The Use of WebQuest as a Constructivist Learning Tool in Secondary School Geography in Singapore

Educational practitioners often assume that students will be more motivated, learn more effectively and attain higher-order learning outcomes when they learn on the web, but little empirical evidence exist to confirm this. This study investigated how the student (subject) interacted with the web (tools) using WebQuest in the learning process (production) to generate the observed learning outcomes (object), involving the views of teachers as stakeholders (community) and the way the students worked in a group (division of labour) within the framework of an activity system. In essence, an adaptation of the Wolcott (1984) conception of a quasi-ethnography was used as the constructivist methodology for this study. The students appeared to be motivated by a number of factors including the presence or lack of intrinsic motivation for the subject matter, grades and marks as well as motivation arising from the use of the web itself. The teachers felt that there was a general lack of self efficacy. The web was a source of frustration and has a negative influence on motivation too. Four main issues arose out of studying the students’ interaction with the web, including search strategies, media richness of web pages, web distractions and technical constraints. Students’ information search strategies on the web tend to be more novice than expert; more aptly described as starting and chaining than browsing or differentiating using Ellis’ (1993) terminology. The web also acts as a source of distraction other than its primary role as a tool. Further, when the students did not seem to be distracted, frustration and hence apathy was more due to the slow bandwidth of internet which in turn affected the students’ interests. Apart from the five elements in Johnson and Johnson’s (1999) learning together model, time constraint was also an important factor determining the groups worked together. The high amount of extra-curricular activities after school limits the opportunities for students to meet for their information search and group processing. Although both teachers and students have claimed that they have been taught and are familiar with the processes of working in a group, the five elements were lacking in all observations. In terms of