Empirical Research Findings Andreas Kollias (IACM/FORTH)

1. Empirical Research FindingsAndreas Kollias (IACM/FORTH) An exploration on learners’ dispositions-in-action in the context of their involvement in a culturally and nationally diverse e-learning courses

2. Goal/Aim • The goal of the present research is to explore possible underlying learners’ dispositions-in-action that may emerge and shape during their involvement in socio-culturally diverse e-courses. • Learners that join a multi-national course can be very different in their approaches to learning. They are most likely pre-disposed towards different types of learning experiences and activities. But as they engage in a new learning context and situation their dispositions not simply affect their actual practices but are also affected by them. This interplay between established schemas of beliefs and action and actual practice is what we call “dispositions-in-action”. Their identification and empirical investigation is aimed to offer us a deeper understanding of socio-cultural dimensions underlying learners’ approaches to learning activities and learning content. • The wider aim of this research is to inform the design of e-learning contents that will better serve the learning needs and preferences of culturally diverse learners

3. Methodology • The exploratory nature of the research required the use of different kinds of data which invited for the employment of various research methods and techniques. • The course • Data regarding students’ actual practices • Qualitative data obtained from students’ comments • Quantitative data from questionnaires

4. Quantitative data Table1 : Sample size by questionnaire

5. The sample • 47 students (20 males, 42,6%) living in 15 European countries, with the largest national groups coming from Greece (n=16, 34%) and the Netherlands (n=8, 17%). • The largest age group was between 36 and 45 years (n=21, 44,6%) • 55% (n=26) of the sample had obtained or was in the process of obtaining a Masters or PhD degree, 38% had obtain a university degree (n=18) • 16 (34%) teachers, 9 (19%) students, 9 academics, and 34 were other professionals including e-learning and IT specialists, professional trainers, and training consultants.

6. Levels of involvement

7. Students’ evaluations about the contribution of types of activities to their learning

8. Factors that may structure learners’ approaches to e-course teaching-learning activities • Factor analysis on 32 items from the pre-course and weekly questionnaires • Five factors model (57%) of the total variance

9. 1st factor (15%) -12 items traditional teaching/learning • working on the basis of pre-structured tasks with the teacher being responsible for defining and structuring the learning goals, the study materials and the learning activities • never questioning the choices made by the teacher regarding suggested study materials • having negative feelings regarding whole-classroom discussions (insecurity, discussions are a waste of time) maintaining consensus and harmony and avoiding expressing criticism to the teacher or the other students • “winning” whole-classroom individual competitions

10. 2nd factor (11%)-5 items • I would work harder for this week’s assignment in order to be among the students with the best grade • Clear assessment criteria • If my test score was low and I had the chance to do the test several times, I would definitely try to improve my score • I usually work much harder in learning tasks that I know I will get a score from the teacher than in tasks that will not grades chasing

11. 3rd factor (11%)-5 items • I would be very much interested to watch more experts… [video clips] explaining to us what the important characteristics of e-Learning are… • I would be very much interested to watch more videos from experts explaining what are the trends relating to e-Learning today… • During week 3 of the course I did not really feel the need to turn to other students in the course in order to ask for help or discuss my ideas source of knowledge

12. 4th factor (11%)-6 items • I usually try to find the shortest route through this course’s assignments in terms of time and effort requirements • When designing my self-study course I tried to implement as closely as possible some of the ideas presented in the WBT contents • When I am certain about a solution to a problem I usually say it right away to the others. shortest route

13. 5th factor (8,3%)-4 items • I liked it that the activities during the 5th week of the course did not require forum discussions • I usually prefer individual learning tasks instead of group tasks • I would be very active encouraging everybody talk about themselves … • I would have preferred a collaborative assignment for the 5th week communicating/working with others

14. Distribution of students per factor and degree of acceptance to their conceptual content

15. A multidimensional approach to students’ practices-dispositions • Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) • Students’ practices+dispositions (53*47 table) (biographical data as “illustrative”)

16. 3 axes model (31%) • Axis 1: Discriminates between those with high and low involvement in the course (degree of determination) • Axis 2: Discriminates between those with a clear stance towards their learning and those who are indecisive about what approach to adopt (clarity of approach) • Axis 3: Traditional vs non traditional teaching/learning (pedagogy)

17. Students’ views about the format/design of learning content

18. Source/practicality of learning content

19. Students’ views about wider socio-cultural issues/multilingualism in learning content

20. Multiple correspondence analysis on content-related views • 60*47 table (dispositions and biographical “illustrative”) • 3 axes model (24,7%) • Axis 1: socio-cultural issues/multilingualism (content relevancy not necessary-only for “sensitive” content vs undecided) • Axis 2: Academic/practical (both-none>high expertise) • Axis 3: Format (graphic elements ok vs graphic elements show “easiness” >Academics)