Informal Learning Environments Research Articles

Learning environments preferred by university students: a shift toward informal and flexible learning environments

Universities are facing new challenges that pose various demands for developing learning environments. These challenges are related to different pedagogical approaches, the use of information and communications technology (ICT), the diversification of student populations, and new expectations related to working life. This study focused on university students’ perceptions of preferred learning environments and their thoughts about the best learning environments for the higher-education level. The main data consisted of answers to open questions from 230 students. Additionally, a questionnaire was used to gain an overall picture of students’ experiences in the current learning environment. Five main themes emerged: characteristics of the campus; available resources; flexibility of learning opportunities; pedagogy; and implementation of ICT in education. Further, two larger perspectives were highlighted. One was the need for informal learning environments (where students can study alone or with peers or just hang out). The second perspective pertains to the flexibility of learning, demonstrating the need for learning environments that allow participation without the need to come to the campus for face-to-face meetings. The need for resources (particularly ICT and the support and availability of teaching personnel) was also highlighted. The study provides important perspectives for developing appropriate learning environments for higher education.

Creating an Effective Electric Eel Display for the Belle Isle Aquarium

Science museums, zoos, and aquariums are informal learning environments in which interactive and graphic technologies can be used to engage, entertain, and educate the general public about science concepts. Hands-on electronics and graphic displays were created for the electric eel exhibit of the Belle Isle Aquarium (Detroit, MI). Electric pulses emitted by the electric eels were converted to sound and flashes of light; the frequency of the discharges was displayed on a monitor; and an interactive button enabled activation of the sound effects. The display included text about the eels and their electrical discharges. Hypothetically, audiences will interact with the displays and be entertained and informed about electric eels. Surveys were conducted before entering and after exiting the Belle Isle Aquarium, probing engagement, entertainment and education. The interactive electronic enhancements were associated with significant increases in knowledge, overall enjoyment, and amount of time spent at the electric eel exhibit. Patrons who did the survey prior to encountering the exhibit gained more from the exhibit than those who did not. A combination of social and technical enhancements may be the most effective way to have an impact on the knowledge and enjoyment of the general public.

Dilemmi digitali e governance dell’identità digitale dei minori: l’interazione fra pari come opportunità informale di media education

The contribution investigates parents’ digital dilemmas associated with sharenting as an informal learning opportunity to rethink and orient their online sharing behavior. The paper reports on some results of an exploratory study based on the analysis of online conversations on a parenting forum focused on these dilemmas. Findings suggest that the interactional context where such exchange takes place can function as an informal learning environment, fostering informal peer-to-peer media education practices for parents in the digital age.

Sea of Genes: A Reflection on Visualising Metagenomic Data for Museums.

We examine the process of designing an exhibit to communicate scientific findings from a complex dataset and unfamiliar domain to the public in a science museum. Our exhibit sought to communicate new lessons based on scientific findings from the domain of metagenomics. This multi-user exhibit had three goals: (1) to inform the public about microbial communities and their daily cycles; (2) to link microbes' activity to the concept of gene expression; (3) and to highlight scientists' use of gene expression data to understand the role of microbes. To address these three goals, we derived visualization designs with three corresponding stories, each corresponding to a goal. We present three successive rounds of design and evaluation of our attempts to convey these goals. We could successfully present one story but had limited success with our second and third goals. This work presents a detailed account of an attempt to explain tightly coupled relationships through storytelling and animation in a multi-user, informal learning environment to a public with varying prior knowledge on the domain and identify lessons for future design.

Preferred Learning Styles for Digital Native and Digital Immigrant Visitors in The Malaysian Music Museum

The majority of museum experts have agreed that museums are informal learning environments, however, most of the previous studies on digital learning have focused on formal education institutions instead of informal environments. Hence, adapting the new fast-changing technology in museum learning has become one of the major challenges for the digital native and digital immigrant populations due to their different learning styles. These two generations have different levels of thinking patterns, experiences, and digital exposure that lead to different levels of technology accessibility in the learning environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the preferred learning styles of museum visitors in the Malaysian context based on the learning styles of digital natives and digital immigrants. A total of 265 respondents participated in this study representing the population of N=792 at the Malaysian music museum in the data collection process. These descriptive results on the cross-tabulation analysis from the survey indicated that most of the visitors preferred the digital natives’ learning styles compared to the digital immigrants’, regardless of personal factors (gender, age, nationality, education level, or occupation). Thus, museum institutions should take the necessary steps to enhance or maintain the learning approach for digital natives with elements of entertainment and fun, provide internet connection, less text, out of school environment, digital use, and multi-task activities for skills enhancement. The minority of digital immigrants are suggested to assimilate and become part of the digital native group to stay relevant in this digital era.
 Keywords: Digital, Education, Learning, Malaysia, Museum

Effects of structural and trait competitiveness stimulated by points and leaderboards on user engagement and performance growth: A natural experiment with gamification in an informal learning environment

ABSTRACT Rooted in theories of competitiveness and social comparison, we model the effects of users’ structural and trait competitiveness on their engagement and performance growth in an informal learning environment. We hypothesise that game elements of points and leaderboards stimulate users’ structural competitiveness, which affects users’ engagement and has an inverted-U effect on performance growth. We further hypothesise that these effects are stronger among individuals with higher trait competitiveness. We tested our hypotheses using data from a natural experiment conducted over 300 days on 88,310 unique users who made 215,920 game interactions within the Cyber Detectives exhibit at the Tech Interactive museum in California. Our results are based on two objective measures of trait-competitiveness as both behaviour and outcome (percentile ranking on total time spent and number of badges earned, respectively), multiple objective measures of user engagement (time spent per attempt, number of reattempts, and daily user attempts), and an objective measure of performance growth (points). Results provide overall support to our hypotheses. We contribute to the gamification literature by providing strong causal evidence of points and leaderboards triggering structural and trait competitiveness, which interact to affect both engagement and performance growth in informal learning contexts.

Teaching Earth systems connections to middle school students in an informal learning environment with Science on a Sphere®, personal relevance and arts-based activities

The next generation of STEM professionals needs to understand interconnections between human and Earth systems to be able to address complex, multifaceted, emerging global environmental issues. Interest in STEM fields and professions can begin in middle school. To educate and connect middle school students to Earth systems and STEM fields, we created an interactive Science on a Sphere Ⓡ (SOS) and arts-based program, called 6 Degrees of Connection. The program was developed through an iterative review process involving undergraduate interns, middle school students, and teachers. This program was tested alongside a traditional SOS program, assessed with formative and summative evaluations, and revised based on feedback from educator workshops and student questionnaires. Almost 800 6th-8th grade students from Baltimore, and rural and small urban Pennsylvania schools participated in the process, completing front end research and post-program surveys, in addition to an arts-based activity that was evaluated. Evaluation results show the 6 Degrees program achieved content comprehension and retention, and was rated highly in terms of enjoyment. The arts integration in the program aided students’ understanding of connections and feeling personally connected to Earth, and the inclusion of interactivity and STEM career profiles increased content retention. Students’ ability to explain connections in their own words further demonstrated their increased knowledge of Earth systems. The results of implementation of the 6 Degrees of Connection program supports the importance of personal relevance for learning and the benefits of art integration with science, and informs efforts to promote STEM literacy among middle school students.

Uncovering motivation and self-regulated learning skills in integrated medical MOOC learning: a mixed methods research protocol

IntroductionMassive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are informal learning environments. Since a few years, MOOCs are being reused and integrated in formal medical education. However, what constitutes optimal integration is still...

Exploring the awe-some: Mobile eye-tracking insights into awe in a science museum.

Informal learning environments provide the opportunity to study guests' experiences as they engage with exhibits specifically designed to invoke the emotional experience of awe. The current paper presents insight gained by using both traditional survey measures and innovative mobile eye-tracking technology to examine guests' experiences of awe in a science museum. We present results for guests' visual attention in two exhibit spaces, one chosen for its potential to evoke positive awe and one for negative awe, and examine associations between visual attention and survey responses with regard to different facets of awe. In this exploratory study, we find relationships between how guests attend to features within an exhibit space (e.g., signage) and their feelings of awe. We discuss implications of using both methods concurrently to shed new light on exhibit design, and more generally for working in transdisciplinary multimethod teams to move scientific knowledge and application forward.

Learn from your environment: A visual literacy learning model

Based on the presupposition that visual literacy skills are not usually learned unaided by osmosis, but require targeted learning support, this article explores how everyday encounters with visuals can be leveraged as contingent learning opportunities. The author proposes that a learner’s environment can become a visual learning space if appropriate learning support is provided. This learning support may be delivered via the anytime and anywhere capabilities of mobile learning (m-learning), which facilitates peer learning in informal settings. The study propositioned a rhizomatic m-learning model of visual skills that describes how the visuals one encounters in their physical everyday environment can be leveraged as visual literacy learning opportunities. The model was arrived at by following an approach based on heuristic inquiry and user-centred design, including testing prototypes with representative learners. The model describes one means visual literacy could be achieved by novice learners from contingent learning encounters in informal learning environments, through collaboration and by providing context-aware learning support. Such a model shifts the onus of visual literacy learning away from academic programmes and, in this way, opens an alternative pathway for the learning of visual skills.
 
 Implications for practice or policy:
 
 This research proposes a means for learners to leverage visuals they encounter in their physical everyday environment as visual literacy learning opportunities.
 M-learning software developers may find the pedagogical model useful in informing their own software.
 Educators teaching visual skills may find application of the learning model’s pedagogical assumptions in isolation in their own formal learning settings.

THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF THE USAGE OF PUPILS' SELF-EXPRESSION SKILLS ACQUIRED WITHIN MUSIC EDUCATION

Aim. The aim of the research is to study the usage of primary school pupils’ self-expression skills acquired within music education in various social contexts.
 Methods. Theoretical research method – the analysis of literature, empirical data acquisition method – questionnaire. Statistical data processing has been carried out in IBM SPSS 23 programme, using the following data processing methods: frequency analysis; Mann-Whitney U test for the comparison of two independent groups; Kruskal-Wallis test for the comparison of three or more independent groups; Kendall rank correlation coefficient for the assessment of associations between two variables.
 Results. In the development of self-expression skills, an important aspect is the social performance criterion that is based on pupils’ need for self-expression in a social environment of practising music. Age and gender-based correlations in the assessment of a self-expression skill criterion "Social performance" indicate that with age pupils become more independent and engaged in music-related social activities. Girls are socially more active and emotional and engage in artistic activities more often. The research confirms the role of teachers in the development of pupils’ self-expression skills, promoting integration of formal and informal learning process and transformation in formal and informal learning environment.
 Conclusions. The dynamics and interactions of self-expression skills’ development factors (social, emotional and intellectual) defines pupils’ individual self-expression skills and development tendencies. Self-expression is important for pupils in social aspect, as it is related to socialisation in microenvironment (family) and macroenvironment (friends) and affects cooperation and communication.

The aspiring teacher entrepreneur’s competencies and challenges in an informal STEM environment

Teacher entrepreneurship is a new and growing area of study which has gained much attention over the past 15 years. However, more research is required to better understand how teacher entrepreneurs act, what challenges they face, and how they can be properly supported. In this study, we carry out a qualitative study of an aspiring teacher entrepreneur’s journey in designing and holding their first STEM course, in a non-profit informal STEM Center to investigate the teacher’s entrepreneurial competencies and the effects of their environment on their work. Our findings show how the exhibited competencies of the teacher participant differed compared to existing literature on teacher entrepreneurs and which competencies were not seen and why. Length of program and stakeholder expectations were seen as challenges specifically arising from the nature of the non-profit informal STEM setting the teacher worked in. Possible solutions to such challenges are presented and implications for supporting and educating teacher entrepreneurs are also explained. Our study contributes to literature on teacher entrepreneurship, novice teacher progress, and informal STEM learning environments.

Family Smartphone Practices and Parent-Child Conversations During Informal Science Learning at an Aquarium

Despite the ubiquity of smartphones, no studies to date have investigated family smartphone practices in informal learning environments, notwithstanding museum app studies. Yet, the importance of parent-child interactions for children’s informal learning is well-established. This multi-method pilot study described whether and how families used smartphones during informal learning, assessed fidelity of parental self-reported smartphone use, and compared the quantity and quality of parent-child conversations by smartphone use. Participants were 79 children and parents at a local aquarium. Parents self-reported demographics, amount of smartphone use, and verbal engagement with child. With a subset of families, researchers used systematic observations to document smartphone use and parent-child engagement and audio recording for parent-child conversations. The authors assessed conversation quality by coding verbatim transcripts for parent and child responsiveness and contingency. Triangulation of measures revealed that parents underreported and underestimated their device use. Fifty-five percent of families used a smartphone, primarily for photo and video documentation. More smartphone-using adults reported off-topic talk than did smartphone-free adults (p = .001), and the more parents used their smartphones, the less contingent were their conversations (p = .004). That parents and children were less contingent, and thus less sensitive, at the turn-by-turn conversational level adds to the scarce microanalytic work demonstrating how parent smartphone use impacts the moment-to-moment interactions of parents and children. Such differences in the quantity and quality of language interactions have important implications for the developmental and educational trajectories of children whose families vary in degree of smartphone use during informal learning opportunities.

“I’m slowly ageing but I still have my value”: challenging ageism and empowering older persons through lifelong learning in Singapore

ABSTRACT The National Silver Academy (NSA) was launched in 2016 as part of the Singapore government’s Action Plan for Successful Aging. This paper uses a grounded approach to explore and assess critical geragogical elements that are enabling, empowering and transformative for older learners. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 48 participants who had completed an NSA course. Although three different categories of older learners were identified in this study, most tend to internalize ageism and took courses to counter ageist stereotypes of being frail, dependent and useless. In terms of geragogy, participants articulated four key learning needs at the NSA. These were: (i) relatable, empathetic and engaging instructors; (ii) interactive and versatile methods of teaching with emphasis on real-life applications; (iii) flexible and accessible curriculum and course content appropriate to learners’ capabilities and expectations and (iv) inclusive and disability-friendly learning environments catering to a wide spectrum of learners. At the NSA, instructors are crucial to the empowerment of older learners by leading the challenge against ageism, promoting learners’ confidence and self-worth as well as enabling safe spaces for personal transcendence and creative expression. This study reinforces the need for more contextualized models of geragogy to dismantle structural and internalized forms of ageism by taking into account older learners’ cultural beliefs about aging, access to education, confidence and competences to navigate both formal and informal learning environments.

Spatial openness and student activities in an atrium: A parametric evaluation of a social informal learning environment

The use of atria for students' informal learning activities is becoming a common architectural design strategy in contemporary higher education buildings, especially in dense urban settings. However, while researchers have focused on the relationship between students’ perception, preferences and behaviours in social learning spaces, the spatial attributes themselves tend to be neglected in the literature.By exploiting digital spatial analysis tools, this paper uses the parameters of ‘viewing volume’ and ‘viewing area’ to compare the spatial openness of different spaces within an atrium in a higher education institution. Timeframe capture and interviews are also employed to record the distribution of student activities. The spatial attributes of the atrium and the distribution of student activities are analysed to explore links between the two. The results indicate that the viewing volume in the two-storey-height space is the highest, while viewing area in the staircase space is the highest. These spaces tended to coincide with higher frequencies of ‘see and be seen’ activities, such as students waiting and looking around (71.54% and 56.32% respectively). The standard deviations of the mean viewing volume and viewing area are the greatest in the three-storey space, suggesting a diversity of spatial openness. This coincided with the highest frequency of activities that require social interactions, such as gathering and group study (92.40% and 58.10% respectively). These findings suggest that spatial openness can impact student activities in an educational setting, and an atrium specifically. These novel methods also open new horizons for interpreting spatial structure in architecture.

Children’s developing reflections on and understanding of creativity

Children’s creativity is often investigated through adults’ subjective judging of novelty in a product, or by assessing the flexibility of children’s thinking. These approaches do not explicitly ask children to reflect on what they think is creative and often ignore children’s metacognitive understanding of creativity. We took two approaches to examining this development. First, using semi-structured interviews, we asked children, ages of 5–10 (N = 75), to define creativity and reflect theirs and others’ creative actions (Study 1). As children got older, they reflected more on the novelty of the action and were more likely to describe creativity as a process that could be applied generally. Second, using more laboratory-based methods, we asked 5- to 10-year-olds (N = 137) and adults (N = 150) about the role that novelty (Study 2) and utility (Study 3) play in creative actions. In Study 2, children were more likely to judge that a novel action was more creative as they got older, and there was no difference between children and adults’ responses by age 8. In Study 3, when two novel actions were contrasted, and one was more useful (but less novel), adults chose the useful action as more creative, whereas older children chose the more novel action. Overall, children’s understanding of creativity as a general process undergoes significant change around mid-childhood, which has implications for its importance for informal learning environments.

What are teens doing with media? An ethnographic approach for identifying transmedia skills and informal learning strategies

The emergence of new media, devices, narratives and practices has compelled media literacy scholars and professionals to review their theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. Based on a new conception – ‘transmedia literacy’ – that moves from traditional media literacy to informal learning and participatory cultures practices, the research program behind the present article tries to understand how new generations are doing things with media outside schools and how they learnt to do the things they do. The article begins by describing the transformations of media literacy in recent years as a consequence of the mutations of the media ecology and, in that context, proposes a methodological approachfor analysing the acquisition of transmedia skills in informal learning environments by teens. The article describes, analyses and evaluates the development and initial implementation of this methodology working with teenagers in a high-school in NAME CITY. It ends with a Research Kit that includes surveys, creative workshops, interactive interviews and media diaries with teens between 12-18 years old. The article also describes the evolution of this methodological approach from its original formulation to the evaluation of the model after it was tested, and reflects on the possibilities of developing specific research devices to be applied in transnational research.

The generation of student engagement as a cognition-affect-behaviour process in a Twitter learning experience

Twitter is a microblog that allows users to interact about a topic in online discussion. This makes it an interesting interactive tool with possibilities to increase student engagement and learning performance through active collaboration in an informal learning environment. However, few articles take a quantitative approach to investigate the creation of student engagement using this social networking site. To address this gap, we propose a series of activities conducted through Twitter to analyse the engagement generation process in a sample of 110 students in the first year of a business and administration degree at a large Spanish university. The results show that the engagement process is created through active collaborative learning and enjoyment, and that engaged students are more satisfied with the activity and perceive greater learning performance. This leads us to recommend teachers to encourage active and collaborative activities to make students more engaged and satisfied, and improve their performance.

Designing Informal Vs Formal Education Activities—What We Have Learned

This paper examines the differences and challenges encountered when trying to create informal blended (virtual and hands-on) engineering design STEM activities. It contrasts the creation of STEM activities for formal and informal learning environments, stressing that the differences extend far beyond the length of the activity or depth of any learning goals. The discussion begins with an examination of differences between the two learning environments that need to be taken into consideration. These differences include the physical environments, organizational structures, and the goals or reasons for the delivery of STEM activities in both environments. The paper continues by explaining why curriculum developers must be mindful of the context that will be implementing the activities, including space and time availability. The facilitators who deliver STEM activities are likely to have very different backgrounds in formal school settings compared to informal settings. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that youth in informal settings often push back when activities seem too “school-like.” The paper concludes by presenting a detailed examination of the iterative process used to develop blended engineering design STEM activities in an informal setting. This process involved several revisions and tests of materials with youth in informal settings.

STEM academic achievement and perceptions of family support: a gender analysis

PurposeThis study examines the results of a STEM unit taught in an elementary school library, with 26 fourth-grade students as the participants.Design/methodology/approachA quasi-experimental design was used. The relationships between the independent variable gender and the perceptions of familial support structures and academic achievement were examined.FindingsFor the entire group, the average academic achievement scores of the participants increased. The increase was not statistically significant. The male students had a statistically significant improvement in their academic achievement scores, and there was a statistically significant decrease in the academic achievement scores of the female students. An increase in the female students' belief that their family was interested in their science classes was correlated with a decrease in their academic achievement scores.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size for this study is small, and the results are not generalizable. Open-ended questions were not included in the data collection instruments. Therefore, it cannot be determined why the overall academic scores may have decreased for female students. Further research is encouraged.Practical implicationsThe results of this study show the potential for STEM activities in school libraries. School librarians can provide students with low-risk, informal learning environments to practice new skills.Social implicationsLibraries equalize the availability of resources that otherwise may not be available to populations underrepresented in STEM careers. School librarians have the potential to serve as much needed STEM role models. The availability of STEM activities in school libraries can make it possible for more students to understand what STEM careers are interesting to them.Originality/valueThere are very few studies to examine the results of STEM activities implemented in school libraries that use quasi-experimental or experimental research designs. This study adds to the corpus of research that can be used to support the preparation of students for STEM careers with activities in school libraries.