Psychological Perspectives on Learning

Meeting with a committee member, we talked about how I need to look at all articles dealing with agency and learning, including all learning theories that talk about agency.    This is a huge body of literature.  I could read for weeks on end and not even touch a percentage of this literature.   So, I also need to come up with some strategies for patterns/topics, ways to situate/scope the literature.

There are four main streams of thought concerning how learning happens (Smith, M. K. (2003) 'Learning theory', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/b-learn.htm, Last update: May 29, 2012):

1. Behaviorist
2. Cognitive
3. Humanistic
4. Social/Situational 

Other Theories of Learning: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/tip/theories.html

Speed Reading

To improve my reading skills, I took a one-session speed-reading course, which really helped me for about a week until I didn't practice anymore.  But here are the main principles for me to remember, when I want to brush up.

6 P's of Speed Reading

1. Posture. Sit in a chair, comfortable for body. Tilt book between 45-60 degrees. Sit with back straight and keep alignment.  Find what works for you.  Approach reading with a goal in mind.
2. Preview.  Prepare your mind for what you're reading.  Skim for names, titles, places, pictures, headings, terms, and other types of things you'll encounter when reading.  Stir questions for when you actually read.
3. Purpose.  Have a purpose to keep you focused, give you a reason for reading.  Understand the principles, understand the reading well enough to discuss, learn about ___, etc. Have specific questions to answer.
4. Pacing.  Use a metronome to keep you reading at a comfortably challenging pace. (The beat should tell you that you should be completing a line of text. 50-60 works best for me.)
5. Periodic Mapping.  Find an amount of time to read, then after that amount of time, write down what you read (every 5-10 min.).  Be sure you're retaining it by writing it down after. Full sentence or notes, or charts, or pictures.  Whatever works for you. Write for a minute, then get back to reading.
6. Practice.  Practice with a metronome to practice reading quickly.  At first, try just to keep up with the beat, then try re-reading lines you didn't completely understand.

Dissertation Skills

Over the months I've been doing my research, it is difficult to detect any improvement.  I feel like I"m going around in circles.  I just encountered a line in a book, Talent is Overrated, that gives this warning: "Extensive research in a wide range of fields shows that many people not only fail to become outstandingly good at what they do, no matter how many years they spend doing it, they frequently don't even get any better than they were when they started" (p. 3). While it is sad that people feel like they don't have to get any better at what they're doing, and they can just keep on keepin' on, I think that's exactly what I've been doing in my dissertation research just to stay afloat.  And yet I'm reminded of another quote, "What e'er thou art, do well thy part."  I don't know how long I'll be doing this research, so I might as well get better at it.

While I realize sometimes there is seemingly no pattern at all to dissertation research, I believe there are many skills which, perhaps if I practiced, would help me get better at being a Ph.D. student.  Here are some skills I feel might contribute to my becoming a better graduate student, that would be interesting to observe in myself...

Dissertation Skills

Work/Concentration Skills

• Setting a goal for what to find before going on to something else (or checking fb)
• Setting goals each time I sit to work
• Working for a chunk of time
• Sticking with a particular topic
• getting more specific within the topic
• Recording progress 
• Drinking enough water 
• Good posture/ergonomics for working on the computer
• Typing skills (speed, accuracy) 
• Avoiding bad habits (the ones you don't think about while reading/doing something else)
• No self-pity!

 Literature Review Skills

• summarizing articles
• where to skim vs. where to deep dive
• using the right search terms, databases
• Keeping track of search terms and databases
• creating a system with note-taking/citation tools
• aligning searches with set topic
• Finding joy in my learning
• Sharing/Articulating what I find
• Note-taking skills 
• When reading an article, look into articles that cite that article, and articles that are cited by that article (forwards and backwards)

Reading Skills (speed, comprehension, enjoyment)

• # of articles/books read each day 
• "reading to write" - finding the points I need from the things I read

Committee Skills

• Meeting with committee members regularly, to be accountable for what I say I will do
• Communicating where I'm at to the people who need to know
• Understanding/articulating what my committee members are suggesting
• Making discussion points to prepare for conversations
• Taking notes afterwards to remember/parse conversation take-aways
• Setting a next appointment before the end of the conversation
• Acting on the conversations
• Asking for help at the right times, from the right people
• Welcoming Correction/Taking correction well (not being a pushover, but not blowing up at committee members)
• Pacing changes in my dissertation (changes in direction, in drafts, in committee members, not getting impatient or acting too quickly)
• Organizing people
• Making meetings as efficient as possible 
• Expressing gratitude for the help I receive 
• Being patient with committee members
• Being firm with committee members

Learning Community Skills

• Volunteering time and effort to help others in their research
• Finding connections between what I'm studying and things that might help others
• Building human capital/Networking 
• Giving Back to my Department
• Communicating articulately and accurately with others what I am working on and the status of my research

Presentation Skills

• Looking for opportunities to  present what I'm working on
• Making presentations interesting
• Writing academically, but making it interesting
• Feeling confidence in myself (aligning thoughts/words to end goal)
• Making deliberate attempts to articulate my project and my work to other people

Faith/Academics Balance

• Remembering to pray for help/opportunities
• knowing how I feel about my topic
• understanding the topic's significance for my personal life
• believing in my future
• Forgiving others

Life Balance Skills

• Doing things with friends-- People skills, Being polite, being relaxed, being funny, having fun
• Prioritizing research with school/church/family/community responsibilities
• exercise, diet
• Acknowledging the good things that are happening in my life from my dissertation experience
• trying new things
• Remembering my talents/hobbies that are not developed through the dissertation research
• when to engage in outside projects to develop practical skills not being developed through dissertation research 

Revisions 3

Title: Becoming Familiar with a New Technology: A Case Study of Embodied Familiarization

WHY: The purpose of this research is to look at the instance of learning to use a new technology as a process of embodied familiarization, and to describe everyday learning as meaningful, situated participation.

Intro: Agency and Learning

• Y&S - many learning theories are influenced by hard physical determinism
• Looking at humans in this light may be a narrow outlook
• Main streams of thought: Agency and Learning
•  Self-Regulated Learning
• Logical Learning Theory
• Self-Determinism and Learning
• Y,S & F Learning theory - based on human agency
• Explanation of Participational Agency, Learning as Embodied Familiarization
• Explanation of Deterministic Learning Theories
• Explanation of differences
• A participational agent confronted with a situation of unfamiliarity 
• When teachers encounter Learning Suite, some of them choose not to explore it at all.  Others explore it in many different ways.  
• This study a qualitative study providing examples of specific adult learning experience from learner's perspective and in the learner's own words.  A study of learning to see whether or not Yanchar, Spackman and Faulconer's theory of learning could explain this experience agentically. 
• Understanding learning experiences in terms of YS&F's learning theory will provide insight into how learning could be understood as an agentic process, and the impact that perspective could have on future research in teaching and learning. 

Research Questions:

1. How do typical university faculty members describe their experiences of learning to use a new LMS?
2. How do their responses agree or disagree with Y, S & F learning theory?
3. How does what we know from YS&F's learning theory based on agency change the way we look at learning?

Context for Research

• LMS literature
• How those fundamental ideals/principles could help teachers and learners
• BYU Learning Suite  - statistics, WHAT WE KNOW
• Why this is a good scenario to study
• Why this study -

Method 

Hermeneutic Phenomenology in a Three-Part Study:

1. Case Overview

• Describe the background context of the case, including a description of participant, the setting of learning, equipment involved, and their historical/cultural background with teaching and with using an LMS, and finally their own experience learning to use an LMS.

1. Case Narrative

• Parse the learning experience into themes along the lines of LAEF.  
• Puts the learning experience in a narrative using the vocabulary of LAEF.

1. Case Interpretation 

• Discussion of insights from the overview and the narrative, expressed in themes and inferences regarding the learning experience of faculty members becoming familiar with a new technology 

 Data Collection:

• Qualitative interviews, 3-parts:
• Overall understanding of the professor, the subject they teach, their education/experience, how they are involved with Learning Suite
• The learning experience itself, how they heard about Learning Suite and what they did.
• Understand why the professor did what they did, what meaning it had for them, how they felt, and how their involvement affected their learning experience
• Sample Questions:
• Tell me about your self.  What brought you here? What is your normal day like as a professor?
• How did you first hear about Learning Suite? What did you think/feel about it at first?  What did you do about it? How did you start looking at the program?  Did you hear about the experiences of other faculty members, and if so, how do you think that changed your experience? Which helps did you use? When did you feel like you were getting more familiar with the program?
• Why did you want to become a professor? 

Participant Selection
Will talk with about 5 professors who originally chose to learn the technology.

Data Analysis:

• First, organize transcripts for Case Overview, including statements about who the participant was, and why the participant was doing what he was doing. 
• Second, organize transcripts for Case Narrative, including statements that might provide evidence for LAEF.
• Third, develop a thematic structure for the Case Interpretation, interpreting in terms of interesting/relevant findings, using data analysis method from research on design practices (Williams et al., 2011)

Trustworthiness: Standards for qualitative inquiry (Williams et al., 2001)

 Results: Offer insights of learning as understood by LAEF. See if the stories relate more with LAEF or with soemthign else. Stories of learning a new technology to give a glimpse into peoples' purposes, values, concerns, and struggles in everyday encounters with unfamiliarity.  Also, it gives a view of learning from a hermeneutic perspective, which is different from traditional behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist viewpoints. 

Research on Embodied Familiarization

Purpose:  to investigate specific instances of learning as a process of embodied familiarization; to analyze everyday learning in terms of mattering, being-in, interpretation, whole-part relations, narrative, and so on.  To narratively describe and interpret fully-embodied, human learning as meaningful, situated participation. (Yanchar)

Participational Agency --> Learning as Embodied Familiarization --> ??

As the study is right now, there are a few concerns:

• Looking at LAEF is still too broad (maybe), isn't specific enough to get a good understanding of surrounding literature. (what specifically am I looking at, and how does that intersect with my research context?)
• Theory is still so new, it will be a very preliminary study.
• May overlap with Jon's study, looking at how learning experiences can be analyzed looking at LAEF.
• Qualitative research  won't let you go in with your own prediction of what you'll find.

Yet, following Yanchar's brainstorm for research of LAEF seems to be talking about a study just like what I have already.


So, which ones are okay above, and which ones are important to avoid? Which ones could we work around?

OPTIONS for addressing these concerns:

 1. Look at a particular part of LAEF

• Yanchar & Spackman (2012) suggest "theory and research in [a defensible account of human learning directly from a theory of agency] would benefit from studying two major concepts: a) interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge. 2) narrative structure. 
• Jon is currently looking at narrative structure, which would leave me with the concept of the interplay between tacit and explicit (T/E) knowledge.
• T/E knowledge is a HUGE topic, that actually broadens my research instead of narrowing it.  But it is very interesting, and what we learn from it could be applied in many different contexts.
• Another option would be looking at how people explore/become familiar with new technology.  The only concern with that approach is that it does not directly address the concerns associated with Agency and Learning, except in looking at choices, which is a different body of literature that is not really easy to navigate, and doesn't always relate to Agency and Learning.

2.  More specific into Technology Adoption Literature

• Learning versus adopting a new technology - learning to use, not necessarily integrating into classroom
• LMS literature

 3. Look at a more specific research question:

• Why does an agent not learn to use a new technology?
• Why does an agent choose not to learn (or give up trying to learn) a new technology?

4. Ignore being more specific

• Don't focus on tacit/explicit knowledge in this research, just look at LAEF as a whole
• Find a methodology that lets me do what I want to 

 My inclination right now is to go with whatever is easiest.  If those don't work, I might try something bigger.  So, I will start with no. 4 and work up. 

Does cooking in the Microwave Really Cause Cancer?

I don't know.  But I definitely looked it up today.  That's how bad my research has been.  I can't get myself to focus on my topic for two seconds, because I am lacking direction in my dissertation research.  How do I create direction for myself?

Earlier this week, I met with a professor to talk about my "anchor," the things I am going to stick to and make work for this dissertation:

• Agency and Learning
• LAEF
• ...

If I want to do those, I need to narrow it down a little, because both of those are too big.  And I'm not sure I have any other option than to discuss explicit versus tacit knowledge, because that is one of the topics that will help look at agency, and is discussed in LAEF. Also, it is an area not currently being researched by another Ph.D. student. 

It is also one of the largest topics in psychology, and in education.  I remember learning about Flow in a class on gaming, and that's definitely related to this issue.  It's a whole different body of literature than I've ever looked into before.  And that's where I'm going to go.  For today, this is my direction.