Maarten de Laat & Vic Lally (2003)
Complexity, theory and praxis: Researching collaborative learning and tutoring processes in a networked learning community
Instructional Science 31: 7-39,
P29 ‘ a kind of exploratory coversation between theory and praxis that may be mediated by methodology’
Theory
P8 Stenhouse 1983 ‘ argued that the development of theoretical understanding of educational action and doing educational research into the practical problems of education are inseparable.’
On complexity the authors argue that ‘no single theoretical framework is yet capable of offering us a sufficiently powerful articulation of description, rhetoric, inference or application’ ( the 4 ways in which theory can contribute). Theories differ in focus and some are, to an extent, complimentary.
Praxis ( teaching and learning - of both the teacher and the learner is also complex)
Methodology
Then there is the question of methodology. Theory influences what we focus on but does not tell us how. P10 ‘ Methodology assists the conversation between theory and praxis by providing rules for their interaction. However, as a community of researchers, we are still confronted with the methodological challenge of agreeing the rules’
Comment on Content analysis
· Can be cumbersome and time consuming
· Choice of coding strategy
· Can be issues of reliability and validity due to subjectivity when interpreting codes
· Multiplicity of meaning in one unit of analysis
· P11 ‘ more fundamentally, the available theoretical framework may not be sufficiently robust to enable valid inferences to be made about any of these processes from the textual traces’
· ‘Furthermore, what does one do about those aspects of learning that are
not expressed in, and therefore not amenable to, content analysis’
get Hara, Bonk and Angeli (2000) Content analysis of online discussion in an applied educational psychology course, Instructional Science 28(2) 115-152
p18 there is an important question when deciding on methodology p18 ‘ it could be argued that a more grounded approach, ( compared to content analysis) using categories that emerge from a reading of the messages, would provide a more ‘authentic’ summary of the intentions of the participants. In outr view this is a valid and important way of approaching the analysis. However we wanted to connect with some of the conceptual and theoretical ideas about learning and tutoring in the literature using schemas that were already in use’ It also means that results can be more easily shared and compared with other researchers.
Theoretical frameworks (of the study)
1. Social constructivist
Therefore search for evidence that learners are linking new knowledge to their prior knowledge to actively construct new internal representations.
2. the situativity of learning and meaningfulness
p13 ‘ learning as a set of processes by which a learner personalizes new ideas by giving meaning to them, based upon earlier experiences. However meaning is also rooted in, and indexed by experience ( Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). Therefore, each experience with an idea, and the environment of which that idea is part, becomes part of the meaning of that idea ( Duffy and Jonassen, 1992). Learning is therefore viewed and considered by us as situated by the activity in which it takes place ( Brown et al., 1989; Lave and Wenger, 1991). This view has led us to also seek evidence , in the online texts, for the cognitive, social, and affective processes in which participants engage in trying to make meaning of the ideas presented to them by the tasks they are undertaking’ We have also used Critical Event Recall (CER) to try to access the meaning making, and awareness of context, that participants use to make judgements and engage in activities in their course of study’
3. group dimensions of learning
( Lave, 1996, Levine, Resnick & Higgins, 1996, Wegerith, Mercer & Dawes, 1999) – the role of the group in shaping and driving individual cognition. There are three aspects
· the group situation p13 the situation itself may exert a strong mediating effect on individual cognitive and conceptual processes; the thinking of individuals is influenced by the group in which they are working’
· merger of intellectual and social processes
· ‘tension between the conceptual structure or understanding ( of the problem or ideas under discussion) of the group of individuals within it. These individual understanding may vary from each other as well as from the group. This tension may be the driving force for the collective processing of the group. So, for example when an individual member of the group expresses his or her opinion in relation to the shared public understanding of the group, this may be based on an attempt to synthesise the understanding with the public ( that is group or shared) one. The other members of the group might compare this new synthesis with their own understandings of the group-accepted version and their own disagreements with it. Depending on the outcome of this process there may be further interaction and negotiation until a new meaning or understanding is accepted by the group. ’
p14 ‘ In this way interaction between individuals, as well as their shared and individual cognitions, can be viewed as key aspects of the co-construction of knowledge, meaning and understanding
4. socio-cultural
p14 ‘ whereas the social-constructivist perspectives makes a distinction between the individual cognitive activities and the environment in which the individual is present, the socio-cultural perspective regards the individual as part of that environment’ According to this view , learning cannot be understood as a process that is solely in the mind of the learner (Van der Linden & Kanselaar, 2000). Learning is a process of participating in cultural practices, a process that structures and shapes cognitive activity ( Lave & Wenger, 1991)’ Therefore negotiation is an important aspect p14 ‘ additionally , they can motivate each other and help each other to finish the task’
Research approach
‘attempt to reveal and understand the richness of processes beyond the capability of any one of the methods, when used by itself’
p12 ‘ it is the interaction between teaching and learning that is of central importance in all educational endeavours. Therefore one of our key aims is to enquire systematically into this key educational interaction’ ‘Learning and tutoring, as ongoing sets of processes, happening in time and space, within an individual or a group, do not feature in detail in this general analysis’
‘ a parallel focus on group and individual processes’
Method
Content analysis of individual ( student and tutor) contributions and differences in learning and tutoring processes. (KRO but note that tutor contributions do not include any social or affective)
Integrated with the use of Critical Event Recall (CER) to probe learning and teaching that may not be expressed in the text records used for the data analysis
Participants
Masters in E-Learning based on an action research approach to professional development. A sophisticated group of professionals who communicate outside the formal Web CT environment. Many are mature learners who bring more than one relevant body of expertise to the course’
Focus on one group, 7 students and 1 tutor ( does not say how selected) engaged in a 10 week course.
RQ
What is the relationship between knowledge construction (learning) and tutoring processes as these evolved over time within the workshop?
Content analysis
Used NVivo p16 ‘ to search, by individual participant, for his or her contributions to each category of the learning and tutoring coding schemes’
Approx 1000 messages , sampled 10% from three phases, beginning, middle, and end.
Unit of analysis – p17 ‘ using semantic features such as ideas, argument chains, topics of discussion, or by regulative activities such as making a plan or explaining unclear information. ( Chi, M.T.H. (1997) Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide. Journal of the Learning Sciences 6, 271-313.). Thus, the content of the messages had to be read for meaning to determine segment boundaries.’ i.e. used semantic rather than syntactic boundaries.
Learning ( content analysis of student text)
Used code ( 23 items) developed by Veldhuis-Diermanse for a PhD thesis (unpublished)
Cognitive
Debating (5 items)
Using external information and experiences(4 items)
Linking or repeating internal information ( 2 items )
Affective
General: reacting emotionally to notes of peers without recting directly to the content of that note. This reaction can be +,_- or neutral
Asking for (general) feedback, responses or opinions by fellow-students
‘Chatting’ or ‘social talks ‘ contributions that are not relevant to solve the case/task
metacognitive ( some of these include social processes)
planning ( 3 items)
keeping clarity ( 3 items)
monitoring (2 activities)
rest activities ( units that cannot be decoded by using the above categories
Teaching ( 19 indicators) from ( Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D.R. & Archer, W. (2000). Assessing Teaching Presence in a Computer Conference Context. http:///www.atl.ualberta.ca/cmc/publications.html)
Instructional design and organization ( 6 indicators)
Facilitating discourse (6 indicators)
Direct instruction (7 indicators)
Critical Event Recall p32 ‘has the potential to access asepects of learning and tutoring that are not directly available in the discussion transcripts’
P18 ‘ the recall enables the articulation of many previously unexpressed aspects of learning’
Trigger for tutor recall was
1. Summary based on the content analysis of the student interactions – ‘ an overview of the patterns of learning’
2. Full summary ( therefore tutor able to select what were the critical events for him)
Results
Content analysis
Learning (students)
Descriptive , presented by items and individuals in tabular form.
| | beginning | mid | end |
| Cognitive | 60% | 81% | 42% |
| metacognitive | 20% | 14% | 20% |
| affective | 14% | 3% | 8.9% |
| miscellaneous | | 1.9& | 28.8% |
Tutor/teaching
Instructional design codes at high level initially (51%), then 22%,33%
Facilitation initially (41%) then rises to (75%), 64%.
Some of the students make contributions that are rated as high for tutor processes, including two student who maintains this instructional mode in the mid phase whereas for another this declines during the mid and final stages.
Critical Incident Recall
Tutor agenda
· Concern with the learning process
· Constant awareness of the dynamics of the group
In particular
Containing Charles who is mostly thinking about getting task completed rather than the process of doing the task
Andrea also strong but supportive, also trying to hold Charles, so tutor tried to support her in doing this but staying neutral and keeping a small footprint
‘trying to avoid them making any decisions before the rest of the group appeared’
at one point offered up two ideas as catalysts.
During the middle phase p26 ‘conscious of sitting back’,’but I was tracking it, like a hawk really, but I was in a more relaxed mode’
Then started to ‘focus more on the dynamics within the group’
‘sense of two groups forming’ two, maybe three cracking on whereas ‘ the others were more shadowy figures’
Kate struggled the most and seemed able to find a niche , she articulated her struggle, ‘Andrea responded academically’…..’ whereas Pauline gave a more emotional response’ and ‘seemed to respond to her more as a person’
Articulates some assumptions about members of the group – e.g. Bill new to this form of learning ( note from learning analysis Bill’s participation level increased as the course progressed ? as the purpose of the exercise clarified for him.
Kate – difficult personal circumstances – p28 ‘her model of the experience to come was possibly of a more directive nature, so it was a struggle to accept a new mind set of knowledge being distributed amongst themselves’
Felicity ‘ she felt more comfortable thinking about the task than providing tutoring support for others’ – ‘ she was wuite a strong person but did not dominate’
Conclusions
P29 the tutor was actively engaged in a social process of actively designing his involvement through interaction, with a view to actively enhancing the learning of the group members. He was concerned ……. To maintain balance and integration within the group’
‘the complexity of practice in networked collaborative learning envionments is such that models of social-constructivism, situated learning and socio-cultural theory are not, separately capable of providing an account of the role of learning in meaning making, the function of context or the power of the interaction between tutoring and learning processes’
‘results show …. How professionals collaborate successfully to develop their own practice
