An Interview with Phillip Hellier, Mary Graham and Helen Scarborough
(“Inter” refers to the interviewer, “Hellier” refers to Phillip Hellier, "Graham" refers to Mary Graham and "Scarborough" refers to Helen Scarborough)
Inter:	Philip, Mary and Helen; you're a group of academic economists, and we're really interested talking today about the use of digital media and online, in actually enhancing the value of learning in Economics. But, to begin with, I'm quite interested in know how you define effective teaching and learning; in learning about economics. I don't know at who would like to have the first go at that question… but how would you actually conceive good teaching in the field of Economics?
Hellier:	I think it's no different to any other discipline, in terms of … it doesn't just apply to Economics I don't think. First of all there's a body of knowledge, that the students need to be aware of, and they need to make it their own ... so they need to be able to not only understand it, but add to it, and actually use it to solve problems. So, I see that as the first fundamental thing. And the second fundamental thing is that it needs to be done in terms of an environment in which they're happy, contented and challenged in an interesting way—they see it as relevant, but also they see it as exciting, and something they want to be… so there's two dimensions, the core dimension that we're trying to get across: of knowledge we're trying to look at; but there's also the way in which you do it, the relational elements, the way in which you do that … so you need both, of course. And I think that applies to any discipline. Now there are some significant things to Economics, but I think in general I don't think it differs from any other subject … if I was teaching Psychology, for example, I'd use the same sort of things that would drive me.
Graham:	I think its the language that sometimes students find a little bit more difficult, a bit more challenging, and some of them just decide not to take up the challenge I think… so, they're fairly negative [laugh], so I think part of the job we have is to try and change them around in their thinking and see some positive from doing it all.
Inter:	You've mentioned the importance of problem solving, and sort of the implication of being able to take the knowledge and use it to actually understand issues, and solve problems in the real world. Phil in particular, I believe you've done some research in regard to what employers are looking for in regard to… you know, well educated economists coming from universities. I mean, what did that research reveal in terms in regard to some of these key generic attributes that Deakin promotes in 'The Deakin Advantage'?
Hellier:	Yes, the key was that they were generic, at undergraduate level, we only looked at undergraduate up to Honours level. Fundamentally they were wanting basic skills: reading, writing, data analysis, data collection, those sorts of skills; not necessarily specific economics expertise, but that's at undergraduate level, and one might expect that. And that's been borne out by a lot of studies that have been done by graduate programs, people looking at graduate, where students again what employers want. And in fact, we did some early work on this, or, there had been some early work done on that, some years ago… twenty years ago, and they found the same thing. So, I don't think that's changed. But we don't have, we don't do the generic skills very well, or that's what a lot of employers are telling us, that's the area that they still require improvement on.
Inter:	When you sort of come to design, or think about designing, in overall teaching and learning environment in Economics, and I know we're going to move into the digital and online, but I'm sort-of interested in the purposes you attribute to different dimensions of it. Like, what you'd like to do in lectures; achieving lectures and tutorials, and how that might link in with what you do with the digital media and online environment. Just to begin with, maybe Mary or Helen: When it comes to giving a good lecture in Economics, how do you actually conceive and enact that, as part of your overall teaching and learning environment?
Graham:	Well, I guess with lectures, its a matter of trying to … for the students to sort of see the relevance of it all, so I guess, where you can, to relate it to what's going on in the world. For example, when I'm teaching Introductory Macroeconomics it's usually quite good, there's lots of things that the student should be reading in the newspapers, but unfortunately they don't always read those sections of the papers that relate to the sorts of things we are talking about in class. So I think, getting across material, as well as trying to get the students' interest is the main thing in lectures. It's not very easy to do so, particularly with undergraduates, I think. The tutorial is where you get the smaller groups, so you can try and get them more involved, you can give them exercises to do, applications of the work you've been doing in lectures, so it's a bit easier to get them to do things, and be more part of it.
Scarborough:	I think we've changed our … well, at the start we three probably, if we've had any influence in economics as a discipline and the way it's taught at Deakin, it has been to try and change a little bit the emphasis of what we teach, acknowledging that our graduates are usually Commerce graduates, who may do an Economics major; they're not pure economists, who are doing a pure Economics degree.
Graham:	And are thrilled by all the theory and all the technical details…
Scarborough:	Yes, and we really have to make our economics where it's complementing the other subjects that students are doing in their Commerce degree and where it's providing a foundation of economics for them, but not a lot of technical economic expertise that they would do if they were doing an Economics degree, and doing Honours in Economics and going on to be economists within Treasury or…
Graham:	That's true.
Scarborough:	There's quite a difference in the discipline I think, and that's been a debate within our school, as to: what it is we really want: how we want economics to be portrayed. And our view would generally be that: we want to make it that they're economically literate, that they become Commerce graduates who...
Graham:	And they can use economics in the other areas, because I keep telling the students that management and marketing, and the finance all those areas draw heavily on what we do in economics, and the skills that they can acquire in economics. And sort of, for them to see the relevance of that to those other areas, I think …
Graham:	Mmmm
Scarborough:	…Because if they can do that, it's a big plus.
Hellier:	I think the interesting thing about lectures is that they've changed dramatically over the last forty years—forty years ago you would have only had chalkboards and you wrote flat-out, and your hand just about dropped off... these days it's not like that. I mean, you've only got twenty-four lectures at the most in a semester; so you've only got twenty-four hours, probably not even that. So, what can you do in that time? Fundamentally, you, through PowerPoint, and you can show them the material and how it relates together, show them the traps. And, basically, to excite and encourage and so on… They've actually got to go away and do the reading. The work is done outside; the learning's done outside the lecture. The lecture's simply there to facilitate, to excite, to get them going, to make sure there are no difficulties and all that sort of stuff. And the relational aspect is crucial; it's in the tutes and all of the other places that they actually do a lot of the work. So I think the notion… and the other thing is that they don't take notes in lectures—very few students take notes. If you give out a handout—a little handout—that goes with the PowerPoint with little summaries and so on, they might make a few notes on the slide, but fundamentally they don't make notes. The better students might; but ninety percent of the students just sit there.
Inter:	Now, you've mentioned PowerPoint a couple of times, and I take it that the students can still get a printed study guide? [Murmurs of agreement from all three interviewees.] Reader? Both study guide and reader for both on and off campus students doing Economics units, and they probably have to buy a prescribed textbook in printed form. You've been working recently on an initiative using PowerPoint, a PowerPoint tool, to put together a set of digital resources, in a certain way. How'd you get to that point? Maybe starting with Phil: what was the drive, or the rationale for 'well, we've got all this printed material, and we've got lectures and tutes, and we've been doing online teaching for quite a while now in Economics for the off-campus'. How did all this come about? This PowerPoint-type approach?
Hellier:	Well, Mary's right. I mean, economics does have a particular type of way of understanding the world, and it does have a particular type of language, that is quite specific. It uses common words like: 'costs' and 'price'; but it uses them in a very specific way, so it's quite confusing for students and the assumptions we make about the border are I think, challenging the students too. Apart from that, it's conceptually—we're here talking about first, second or third year—conceptually quite difficult, because you've got at least two players in the market, usually three; so you've got both sides of the market—buyers and sellers and usually you've got a third party, some intervening force necessarily. Then you're going to have different levels; so you've got individuals: you can do an individual analysis; you can do a market analysis; you can do an industry analysis… or you can even take it further, and go to a national analysis. But then you've also got analytical time periods thrown into that as well—you've got short-run and long-run time periods. So you've got a whole lot of things going on, and we use at least three types of ways to explain these things… well four. We use words, we use numbers, and we use descriptive graphics: and they're quite visual, but you do need to know how to read them, and they build. Plus now, in some of the disciplines, we're using other things, like matrices stuff is just starting to come in with game theory. And that's another type of technique that's difficult again. But in the past, we've basically just stuck to descriptive graphics, which is like pictures, built-up, specific pictures. Now when you put all that together, the student's got a lot to cope with in twelve weeks. Also, if they're in second year, you're relating it to stuff they did one semester previously— not the immediate semester, but the one before—and often they can't remember that; or they don't remember it very well. So you've got that as well! You're starting from… you assume a base; that they really don't have. So, it's no wonder half-way through the unit that they've got all this stuff, and they wonder how to tie it together. The answer to your question is: when you set an exam question, it's not just regurgitation, but a problem… their minds cross. They've done all the work, but they say: 'what diagram?'; 'which one relates to this?'; 'how?';'where?'. And we find that generally, students just find it hard to work out which bit they've got to grab, to answer this particular question; or which bits they've got to grab. And, so when we're teaching it, often we try to have diagrams to start with: to link the bits visually. And that's what we used to have in some of the courses, particularly a second year course. Now to answer your question: when we came to look at the PowerPoint and the linkages, we thought 'ahh. Here's a visual way. We can do it electronically to make some links… so that they have a better nub on what I need to go to, to answer this question'.
Scarborough:	Mmm. 'Cause it's really interesting. Probably five or six years ago we rewrote this unit that we've now been working on. This was the iteration before this one, and in the first page of each topic, we had diagrams showing…
Graham:	Connecting…
Scarborough:	…Connecting the concepts in this topic. And those diagrams were just one flat page on the page in the study guide, but it was the same concept as what we are trying to do now…
Graham:	The roadmap is a much more sophisticated version of that, and you can be much deeper because you can click from one to the other.
Scarborough:	Yes. We were starting even then with the same idea— that students needed to know how things inter-related. That they were learning this new concept but 'where does it fit?' with respect to what they've previously done.
Graham:	And also, it's because in most of the units I think in economics, the topics build on one another, they're not just isolated topics; you can't just go in and go 'I'll do topic five' and just look at that, because topic five, whatever it's on: pricing, or market structure, or whatever, is going to be related to something that was back in topic two perhaps, or it's coming up in topic six.
Scarborough:	Mmmm. It's very cumulative.
Graham:	Yeah. And then in that, I think what the students find sort of difficult to keep remembering how you're… you know… what they did a few weeks ago or what they did in the previous semester and relate it to what they're currently doing. I mean, we expect them to be able to do that, and they do have trouble with it.
Hellier:	And how we know that, is because teaching externally, students will ring in, or whatever and we have mature students, and they're good students. And just before the exam they'll ring us and say 'look, I've covered all the work, I know it all, but I look at previous exam questions, and I can't work out how to take what I've learnt to the question'. They have this problem of 'what bits do I need?' It's these inter-relation bits that they have… and you're asking a lot of them in twelve weeks. I think you're asking an enormous amount of the student, and this is only one subject out of four. I mean, it's a big thing to ask students.
Inter:	Now, I know its early days with the roadmapping; are you doing this to teach well, like a particular topic, or a particular unit or, what's the ambition behind doing this? Is this a new type of electronic study guide in the making in economics that you'll adopt in every unit? Or, are you just feeling your way at the moment unit-by-unit, or topic-by-topic? I'm trying to work out where this might go… where do you think it might go based on what you've done to date?
Scarborough:	I think we're very much feeling our way. We… you know, if it was going to go through Economics, you'd have to have consensus of the School in general. We're just a little sub-group, who've tested this to see how we go and we're feeling our way because we've even debated amongst ourselves about the blend of resources that we think the students actually need. And that the moment we don't see this as… you can…
Graham:	We would have a different view to say—Rodney—to say where it is, and what we're doing it for [agreement from Helen]. But I think it's really to try and help clarify to the students, and, I think, probably to the staff, just what it is we're trying to do in each unit. I found it very helpful to see it structured like that, and hopefully the students will, because we do get those sorts of comments from them, that they're… shows that they're… like to have a better overview of the scene.
Inter:	So is this in addition to the printed study guide and the textbook as a distinctive value-adder?
Graham:	Yes. I see it as a value-adder, not as a replacement.
Inter:	Right.
Scarborough:	You could attach… like, you could put the study guide into this framework, so you could say, you know, 'go from this link, to this whole section of the study guide'. But I think there's a fundamental problem still with students reading too much on-screen. We would…
Graham:	And I think students still expect certain things; I think the majority of off-campus students anyway expect certain things in a study guide, because when you have a study guide, it's different, you do get comments…
Scarborough:	Why we would like this to go is, I think, is that then you could go from here to tutorial exercises that they can play around with… you know, like Phil talked about moving the… moving that, about graphics… things where they could go to an exercise where they could move a line and change the visual part… is…
Inter:	This package is not like 'I passively consume a whole bunch of PowerPoint's linked together'; which is a nice thing, to make those associations. You think it will be a kind of interactive package of consuming certain things, but actually playing with other things in the package.
Mary:	Yes. Well, we did try to do that in one of the topics, because remember… [Helen agrees] …because the text we use in this unit, in their online resources, it did have a couple of tutorial exercises, and students could move the demand curve and see what was happening. It was a very clumsy, very big, um…
Helen:	Rodney can do these, he's sure we can do these things…
Mary:	He has developed one that's much… that's better, easier to use and less cumbersome and everything, but we still… we weren't quite ready to go that far, I think you have to take these things… we've got to be ready before we can expect students to be ready to…
Helen:	I think this is a really good framework that we can put in things that the students can do, where they're interactive. But I think the reading bit, to me, still has to stay in the study guide. I don't think the screen lends itself… it lends itself to being interactive, but not to reading text, really.
Mary:	I wouldn't like to just have to read everything on the screen but, I don't know where it…
Helen:	We'd like to see it develop further.
Inter:	Okay. Now Business Information Systems have been developing their CD-ROM, roadmap approach for a number of years, incrementally. And, in the last couple of years they've added multimedia components, audio and video components to add additional value. Just in terms of diversifying the media in the package, do you see opportunities there? You may have done some of that work, but do you see opportunities to actually add voice? Moving pictures? To actually further lift the package's value?
Philip:	I think it's crucial. I think the thing is: added value. If the thing is not going to add value to staff and to students, then there's no point in doing it. And it adds value at different levels. The first area it adds value at is that it's visual; and it's highly visual, and it is colour—it's full colour, and it's instantaneous. And that's, that's important. So, it's full of conceptual mapping, but it's no longer on paper, so it fits in with the way in which students learn… it's this click, look and click: learn. And the other thing…just at that very rudimentary level, it is, does add some value. The second thing it does though is; it allows them to have the pathways. So they can choose whatever pathways they like, and it's instantaneous. So that adds value as well—can add value. But the real added value is that it now provides a framework when you can add all sorts of other things in, and these can take the students out, to all sorts of places they've never been—some of them might be just read, some of them might be just listen and learn, some of them might be actual 'you play around with this'. So, you know, we haven't nearly coped with the full added value that this can do yet; we've just started to set up a framework.
Graham:	But we've been only, yeah, shown the openings to it, to us, as to what we might think of and where we might be able to land it.
Hellier:	I think it's really exciting…
Inter:	In terms of the added value, you mentioned kind of linking with other disciplines, and probably presumably people might think within the Commerce degree, but Phil you've been working with John Carmichael, who's putting together the wholly online unit in the LLB—the Law program, on competition law and policy. Now some of this thinking, this approach has been picked up in a module is going to be used in that unit, in that different law program? Would you like to talk about what you've been doing there with John?
Hellier:	Well that was really…
Inter:	Why you've been doing it?
Hellier:	Well, they were looking at law in relation to corporate law, and the Trade Practices Act, and how the Trade Practices Act is set up, and how it might intervene under certain circumstances. And, lying behind that, is the notion of: 'we want more competition, rather than less' that's the whole pre-conceived notion. But where does that come from? It comes from basically microeconomics, as against perfect competition as against monopoly. And it's not quite that simple, as a lot of things aren't. But, the students need some background on where this was coming from, and how the law was rated. So we wrote a—tried to write a little module for them. They already had it in written form, giving some background to perfect competition and monopoly and what it meant in the practical out-workings, in terms of controlling markets, or controlling behaviour—controlling performance so we wrote a little module there which already came, in a part, from what we'd done for our other microeconomics units. But that was exciting, because we could set it up differently, we could take old roadmaps and re-use them, set them up differently with the student mind so it is enormously flexible in that sense. The other we haven't mentioned—can I just go on from one other thing—is that when we're setting things up, and all these visuals; you don't have to create them all yourself, because the textbooks and the publishers now give you a plethora of tutorial exercises, and they give you also, all of the diagrams from their book in full colour, and all you need to do is to get the copyright approval, and show them what you're going to do and they're thrilled, and you can put them straight in. Now, you'll only get it on a yearly basis, but you don't have to draw all these diagrams: they're already there. And that's the great thing. And that's another thing that I think that empowers staff because they see all this stuff that publishers have, and the publishers will even say 'we'll set up the study guide for you' well if you do that, there's no professionalism. But the roadmapping enables you to take all this stuff, and develop it the way you want to develop it.
Graham:	To be able to pick and choose what you want, and play with it as it suits you, rather than be dictated by the publisher.
Hellier:	Yeah, you have control.
Graham:	Gives you the control. I think it's also good for the students—for them to see like the diagrams that they're getting, it's not something they won't have seen from the study guide or the texts we're really just emphasising the same material. So that's hopefully it's just giving them another way of seeing how it's all connected and making it sort of fit into their minds a bit easier.
Inter:	Now, stepping back a little bit from the digital package. I know Helen and Mary you wrote an article on computer mediated communication in the discipline of economics, which was in the Journal of Distance Education I think a number of years ago so you're both obviously very experienced as Phil might be as well in this field in regard to more general use of online environments to try and promote communication, discussion and so on. You've obviously used a number of systems, and we're now working with Deakin Studies Online but I wonder what sort of lessons you've learnt generally, in teaching effectively online, in regard to communication over the years… and the importance of that, maybe, particularly for the off-campus students doing Economics?
Graham:	Yeah, well I guess our earlier work would have, um, I mean we're all very new at the online teaching, and we wanted to try and engage the students, get them communicating because there's been quite a lot of research done on the 'active' learner and you know, 'active' as against the 'passive' learner so we were really trying to work out ways in which we could use this technology to engage the students a bit more, to get them to interact with one another as well; to remove that isolation that is supposedly is attached to distance education. So, we set about doing a lot of things to try and get that sort of group work going… DSO has changed that a bit, but I guess that's still behind in a lot of our thinking, to try and get the students actively engaged in the subject I guess. 'Cause the ones that really do come online and get involved with it all, do seem to… I don't know if they do… we haven't tested it completely as far as the results, but they certainly enjoy it, and get a lot more personally from doing the subject I think.
Scarborough:	Yeah. I don't want to sound negative, but I would have to be honest and say it was probably about 2000–2001, and we did two or three articles at that stage on what we'd been doing; on trying to encourage collaborative learning in particular… and I think it's got harder. And I think it's got harder because I do think DSO is a less… an environment that encourages collaborative learning a little bit less. It's harder to set up a whole lot of little groups and manage them as a staff member. I also wonder, really, probably, whether the students even seem to have less time to actually engage in the learning process online. I find these days it's really hard to get them to be very active on DSO. And I don't know whether it's the platform or whether it's also… generally maybe we all try and fit so many things into our lives; and Mary and I have talked a few times about students you speak to on the phone, and they've trying to do two units, and they're working full time, and they've got three kids and they're actually really want to do it with the minimum interaction with anybody. I seem to get that feeling more and more, even though you'd like to encourage them, so they're very quiet unless they want something. They don't want to just chew the fat with you very often.
Graham:	No, they don't but I do think the ones that are able to put in the bit more time or whatever's needed to get to be online, do get a lot more from the subject.
Scarborough:	Oh yeah, it's rewarding. Yep.
Graham:	And so, and you get really great feedback from them…
Scarborough:	Yes.
Graham:	It's very frustrating, they're in the very small minority: the majority do, as Helen said, for various reasons just don't get involved, and it seems to be no matter what you try and do unless there's marks attached to it, and that's not always the whole purpose of it.
Scarborough:	Yeah, it's difficult. It's very, very hard to engage them fully. You can do it with the—it's a minority that you're doing it with. That's all I feel at the moment. That it's very hard to get the average student to be very active online. And I don't know why.
Hellier:	I'd agree with that and I mean I think with DSO—in spite of the risk of being ostracised by the rest of Deakin; DSO is not user-friendly… first of all, it's not intuitive, you can't click and pull and drag, like you can with everything else; and the second things is, if it's more than four clicks, forget it. If you've got to learn more than four clicks to do something, you're not going to retain it, because you don't do it very often. And that goes for both students and builders. And, nine times out of ten, there are many more clicks than that to do things. And so, it's not user-friendly. But leaving that aside, I think there are two broad… the students aren't homogeneous, there are at least two groups: one group is the… you'll get a very small group of students who are very high users. They'll be on your back all the time. And you'll spend ninety percent of your time with those students, and you have to. And they'll be the students also, that if you don't: they'll go straight to the Head of School, or the Dean, or whatever—they're very, very demanding. And when they send you a message they expect to get an answer almost straight away. But the great bulk of students don't have the time. Like what Helen says: they're… they want programs that they can go through themselves; they can work themselves, and they will contact you if they have a problem and they're expect to get an answer—but it's not very often. And unless you build it into the assessment, you're not going to get a lot of effective collaboration and learning; you're just not… because most of the students are not on there for that. They've got full-time jobs, they get home, they've got kids, and they've got everything else. They have a few hours late at night to get on—they want to get on, get it and get off.
Graham:	But I think you can apply that to the on-campus body as well: I mean it's a changing group of students today too. And they want to do the things with the minimum time on uni and they want to go off and do their work, and all the other things that they try and fit into their lives. So…
Inter:	I wonder on that note, as a final question. I know it's really difficult to think about the ideal world of teaching in universities, and a university like Deakin; but if you could think ideally: are there things that you would like to see happen that aren't happening at the moment in regard to trying to improve the quality of teaching and learning environment? Whether it be, you know, the Commerce degree, or in the Economics major? There are opportunities to do things, that, we're not doing now that, that you'd like to see happen in the future to improve the teaching of economics at a place like Deakin?
Hellier:	I think Helen, can I…
Scarborough:	Yeah, yeah.
Hellier:	…to be kind…
Scarborough:	I thought that question's too hard for me.
Hellier:	(I don't want to seem like I'm hogging…) But, ah, I think Helen raised a very good point, and I think there's… and it goes back to our interviews with employers as well. I think, what's required of undergraduate students at the BCom level, and perhaps even at Honours level, but certainly at BCom level is quite different to what's required at a postgraduate level, and higher-degree level. And it comes out particularly in economics, but I think it comes out in statistics, it comes out in maths, it comes out in a whole lot of areas I think. At the undergraduate level, you're looking for a well-rounded graduate. That has well-honed, we-developed generic skills. And they include data analysis, data gathering, data interpretation and presentation—in various mediums, and an ability to be able to solve problems logically. But at postgraduate level, it's quite different. You need to have specific (particularly in economics—particularly in most disciplines of course) you need to have very specific, well-honed, detailed skills. And if we want large graduate programs, and well-developed PhD programs and so on, then there's this problem that there's a small group of students that you want to bring through to go into your graduate program, but the great bulk of students really, are not going to be a Commerce in our case. They just want a very good, well-rounded economics education. So, we don't want for them in programs that are very highly mathematical. They don't have the skills, they're not interested, and it's going to tune them off in droves. And they'll vote with their feet—they don't do stats, they don't do maths, they don't do all those things. They don't do high-level psych—again with the maths… all this stuff. They'll avoid. And it's really not appropriate for what they want. And employers are saying that as well. So somehow (and this is not just now) but somehow, we've really got to face that issue. And it's pretty important in economics. Particularly too when you hire staff that are PhDs, that want to come into a school, and want to have a well-developed graduate program, that's what they've come for. But really, in reality, the great bulk of students are not those sorts of students. That's always a tension. That we haven't really resolved all that effectively, I don't think.
Scarborough:	No...
Hellier:	And it's not dumbing down that's often the criticism: 'oh, you're dumbing the course down' it's a sort of an aside, and a put-off. It's not that at all, it's what appropriate for the level of student and the graduate that you're bringing out at that level. I think that's a very important learning issue.
Graham:	So it's really to do with the content of our units, isn't it? that we need probably a bit of time spent there.
Hellier:	And the tricky thing, is that you can have all two streams—you could say 'let's stream it' but there are some students, who will take the general course, and eventually want to go to the other. And a lot of our off-campus students are like that. They're very competent people, and start doing to be competent. But many of them could easily do Masters programs, and other programs. So you don't want these courses to be terminal, if they choose the undergraduate program. So there are difficulties of learning and program development.
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