Pushing the boundaries of self-directed learning: research findings from a study of u.lab participants in Scotland

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the research findings from a qualitative study of adult learners in Scotland taking part in a u.lab MOOC. As a new phenomenon in adult learning, u.lab has been extremely popular yet, at present, there exists little empirical data about either the process or outcomes of the learning experience. This study aims to provide a starting point for further study of u.lab and other emergent trends in adult learning. Here, the accounts of 12 women and men participating in u.lab were analysed using a grounded theory framework. The inductive nature of this approach allowed us to build up a picture of participant experience. Of significance in the findings were participants’ relationship to course content, experience of learning in community and engagement in shaping the learning experience. We draw on Illeris’ model of the learning field to deepen our understanding of participant experience and to illustrate how the particular constellation of content, incentive and interaction dimensions of learning in u.lab creates a learning space where the possibility for self-direction and self-organisation is extended beyond existing practice.     

Motivating adults to learn mathematics in the workplace: a trade union approach

ABSTRACT

The aim of this qualitative study is to explore adults’ motivation to learn mathematics in the workplace and the role that the trade union education approach promoted in the United Kingdom plays in that motivation. The findings draw on data from 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with adults learning mathematics, organised through their trade union representatives. Trade unions promote education which uses teaching and learning approaches based on collectivist and activist principles, which is different from mainstream education, so the research explores what might be learnt from this approach. The findings show that the trade union-led approach enables even long-held negative feelings towards mathematics to become positive. The research finds a strong link between supportive social networks, including Union Learning Representative, as well as positive social and emotional encounters in the classroom that develop adult learners’ confidence, increasing their motivation to both learn and use mathematics in their everyday lives. This change in feelings and motivation is termed an Affective Mathematical Journey. These findings, while taking place in a non-traditional context, nevertheless are relevant to practitioners working with adults in both traditional (school and college) and non-traditional (workplace and community) settings. There are also indications of the positive influence this learning has on the relationship between individual members and their trade union organisations.     

Reproduction and transformation of students’ technology practice: The tale of two distinctive secondary student cases

Disparities in the technology practices, skills and knowledge of school students still exist, despite widespread investment, and use in schools. In order to understand why inequalities remain, we first need a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology practice, including understanding how their backgrounds, circumstances and experiences shape their perceptions of and engagement with technology. This paper proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing in order to highlight how and why students use technology at school and in their everyday lives. The paper reports on a qualitative embedded case study of 13–16-year-old students in two Australian secondary schools. In-depth case studies of two selected students illustrate the complex nature of students’ technology practice. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital are used as a lens through which to view and understand inequalities in students’ technology practice. The findings demonstrate the utility of sociological theory in educational technology research by highlighting systems and structures of reproduction and transformation. Furthermore, the findings can inform an approach to teaching and learning that considers students’ varied experiences, knowledge, perspectives and backgrounds relating to technology.     

A tentative return to experience in researching learning at work

This paper explores possibilities for more democratic approaches to researching learning in and through everyday workplace practices. This links with a concern with who is able to speak in representations of learning at work, what is able to be spoken about and how knowing, learning and experience are inscribed in theories of workplace learning. I propose that Rancière’s notion of ‘the distribution of the sensible’, which draws attention to an aesthetic dimension of experience, knowledge and politics, provides a useful way of exploring learning in and through everyday workplace practices. The approach points to the possibility of knowledge without hierarchies and a shift from a knowledge – ignorance binary. An understanding of experience as aesthetic enables accounts of learning which counter the story of destiny in literature on learning in and through everyday practice. It also points to a very different way of doing academic research. The presupposition of equality is the point of departure in this approach and the purpose of research is the verification of equality (rather than the verification of oppression). The paper makes a significant contribution to literature on learning in and through everyday workplace practices by disrupting a prevailing view that knowledge is necessarily tied to identity.     

Researching ‘learning lives’ – a new agenda for learning,media and technology

In this article, we revisit the history of our interest in the term, ‘learning lives’ in order to explicate the meaning(s) of the phrase and to set up a series of challenges for research into young people’s learning. We suggest that a learning lives perspective depends on three areas for investigation. First of all is the challenge of how to capture, theorise and describe the travel and trajectories if researchers are truly to ‘follow’ learners through, around and in their learning across everyday life. Secondly, it means refusing what seems to be the most apparent levers of change, namely media and technology. And thirdly, learning lives approaches need to address the pedagogicization of everyday life and the schooled society. Learning lives approaches help us see the changing place of the meaning of education and institutional pedagogies across all the nooks and crannies of everyday life.     

Student and teacher perceptions of learning and teaching: a case study

Exploring student and teacher perspectives on approaches to learning and teaching reveals interesting insights and new understandings for practice by involving the two key groups of participants in the learning and teaching story. Do students understand and experience learning and teaching similarly or differently from the way teachers intend them to? This paper describes the findings of a study that explored perceptions of learning and teaching in one discipline of an Australian dual-sector university from both a student and staff perspective. Teachers’ conceptions of teaching are also explored and provide extra insight and understanding of the approach to learning and teaching taking place. Key findings of this multifaceted study employing a case study with a mixed method approach include a difference between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of approaches to learning and teaching. Implications for broader practice are highlighted and explored.     

An individual learning journey: learning as becoming a vocational teacher

In this paper, I address a perceived gap in the lifelong learning literature. There is very little research which addresses how learning should be construed, when individuals transition across a longitudinal span of their working life. This transition which could be viewed as a process of ‘becoming somebody’, often oversimplifies the full complexity of individuals’ learning experiences. Using a sociocultural perspective, the paper explores the lived experiences of individuals in the process of becoming a vocational teacher, in order to help conceptualise the individuals’ learning through their working life. The study draws upon data from a completed research on a group of vocational education trainee teachers learning to teach. This paper argues that learning varies significantly from individual to individual, time to time, context to context and also in different stages of individuals’ lives. This transition could be viewed as an individual learning journey, through understanding the interrelationship between individuals and the contexts, across the individuals’ lives. Drawing from this understanding, the individual’s agency is presented as a way that individuals construct their own lifecourse through the actions and choices they made within the opportunities and constraints of the context. The findings of the study also contribute to the understanding of changes, from the individual learner’s perspective, which could be useful for policy and practice relating to lifelong learning.     

Rethinking reflective practice in professional lifelong learning using learning metaphors

Studies relating to reflection and reflective practice in learning, specifically workplace learning, have gradually emerged from within the professional education literature. Evidence has seen a shift from an individualistic to a more collective approach to reflection, in an attempt to move away from viewing learning as an individual action. Simultaneously attention has been given to socio-cultural theories which view learning as social practice inherent in our everyday lives, including work. This paper aims to engage in the current debate regarding the polarised conceptualisations of reflective practice within the context of professional learning. Drawing on this debate, as well as on learning metaphors, this paper proposes that professionals should engage in collective reflective practice for both individual and organisational development within workplaces; locations which could be seen as increasingly ambiguous and unpredictable throughout individuals’ working lives. Hence, we need to rehabilitate and extend some of the key aspects of the traditional concept of reflective practice to accommodate the changing terrain of professional practice within an individual professional's lifelong learning.     

‘Understanding things from within’. A Husserlian phenomenological approach to doing educational research and inquiring about learning

This article describes a phenomenological approach to doing educational inquiry and understanding learning. Working within the qualitative tradition, the research is conceived as ‘narrow and deep’, intimate research that focuses definitively on internality and on first-hand experiences of learning. The theoretical background for doing phenomenological research is explained, especially in regard to the ideas of Edmund Husserl. Then, the author’s own systematic process for doing phenomenological research in education and exploring learning is offered with examples from his doctoral research project in which he investigated doctoral students and their experience of negotiating their learning. Samples from the author’s writing in regard to one research participant are used to illustrate the research process explicated in the article.     

A dynamic learning concept in early years’ education: a possible way to prevent schoolification

In early childhood education and care, Nordic social pedagogy approach is challenged by a learning orientation that often results in unproductive ‘either/or’ thinking. Therefore, based on the two approaches and by analysing several dimensions of Froebel’s ideas and prevailing social-historical activity (play) theory, the author deduces four generally accepted play criteria that form the basis for the construction of a dynamic and play-based learning concept that has the three following cornerstones as focal points: (1) learning happens in activities where the child is an active participant and interacts and communicates with other people; (2) meaningful activities pave the way for children’s learning; these are activities where the child’s motive aligns with the goal of the activity; and (3) learning is seen as a productive and creative activity characterised by imagination.     

A sociocultural analysis of the ethics of involving children in educational research

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ethical complexities of involving children in research in the contexts of their families, schools and communities. We argue for an approach that is dynamic, reflexive, responsive and informed by an understanding of how local cultures impact on and shape negotiations and practices around ethical issues and processes. We use different sociocultural lenses to analyse the complexities of ethical processes and practices at the beginning of a research project which explored children’s informal and everyday learning. The article contributes to ethical debates about involving children with research through foregrounding the multiplicities and complexities that emerge when researchers are attentive to the practices and values of the settings that children’s and researchers’ lives traverse.     

Peer relations in peer learning

Over the last decades, much research on peer learning practices has been conducted. Quantitative, experimental designs focusing on problems of cause and effect dominate. Consequently, effects on achievement are well documented, as is the influence of different conditions on the effect rate. In spite of the general acknowledgment of the importance of peer learning and a large amount of research on collective learning practices, questions regarding the quality of peer interaction, and how peer relations influence learning, are not well elaborated. This paper complements the discussion on effect focusing on the processes of interaction between peers, and relates these to theoretical perspectives on learning as fundamentally social. Inspired by meta-ethnography an integrative analysis across seven qualitative studies was accomplished. The approach enabled an investigation of peer interactions in different educational settings. The analysis elaborates on how instructional designs and students’ relational knowledge mediate interaction in peer learning. The paper further discusses the potential of approaches synthesising qualitative studies as a tool in qualitative research.     

Virtual teamwork: students studying about ethics in an online environment

The fundamental concepts of ethics: value, obligation and responsibility are what many of us use in our everyday decision‐making on issues that affect our lives. Students in the coursework unit ‘Science and technology in contemporary society’ learn about these concepts in relation to science and technological research and development. The learning takes place in small teams within an online learning environment. This research study reports on a case study that investigated the nature of the collaboration by virtual team members undertaking semi‐structured online tasks to develop an understanding of the topic on ethics in the coursework unit. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this type of learning, the types of collaboration that took place between virtual team members and an analysis of the quality of the completed tasks resulting from the virtual teamwork are presented in this paper. Factors affecting the success of the learning experience are also discussed.     

Exploring the relationship between students’ learning styles and learning outcome in engineering laboratory education

Abstract

It is a commonly accepted notion that people take different approaches in learning. Although attention has been given to learning styles as one of the determinants of learning performance, there is are limitations to the inferential approach to understanding the impact of learning styles on learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of learning preference on student learning outcome in engineering labs. The findings of this paper contribute to the existing literature in two ways. This study describes the typology of participants’ learning styles, confirming some results from similar research. Additionally, it examines the impact of learning styles, using the Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic (VARK) inventory as indicators of students’ learning outcomes, and how the findings confirm or contradict prior research results in important ways. Further, this study includes demographic information to investigate the influence on learning outcome. Discussions of the results from both analyses will contribute to an academic understanding of the critical success factors of the learning process and their practical application in laboratory learning.     

Learning science by doing science: an authentic science process-learning model in postsecondary education

Research on understanding the full extent that an authentic science research experience engages students in how scientists think and act is sparse. ‘Learning-science-by-doing-science’ (LSDS) is an emerging self-guided process-learning model in postsecondary science education. It offers authentic science research opportunities that drive students to think and act like scientists. This study investigates the LSDS approach as a potential model for science learning at postsecondary level and aims to answer a main research inquiry – what are the students’ and teaching staff’s perceptions of students’ learning gains and the quality of their learning experiences in an authentic research environment within the LSDS model? To answer this question, data were collected from the students, alumni, instructors, teaching assistants and the program director via questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. Students’ and staff’s lived experiences and their perceptions on their authentic research experiences within the LSDS model were used to articulate the key attributes and stages of the LSDS model. The outcomes of this study can be used to help other science programs implement similar authentic research process learning approaches in their own contexts.     

儿童早期学习品质的本质内涵、因素结构及学习效应

近年来儿童早期学习品质受到国内外学术界的广泛关注。对61个国内外实证研究及25份新修订政策文本的分析表明,学界对儿童学习品质最基本的理解是学习品质关注的是儿童如何学习,而不是儿童学到了什么,描述的是儿童在趋近学习的过程中和投入学习时表现出来的一系列行为、认知与态度倾向;就其构成因素来说,主动性、坚持性、专注力、好奇心、创新创造、灵活性是实证研究与政策文件共同反映的高频因素;学习品质与儿童的在园学习与入学准备显著相关,且能直接预测儿童未来不同阶段的学业成就;学习品质对儿童的同伴关系、社会能力的发展也有显著影响,并能显著降低行为问题与学业困难方面的风险;学习品质在儿童的学习与发展中起着重要的调节作用,如可以调节低质量学校教育或家庭贫困对儿童学习与发展的负面影响,可以降低个体行为问题对其学业成就的不利影响等。学习品质在儿童早期学习与毕生发展中都具有重要的奠基性作用,未来应进一步探索更为低龄儿童学习品质的因素结构及其发展规律,加强我国教育背景下学习品质对儿童学习效应的实证检验与纵向追踪,探索学习品质发展的个体差异及其增长轨迹,开展相关准实验研究以进一步明确学习品质与学习效应之间的关系。不仅要促进我国儿童早期教育实践领域高度重视和践行儿童学习品质的培养,而且应在宏观政策层面把儿童学习品质的发展纳入学前教育质量评价体系,建立儿童学习品质发展数据库,实施儿童学习品质发展监测。     

Students’ assessment preferences and approaches to learning: can formative assessment make a difference?

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the relationships between hands‐on experiences with formative assessment, students’ assessment preferences and their approaches to learning. The sample consisted of 108 university first‐year Bachelor’s students studying criminology. Data were obtained using the Revised two‐factor study process questionnaire (R‐SPQ‐2F) and the Assessment preferences inventory (API). The study shows that differences in assessment preferences are correlated with differences in approach to learning. Students’ preferences for assessment methods with higher‐order thinking tasks are significantly lower after actual experience with a formative assessment. Moreover, students also changed their approaches to learning after hands‐on experience with a formative mode of assessment. Surprisingly, this change evinced a more ‘surface approach’ to learning. Nevertheless, this is in line with other recent research findings. The paper ends with some possible explanations, and new directions for research are proposed.