Monthly Archives: June 2006

Probationary research questions

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And these are my research questions as framed in my probationary report…

This research will consider the affordances of asynchronous online communities in higher education, asking how they can be utilised to support rather than to impede learning. It will also examine ways in which learners participate in a virtual environment. The main research questions which will drive the work are:

  • How do virtual learning communities support distance learners in the co-construction of knowledge?
  • How are self-presentation, identity and community relations implicated in learning online?

And again…

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So, my supervisors said that the last set of research questions were questions for an entire career, not for something as narrow as a thesis. Now I’m down to:

How do virtual learning communities based in asynchronous online conferences support higher-education learners in the co-construction of knowledge?

How are self-presentation, identity and community relations implicated in online learning in these communities?

Research questions revisited

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I like to keep tabs on my research questions, so before I delete this week’s set, I’ll post them here.

This what I proposed in the draft of my probationary report:

What are the key characteristics of a virtual learning community?

Which characteristics of a virtual learning community support learning?

Which characteristics of a virtual learning community impede learning?

Epistolary interviewing

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Just so that I don’t lose it – Here’s Margaret Debenham on epistolary interviewing:

Finally a number of Personal Interviews were undertaken to complete the main study by exploring inferences drawn from the earlier studies through direct interaction with the participants. Eleven students were interviewed in total.  This phase of the work was undertaken in two parts, using two different interview techniques. These were ‘face-to-face’ interviews and on-line interviews by asynchronous e-mail, a novel method introduced in this thesis, termed epistolary interview.  This latter method was adapted for text-based communication from the type of semi-structured conversational format described by Wilson (1996) as a suitable research tool for in depth exploration of interviewee experience in a face-to-face situation.  Both sets of interviews were based on a similar framework of interview questions. (p. 11) 

Debenham, M. (2001). Computer Mediated Communication and Disability Support: Addressing Barriers to Study for Undergraduate Distance Learners with Long-term Health Problems. Chapter 1 p 11. Doctoral thesis. Milton Keynes: The Open University.  John added:
If anyone is interested in accessing Margaret Debenham’s PhD thesis in an electronic form, it can be found through the following site:

The url of the web page is http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjdebenham/MDpage2.htm.This will normally be accessed from a link on my home page at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjdebenham/MDpage1.htm

Moment of insecurity

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I really enjoy my blog, and I’ve been irritated that the damn probationary report has got in the way of my posting to it recently.

It just occurred to me that I spend a lot of time reflecting on the blog s and how we’ll be able to analyse them, and occasionally emailing other researchers and reading their blogs. Maybe I should be researching blogs, not online learning.

Having just struggled though my literature review I have this sense that everyone knows so much about learning and online learning. It’s really difficult to get a handle on it all. There are umpteen journals, so there’s more appearing every day. What I like about thinking about the blogging (and about epistolary interviewing, which I’m also thinking about at the moment) is that it’s fresh and new and untheorised and seems to open up so many possibilities.

Give me a choice on reading a book on blogging or a book on e-learning and I’d go for the blogging one straight away.

Skiving off

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Well, I was booked to spend all day at Denise’s research day on e-assessment. I went this morning and, I must say, it was ver interesting.

But having been stressed out with deadlines all week, and expecting to be stressed out agin tomorrow when my supervisors have had a chance to pull to pieces my probationary report, what do I do? Do I get on with the mountains of work I’ve accumulated? No. I go and change the theme on my blog, watch a videocast and idly flick through my emails.