Week 13 & 14-A2: Methodological issues in exploring the learner experience

Week 13/14: A2a: Reading Conole et al


Ideas that technology can be a catalyst for educational change have only been a load of hot air, however, it is now argued that with the collaborative and distributed nature of Web 2.0, this prophecy is closer to being realised. Students are now changing the way they consume (and produce) education. A wide plethora of technologies are used and students are not a homogeneous entity. Each likes to use technology as they see fit.

' Oblinger and Oblinger’s book ‘Educating the net generation’ provides a useful baseline reference for research on students’ use of technologies (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). They describe the characteristics of the ‘net generation’ – students born after 1980 – suggesting that these students fundamentally differ from pre- vious generations in the way they process information and communicate (and hence learn). They argue that these students are comfortable with technologies and suggest that the ways in which they learn is task orien-

tated and experiential. '

Research methodology

an online survey, audio logs and interviews

Finding were split into 4 categories:

Information seeking and handling Communication Assignment preparation Integrated learning.

Key Findings

·     ‘students are learning in a complex and changing environment, using a plethora of technological tools to support their learning’


·     ‘Computer ownership is high and students have become accustomed to being able to electronically access information or people on demand’


·     ‘students are adept at finding and manipulating relevant information and synthesizing across different information sources and use a variety of communication tools to support their learning needs’


·     ‘there is evidence from the data that there is a shift from passive to more interactive interactions across all aspects of their learning, which is another characteristic of the net generation’


·     ‘Universities are ill-equipped to educate a new generation of learners whose sophisticated use of emerging technologies is incompatible with current teaching practice’.
‘Our findings support this and point to a mismatch between our current offerings and student use and a further mismatch between institutions’ perceptions of student use of technology and actual use’.


·     ‘The data indicates that technologies are being appropriated by learners to play to their strengths in terms of visual and auditory capabilities’


·     ‘Both our study and the LEX study highlighted personalisation and appropriation of technologies as major themes to have emerged from the data. Students appear to place greater value on technologies they have ‘discovered’ or selected for themselves. (‘Importantly if students did not find the technology or platform provided by the institutions useful they were in a position to by-pass it in favour of their own personalized approach and preferred tools.’)


·     ‘One of the objectives of our research was to try to gain a better understanding of the different ways in which technologies might be used across disciplines (‘The evidence from our data did not draw out major discipline difference of this kind, although some patterns in discipline differences were evident’)


·     ‘One of the most striking features to emerge from the data is the extent to which students are capitalising on the social affordances of technologies, much heralded under the banner of Web 2.0 (Alexander, 2006), in terms of peer support and communication – the picture emerges of a networked, extended community of learners using a range of communicative tools to exchange ideas, to query issues, to provide support, to check progress.

Ideas that technology can be a catalyst for educational change have only been a load of hot air, however, it is now argued that with the collaborative and distributed nature of Web 2.0, this prophecy is closer to being realised. Students are now changing the way they consume (and produce) education. A wide plethora of technologies are used and students are not a homogeneous entity. Each likes to use technology as they see fit.

To what extent this social peer network replaces or complements existing support mechanisms is not clear. Students evidently do still use traditional support mechanisms – contact with tutor, study guides, additional institutional workshops and training – but it would be interesting to investigate further how much some of these are being replaced by students choosing to turn first to a fellow student for guidance.