Juxtaposing the personal and the institutional: how, where, when and why do undergraduate students communicate and collaborate online? Sue Timmis, S Barnes and James Gilligan, University of the West of England
http://wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=220 (contact rather than web link)

Sue and the others had used activity theory to look at how undergraduates communicate online. They found a disconnection between the active communication observed in under 25s, and the lack of participation in online learning communities amongst undergraduates.

I liked their partnership-based research design, which seems to tie in with PeterT’s SecondLife research. Students were co-researchers who collected and generated a range of data and comments on analysis and findings. Students collected their own electronic messages, researcher gathered VLE data, student-led and videoed interview, pre-interview questionnaire and a set of stimulus questions.

Sue reported that the introduction of the university’s VLE had been disruptive to their communities based on Yahoo groups. They moved to use Blackboard, but found that students did not check their Blackboard email.

The undergraduates fell into two camps. They were either frequent mobile users or frequent MSN and other chat users. Economic factors, including mobile phone package, affected their choice.

Students wanted to work with their friends. They did not feel connected to other people in the group and found it difficult to collaborate with people that they didn’t know. This finding contrasts with the findings of Tim Savage’s paper (see last post), strengthening his argument that it was the blended nature of the community which made it so strong.