Category Archives: Research questions

Rumpus research

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Research question: ‘In what ways is the Covid-19 pandemic changing understandings of the relationships between learning and fun?’

A limited case study of a research group in a UK university. We expect our findings to have implications beyond that group.

Data collection using epistolary interviews (via email – one question per email, enabling thoughtful responses that can build over time) with everyone in the research group who wants to take part. Participation is voluntary and participants can drop out at any time.

Questions for epistolary interviews:

  • What have been your main experiences of learning and teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic?
  • What have been your main experiences of fun during the Covid-19 pandemic?
  • How has learning and teaching changed (if at all) during the Covid-19 pandemic? In your answer, please take into account your own perspective and the wider perspective.
  • How have you experienced fun changing (if at all) during the Covid-19 pandemic? In your answer, please take into account your own perspective and the wider perspective.
  • How has your understanding of the relationship between fun and learning/teaching changed (if at all) during the Covid-19 pandemic?
  • In what ways (if any) do you think the relationship between learning and fun will change after the Covid-19 pandemic?

Method:

According to Yin (who I like following for case study research because he has a clear structure to work to) there are five important components of case study design.

  1. Five components of a case-study research design are particularly important
  2. Its questions (see above)
  3. Its propositions, if any (Prop 1- there is a relationship between learning and fun. Prop 2 – this relationship will be highlighted during the pandemic Prop 3- this relationship may be changed by the pandemic and some of these changes can be foreseen)
  4. Its unit(s) of analysis (individual members of the research group)
  5. The logic linking the data to the propositions (data are collected from people who have reflected on the relationship between learning and fun and who have thought deeply by what is meant by fun and by learning. Also we engage in fun and learning. Also we are influenced by the pandemic)
  6. The criteria for interpreting the findings (thematic analysis to support explanation building, themes drawn from the data but also compared with existing frameworks of fun that were covered in our frameworks of fun paper. Interpretations are originally drawn together by one or two of us but are checked against the understandings of all participants. This is a reflexive case study and this phase of comparing understandings will enrich the analysis)

 

Almost comic

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The amount of times I change my research questions is verging on the ridiculous. Still, I will get there. I know they’re out there somewhere, waiting for me to find them. I think these ones are pretty close:

Main question

How is asynchronous dialogue used to build shared knowledge over time?

Sub-questions

How do tutors and learners using asynchronous dialogue carry along and develop ideas across postings?

How do tutors and learners use asynchronous dialogue to preserve and utilise elements of their discussion?

Which techniques do tutors and learners use to link the past with future and present activity?

Going around in circles

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In the last month my entire thesis has undergone a radical rethink, as I have moved completely away from community, to consideration of temporality in the context of asynchronous dialogue. I think this is the right move to make – I’ve got excellent data to support a study of temporality, and it fits in with lots of my other interests – from history to English language, it all has the potential to jigsaw together.

 BUT… I’ve only got six months to go. Six. Count them. And they include the summer holidays and the Easter holidays, and the inevitable period when my thesis is out being reviewed by someone as yet unidentified. And temporality is a huge field to be taking on – especially when no one really seems to have dealt with temprality in the context of asynchronous dialogue.

Why is this interesting?

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I came to my data from the point of view of communities. How do communities learn together? Why is it valuable to learn as a member of a community? However, on closer examination, I’m not studying a community. My data comes from task-based groups (thanks for that insight, Etienne). True, they have been structured to draw on benefits of community learning and they do, in some ways, act as communities. But they’re not communities. If I want to go and study an online learning community, I should be looking at Schome, which is a far better example.

Setting community aside; what have I got? Well, as my supervisor said the other day – you’ve got talk, and that’s what’s interesting. But what I find really interesting is that that is just what I have not got. I have got no talk. No talk whatsoever. The students and tutors think they’re talking, they refer to themselves as talking, but they are not talking. Even when I interview them, they are not talking.

They’re communicating via text, and what you can do via text is very different to what you can do via speech. Yes, you can challenge opinions and defend opinions and access a range of opinions as you can in speech. But you can do that at the same time as you refer back to earlier stages of the argument. You can build on other people’s points or challenge each one separately. You can ponder what they have said for a minute, or two minutes, or half an hour.

And this is what I see throughout my work. In my data, and in my blogging data, and in my epistolary data and in my Schome data. Written conversation offers a new, and powerful, way of thinking together. But nobody’s using it for that reason. Everyone’s using it because it’s convenient and space- and time-independentor, in the case of blogging, because they enjoy it. Yes, if challenged, they may say that it supports reasoning and critical dialogue. But they don’t use it for that reason, and they don’t explain that reasoning to students, and nobody formally trains anybody in how to use textual conversation to support knowledge creation.

So why my data is interesting is because it shows that textual conversation is a powerful way of thinking together. And if that;s what is interesting about my data then that is what my research questions should be about (you knew I was going to get back to my research questions at some point, didn’t you? 🙂  )

Research questions

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One day I will achieve the ultimate research question – I will look at it and know it is right. Until then…

  • How do task-based groups of learners identify and use the resources of asynchronous conferences to support their learning?
  • What constrains their identification and utilisation of these resources?

Look, I’ve taken ‘communities’ out of my questions for the first time! Though they’re still there, really, because I’ll argue that one of the resources of an asynchronous conference can be community.

The things I really want to get in are:

  • Some affordances are illusory. Asynchronous conferences are not any time, any place, anywhere – they are constrained by real-life limitations and it can be a problem to pretend that these do not exist. Additionally, people do not make use of the permanent record to inform the debate. There are perhaps three types of affordance to look at: affordances of the technology (any time, any place, any where), affordances of the medium (history, threading, icons) and affordances of the talk (reflective, comparing perspectives etc). Analysis should show: do they recognise these affordances, do they make use of these affordances, do these affordances exist, do they act as constraints?
  • Learning in these conferences is related to education, organisation and affect. The organisational and affective issues are substantial and account for the majority of seemingly off-task behaviour. I need to read more on affect and follow up any references on organisational learning. Organisational learning relates to the previous section. Analysis should reveal which forms of organisation they have to develop in order to make use of the affordances which I have identified with the help of the literature. My pilot is useful here. What helps them with this organisation and what hinders them?
  • The affective issues are related to community. These aren’t communities for a number of reasons, but they utilise the resources of other communities, and build elements of a community together. Establishing trust is important. Again, this relates to seemingly off-task discussion. This relates to all the literature I have read on community, and I need more on the subject of trust. Analysis should show occasions when trust allows them to learn togther, when lack of trust prevents them from learning together, and how they establish trust.
  • And I want to write about the differences between conference talk, speech and written text – especially with references to fonts, point sizes and colours. I think this relates to Vygotsky’s description of speech completing the thought. Different types of speech deal with meaning in different ways. There must be some literature on this somewhere? Analysis in this section will be much more narrowly focused on two or three passages, showing how features such as colour, quoting and typeface are used to build meaning together. I could make a start on this analysis to see if it works.

Research questions revisited

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Well, I’m working on my literature review, so I’m bound to tinker with my research questions, aren’t I?

Also, an initial pass over my data showed me that if I just look at the skills and resources that people use to learn together online, I’m going to end up with a list. And not a very interesting list, at that.

I’m trying to look at what it buys me to consider the students as a network or one of various types of community Network doesn’t feel quite right, and I’m not entirely sure why. Something to do with it not being completely people centred. Community of practice isn’t right, either, because you can’t really argue that six students and two tutors make up a community of practice.

So I think I’ve either got a community of learners or a learning community. Whichever, I need to look at what I gain by looking at them as a community. I get all the elements of what a community is – reason for being a community, history, language, boundedness, members…

Today’s research questions are therefore:

How do students mobilise the resources of their online learning community in order to build knowledge?

What constrains them from mobilising these resources?

(I could use ‘affordances’ instead of ‘resources’ but then I’d have to go into the whole ‘what are affordances and what do I mean by them? debate – and I’d get saddled with a word which I think will date fairly quickly.)

Community or community of practice?

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I’ve run into a real problem with the idea of ‘comunity of practice’. What is the difference between a CoP and a community?

Lots of people just take the CoP idea as is, and run with it. People who critique the ideas seem to do so in terms of thinking the model through – do people really move from novice to expert, what does it mean to be marginalised or excluded?

Lave and Wenger developed the idea when thinking about apprentice-based learning. Now, there seems to be a fairly clear distinction between learning by doing and learning by studying, so they were looking about learning by doing – and, of course, it was more complex than it looks at first glance. And this led them to the communities of practice model, which makes a lot of sense.

And, largely in response to this, people developed the idea of a community of learners or a learning community. Because, if learning is social and situated, then the non-vocational learners must be doing it as well, mustn’t they?

But has anyone really taken this back to the notion of community and asked how these subsets are useful?

There seem to be two literatures. First there is the virtual/physical community literature. This looks at communities and asks whether they are possible without a physical basis. And the answer is generally yes, except for the people who feel that network is a more useful term than community in an online context. Then there is the community of learners/community of practice literature. This explores these concepts, but relates them to learning rather than to community. So, if you think along sociocultural lines then you use these models and if you think along other lines you either ignore them or haven’t really noticed them.

But nobody seems to be saying – once you take away the geographical criterion for a community – then all communities are communities of practice. And, if that’s the case then the ‘of practice’ bit becomes redundant. And it particularly becomes redundant because it’s almost impossible to uncover what ‘practice’ means in this context, because it seems to mean everything that a community does and all the resources which it draws on. And a community that does nothing and has no resources isn’t a community in my book.

I think Lave and Wenger have held on to distinction which is not valid at their level of analysis – the distinction between book learning and practice-based learning. Once you have a definition of learning as a collaborative situated process then that applies equally to all learning – and it is a feature of a comunity. I think then, the appropriate distinction is between communities which intentionally focus on learning and those which do not. What is more, I think that those learning communities are invariably sub-sets of other communities.

General thesis outline

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Just to remind me what my thinking was at this point:

·         Learning is a social activity and therefore it is always situated culturally, historically and socially.
·         Learning communities provide good conditions for learning, because they come together with that purpose in mind and can mobilize aspects of community such as shared purpose, shared history and shared language to support learning.
·         Community is possible online if you view community in terms of purpose, history, language etc rather than in terms of geography
·         Online learning communities have the potential to support collaborative learning
·         However, despite being set up for this purpose and despite the potential benefits of online communication, the learning in these communities may be limited and may not be collaborative
·         I therefore want to know which skills, resources and types of learning support the type of learning which an online community of learners is trying to achieve.

Shifting ground

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I’m changing my research questions again – this time more profoundly than usual.

  1. Which key skills do members of an online learning community use to support their learning and teaching?
  2. Which key resources do members of an online learning community use to support their learning and teaching?

Resources identified by Neil Mercer in’Words and Minds’ include:

Communities have the following resources:

History Members recall and reflect on shared experience

Collective identity Members use this to find meaning, purpose and direction for their own endeavours and relate these to others

Members use this to find meaning, purpose and direction for their own endeavours and relate these to others

Reciprocal obligations Members have responsibilities for each other and can expect access to each other’s intellectual resources

Members have responsibilities for each other and can expect access to each other’s intellectual resourcesDiscourse Fluency in the discourse is one of the obvious signs of membership. Language is reshaped to suit members’ communicative demands.

Fluency in the discourse is one of the obvious signs of membership. Language is reshaped to suit members’ communicative demands.Members recall and reflect on shared experience Members use this to find meaning, purpose and direction for their own endeavours and relate these to others Members have responsibilities for each other and can expect access to each other’s intellectual resources Fluency in the discourse is one of the obvious signs of membership. Language is reshaped to suit members’ communicative demands.

Are students ever off-task online?

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This is an extract from my supervision minutes from last December. It contains a lot of points which are important to the development of my research, so I’ve put it here to remind me of these.
Examine the resources used by students – local resources and broader social resources – and at how they use these to build a sense of togetherness and  to create a context.
Read Van Oers and Hannikainen’s 2001 article in the International Journal of Early Years Education 9 (2), which privileges a relational approach and deals with how groups are sustained by togetherness.
Investigate how groups build contextual foundations for joint working, mobilise social and community resources and build a sense of mutuality and confidence in the group. This is not just off-task talk, they cannot do cognitive work without this relational work. Together they build contextual links, which is important for distance students who are limited by the bandwidth available.
The ‘approaches to study’ is a limited lens, which looks at how individuals learn. It is a cognitive schema. However, cognitive elements do not stand on their own. It is important to look at the salience and significance of other important aspects.
The group must negotiate their roles and actions in order to achieve things collectively. Their actions and learning are highly relational, not just resourced by course material. Learning is an interactional accomplishment.