WHY: Understand individual experiences of how learner choices affects learning. Because we need to be better learners.
Existing Literature Organization: (organizing this differently may help be more supportive. Also include #1s)
Education has been around for a long time. Like, a REALLY long time. From so many years of research and learning and teaching, you'd think we would know a lot about how it all works. And we kinda do. We have a lot of theories that explain things that happen, especially in the classroom, that have been extremely helpful in helping teachers understand the learners and how to make them learn what they need to know. There are thousands of studies on what goes on in the classroom from the researcher's perspective. But we still know very little about learning from the learner's perspective, in the learner's own words.
In order to look at learning from this perspective, we have to think about what a learner does to learn. A lot of people are currently debating about whether or not a learner causes his or her own actions themselves, or whether it is due to genetics, peer pressure, or media, but that literature is inconclusive. Besides, no one has ever asked them. We have very little literature on what the learner says they choose to do to learn and why they say they choose to do it. There are a few studies that talk about choice and learning, but those studies are, for the majority, quantitative, and deal with children, who often require more structure than adults to learn something, which could mean that they do less to learn. These studies do not give us an accurate or descriptive depiction of how the learner describes his or her own choices and actions which contribute to or inhibit learning.
In order to look at learning from the learner's perspective, how 'bout we look at an adult learning experience where the learner has the most control. And how 'bout we look at a learning experience in an area that is breaking ground in education today. Let's look at higher education faculty members learning to use a new technology.
Research Questions:
- How do faculty members describe the role of choices in their learning of new technology?
- What do their responses tell us about how learner choices affect learning?
A study looking at learning to use a new technology could resonate with the field of technology adoption. With the increasing demand for technology in schools, technology adoption, specifically in higher education, has become a hot topic. But most technology adoption studies only look at a specific choice the faculty members make: Do they choose to use it or not? Some studies go so far as to ask the faculty members why, but it is usually only to contribute generalizable attributes to those to choose to use the new technology and those who do not, which does not really tell us what the learner can DO to learn. Other studies go into assessing the effects of that choice, but only by looking at performance scores and other measurable results, instead of looking into the experiences of the learners. Most technology adoption studies are not concerned with the many choices the new user is making as they choose to learn and implement new technology.
Technology adoption studies also generally fail to address the many kinds of choices a learner can make. Learning and implementing a new technology, consummates many choices, and many different kinds of choices. For instance, a large choice would be whether or not to use the new technology in the classroom. This kind of choice might affect the learning of the new technology in that it might take away the need to learn it, and the learner might discontinue learning the new technology. Other large choices might include which features of the new tool to use with a class, or, if there is a technology problem, will the learner choose to solve it, or will they choose to be defeated by the technology? How much time and effort will they put into learning this tool before deciding whether or not to use it in their classes? Smaller choices would probably include which help features to use to learn the technology, and which help features to avoid? Why will they make those choices?
In most technology adoption studies, the definition of learning would be technology adoption. For this study, learning will be defined as the process of becoming familiar with something new (see Yanchar 2012, in press). This definition is concrete enough to withstand the current philosophical debates and will be broad enough to allow learners to freely talk about their experiences.
In May of 2012, Brigham Young University launched a new learning management system to replace an older, less-flexible, and more expensive learning management system. While this change was not too drastic, as it switched from one learning management system to another, the new learning management system raised much more curiosity than the old one. 50% of professors were interested in learning to use the new learning management system as opposed to the 12% who were interested in learning to use the former learning management system when it was first introduced to the university (Russell Osguthorpe, Director, BYU Center for Teaching and Learning, private conversation). In both cases, the faculty members were invited to attend training sessions and had access to several online videos. With the new learning management system, with a simple phone call, faculty members could request one-on-one, face-to-face help from "Implementation Assistants," student employees trained in the new technology. Many options were available to any faculty member to become more familiar with Learning Suite.
Learners' descriptions of their choices in their learning experiences will provide stories that will help us understand individual experiences of how learner choices affect learning. This understanding will not only help in designing better "learner helps" for assisting faculty members to learn new technology, but it will also help us see the things we as adults can choose to do to be better learners.
Method:
- Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis - Qual. research, gets at human experiences and meanings behind them, to the learners. Good b/c we can talk with professors about choices that were and were not meaningful to them. Also, I can interpret their responses as the researcher, which I will have to do in order to talk about choice and effects on learning. (LOOK MORE INTO THIS)
- Will talk with about 5 professors who originally chose to learn the technology, as identified by user data. (1-Early adopters, 2-Early Majority, 2-Late Majority, 1-Laggard [how were they selected, why this group? why adults?]) (FIX)
- Will ask them how they first chose to learn Learning Suite
- Tell me about your choices in learning to use Learning Suite. (What were some of the things you did to get more familiar with it?)
- Which helps did you use at first? Why those? How do you think those choices affected your learning experience?
(I was stuck, so Shelly suggested that I write like I'm talking...Let's see what comes of it!)
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