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The Bystander Effect: A Lens for Understanding Patterns of Participation (2004)
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| Venue: | Journal of the Learning Sciences |
| Citations: | 18 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Hudson04thebystander,
author = {James M. Hudson and Amy S. Bruckman},
title = {The Bystander Effect: A Lens for Understanding Patterns of Participation},
journal = {Journal of the Learning Sciences},
year = {2004},
volume = {13},
pages = {169--199}
}
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Abstract
A number of studies have shown that students are often more willing to participate in educational conversations online than in the classroom. However, other studies have shown that online environments have poor student participation Why is this the case? What causes participation to vary from one environment to another? To explore these phenomena, we borrow a concept from social psychology, the bystander effect, which explains why individuals are less likely to helpinanemergencyifothersarepresent. Although the bystander effect specifically applies to helping behavior in emergency situations, we use this construct as a lens through which to view nonemergency situations such as educational environments. The bystander effect has 4 key components: self-awareness, social cues, blocking mechanisms, and diffuse responsibility. Focusing on these mechanisms can help us more fully characterize participation patterns observed in different educational environments and leverage this knowledge in the design of such systems. We present a case study of two students in both classroom and online French learning environments and show how the psychological mechanisms of the bystander effect help us understand observed behavioral changes. Any dialog—large or small, written or oral, scientific or casual—involves two well-defined roles: speaker and listener. In productive discourse, participants must play each of these roles at some point. For a speaker to speak, there must be an audience; for a discussion to continue, the audience must respond. Authors from many aspects of academia have attempted to define conversation and discussion in many ways, but these two features remain consistent. Ong (1982, p. 176) wrote: Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to James M. Hudson, College of Computing,
Keyphrases
bystander effect understanding pattern well-defined role key component casual involves observed behavioral change diffuse responsibility many aspect poor student participation case study social psychology nonemergency situation social cue many way educational conversation online french learning environment participation pattern psychological mechanism different educational environment emergency situation educational environment productive discourse online environment
