The Learner Experience of e-Learning
The Learner’s Experience of e-Learning (LEX) research study was funded under the Pedagogy strand of the JISC e-Learning Development Programme and ran from May 2005 to June 2006. It formed part of the ‘Understanding my Learning’ theme which is exploring learner perspectives on e-learning.
This report has two main aims:
- Describe the methodology employed in the LEX project and to provide a rationale for its choice
- Offer some brief guidelines for other researchers who may wish to adopt this approach in subsequent projects in this programme
The aim of the study was to investigate learners’ current experiences and expectations of e-learning across the broad range of further, higher, adult, community and work-based learning. The project adopted a very broad view of e-learning to encompass a spectrum of technology use from completely online courses, through campus-based courses enhanced by digital resources, to more personalised use of social software and mobile devices. LEX followed on from the Learner Scoping Study undertaken by Rhona Sharpe, Greg Benfield, Ellen Lessner and Eta De Cicco in 2005, which provided its underpinning theoretical and methodological basis. The literature review undertaken by the scoping study indicates that the majority of e-learning research is written from a practitioner’s perspective, with only a small minority allowing the learner’s voice to come through.
'A holistic view of e-learning should lead to a methodology which is open ended and empowering enough to allow the learners to be the ones who highlight the issues which are important to them. ….We noted that the majority of the research to date has focussed on observable learner behaviours. There is an opportunity to design the forthcoming research study so that it is able to shed light on the learner intentions and rationales behind commonly noted observable behaviours.’
Sharpe et al (2005)
The scoping study provides a convincing case for conducting research into e-learners with a rather different focus from that revealed in most of the current literature on elearning. That predominant approach examines the effect on learning of what might be regarded as input variables that are under the control of institutions or teachers. Thus, most research has been devoted to exploring the effect of differences in learning environments, pedagogical procedures or learning materials on learning outcomes. This mainstream approach reveals some influence of constructivist pedagogy, but largely neglects a genuinely learner-centred perspective: that students experience formal learning in emotional terms, that their motivation to learn is only understandable by looking at their lives holistically, and that technology is embedded in their social experience.
LEX aimed to build on these studies and help to address the imbalance by adopting a methodology that would allow the ‘learner’s voice’ to be heard. The author of the current report was invited to act as consultant to the project, particularly to offer advice on a suitable methodology.