1. Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes University
Findings
Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes University
Welcome. My name is Rhona Sharpe. I’m a member of the Leaner Experiences of E-Learning Support and Synthesis project.
I am going to talk briefly about the findings from this programme of research.

2. How have we investigated e-learners?
Background survey of existing research Sharpe et al 2006
‘Scarcity of studies on learner experience, often about very specific and narrow aspects of learning (e.g. CMC), often discussing observable behaviours rather than intentions, beliefs, feelings’
Phase 1: two large-scale studies Creanor et al 2006, Conole et al 2006
Phase 2: seven focused studies to investigate specific issues plus support and synthesis (ongoing)
BLUPS | e4L | Lead | LexDis
PB-LXP | STROLL | Thema
Although this Web site focuses on Phase 2 of the Learner Experiences of e- Learning programme, it contains results and outputs from Phase One as well. Phase One began in 2005 with a background survey of existing research. This initial scoping study led to two large-scale studies whose final reports are available for you to read here.
Phase 2 began in 2007 and is even more complex, with seven focussed studies looking at a broad range of issues. There is also an eighth project, as there was with phase one, a support and synthesis project. You can see the names, or at least the acronyms, of the seven projects on the slide. Please browse the Web site for details about each of the individual projects.
Learners’ Experiences of e-Learning Workshops: November 2008 – March 2009
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3. … is pervasive in learners’ lives
The projects have all used qualitative research approaches and methods to uncover the learner experience in learners own words. This slide shows some screens captured from video diaries collected by the STROLL project.
As learners have allowed us into their worlds, they have shown us many examples of the pervasive and integrated technology use we talked about in Phase 1.
For example, learners have told us about turning the computer on as soon as they wake up, being ‘facebook addicts’, how they personalise their tools and how they adapt personal technologies for study, such as video recording lectures on their phones. 3

4. Key messages
If you’ve been following this programme of work you’ll remember that we saw in Phase 1 that students are immersed in a technology rich world, using technology primarily to access information and maintain their social networks. What have the Phase 2 projects added to this?
Well, the projects have produced an enormous collection of rich, detailed data which confirm the pervasive use of technology. They shed light on what learners expect from the use of technology in post-compulsory education and the choices they make about using technology to support their study. On the site you’ll find more than 20 key messages posters illustrating their main findings. I can’t do justice to the complexity and depth of the results here. Instead I’ll highlight some of the findings and show you where to find out more.
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5. Flexibility, reliability, convenience
Learners are living complex lives.
Learners are positive about VLEs where they provide easy access to everything they need
High expectations for robust, visible, ubiquitous services.
Time is a constraint, and a persistent worry for disabled learners
My favourite piece of technology is “my phone, because I record lectures ... I am more likely to watch what I have recorded than to log on the [VLE] and to go through the long procedure of finding something…” (E4L)
It’s clear from listening to learners that many are living complex lives, balancing study with work and/or family commitments. Learners value highly the use of technology to enable them to study flexibly and talk of studying at all hours of the day and night. They have high expectations for institutions to provide reliable, robust and convenient access to learning.
Where virtual learning environments are used well to provide easy access to course resources, learners are positive about their use. However, they are critical of poor use such as that which presents difficulties in navigation or lack of access off site.

6. Personal technology
There is high ownership and access to personal technology, but note institutional differences
Where access or ownership is lacking, students feel disadvantaged
Most students are not sure how to use personal technology to aid study,
“If we are required to be networked for a computer workshop, for example, there generally aren’t places you can plug in a laptop with assistive technology in. So, then you are reliant on whatever assistive technologies are available on the network.” (LexDis)
There is high ownership of technology, particularly mobile phones and laptops. However, this done vary between institutions. The research approach also illustrated the stories behind the statistics which are a warning for us to be wary of making assumptions about access. For example, learners talked about owning old machines they couldn’t get to work or having a computer at home but not being able to get access to it.
Learners made use of their personal technologies to enable them to study flexibly, to network with peers and to make their learning accessible. In terms of personalisation, this occurs where needed e.g. LExDis found many examples of personalising technology to aid accessibility for disabled learners, but PB-LXP found few examples in their sample of part-time work based learners.
Students tend not to see the university making use of the technologies that they all have (e.g. mobile phones, laptops) (LEAD)

7. Study habits and strategies
New learners are conservative in their study habits and approaches
Influenced initially by prior educational experience, and later by their tutors
Disabled learners are agile technology users who understand the affordances of technology
Learn skills from each other
“Well firstly if I want to look anything up… I will usually Google it... Then I would fire up MSN… Finally [the VLE] and all the resources the University makes available online.” (STROLL)
The results suggest that the use of technology is underpinned by learning strategies rather than by access to technology. Many arriving undergraduate students seem to be relatively conservative in their approach to study, preferring to work at home or in the library and to use books and lecture notes as the primary resource, supplemented by online sources “on demand”. This is also reflected in a strong desire for face to face, supplemented and enhanced by technology. (LEAD)
Learners’ expectations for innovative uses of technology are limited by a lack of prior experience and knowledge of what institutions can offer. They are not pushing for the use of particular technologies and have no clear vision of a technology-rich education.
Most learners use technology recommended to them by their tutors in support of learning, trust them to know best, and are reluctant to look elsewhere. (e4L)
As well as tutors, learners rely heavily on each other to acquire the skills and strategies they need.

8. Working with others
Extensive use of social networking sites – for recreational use
Extensive use of peers for support, especially technical support
Technologies used to support the process of groupwork
Social networking used where they have a cohort identity
“University I don’t really use for people at University, I usually use texting, Facebook or MSN. If they’re on-line, on MSN, I know hopefully they’ll respond straightaway. You can get an immediate response with phones and Messenger.” (E4L)
In Phase 1, we talked about an ‘underworld of social networking’, the extent of which was a surprise to teachers at the time. Now the extensive use of social networking sites is well established. The use of Web 2.0 tools does centre on Facebook (THEMA)
Many students, but by no means all, make extensive use of social networking sites for recreational use. Worryingly, some students had joined Facebook reluctantly, feeling under pressure from their peers (THEMA)
There appears to be a clear separation between online learning and online social activities. (LEAD e4L and STROLL) There are pockets of use for learning, such as to support the process of groupwork and where there is a cohort identity (e.g. Lead Vets)
There are examples of learners using a range of other technology to support each other e.g. the Lead project reports a story of learners recording lectures for one of their peers to play in their car as they missed session to return home frequently to deal with a family crisis.
The low usage of online calendars, social bookmarking and RSS suggests a low awareness of the potential role of Web 2.0 in managing their learning (THEMA)

9. Learner differences
There are many differences between learners; which may be due to prior experience, discipline, and context
Learners show evidence of maturing, in use of online resources, and organising themselves.
Some learners are more digital than others, and there is still a small minority who prefer not to engage with technology
Learners are not a homogeneous group. This does not appear to be strongly related to age, gender or background but rather is do with the experience that they have gained from school, work, home etc. or within the teaching of their subject. (LEAD)
Skills don’t belong to a particular generation; learners switch skills and learn from each other if they find the skills useful and there is a need. (LEAD)
Students from countries where the “information transmission” model of pedagogy predominates may find that it takes time to get used to small-group learning and the emphasis on analytical thinking (THEMA)

10. Preferences, choices, patterns of use
Programme Themes
Access
Preferences, choices, patterns of use
Personalisation
Beliefs and expectations
Effective e-learners
Change and transition
Social software
Specific learners & contexts
Institutional level practices
Course level practices
So, that’s just a taste of some of the findings. We’ve organised some more around these programme themes. Let’s just look at one.
Several projects have focused on learners in transition, say from school to higher and further education, or from further education to higher education.
The Lead project at Edinburgh University focused on the transition from school to university and the first-year experience. The e4L project focused on transition from ACL to FE to HE. STROLL focussed on change over the first two years at university.

11. 1. Issues learners struggle with in transition
Little understanding of how they will be expected to study and learn – even after induction
Uncertainty and loss of familiar processes
Transfer of key processes from paper to computer
Wider variety of software, more choice, upgrading
Over-confidence in information skills
Disabled learners having to master assistive technologies
?clash of knowledge cultures (practice, authority, media)
Many may move from a system in which much of their course work is done on paper to one which will not tolerate paper submissions.
Many are presented with a wide range of software that they may – or may not – require and which must be continually kept up to date.
A great many have undue confidence in their IT skills. Of course the complexity of this area is that we have also discovered instances of students who are de-skilled when they enter university, using a far narrower range of IT and software than they did in school.
Partly because – but not entirely – one of the projects focused explicitly on disabled learners, we have noted that these learners have to master assistive technologies often on top of all of the other requirements that I been talking about. Sometimes this means that these learners are particularly agile adopters of technology and highly proficient users of it.
And the last bullet point .. Learners are sometimes challenged by quite radical shift in knowledge cultures. For example they move from an education system which sometimes positively encourages copying and pasting from the Web without attribution, to a system that may run their assignments through Turnitin plagiarism detection software with stiff penalties for such practices. Or moving from a system in which images, video and audio may be welcomed and celebrated to one in which text rules and only particular genres of writing are acceptable.

12. Ways in which learners mature in their studies
Increased use of technology and a broader range of uses
Athens, online databases, journals, library system, podcasts…
Increased time spent online, especially on academic sites
Introduced to many subject-specific technologies
This is a particularly important slide. We have a wealth of evidence that learners use of technology in academic contacts develops and matures. I find this a cause for great optimism. It suggests that universities and colleges have a very significant role to play in developing competent, digitally literate individuals equipped for lifelong learning.
We find that learners to use and become proficient with a range of new technologies when they enter college and university – things like academic resources, electronic journals, online databases. There is a tendency for learners to spend more time online, and over the course of their studies to spend ever larger proportions of this time exploring academic content (as opposed to social and entertainment).
Learners also characterise their maturity by their greater use of subject specific technologies that they use.

13. More ways in which learners mature in their studies
More careful and strategic over use of time
Improved research and investigation skills
Preferences change
mobiles and laptops over desktops, USB sticks over discs, digital over paper-based media…
Use of personal and social technologies for learning
e-portfolios, blogs, social bookmarking…
Over the course of their studies most learn to improve their research and investigation skills.
We see Learners preferences changing. Some develop references for mobile technologies and laptops, some developed preferences for Macs over PCs, USB sticks over CDs, digital in preference to paper-based media.
During their time at university large numbers begin using tools like he portfolios, Blogs, social book marking, Wiki’s and other Web 2.0 technologies.

14. Want to know more?
If you want to know more about this or any of the other themes