Empirical Research Findings Andreas Kollias IACMFORTH

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Empirical Research FindingsAndreas Kollias
(IACM/FORTH)

• An exploration on learners dispositions-in-action
  in the context of their involvement in a
  culturally and nationally diverse e-learning
  courses

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Goal/Aim

• The goal of the present research is to explore
  possible underlying learners dispositions-in-acti
  on that may emerge and shape during their
  involvement in socio-culturally diverse
  e-courses.
• Learners that join a multi-national course can be
  very different in their approaches to learning.
  They are most likely pre-disposed towards
  different types of learning experiences and
  activities. But as they engage in a new learning
  context and situation their dispositions not
  simply affect their actual practices but are also
  affected by them. This interplay between
  established schemas of beliefs and action and
  actual practice is what we call
  dispositions-in-action. Their identification
  and empirical investigation is aimed to offer us
  a deeper understanding of socio-cultural
  dimensions underlying learners approaches to
  learning activities and learning content.
• The wider aim of this research is to inform the
  design of e-learning contents that will better
  serve the learning needs and preferences of
  culturally diverse learners

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Methodology

• The exploratory nature of the research required
  the use of different kinds of data which invited
  for the employment of various research methods
  and techniques.
• The course
• Data regarding students actual practices
• Qualitative data obtained from students comments
• Quantitative data from questionnaires

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Quantitative data
Table1 Sample size by questionnaire
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The sample

• 47 students (20 males, 42,6) living in 15
  European countries, with the largest national
  groups coming from Greece (n16, 34) and the
  Netherlands (n8, 17).
• The largest age group was between 36 and 45 years
  (n21, 44,6)
• 55 (n26) of the sample had obtained or was in
  the process of obtaining a Masters or PhD degree,
  38 had obtain a university degree (n18)
• 16 (34) teachers, 9 (19) students, 9 academics,
  and 34 were other professionals including
  e-learning and IT specialists, professional
  trainers, and training consultants.

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Levels of involvement

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Students evaluations about the contribution of
types of activities to their learning
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Factors that may structure learners approaches
to e-course teaching-learning activities

• Factor analysis on 32 items from the pre-course
  and weekly questionnaires
• Five factors model (57) of the total variance

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1st factor (15) -12 items
traditional teaching/learning

• working on the basis of pre-structured tasks with
  the teacher being responsible for defining and
  structuring the learning goals, the study
  materials and the learning activities
• never questioning the choices made by the teacher
  regarding suggested study materials
• having negative feelings regarding
  whole-classroom discussions (insecurity,
  discussions are a waste of time) maintaining
  consensus and harmony and avoiding expressing
  criticism to the teacher or the other students
• winning whole-classroom individual competitions

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2nd factor (11) -5 items

• I would work harder for this weeks assignment
  in order to be among the students with the best
  grade
• Clear assessment criteria
• If my test score was low and I had the chance to
  do the test several times, I would definitely try
  to improve my score
• I usually work much harder in learning tasks that
  I know I will get a score from the teacher than
  in tasks that will not

grades chasing
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3rd factor (11) -5 items

• I would be very much interested to watch more
  experts video clips explaining to us what the
  important characteristics of e-Learning are
• I would be very much interested to watch more
  videos from experts explaining what are the
  trends relating to e-Learning today
• During week 3 of the course I did not really feel
  the need to turn to other students in the course
  in order to ask for help or discuss my ideas

source of knowledge
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4th factor (11) -6 items

• I usually try to find the shortest route through
  this courses assignments in terms of time and
  effort requirements
• When designing my self-study course I tried to
  implement as closely as possible some of the
  ideas presented in the WBT contents
• When I am certain about a solution to a problem I
  usually say it right away to the others.

shortest route
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5th factor (8,3) -4 items

• I liked it that the activities during the 5th
  week of the course did not require forum
  discussions
• I usually prefer individual learning tasks
  instead of group tasks
• I would be very active encouraging everybody
  talk about themselves
• I would have preferred a collaborative assignment
  for the 5th week

communicating/working with others
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Distribution of students per factor and degree of
acceptance to their conceptual content
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A multidimensional approach to students
practices-dispositions

• Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA)
• Students practicesdispositions (5347 table)
  (biographical data as illustrative)

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3 axes model (31)

• Axis 1 Discriminates between those with high and
  low involvement in the course (degree of
  determination)
• Axis 2 Discriminates between those with a clear
  stance towards their learning and those who are
  indecisive about what approach to adopt (clarity
  of approach)
• Axis 3 Traditional vs non traditional
  teaching/learning (pedagogy)

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Students views about the format/design of
learning content
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Source/practicality of learning content
19
Students views about wider socio-cultural
issues/multilingualism in learning content
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Multiple correspondence analysis on
content-related views

• 6047 table (dispositions and biographical
  illustrative)
• 3 axes model (24,7)
• Axis 1 socio-cultural issues/multilingualism
  (content relevancy not necessary-only for
  sensitive content vs undecided)
• Axis 2 Academic/practical (both-nonegthigh
  expertise)
• Axis 3 Format (graphic elements ok vs graphic
  elements show easiness gtAcademics)