Methodologies to Analyze Learning Processes / Wednesday 15.10.2008

This new course started today. This is very challenging to me, because this is in english. I read some materials yesterday evening and it was so hard. Many of the terms are not so familiar in finnish, so in english it is twice as diffucult.

Today at the lesson Pirkko told very clearly what we have to do and it was very nice to get information in own mother tongue. After that I am not anymore so nervous.:)

Tomorrow we will meet virtually by using Connect pro our friends from Germany. All of us have to make own introduction by powerpoint and tomorrow these will be introduced for others.

Some mainpoints about today's lesson:

Design-Based Research (DBR) is linked to the new learning sciences. Learning scientists investigate cognition in its material, social, and cultural context but with the broad goal of conducting both laboratory-based and naturalistic investigations. DBR is a systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, and leading to contextually-sensitive design principles and theories. (Wang and Hannafin 2005, 6)



The experimental paradigm (EP) was transfered from the natural science to behavioral science. The main goal of experimental studies is to provide clear evidence whether a factor (like a new type of lecture, an intervention, gender, age) has effects on specific target variables (motivation, knowledge acquisition, behavior). Therefore, the factors are artificially varied and all other possible influencing variables will be tried to controlled (by randomisation, by statistical methods or by keeping them constant). While this last point is easier to do in the laboratory, experimental research is often laboratory. However, the experimental paradigm can also be applied in the field. Furthermore, experimantal studies require knowledge by the researcher on all the potential influencing variables. Therefore, this kind of study is most suitable if hypotheses should be tested.