scoping the pedagogic relationship between self‐efficacy and web 2.0 technologies

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Scoping the pedagogic relationshipbetween self‐efficacy and Web 2.0technologiesRichard Hall a & Melanie Hall ba Directorate of Library Services , De Montfort University ,Leicester, UKb Faculty of Sciences , Staffordshire University , Stoke‐on‐Trent,UKPublished online: 25 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Richard Hall & Melanie Hall (2010) Scoping the pedagogic relationship betweenself‐efficacy and Web 2.0 technologies, Learning, Media and Technology, 35:3, 255-273, DOI:10.1080/17439884.2010.485204

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Learning, Media and TechnologyVol. 35, No. 3, September 2010, 255–273

ISSN 1743-9884 print/ISSN 1743-9892 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/17439884.2010.485204http://www.informaworld.com

Scoping the pedagogic relationship between self-efficacy and Web 2.0 technologies

Richard Halla* and Melanie Hallb

aDirectorate of Library Services, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK; bFaculty of Sciences, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UKTaylor and FrancisCJEM_A_485204.sgm(Received 19 February 2010; final version received 9 April 2010)10.1080/17439884.2010.485204Learning, Media and Technology1743-9884 (print)/1743-9892 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis00000000002010Dr [email protected]

This article scopes the connections between the educational use of Web2.0 technologies in social learning spaces, and the concept of individualself-efficacy. At issue is whether the individual learner can be empoweredboth in her/his engagement with a task based upon a perception that s/hewill be successful and in taking action as a result. The key research focusis whether these web tools enhance personal, academic self-efficacyand subsequently individual agency. It is argued that the personaldevelopments offered by these tools present opportunities for academicsand learners to enhance their self-efficacy, to take action and to increasetheir capability for decision-making in the curriculum. The structuring ofpersonalised and shared spaces in which individual users can cometogether to make decisions and act is a critical theme, and one whichimpacts participation.

Keywords: learner voice; Web 2.0; self-efficacy; social learning theory

Introduction

The impact of Web 2.0 technologies on learner engagement within highereducation is a central focus of current technology-enhanced learning (TEL)research (Ebner, Holzinger, and Maurer 2007; JISC 2009a; Ravenscroft 2009).In particular, pedagogues have been re-thinking the educational implicationsof these tools for the development of personalised, user-controlled learningenvironments (Anderson 2007; O’Donoghue 2009; Pettenati et al. 2007;Rollett et al. 2007). It has been contended that the ability of users to workacross a range of networks and tools, and to integrate them within personallymeaningful spaces, extends individual self-conception, self-presentation andself-knowledge (Franklin and van Harmelen 2007; Parajes and Schunk 2001).However, Pachler and Daly (2009) caution that practitioners need to knowmore about the specific strategies that are deployed by learners using social

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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256 R. Hall and M. Hall

software. Clark et al. (2009) stress that without such knowledge, practitionerscannot frame shared, co-produced epistemological strategies with learners,and thereby risk promoting ‘digital dissonance’.

There is a complex interplay between the theoretical opportunities of Web2.0 tools for personal empowerment through engagement in contexts for narra-tive and authorship, and our understanding of how those tools are deployed inreality (JISC 2009a; Ravenscroft 2009; Trinder et al. 2008). Hemmi, Bayneand Land (2009) argue that the institutionalisation of Web 2.0 technologiesleads to the reclaiming of innovation within traditional, safe paradigms, wherethe possibilities for co-production can be recalibrated and regulated. Suchrecalibration means that Web 2.0 tools are often reined-in by users, so thatthey are used with extant learning and teaching strategies rather than in devel-oping a curriculum modelled upon personal integration and social enquiry(FutureLab 2009). As a result, Selwyn (2010, 67) notes that we need toaddress ‘educational technology as a profoundly social, cultural and politicalconcern’.

The lack of such an integrated curriculum highlights a possible disconnectin the relationship between the use of Web 2.0 tools, opportunities for person-alised learning, and learning activities that are driven by social learning theory.One possibility for examining the impact of this interplay of factors is inmapping the development of individual self-efficacy. Social and constructivistlearning theories (Bandura 1977; Driscoll 1994; Piaget 1970; Vygotsky 1978)highlight the importance of structured, personalised opportunities for develop-ing mastery in new learning situations. This, in turn, rests upon the concept ofself-efficacy, which is critical in explaining an individual’s perception of theirown ability to perform general and domain-specific tasks (Bandura 1989;Parajes 1996; Parajes and Schunk 2001; Zimmerman and Cleary 2006).However, these issues have received limited attention in TEL research to date(Bates and Khasawneh 2007; JISC 2009a; Yi and Yujong 2003), although ithas been argued that access to and participation within user-centred, person-alised spaces enhances self-confidence and decision-making in higher educa-tion (Hall 2008; Parsons 2007).

This article highlights the outcomes of a thematic study of the voices ofboth learners and tutors in one UK higher education institution between2007 and 2009, in order to scope the relationship between Web 2.0 toolsand social learning theory, as evidenced through their impact upon learnerself-efficacy. A central issue is whether the creation of individual,networked spaces enables users to develop their self-efficacy and agency.This examination scopes the qualities of curriculum delivery using thesetechnologies that might reduce the academic anxiety of students and isimpacted by the contextual control, in terms of tools and tasks, available tousers; the user’s motivation and participation within the social networks inwhich they exist; and the feedback and support they receive on theirlearning.

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Learning, Media and Technology 257

Developing pedagogic engagement with Web 2.0 technologies

Web 2.0 technologies can be embedded and aggregated within the curriculumat low cost in order to connect people and information (O’Reilly 2005). Theseapplications afford opportunities for social networking, social bookmarking,user-generated content, virtual representation, the syndication of contentincluding multimedia, and innovative approaches to content and application-handling, including augmented reality and aggregation. Their initial impactprompted practitioners to re-evaluate curriculum delivery and led Sharpe(2006, 16) to claim:

As digital technology pervades everything around us, we can enrich eachencounter to harness the global resources of the information world and of learn-ing communities, to make it more appropriate in that moment to that individual.

Moreover, it was asserted that the openness and malleability of these toolsempowers users to express themselves to others, and to take part in sharedactivities, in a variety of contexts (Franklin and van Harmelen 2007).

The emerging reality is that the use of these tools is shaped by morecomplex pedagogic and personal concerns. Hemmi, Bayne and Land (2009,29) note:

A tendency for both teachers and learners to ‘rein in’ these potentially radicaland challenging effects of the new media formations, to control and constrainthem within more orthodox understandings of authorship, assessment, collabo-ration and formal learning.

These tensions occur within and beyond institutions and impact the literaciesdeveloped by learners and tutors (JISC 2009a; Trinder et al. 2008), the rela-tionships between those actors (Committee of Inquiry 2009), and issues ofidentity, engagement and marginalisation (Anderson 2007; University ofReading 2009). One outcome is an uncertainty about the effective use of Web2.0 tools within traditional pedagogic spaces. As Ravenscroft (2009, 1) argues,practitioners need to consider ‘the current technological innovations as playersin an evolving paradigm, and not necessarily clear solutions to well-understood problems’.

Recent curriculum design and delivery projects in the UK have begun aprocess of re-framing the pedagogic landscape (JISC 2009b). One strandwithin these projects is developing an understanding of how institutionalapproaches to the use of technologies can be framed socially and enables theindividual student’s contextual control of their learning environment. Forexample, the Mobilising Remote Student Engagement project (JISC 2009d) isevaluating ‘the impact of fieldwork and placements on student learning andpersonal development through the integration of personal technologies andsocial tools’, whilst the Information Spaces for Collaborative Creativityproject (JISC 2009c) is examining how learning technologies impact learner

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engagement with dialogic, ‘creative conversations’ in design courses.However, these programmes and projects need to be positioned relative to thepersonal and social contexts from which their outcomes emerge.

Connections between Web 2.0 technologies, social learning theory and self-efficacy

Extant programmes of work offer opportunities for understanding how thepedagogic use of Web 2.0 tools relates to social learning theory, and espe-cially the role of observational learning and modelling, social experience,and reciprocal determinism where a person’s behaviour both influences, andis influenced by, personal factors and the social environment (Bandura1977). These epistemological facets align with the perceived personal bene-fits of engaging with social, Web 2.0 technologies (Becta 2009; Committeeof Inquiry 2009). Ravenscroft (2009, 4) argues that practitioners need toframe ‘the tools and environments that can catalyse, scaffold and amplifylearning processes that are fundamentally human’, and one may argue, social.For Bandura (1977, 22), such amplification is social in experience andregulation:

Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if peoplehad to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do.Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through model-ing: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors areperformed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide foraction.

The processes underlying observational learning are focused upon reflexivityand require the learner to reflect upon and engage in praxis. Attention, reten-tion, motor reproduction, motivation and observer characteristics affect thisprocess, which is both behavioural and cognitive in nature (Kearsley 1994).The key is personal reflection upon a decision or an action, in order to developand test new models for demonstrating what has been learned. Cognition iscritical, in that personal awareness and expectations of future learningoutcomes, for example, set through assignment feedback, can effect individualmotivation and engagement.

These individual effects are important in relating social theory to a self-system comprising attitudes, abilities and cognitive skills (Bandura 1995).Bandura (1995, 2) argued that self-efficacy is ‘the belief in one’s capabilitiesto organise and execute the courses of action required to manage prospectivesituations’. He believed that self-efficacy is critical in learning as it drivespersonal expectations of success or failure and thereby plays a major role inhow goals, tasks and challenges are approached. As a result, four majorsources of self-efficacy are identified (Bandura 1977; Parajes 1996):

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(1) Mastery experiences: the successful completion of a task, especially innew learning situations, strengthens self-efficacy. Failure can under-mine and weaken self-efficacy.

(2) Social modelling: by witnessing others completing a task success-fully.

(3) Social persuasion: where encouragement and positive feedback canpersuade learners that they do have the skills to succeed at a task.

(4) Personal psychological responses: responses and emotional reactions tosituations, like anxiety, can impact self-efficacy.

People with a strong sense of self-efficacy view challenging problems as tasksto be mastered, develop deeper interests in the activities in which they partic-ipate, form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities, andrecover quickly from setbacks. Conversely, people with a weak sense of self-efficacy may avoid challenging tasks, believe that difficult tasks and situationsare beyond their capabilities, focus on personal failings and negativeoutcomes, and quickly lose confidence in their personal abilities. There mayalso be an element of technophobia at play in individual (dis-)engagementwith specific tasks.

This development of a self-system is itself complex and contested. It isbounded and affected, for instance, by research on participation and marginal-isation, as evidenced through activity theory (Engeström 1999; Vygotsky1978); enabling communities of practice (Wenger 1998) and learning citizen-ship (Wenger et al. 2009); and the personal integration of affective and cogni-tive domains, leading to personal transition and independence, supported bygood-enough mentoring (Winnicott 1982). These are not exclusive caveats toa discussion of self-efficacy, but they highlight the disputed boundariesbetween personal and social experiences, and the importance of cultural andtechnical mediation (Illich 1978; Selwyn 2010).

There has been little examination of such cultural and technical mediationin the context of the pedagogic deployment of Web 2.0 technologies (JISC2009a). However, such a perspective provides an opportunity to examine thequalities of curricula that support self-efficacy in three ways. Firstly, Web 2.0technologies offer opportunities to extend formal learning into informal spacesthat are occupied by different peers. Therefore, does learner’s self-efficacyimpact the contextual control available to users in achieving their educationaloutcomes? Secondly, if these tools enable learning activities that encouragemodelling, experimentation and authorship, what impact do they have on theuser’s motivation and participation? Finally, as the networks catalysed bythese tools offer opportunities for enhanced feedback from other groupmembers (Aziz and Macredie 2005), does the ‘virtual’ presence of othersimpact personal self-efficacy and actions? At issue is whether the creation ofindividual networked spaces can enable users to develop self-efficacy and takeaction.

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Evaluation methodology

During 2007–2009, an evaluation was designed, within one UK university, toinvestigate the effects of deploying Web 2.0 technologies on the affectivelearning reported by students and to relate this to the pedagogic approaches ofstaff. The evaluation was intended to scope the interplay between technolo-gies, learning and curriculum design, and to suggest avenues for furtherresearch. The key questions noted below were central to the evaluation:

(1) Does the contextual control available to users in achieving their educa-tional outcomes impact self-efficacy?

(2) What impact do these tools have on the user’s motivation and partici-pation?

(3) Does the ‘virtual’ presence of others impact personal self-efficacy andactions?

The modules involved were at Level 4 (first-year) in media production andgame art design in 2007–2008 and in history in 2008–2009 (Table 1). Theoutcomes and methods from the former fed into the curriculum design andevaluation of the latter. A common theme in the evaluation was an analysis ofconversations about emergent curriculum approaches, in order to examinehow Web 2.0 tools affect both student strategies for their use and thosestudents’ perceptions of their learning. At this point, judgements can be madeabout the factors that impact these learners’ self-efficacy in specific situations.

On both the media production (MP) programme in the Faculty ofTechnology, and the game art design (GAD) programme in the Faculty of Artand Design in 2007–2008, module tutors focused learning tasks upon thedevelopment of digital media, through co-produced learning experiences thatwere enquiry-oriented. In both cases, the university virtual learning environ-ment (VLE) was connected to external tools including synchronous class-rooms, a blog, a wiki and podcasts. In MP, the 46 learners’ wiki-basedhomepages were used to share plans and deliverables driven by personalprojects in new media. In GAD, 34 students used Facebook to share and

Table 1. Synopsis of evaluation participants.

Module Session/level Tools usedCohort

size IntervieweesOther

analysis

Game art design

2007–2008, first-year

VLE, Facebook, blog

34 8 students2 staff

n/a

History 2008–2009, first-year

VLE, podcasts, blog


Blog postings

Media production

2007–2008, first-year

VLE, wiki, blog


n/a

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critique artefacts that were then presented on developmental learning blogs. Ineach case, students and the tutor were interviewed, in order to ascertain thestrategies deployed by students in the use of technologies for personal, socialand academic purposes, and to uncover whether there were specific momentsin which the students gained ownership of their learning and developed theirself-efficacy and action.

In the history programme in 2008–2009, learners’ engagements with tech-nologies on a core module, Presenting and Representing the Past, wereevaluated in order to identify the strategies they deployed in their transitioninto higher education. The module was taken by 54 undergraduates and deliv-ered by two academic staff. It used a mix of technologies encompassing theuniversity VLE for access to resources and discussion forums; podcasts oflectures and seminars; word or tag clouds of key lecture and seminar concepts;and a personal blog or learning log. The learning log is defined as a ‘transi-tional object’ (Winnicott 1982) that enables student reflection on the processof maturation as a learner and a historian. Two members of academic staffwere interviewed alongside seven students at the end of the delivery of themodule. All postings to the blog were analysed and the two datasets were thencross-examined.

Thematic content analysis was used in order to capture the emergentthemes from the interviews, which were open-ended within limited parametersoutlined below. The interviewees were asked how they used technology tosupport their learning. Following on from this were three, bounded areas forquestioning: personalisation and ownership of the learning environment; moti-vation and participation within relevant social networks; and the impact offeedback from groups/networks, peers or tutors on performance. The inter-views were conducted and the coding scheme was framed and tested by thesame evaluator in order to maintain an internal consistency of approach(Boyatzis 1998; Joffe and Yardley 2004). The evaluation examines whatstudents said about the impact of these technologies on specific learning expe-riences, in order to provide a pragmatic description (Reason and Bradbury2001) of the qualities of curriculum delivery through technology that thoselearners highlighted as valuable or problematic. These emergent qualities werethen examined to scope the factors that impact these learners’ self-efficacy inspecific situations.

Outcomes and analysis

Across the interviews, specific themes emerged about the interplay betweenthese technologies, learning activities and affective learning. This categorisa-tion of conversations with students pivoted around their discussion or use ofspecific terms that were interpreted to signify particular themes within thequestions raised above. The unique number of individual students whoreferred to specific themes in their interviews is given in Table 2.

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The impact of contextual control on self-efficacy

Managing a personal learning context was the most critical element forstudents in the performance of academic tasks and in making decisions aboutthose tasks. This control was broken down into two elements: firstly, over thetasks and the guidelines for managing them; and secondly, over the tools to beused to engage with and perform those tasks. This might be seen as reflectinga developmental sense where academic and non-academic boundaries lay orcould be defined by these first-year learners who were new to highereducation.

In terms of the management of online tasks, an MP student choosing to usea group wiki as a formative resource for a digital media project believed thistechnology enabled them to ‘list what they felt their strengths and weaknesseswere, which would not only give the tutors a clearer idea of where the studentfelt they were at, but would also allow other students to contact each othermore specifically to offer or request help’. This learner felt that controlling thelearning environment provided a space that enabled students to connect theirpersonal development to a social space. A second student argued that the abil-ity to personalise contexts enabled them to change the way tasks werepresented: ‘this changed over time so it becomes more than just doing ourprojects, it becomes us trying to be employable as well, so it’s really enhancedthat.’ Clearly, in professionally focused spaces, this type of personal transitioninto meaningful projects is the key. The role of the technologies is in twodirections: inward towards the student’s sense-of-self and outward towards arepresentation of that self to an employer or a more experienced other. Controlover the embedding of technologies within the curriculum, so that they are

Table 2. Themes from evaluation with students on their learning experiences (n= 24).

Number

Outcomes 1: Contextual control and self-efficacyA focus on personal control of the tasks within a learning environment 14A focus on personal control of tools within a learning environment 18

Outcomes 2: The user’s motivation and participation within her/his social networksA focus on personal self-validation 13A focus on aspects of personal participation within networks of learners-

as-peers and learners-with-tutors8

Outcomes 3: Feedback and support for self-efficacyA focus on the impact of collaboration through technologies on

performing specific academic tasks11

A focus upon the impact of personal feedback on performing specific academic tasks

16

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transparent to the individual learner, enables the students to own their ownpersonal presentation.

In the MP module, students moved from exchanging digital CD mixtapesthat enabled them to think about the personalisation and consumption ofmedia, towards defining their own digital project. One student argued thatowning this process provided ‘incredible ways of documenting our work andalso recording all of our findings’. Clearly, the technology facilitated thepersonalisation of specific learning tasks and enabled the tutors to define apedagogy framed by student ownership, or co-governance, of curriculumoutputs. One GAD tutor stated a desire for the students’ management of theirown tools within agreed parameters over time:

A change is a work in progress for three years, of getting the students to blogover time with an end point of personal development and reflection, wherestudents ask each other more difficult questions and define tasks. Personalmotivation and their transition to work takes time as they grow more confident.I want them to enhance their self-conception, planning and management.

This connected to a separate GAD tutor’s desire to provide a set of curriculumspaces that enable the learners to ‘move away from [a didactic approach] andlet them asses their own learning, and using lots of different technologies toenable them to do that’. A curriculum focus on independent learning and co-governance of the learning space framed the boundaries of technologies andtasks provided by the team. This tutor highlighted the case of one learner from‘a very deprived background’ who ‘was scared to death about coming touniversity’. He argued that ‘a greater array of ways to start to engage’ enabledthis student to ‘engage with the students and work at her own pace’. The tech-nologies per se were secondary considerations beyond the activities theyframed and the student engagement that they enabled.

However, for some staff, a high level of personalised, contextual control bystudents provided a threatening scenario for their professionalism and role asa mentor because they felt unable to be experts in the range of technologiesavailable to learners. The second GAD tutor argued: ‘we’re spreading out intoother pieces of Web 2.0 software so it’s getting very difficult to keep track …These are all great initiatives, but I’m running out of hours in a day to spendreading/commenting on blogs, writing/responding to discussions … I’m inoverload!’ The development of spaces that can support differentiated engage-ment and learning activities may demand innovation in curriculum manage-ment, through the use of student mentors from other levels of study, or peerassessment, in order to manage resources effectively. This might also affectlevels of self-efficacy amongst those more experienced peers.

In terms of this plethora of technologies, there was a sense amongst somestudents that institutional tools could be stifling. One GAD learner stated thatthe university VLE is ‘very sterile as well; it’s a big jump from talking to

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someone to all of a sudden be stuck in a very plain, slightly clinical space’.This sense of being ‘stuck’ came through from a fellow GAD student whobelieved that: ‘I can disburse information a lot quicker through Facebook.’Moreover, using a more flexible, alternative technology enabled her ‘defi-nitely to see my own progress, I can go back and see how I have developedand that gives me confidence’. This student’s emerging belief in her ownability indicates increasing self-efficacy, which in turn suggests improvedperformance.

For these learners engaging with technologies that might be suggested bya tutor, but that were then personalised, was key to developing their ownapproaches to self-representation through task work. One GAD learner feltthat the use of a blog as a learning log and a means of self-validation grew overtime: ‘my blog helps produce a huge amount of written, or more written mate-rial, throughout the year, but it is a lot more relaxed allowing me to reflect andactually be myself and have a lot more active learning.’ The key for a secondGAD student was the self-paced control of tasks enabled through an institu-tional space, as ‘you’re not quite so dependent on the tutors’. The belief inone’s own ability and heightened self-efficacy fosters increased independenceof learning.

This was not the case for a Level 1 student working with blogging tools asa shared, group learning journal in history: ‘some staff feel that they can’tdisturb the flow of a discussion but I need that intervention to help me withmy assessments.’ These students felt much more inclined to need guidanceand support and much less able to manage the process themselves. However,the curriculum was much more prescribed, in terms of contact time and deliv-ery methods, with students receiving much less feedback on their work than ina studio culture. The learning log was seen by the history teaching team aspivotal in enabling the learners to take ownership of their development. Onetutor argued that using the technologies to help the students overcome personalanxieties was the key: ‘I suppose where they are a little bit anxious is trans-posing those practices from their social lives into an academic context andwhether the same rules apply, and I guess a lot of it is round having the confi-dence in their own judgements, academic judgement.’ In this model self-efficacy increases though a contextual model that enables structured tutor,peer and self-assessment to take place. There is an indication that the learninglog process, supported by external and internal partners helps the individualstudent’s internal remodelling of their practices.

This tutor went on to state that ‘the learning blog has been quite useful bygiving them a forum which is reasonably safe, giving them that opportunityand forum to talk openly about themselves’. This was felt to be a less pres-surised context for discussion, enabling the development of personalapproaches to assessment tasks and feedback. A student concurred arguingthat the learning log ‘helped me recognise that I am becoming more confidentbecause I remember when I first posted on it I put down my worries and [now]

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I can see how I have improved’. A second believed these prescribed ‘technol-ogies linked to tasks help you realise that you have become more confidentand that you’re growing’. More controlled social learning approaches, insti-gated by the tutor, can be seen to be important in enabling students to examineand model the strategies deployed by others, and thereby remodel their ownpractices.

Clearly, the development of contextual control over the curriculum is oftenbounded by the teaching team and their curriculum priorities. Where studentshave a space to engage in personalisation of a learning context, a subset is ableto overcome personal anxieties and create an experiential approach to reflec-tion upon their learning. However, this is far from universal. In terms of thelearning log in history, 54 learners posted 274 entries and 19 students made sixor more entries. Thirty-five made fewer than five entries each, suggesting thatthe technology and tasks could lead to mechanistic use rather than ownership.That said 116 entries (42.3% of the total) highlighted personal, emotionalaspects of the transition to learning at university and enabled this subset oflearners to begin to integrate their emotional and cognitive understandingof existing in higher education. This suggests that spaces for the integration ofthese facets of learning are important in developing self-efficacy amongstlearners who are new to higher education.

The user’s motivation and participation within their social networks

For some students, personal motivation and participation within a learningenvironment was framed by a focus on self-validation and personal participa-tion within networks of learners-as-peers and learners-with-tutors. Engagingwith validated social networks, where users were able to define and presentthemselves to other students and tutors using shared tools, was important forsome learners in their emerging empowerment.

One programme leader in MP highlighted his need for a fuller socialengagement by individuals: ‘I’m looking at other tools for discussion where[students] aren’t inhibited by their own perceived identities.’ One of hisstudents believed that through this type of external networking he gained theability to achieve tasks: ‘I use Web 2.0 technologies because it is an interestthing. I found this and what do you think? It is a process of self-validation …this experience is important in practice.’ One of this learner’s peers was partic-ularly forthright about how engagement with validated social networks onMySpace was crucial because: ‘I trust their opinion and value their apprecia-tion. This helps build my identity and helps my work become original andauthentic. It gives me inspiration.’ It appears that this form of modelling anddiscussion in trusted environments can develop personal motivation, andindicates that this affects the individual’s self-efficacy on specific tasks.

This view is tied to issues of control and also demonstrates an extension ofthe impact of these Web 2.0 tools into areas of personal development and

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self-concept. However, their impact on learner engagement with academicwork was demonstrated to be more complex by a GAD student who arguedthat ‘at the start, things are all brand new and shiny, there is quite a high desireto use the technology to participate with each other but then as the yearprogress it gets a bit old and people feel the need less to use it’. A peerbelieved that it was key moments in time, linked to personal need, that droveuse: ‘near assessment time there will be a lot more activity of people wantingthat extra critique.’ It is possible that this need for ‘extra critique’ was ademand for help in bolstering a personal belief in self-efficacy.

A separate learner saw the maturation process as confusing and not drivenby specific moments in the academic calendar, but linked to modellingacademic practices facilitated by technology: ‘After Christmas I think every-thing just started to click and I have no idea why, I think it’s because when youcan go on Facebook and see what everyone else is doing.’ A third linked theirdevelopment to the motivation of modelling professionalism through review-ing ‘what is actually industry standard’. For these students, an on-going partic-ipative process, driven by Web 2.0 technology, was key to their engagementin learning. A tutor concurred that enabling students to participate by connect-ing their personal blog in a social space was ‘helping a lot more, actually toget people to feel confident about their own work’. This confidence was linkedto motivation and task success.

In social spaces, such motivation was seen by history learners to help inmanaging difference and participating with others. However, this was oftenapproached through the use of non-academic, Web 2.0 tools. One learnerbelieved social networking sites ‘have helped me with the participation andgetting to know people on my course’. She went on to note that this madeher ‘less anxious knowing that you could speak to other people quite easilyon your course and that you could get in contact with the lecturers easily …this is a lot less intimidating than going to see them’. A separate learneramplified this fact because she lived at home and felt that Web 2.0 resources‘helped bridge the gap between university and living at home’. Using toolsas bridges between separate spaces was a function of individual motivationand curriculum design, but these tools did offer opportunities for widerparticipation.

One of the central issues for a history tutor was overcoming a perceiveddistance between learners and their module tasks, and the threat of a subse-quent disengagement. This indicates low levels of self-efficacy, and the tutorfelt that motivation and participation on task using Web 2.0 tools would help:‘[They have] got to be part of an overall strategy designed to increase andenhance participation of the learners.’ A view here was that bounding a safeenvironment would maximise engagement and self-efficacy. One of hisstudents believed that a strategic approach enabled her to ‘gain the confidenceto argue and disagree even if I am the only person who is arguing for oragainst’. The second tutor felt that developing motivation and participation

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was incredibly problematic irrespective of technology. He noted that Web 2.0tools give more opportunities ‘to intervene constantly to try and compel themotivation of the student to develop what’s going on there’, but as a result‘are you actually undercutting your overall objective [of fosteringindependence]?’

Feedback and support for self-efficacy

The productive use of Web 2.0 tools for collaboration through technologieson specific academic tasks enabled meaningful, personal feedback to beengaged with and critical literacies to be developed. In the GAD module, theuse of technologies for observation, modelling and construction in a socialspace, underpinned by a culture of encouragement, was vital. One learnerbelieved that social acceptance and shared values underpinned personalengagement:

Blogging means that you always bounce things off each other – if someone postssomething that’s particularly inspirational and you know we are talking aboutthings and discussing a very specific topic to do with the industry all of us kindof get into it and say yeah, we encourage each other and its very much a groupeffort like a little community, because all of us kind of drag each other throughit, you know it’s not just like a personal thing.

A second GAD student argued that the technologies extended contact timewith peers and staff, meaning that ‘we have the opportunity to get criticismsoff them all the time and that’s what made most people definitely use it’. Inthe personal achievement of academic tasks, this was critical. However, therewas more of a focus on feedback than on collaborative project leading toenhanced performance on tasks.

For the staff team involved in the GAD module, there was a clear pedagog-ical ethos of using technologies to provide on-going, diagnostic feedback thatwould enhance outcomes. One tutor stated that the learner’s development of‘academic analysis’ through partnerships was pivotal: ‘By the time they get tothe third year by having this continual peer-assessment through technologylinked to physical tutorials and assessments, they are able to build up their ownacademic analysis.’ This mix of feedback methods was critical because ‘itenables the person with the least confidence around the subject to still have avoice, and to still develop their work and show their work online, and still getcritically analysed by other students’.

For some students the focus on persistent, trustful feedback was a functionless of developing personal motivation or confidence than of connection withthe type of tool to be used. An MP learner noted that ‘we are all on personaljourneys and are changing and developing. We need feedback in a structurallyand visually appealing place where we feel safe and reassured’. This connec-tion between personal spaces and a feeling of safety in engagement with tasks

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was different for less a history student, who argued that the technology wasless important than the interaction or feedback:

The discussion board helped as other people came up with other ideas I hadn’tthought of, and with the lecturer commenting as well that enables you to knowthat what you were saying was right, so that sort of reassured you as well, andgave you more ideas to work with.

A history lecturer concurred believing that the engagement with ‘a consistentmessage about their work supported their personal achievement’. In this view,the tool was irrelevant.

The staff team in the MP module had a greater focus on collaborativeactivities underpinning tasks and performance. There was a clear focus uponthe opportunities of Web 2.0 tools to support personal reflection amongstgroups of students. For example, the use of a wiki to develop reflection andanalysis on a series of shared case studies stimulated ‘amongst the best studentsa quality and depth of notes that went beyond a set text to produce more orig-inal thinking that was linked to a topic of personal interest’. However, whilsthe believed that this was because ‘they took time to personalise their case stud-ies and map them to their essays’, he also cautioned that they ‘looked for feed-back on that process just from me’. His concern focused upon weaker studentswho did not blog or share work often enough, and the lack of group-based inter-action. The MP teaching team noted that overcoming these issues took time asstudents become inculcated in the social culture of a course:

These other social connections and tools help them work together and mesh theirwork and life. I will feed them questions from afar in a network that is indepen-dent of their physical space – they will have to track their own and collectiveassets in these spaces as they would in work and life.

Whether the pedagogic culture was one of tracking and receiving feedback onassets that were produced, or as in the history module ‘question everything’, itstill defined an approach to personal engagement with feedback and collabo-ration and hence a perceived ability to achieve specific tasks. For one historystudent, this coalesced around a more complex view of socially based inquiry:‘The challenge for me, and the discussion board helps a lot, is to go home andthink about what I’ve learned, ask my own questions, come to my ownconclusions, voice my opinions and see how it coincides with others.’ Thetechnology was simply a conduit for feedback on personal enquiry.

Conclusions and recommendations

The networked opportunities opened up by Web 2.0 technologies offer educa-tors the opportunity to reshape their pedagogies, to focus on a differentiated,personalised curriculum housed within a social learning approach. Through

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conversations with users about their engagement with these technologies,three themes related to self-efficacy and personalised learning, bounded bysocial learning experiences, emerged:

(1) the importance of ownership in setting the agenda for the use of a partic-ular space, in terms of the tasks and tools that shape its boundaries;

(2) the development of a user’s identity within internal and external socialnetworks and associations; and

(3) the ways in which support and feedback for both self- and academiclearning can be enhanced.

In articulating their feelings and perceptions about Web 2.0 approaches andapplications, both students and staff highlight how the marriage of Web 2.0strategies and tools can begin to open up spaces for people to develop self-effi-cacy and agency. In particular, this is enhanced through social and personalmodelling of thinking and production, and their reflections on both their abil-ities and their belief in their own abilities.

It is possible that the playful nature of Web 2.0 technologies might helpthese reflections to emerge. One of the cornerstones of Web 2.0 is its abilityto open up playful and trustful engagements in way that were outlined byBloom, Krathwohl, and Masia (1964, 18) when they argued that ‘educationhelps the individual to explore many aspects of the world and even his ownfeelings and emotion, that choice and decision matters to the individual’. Byextending these playful types of opportunities, staff may empower students indeveloping their own self-concept and learning.

There is still a risk that the provision of frameworks for free associationsbetween individuals will leave some people marginalised, and the creation ofmeaningful contexts that spark or forge opportunities for participation cannotbe ignored by higher education institutions and their staff. Despite this risk, thecapacity of Web 2.0 to improve the opportunities for people to work togetherto shape and solve problems, and to improve their beliefs in their own capa-bilities, is pedagogically important. In validating individual stories and beliefsand in crystallising themes around control, participation and external associa-tion, these tools afford opportunities to engage learners and develop strategiesfor self-efficacy. Web 2.0 tools and approaches promote dialogue and a sensethat the power relationships within any space have a chance to be democrati-cally framed. This is crucial in developing approaches to social learning.Therefore, meaningful pedagogic opportunities might be developed in threekey areas:

(1) It is possible to give learners contextual control in the management oftools and social rules that underpin their performance of tasks, throughnegotiation with them. In this way, it is possible to support the buildingof spaces that can be adapted by student to their own personal schemas

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and strategies, and are built on trustful encounters. Strategies to catal-yse modelling of learning in real-world scenarios may catalyse thedevelopment of self-efficacy. However, issues to do with social anxi-ety, difference, self-conception and allegiance within closed groups,and marginalisation of certain users, all pose a risk to the successfulperformance of tasks and decision-making.

(2) Learner’s value developing their own academic identity facilitated by arange of internal and external, non-academic associations or socialnetworks, in-line with the tenets of social learning theory. For formativedevelopment, framing these types of engagements enables students todevelop their self-concept and agency through experience in safe spaces,which can then be levered into new situations. Web 2.0 tools offer anarray of supportive networking contexts where learners can model prac-tice and lever self-expression. More importantly, this occurs in spaceswhere it is possible to diffuse responsibility for actions and decisions.

(3) Web 2.0 tools facilitate near real-time feedback and support for learning,and modelling the value of divergent approaches. Students report thatthis creates an environment where they can be engaged and motivated,as long as assessment and support is given equitably and openly, andwhere they can see that participation is relevant.

Notes on contributorsRichard Hall is the University e-Learning Co-ordinator, based in the Directorate ofLibrary Services at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He is also a NationalTeaching Fellow (2009). He is responsible for the academic implementation ofTechnology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) with the aim of enhancing the student learningexperience. Richard has managed national projects on: mainstreaming Web 2.0technologies; managing transitions into higher education using social media; support-ing students working remotely using personal technologies; and deliberation andGreen ICT. Richard’s research interests include resilient education and the place ofsocial media in the idea of the twenty-first century university.

Melanie Hall is a Lecturer in Psychology at Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Tent,UK. She is Level One Programme Tutor, with responsibility for the induction of allnew students onto the range of Psychology awards. She is also E-mentoring Co-ordinator for Psychology, which is enabled with the co-operation of second- and third-year students in-part using an e-mailing system. Her research interests include eyewitness testimony, psychology and the law, the implementation of psychologicalprinciples to e-learning and social networking, and the impact of technologies onindividual and group cognition.

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scoping the pedagogic relationship between self‐efficacy and web 2.0 technologies

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