California Virtual Campus

by Diane Cvetic

February, 2009

Diane Cvetic is a general education program director who is actively involved in facilitating postsecondary student success in online learning. A visionary at heart, she is passionate about taking an active role in seeing the unrealized value in the transformational changes that technology is bringing to today’s virtual classroom. She is currently taking online classes at California State University, East Bay, toward a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in online teaching and learning.

As a self-proclaimed outgoing introvert and solitary learner, it’s no surprise that when the vocational college where I taught in 2001 began offering online courses, I jumped at the chance to be part of the course development team. I knew that I needed formal training, so I enrolled in Cal State East Bay’s Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and received my graduate certificate in 2002. Being an introvert in an extrovert’s world, I discovered early-on that the asynchronous online discussion forums built into most online classes provides distinct advantages for us introverts, who prefer to process information internally before sharing it with others, but I was unable to see at that time that such an advantage could be so short-lived.

Over the next several years, as online education evolved and experts in the field began touting the synergistic benefits of online collaborative projects and high-functioning online learning communities, I sat on the sidelines in classic introspective style while the extroverts collaborated their way back into their own comfort zones in the online classroom. Was I witnessing a mass conspiracy by the extrovert majority to retake their dominant place in the online education arena, or were my own introspective tendencies simply alerting me to begin processing my own dissatisfaction with those changes that put me outside my own comfort zone? To help answer these questions and to begin the next significant phase of my own lifelong professional development, I returned to Cal State East Bay’s Online Teaching and Learning program, this time to earn my master’s degree.

I am currently enrolled in EDUI-6707: The History and Culture of Online Learning Communities. This class provides a constructive learning environment in which to further explore why introverts and solitary learners may be prone to increased dissatisfaction with today’s online learning experiences. This framework, combined with a brief survey of the research literature on the relationship between personality preferences and satisfaction with online education, helped me better understand the source of my own dissatisfaction and, more importantly, pointed me toward the potential benefits of learning beyond the confines of my own comfort zone.

A brief review of the current literature on personality preference and dissatisfaction with collaborative assignments reveals some important findings in my quest for answers. Fallan (2006) concludes in a recent study that ignoring the student’s personality type may produce unintended negative outcomes when using more “active forms of learning” (i.e., collaborative assignments). Ke and Carr-Chellman (2006) conducted a phenomenological examination of solitary learners within a graduate online learning environment that promoted collaborative assignments, and they concluded that “collaborative learning, and constructivist collaborative learning environments in particular, tend to directly conflict with these coping strategies, and for solitary learners, this conflict can become debilitating.” Negative outcomes? Debilitating conflict? Could the decision to immerse my Myers-Briggs INTJ personality type into today’s collaborative online learning environment actually have produced such ominous-sounding unintended adverse effects? And if so, how many other people might be similarly adversely affected?

According to Oldham and Morris (1995), two of the Myers-Briggs personality types tend to represent most solitary learners: INTJ (introvert, intuitive, thinking, judging) and INTP (introvert, intuitive, thinking, perceiving). According to recent statistics reported by the Myers & Briggs Institute, these two types show an overall frequency of approximately 5-9% in the United States population. That being the case, solitary learners would be expected to constitute a significant minority in the overall population of online learners, putting them at increased risk of not being heard when their academic needs are not being met. These data also suggest that the overwhelming majority of online course developers and instructors could easily overlook the silent minority of students in their attempts to design and facilitate online learning communities that match the pedagogical climate that now favors collaborative learning environments.

Despite the fact that if given the choice, I would prefer to complete research papers individually, I do not believe that participating in collaborative projects could ever harm me academically (or psychologically, for that matter!) due to a learning preference mismatch. In fact, I predict that there may actually be some unintended benefits to subjecting myself to learning activities that place me outside of my comfort zone. When my daughter used to complain about participating in school activities that made her uncomfortable, my typical response to her was, “Do it anyway, and be glad for the opportunity!”

So, where are all of those opportunities for which to be glad as I prepare to immerse myself this next week in a collaborative final project representing 40% of my overall grade in the class? For one thing, I can reflect on the details of the experience that feel worthwhile despite my discomfort, which will help me encourage other solitary learners who may be hesitant to enter today’s online learning environment due to an increased emphasis on collaborative learning. In addition, my personality type and learning style reflected in my behavior within a group may represent an opportunity for my classmates who prefer collaboration to pause and consider the needs of solitary learners when designing or facilitating their own future online courses. Finally, I can gain a sense of accomplishment for completing something of value that doesn’t come easy to me.

Conspiracy or no conspiracy, the ayes have it when it comes to the future of collaborative learning opportunities in the virtual classroom, but the 5-9% of I’s among us who tend to achieve more through individual class work can have it, too, and be glad for the opportunity. At least I can, anyway.

REFERENCES

Fallan, L. (2002). Quality Reform: Personality Type, Preferred Learning Style and Majors in a Business School. Quality in Higher Education, 12(2), 193-206.

Ke, F., & Carr-Chellman, A (2006). Solitary Learner in Online Collaborative Learning: A Disappointing Experience? The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 7(3), 249-265.

Myers & Briggs Foundation. How frequent is my type? Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/how-frequent-is-my-type.asp.
Oldham, J.M., & Morris, L.B. (1995). The new personality self-portrait: Why you think, work, love, and act the way you do. Boston: Bantam Dell.