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Discontinuities in university student experiences of learning through discussions
Author(s) -
Ellis Robert A.,
Calvo Rafael A.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
british journal of educational technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.79
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-8535
pISSN - 0007-1013
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00519.x
Subject(s) - quality (philosophy) , mathematics education , psychology , face to face , face (sociological concept) , experiential learning , workload , key (lock) , subject (documents) , computer science , pedagogy , sociology , world wide web , social science , philosophy , epistemology , operating system , computer security
This article reports on research into the student experience of learning through discussions in a third‐year undergraduate engineering subject. Information engineering students studying e‐commerce were required to engage in face‐to‐face and online discussions as a key aspect of their learning experience. This study investigates the quality of the experience of learning through those discussions using quantitative methodologies from Student Learning Research. Analyses of student ratings on the closed‐ended questionnaires identify qualitatively different approaches to learning through discussions, both in face‐to‐face contexts and online. Relationships are found among the variation in the quality of these approaches and how students perceive issues such as workload, what they thought they were learning through discussions and performance. Implications arising from these results identify different suggestions for teaching students to discuss successfully in different contexts.