood of success in theirstudying with the university. These challenges may include students with lowprevious educational qualifications and those who have been out of education for alengthy period. At the same time, students can start their academic career with theOU at any level; many start at levels 2 and 3.

This means that students differ significantly in how prepared they are for degreelevel study, and at the same time they have a variety of needs for which they mightrequire support. Many students will have started their OU studies with a set of priorexpectations against which they may have judged themselves as failures (Bird &Morgan, 2003; Dearnley, 2003). Previous failure and unrealistic expectations ofuniversity study may lead students into a belief that they need extra support. Li etal. (2000) suggest that adult students who have not engaged in formal study sinceleaving school might be expected to rely heavily on whatever external assistance theycan find when it comes to developing study methods. Numerous adult students lackself-management skills and Li et al. found that many adult learners with little or noexperience of tertiary study choose to enrol on open entry programmes, such asthose offered by the UK OU. Our own knowledge and experience supports thissuggestion and confirms the need for excellent study support materials. It is worthnoting at this point, that the toolkit materials discussed in this paper are supplemen-tary within a system where skills development is also addressed in the courses,especially at level 1.

Students enrolling with the university may therefore lack all, or some, of the studyskills necessary to either complete the course or to obtain most value from theircourse experience. The university recognizes the need to support these students andhas developed a range of resource materials for individual student use in addition totutor support. Part of the support includes the development of a series of ‘studenttoolkits’. The student toolkits used in the study and reported here were: The effectiveuse of English; Revision and examinations; Working with charts, graphs and tables;Reading and note taking; Essay and report writing skills; More charts, graphs and tables.The toolkits were developed as a generic resource base for students entering atsecond level in the form of a suite of study skills materials. The provision is mediatedby Associate Lecturer staff and advisory staff in Regional Centres. Associate Lectur-ers are the tutorial staff who provide course and student support at the local level.

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They also monitor student progress and assessment grading and are usually the firstpoint of contact with the university.

The study

Although our work was based within the context of distance higher education, it isalso relevant to part-time higher education students and to study support materialsfor blended learning environments. The aim of the provision was to developstudents’ own study skills and increase the opportunity for them to achieve thehigher order notion of ‘skill in learning’ (Beaty & Morgan, 1992). We perceived thatthis was achievable through additional support and had the potential outcome ofincreased retention. Although our initial work was based on the provision of writtenmaterials, there is now a move to increased use of electronic delivery, and in ourresearch we have attempted to address the questions that face all institutions whenmaking material available on the World Wide Web or institutional intranet: what?when? and how?

The student toolkits aim to provide students with support and to develop theirconfidence. Students are expected to be active learners and to complete activities orexercises set out within the toolkit in order to build the skills into their repertoire.The toolkits originally targeted those students who were in their second year of studyand who may have been experiencing difficulties. However, it is now evident fromour evaluation work that students across all levels of study have found the toolkitsbeneficial. Indeed, students from all levels of undergraduate study have requestedand used the student toolkit resources and they have commented favourably on theirexperience of using the materials.

The aim of the research reported here was to evaluate students’ use of andsatisfaction ratings for the first six student toolkits produced by Student ServicesCommunications Team at the OU. Quantitative and qualitative studies were under-taken. The quantitative study was conducted with a random selection of studentswho had received the toolkits. The first part of the quantitative study was conductedin 2000 and covered the following toolkits: The effective use of English; Revision andexaminations; Working with charts, graphs and tables. The second part of the quantitat-ive study was conducted in 2001 and included the following toolkits: Reading andnote taking; Essay and report writing skills; More charts, graphs and tables. Thequestionnaire consisted of 18 questions on a single A4 optically read sheet. Studentswere requested to indicate the appropriate response for the first 15 questions byplacing an ‘X’ in a box. This would allow the optical reader to collate the data. Thefinal three questions were qualitative and students were required to make writtenresponses. The findings indicated a need for a more exploratory approach tounderstanding the complexities of OU students’ study needs.

We decided to use telephone interviews as the most appropriate and cost-effectivemethod of data collection. The OU’s 13 regions cover England, Wales, Scotlandand Northern Ireland and the geographically dispersed location of students meantthat telephone interviews were the most applicable.

The qualitative study reported here consisted of 60 telephone interviews with

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current OU students who had received the toolkits Reading and note taking, Essayand report writing skills and More charts, graphs and tables in the academic year 2001.The interviews were conducted in July and August 2002 to supplement the quanti-tative study. The decision to supplement the quantitative study with a qualitativestudy was due to the need to increase our understanding of the students’ aims andrequirements whilst using the toolkits and specifically to explore if moving toelectronic delivery was a viable option for students. We used a semi-structuredinterview schedule with key topics, but no structured response questionnaire. Thelines of enquiry focused on how students had used the toolkits, when and how often.We also wanted to know if the affective aspects of the toolkits had helped studentsto improve their study skills. All telephone interviews were recorded and transcribed.

Findings

Generally, students found the toolkits effective in developing appropriate study skillsand engaging them in reflection on their needs. Students who previously had notacknowledged their need for support or felt embarrassed about admitting thoseneeds found use of the toolkits particularly valuable ‘as it saved face’. Many studentscommented that they would have preferred the toolkits to be provided before thecourse started. However, it is difficult to predict that a student will need the toolkitor for the student to be able to recognize their needs prior to studying.

We found that the toolkits were primarily used as reference material to be drawnon when necessary.

It gave me ideas and the organization of time particularly the exam one [toolkit] andhow it can be applied to language courses.

It helped as it saved me time that I would have made phoning my tutor.

This would also imply that it would save the tutor’s time in answering questionswhich were not course-specific.

As with many part-time students, there are always time constraints and work/fam-ily commitments and these students reported similar concerns:

I attempted to read it all the way through and I did some of the activities, but I didn’thave enough time.

This would suggest that activities should be separate and of shorter duration. Thisis supported by many telephone interviewees who said they were more likely to dipinto the toolkits rather than read them all. This attitude and approach requiresstudents to be quite strategic as well as reflective on their learning needs.

Students reported having two major concerns, which were: too many activitieswithin the toolkits (25% of respondents) and the unattractiveness of the toolkits(between 20 and 23% of students who responded to the survey found the toolkitsunattractive). The suggestions that students made for improving the toolkits in-cluded more use of colour and the inclusion of cartoons and illustrations. Theproblem with cartoons is their appropriateness and relevance to the topic beingcovered.

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When asked about their views on using the Internet for the toolkits, studentsoffered a range of opinions on its value.

Don’t use it that much myself, personally I prefer the booklets.

I’ve no interest in the Internet, I like books.

I think putting it on the Internet is a good idea.

I would go to the Internet version rather than the paper version.

I would rather have it in a book. It’s easier to read and to take it anywhere. I study alot away from home. Using a computer is more tying.

For others, access to a computer with Internet access was a problem:

I have a computer, but no Internet access. I would perhaps print things off rather thanread on screen and I know that things can be easily updated on the computer but I haveconcerns about the cost of connection.

Students wanted any activities provided through the Internet to be interactive, forexample the opportunity to draw their own graphs and to have maths diagnostictools to assess their ability.

This raises issues that we hope to explore in the future: Whether the Internetshould be used merely for delivery, i.e. simply making files of the text available tothose who wish to download, or for interactivity and adaptive progression, i.e. tailoringthe response to the input made by the learner. The latter would represent somethingdifferent, such as a function that could not be achieved using uniform texts (whetherdelivered as booklets or as PDF files). We recognize this as a question for futureevaluation of on-line resources and a discussion of learners’ use of media technolo-gies can be found in Kirkwood (2003).

A large number of students reported that they had requested the toolkits and thendid not use them. They wanted a support structure ‘just in case’ there was anemergency (a fire brigade approach: ‘I don’t want to have to use them, but I like toknow they are there when I need them’). In developing on-line materials one of thebenefits the Internet would provide is the opportunity for students to view the toolkitmaterial and then make a decision about how useful it would be before download-ing/printing it out. This would enable the student to complete a form of skills auditand then to draw on resources as relevant. Some students reported they would liketo be able to download material from the Internet and this would mean that fileswould need to be in a downloadable format such as a PDF file (portable documentfile). At the same time, we had other students who wanted to be able to change thefont size or colour and annotate the on-line material as necessary. This is especiallyimportant for students who have disabilities, but many PDF files do not allow lateramendment.

Another issue is the sans serif typeface used in the current toolkits. This is harderto read on the printed page and expert opinion is that serif fonts lead the eye acrossthe line, making it easier to read. The suggestion is to use a typeface which is moreappropriate for the printed toolkits and a font which is sans serif for any Internetprovision.

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In all, the toolkits were well received by students, feedback was favourable acrossthe range of students interviewed and although there were some suggested improve-ments, there was little feedback that was negative. There appeared to be someinterest in moving to electronic provision, as long as students could request apaper-based booklet if they wanted one. Our next concern is whether the move toelectronic delivery is achievable and how easy is it to blend electronic provision intostudents’ already busy lives and current workload.

Conclusion

Earlier in this paper we raised three important issues for institutions to address whenmaking material available on the World Wide Web or institutional intranet, i.e.what? when? and how? In this section we attempt to answer these questions basedon our experience and empirical findings from the study.

What?

A blended approach offers students ways of integrating study support into theiralready busy lives and, in fact, other researchers have pointed out the advantages ofintegration into students’ lives and the benefits of student support (Bird & Morgan,2003; Fahy, 2003). We would suggest that the mechanisms for obtaining supportare highly dependent on the opportunity to be more diagnostic about student needs,both for students and for tutors, therefore it is a necessary to identify the type andrange of help available.

Multiple media. An advantage of a blended approach is the opportunity to usemultiple media for students who welcome the provision of resources in differingformats to support different approaches to their studying. The range of support can,of course, be broader in a multimedia environment and it also provides studentswith a more independent means of support.

Transition. We also feel that a blended approach of electronic and paper-basedmaterials provides students with the opportunity to be totally independent and toidentify the resources they require. In an outcomes-based education we suggest thatwhere students identify their study needs and a range of support resources are madeavailable, there is a possibility to close the gap between success and failure. This, inturn, assists universities in their retention strategies. Reduced costs of electronicdelivery was one of the suggestions from the literature. However, we are not sayingthat electronic delivery is cheaper, but it does enable the student to see the materialsand then ascertain if they fulfil their support needs.

Other reasons. Support would be presented as an extra resource that students coulddraw on, as and when they felt they needed it in a more menu-driven approach, i.e.structure provided by the presentation and content of the toolkits. This would

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provide students with materials to encourage confidence building, personal responsi-bility and motivation in an open learning environment.

When?

It is important to be time sensitive. One of our major concerns was that the provisionof additional materials might overload, or at least increase, the study load forstudents. Some students did report a feeling that they needed to complete as manyof the activities in the toolkits as possible. This, in turn, led us to a belief that therecommended strategy would be to ‘drip feed’ the materials for students, so thatlearners could be provided with the appropriate material at certain key points in theirstudies, for example advice on note taking at the start of the course.

An analogy might illustrate the point. When choosing a restaurant we havebecome adept at selecting the type of restaurant depending on our needs. When wewant something quick, we might go to a fast food restaurant and accept thelimitations of the menu. For a special occasion or to impress others, we would visita high class restaurant and take time to peruse the menu. The restaurants satisfy thebasic need of hunger, but our choice is based on different needs and circumstances.In educational terms, this is where we think that students will need help in beingable to select the items they need from the menu of things on offer: we hope to assiststudents in becoming literate in navigating the system and making appropriatechoices. We are not advocating a ‘fast food’ university [see the work of Ritzer (1998)on MacDonaldization], but the ability for students to interpret what is on offer andto understand when it is right for them. The technology affords an approach andinfrastructure which is not time dependent and the scaffold is only there for as longas the student wants it.

How?

Any developments in delivery are to some extent dependent on our ongoingresearch. We have to consider whether we should continue to support both types ofdelivery or concentrate on web delivery. The aim is for on-line resources tocomplement and not replace the traditional paper-based material and we see it as anextension of our current provision. Certainly, development of the materials foron-line presentation was not easy and took much longer than expected (Johnson &Barrett, 2003). One of the reasons for this was that the knowledge, skills andexpertise required for the development of the materials resided in several areas of theuniversity.

If we were to restrict ourselves to electronic delivery we might be accused ofreducing access rather than widening participation. If we continue to develop on-linematerials then we need to complete further research on the layout of a web site andhow students would access it. Part of our development strategy will be to pilot andevaluate on-line resources as a contributing element to the overall provision ofstudent support materials within an open and distance higher education structure.

In our evaluation we were not only concerned with the delivery of the study

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Scaffolding students 95

support materials, but also the affect that the provision had for the students. Theperceived affective changes that students reported included:• an increased level of writing skills;• greater understanding of simple graphs and bar charts;• a perceived increase in their confidence levels.Learners felt that they were more able students and the toolkit booklets wereparticularly useful to those who were new to university teaching and learning. All ofthose in the study felt that in some way or other the materials were useful,particularly as a support mechanism.

The work we have completed will also feed into our blending of personaldevelopment planning (PDP) materials into students’ study lives (please see othersuggestions for blending Personal Development Planning at http://www.recordingachievement.org/Support for Practice/Higher Education/de-fault.asp). We feel our research as been invaluable in helping us to integrate supportmaterials and assist us in foreseeing potential problem areas in PDP.

We suggest that although both forms of toolkit delivery (paper-based and elec-tronic) have their place in the educational environment, the context of the students’needs for support and how to set up the scaffold and enable it to be set aside needsfurther investigation.

Notes on contributors

Anne Jelfs is a Knowledge and Innovation Project Officer in the Institute ofEducational Technolgy at the Open University. Her recent work includes jointeditorship of the special issue on blended learning for the Journal of EducationalMedia (October 2003) and her research interests focus on qualitative methodsand approaches such as phenomenography.

Roberta Nathan is Assistant Secretary (Quality) office of the director studentservices, the Open University.

Clive Barrett is teaching and learning resources co-ordinator, the Open University.

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