Single versus multiple contextualization in e-learning environments

Yavuz Akpınar*, Özlem Şengül+ & Ekrem Kutbay**Boğaziçi University, +Bahcesehir University, Istanbul Turkey

akpinar@boun.edu.tr Budapest

Novotel htel

This research is supported by Boğaziçi University BAP with a grant number 14D02P1:8384

CONTEXT

“as the whole situation, background or environment relevant to a particular event” (Tessmer & Richey, 1997; p.87)

Multiple contexts (work, street, school, and lab) may provide grounds for a learning experience.

A context helps students to remember both formal and informal experiences, and prior learning. Hence it functions as cognitive strategies applicable to a study task.

Context and meaning

• Donaldson (1978) conceived a context as a meaningful situation which may be used a catalyzer of the process of acting and thinking.

• Köhler (1947), one’s perception of an organized situation is considered as a

coherent whole; the whole determines the meaning of the constituting elements.

• Vygotsky (1978) activity in a context is critical, because activity integrates human actions in a coherent whole, and provides a foundation for meaningful engagements

• Marton and Booth (1997) argued the context from a phenomenographic approach stating that “learning is always based on experiencing a situation and discerning relevant phenomena from that situation” (p.202).

Context based instruction

labeled with different names; for instance • theme based instruction (Dirkx & Prenger, 1997), • embedded instruction (Simpson et al., 1997), • situated cognition (Greeno, 1998), • infused instruction (Perin, 2001), • authentic learning (Murphy, Lunn & Jones, 2006), • microworld based learning (Papert, 1980), • anchored instruction (Bottge et al., 2007), • inquiry based teaching (Rogers, 2007) and • contextualized instruction (Wisely, 2009)

Types of Context in Learning Environments

•

Fall of contextualization in technology based learning environments

Possible reasons:

• Web based material development; design and development of context based material for the web was more difficult than context-free material.

• Learning object (LO) approach: LO developers were asked to develop material free of context so that the LO may be adapted or integrated into different learning units and different content areas where it is appropriate.

• Time: It is time consuming to develop learning activities in different contexts for CBL environments considering.

• Transferring responsibility to teachers: Many developers left the responsibility of contextualizing the learning content to the human tutors/students.

• Difficulty of contextualizing abstract contents: It may be an easy task to contextualize concrete knowledge patterns, however there are many learning units covering abstract patterns for which finding controllable real-world events and tools may be difficult, particularly in e- and m-learning settings.

in considering contextualization of a learning content

The followings should be considered:

• Situate the content into a familiar context (context)

• Provide goals achievable in a given context (goal)

• Develop tasks to be handled in a given context (task)

• Deliver reflective feedback in the context at which student is active (feedback)

• Sequence activities in a way that they all support each other to ease understanding (organization).

• Organize task sets and feedback components in order to respond to individual learning requirements in a dynamic cycle pattern (revision cycle)

Research Problem

• This research explored the design and implementation of single and multiple context use in two different CBL environments for the learning unit, logic.

Single context

Your task is prepare a report of what astronaut Ali did and did not. In your report, you should code correct events using «1», and incorrect events using «0». Use the photographs given to find what Ali did and did not

Multiple context

•

Data Anaylsis_1

Groups n Pre test Post test learning gain

mean SD mean SD mean SD

A 40 3,250 1,514 6,450 2,601 3,200 2,802

B 41 3,439 1,500 4,073 1,941 ,634 2,527

C 40 2,825 1,677 3,325 2,055 ,500 2,470

D 30 3,167 1,641 6,100 2,040 2,933 2,242

Tablo : Pretest, posttest and learning gain scores

Groups Learning environment type

A Courseware with multiple context and teacher supportB Courseware with single contextC Conventional activities (control group)D Courseware with single context and teacher support

Data analysis -2

Learning gain Sum of squares

df Squares mean

F Sig.

Between groups239,625 3 79,875 12,415 ,000

Within groups945,779 147 6,434

sum1185,404 150

Table: ANOVA for differences between group means

Learning gain Group Group Mean difference

Standard error

p

A B 2,565* ,563 ,000

A C 2,700* ,567 ,000

A D ,266 ,612 1,000

B C ,134 ,563 1,000

B D -2,299* ,609 ,001

C D -2,433* ,612 ,001

Table: Bonferroni testi

Groups Learning environment type

A Courseware with multiple context and teacher supportB Courseware with single contextC Conventional activities (control group)D Courseware with single context and teacher support

Types of Context in Learning Environments

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Content organization in single context

Content organization in multiple context