Study Of Learning Research Articles

The Networked Data Lab: lessons from four years of analytical collaboration on common problems in health on social care

ObjectiveThe Networked Data Lab (NDL) is a UK-wide network of analytical teams embedded in the health and care system. Each year, we support five local partners to acquire and link new health and social care datasets on a different topic. The NDL provides insights from this linked data to help UK policymakers improve health and care, leveraging public, patient, and stakeholder engagement to prioritise topics of shared local interest. Approach Now in its fourth year, the NDL has commissioned a Learning Study (LS) to evaluate progress towards its aims. This employs a theory-based approach to test and assess key assumptions about programme impact through a Theory of Change. For the study, semi-structured interviews with analysts and stakeholders at the five NDL sites were conducted to identify factors influencing the programme’s impact. ResultsDrawing on interim LS findings, we will describe the types of impact the programme has achieved, and some of the key barriers and enablers to analytical collaboration across geographic and organisational boundaries. Themes include senior sponsorship; stakeholder input into problem definition; information governance and tools and skills. Themes will be illustrated with case studies drawn from the different NDL topic areas, including children and young people’s mental health and unpaid carers. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe Networked Data Lab shows that data linkages can provide unique insights that local service planners can act on, but highlights a complex set of conditions that need to be met to enable impactful analytics using real-world health and care data.

Broadening adult engagement and education in science cafés: lessons from an STS — science communication boundary spanning experiment

This essay describes and reflects on a collaboration between a university Science & Technology Studies (STS) educator and a community science café organizer. Our partnership was designed to address two challenges: how to encourage diversity and inclusion in science café audiences and how to create assessments for broader ‘science in society’ content delivered to adult café learners. We used focus groups to develop STS learning constructs and do community engagement needs assessments. We describe the resultant café series development and other outcomes of our cross-domain work in STS, science communication, and science education. We conclude with observations about the power of collaborative storytelling and make general recommendations for how practitioners and scholars can address the described challenges in ways that might ease future collaborations.

The development of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge through Learning Study

ABSTRACT In this paper we report on a Learning Study (LS) focused on the teaching and learning of the economic concept of price. Cycles of action research informed by the variation theory of learning were undertaken by a group of secondary school teachers facilitated by the authors over a period of nine weeks. As researchers and facilitators, we were interested to see what effect this form of professional development would have on the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. We are able to report that for a majority of the teachers, the experience of the study provided them with an opportunity to gain insights into the ways their students became able to experience price in a more powerful way as a result of the patterns of variation incorporated in the research lesson designs, and that this in turn led the teachers to reflect on the ways in which they had experienced teaching before the LS and on the possibility of changing their approach to teaching in the future. In other words, participation in LS does have the potential develop teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. In this paper, we report the context of the study, review the concepts involved, report the process and discuss the findings.

How Learning Study could empower teachers to embrace education initiatives through research–practice partnership in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT The issue of the “research-practice gap” has been a long-standing concern in the education community. To tackle this issue, there is a growing interest in research–practice partnerships (RPPs) to connect research with practice by providing solutions for improving practice in schools. Although studies have reported that constructive relationship would produce positive outcomes, establishing long-term and mutually beneficial RPPs requires further investigation. In Hong Kong, the Learning Study (LS) approach with Variation Theory derived from phenomenology as the theoretical framework for pedagogical design has been adopted as a RPP model and has sustained for two decades. Like many RPPs models, LS approach has been facing different challenges when teachers are increasingly held accountable for meeting new demands from education reform. In this respect, this paper explores the challenges and strategies of the LS approach as a RPP model and its conditions of success. It reports a case study of how a group of English Language teachers adopting a LS approach while integrating education initiatives in their instructional design. The findings have identified trust building, teacher’s capacity building and visible outcomes as possible key factors of effective RPP model. This paper may shed light on the implementation of research–practice partnerships.

JomDataMining: academic performance and learning behaviour dubious relationship

This study contemplates the connection between undergraduate learning conduct and their academic performance by utilising the instructive data mining strategy. Tinto's model and Austin's model are utilised in the study, together with emotional conduct components to define an expectation of the undergraduate academic performance. Respondent's segment data, social polls and their present cumulative grade point average outcomes was gathered utilising a blended technique of surveys and numerous interviews. Correlational plan will be utilised to interpret the study's learning conduct and their academic performance. The selected samples of this study will be in private learning centre. Positive after effect of this study has delineated the connection between student's behaviour and practices influencing their academic performance. The findings of this study enabled a more effective classroom planning and reduction of conflicts among students.

Effectiveness of Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Models In Lessons of the Basics of Building Construction on Students Learning 'Outcomes Viewed From Critical Thinking Skills

This study aims to analyze the differences in the effectiveness of the Jigsaw cooperative learning model and the direct learning model of student learning outcomes in DKB subjects in class X DPIB of Vocational High School 2 Surakarta; to analyze the differences in learning outcomes between students who have high critical thinking skills and students who have low critical thinking skills in DKB subjects in class X DPIB Vocational High School 2 Surakarta; and to analyze whether there is an interaction between the learning model and students' critical thinking skills towards student learning outcomes in the class X DKB DPIB Vocational High School 2 Surakarta. This study is a quantitative experimental study with a 2x2 factorial design. The sample of this study was the tenth grade students of DPIB Vocational High School 2 Surakarta in the 2018/2019 academic year, totaling 64 students. Data obtained from the results of observations, interviews, and tests. The data analysis technique uses 2-way Anava technique. The results is study's learning using Jigsaw cooperative learning model obtain the results of cognitive learning higher significant than learning outcomes cognitive students learn by using direct learning model on the subjects of DKB in Vocational High School 2 Surakarta; cognitive learning outcomes for students who have critical thinking skills height significantly higher than the results of cognitive learning students who have the skills to think critically low on the subjects of DKB in Vocational High School 2 Surakarta; and there is a very significant interaction between the learning model and the skill level which is critical to the cognitive learning outcomes of students in the DKB subjects at Vocational High School 2 Surakarta.

Developing theoretical coherence in teaching and learning: case of neuroscience-framed learning study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe two cycles of learning study (LS) involving eight elementary teachers in British Columbia, Canada. The study explored the teachers’ experiences of learning to plan and teach lessons as informed by recent brain research. Design/methodology/approach The case study was constructed using data sources including teacher semi-structured interviews (pre-study, post-study and delayed post-study), classroom materials (including student assignments), LS training materials, fieldnotes and recordings of meetings and research lessons; sources were triangulated. Thematic analysis was applied. Contemporary neuroscience perspectives framed the LS discourse and analysis. Findings The teachers developed theoretical coherence and could better articulate reasons for their pedagogy. They developed understandings of the cognitive architecture underlying functions like learning and memory, allowing them to identify pedagogical actions that are consistent with human biology and understand why these actions are effective in promoting learning. Practical implications LS is shown to be an effective professional development (PD) model where theoretical knowledge, like neuroscience, could be employed and tested in classroom settings to provide depth to support teachers’ praxis. This teaching–research nexus supports exploration of fruitful connections between theoretical knowledge and education to advance the science of learning and the science of instruction. Originality/value Findings demonstrated how LS could be employed with alternative theoretical perspectives to promote teacher PD, thus extending beyond the dominant use of variation theory. Also, illustrated is the potential use of LS to bridge the knowledge gap between neuroscience and education.

The object of learning in action research and learning study

ABSTRACTThe Learning study and the Educational Action Research approaches to educational research are compared, not from a third, neutral point of view, but from the perspective of the former. Hence, the comparison is carried out in terms of how the main point of departure of the Learning study (LS), the question of ‘What is to be learned?’, is addressed in the two approaches. Both represent critical stances to Educational objectives, the frequently taken-for-granted answer to the question. Educational objectives communicate, however, what the students are expected to become able to do, but not what they need to learn in order to get there. Hence, what is to be learned cannot be stated in advance, prior to the teacher learning what her students need to learn. The two approaches to educational research agree on the principle that what is to be learned has to be found in the interaction between students and teachers; however, there is an important difference between the two concerning the very point of departure. Educational objectives are too wide and imprecise according to LS, the teachers have to find the critical aspects (necessary to appropriate, but not appropriated as yet by the students) of the object of learning. According to Action research, as formulated by Lawrence Stenhouse, educational objectives are too narrow, too limited and limiting. We shall start looking for what is to be learned amongst inherent aspects of the content itself.

Learning to see distinctions through learning studies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify changes in teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a result of their participation in two learning studies in mathematics. Design/methodology/approach A group of four mathematics teachers and the researcher of this paper explored two objects of learning related to division with decimal numbers and the straight-line equation in a learning study (LS) project over the course of one year. The data used consist of eight video-recorded lessons, four written student tests, eight student interviews and 14 recorded team meetings. The analysis was based on the variation theory principle about learning (Marton, 2015) and on ontological assumptions within the phenomenographic approach (Marton, 1981). Findings It was found that teachers’ PCK was changed and refined through the LS process in terms of differences in ways of understanding and discussing critical aspects related to each object of learning. In the paper, the terms “presumed critical aspects” and “explored critical aspects” are used to illustrate this difference. Furthermore, the concepts are viewed in relation to three subdomains of PCK: knowledge of content and curriculum (KCC), knowledge of content and students (KCS) and knowledge of content and teaching (KCT). Originality/value Bringing out the difference between “presumed critical aspect” and “explored critical aspects” advances the view that critical aspects are dynamic and emergent in practice – in the interaction between teaching and student learning. The research exposes “explored critical aspects” as a specific form of PCK in which KCC, KCS and KCT are intertwined.

Beyond the borders of the local

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present how experiences gained from a theory-informed lesson study – learning study (LrS) – in regard to a specific learning goal can be shared and used by other teachers in new contexts.Design/methodology/approachA group of teachers worked together in a cyclic, iterative process of planning, evaluating and revising teaching. The aim was to provide possibilities for grade 2 and 3 students to become familiar with negative numbers. The teacher group came to the conclusion that the students needed to be able to differentiate some aspects of negative numbers. The conjecture was put to the test in a follow-up study (FS) with five new teachers and eight classes. One lesson was taught based on the empirical findings in the LrS.FindingsThe results suggest that teachers’ collaborative work has possibilities to produce knowledge about critical aspects of learning that can be communicated and adopted in new contexts. The teachers in the FS were able to make sense of the results from LrS and incorporate the critical aspects in their teaching in a way that enhanced students’ learning.Originality/valueIt is demonstrated that teacher collaboration in LrS can create knowledge that goes beyond the border of the local context.

The Problems and the Countermeasure on Teaching of Obstetrics and Gynecology to Foreign Students in Our School

We have taught the foreign students from Pakistan the curriculum of Obstetrics and Gynecology since 2005, and hitherto there have been two grades of foreign students who have received this course. During 10 years, we have accumulated some experience through the practice of teaching, and discovered some shortcomings and problems, which are summarized as three aspects; teachers and equipment, study's learning, patients’ cooperation. In allusion to the shortcomings and problems, we think that we should take measures and make improvement in the respects of teachers, students, patients and so on, in order to improve the quality of the teaching foreign students in our school.

NOVEL STUDY IN LEARNING HISTORY (Descriptive Analytical Study of the Ability of the History Education Department Students in Appreciating Novel)

The background of this study is the writer’s concern about history learning which only focus on rote learning and text book that makes the student drown into the sea of facts. Therefore, it is true what Tolstoy said that history is nothing but useless collection of stories which aimed is only for “entertainment”. In fact, the aim of Novel study can balance the intellectual side and the value learning, give a better chance to remind various history facts, and make history learning become more enjoyable. However, these purposes need to be supported by the history teacher’s ability in appreciating historical novel. The focus of this paper is “how good is the History Education Department students appreciating novel in history learning?” This research study used qualitative approach to find a complex and holistic picture about the subject being studied. Besides, the researcher also uses the phenomenology approach which is used in understanding how the students sense their experience when studying the novel and use to observe the perception, ideas, imagination, emotion, desire, willingness, and action they showed when they analyse the historical novel.

Playful Learning about Light and Shadow: A Learning Study Project in Early Childhood Education

The purpose of the project was to explore how a learning study (LS) based on variation theory could support the development of playful physics learning in early childhood education. The study explored what patterns of variation used during a three-cycle LS challenged and developed children’s ways of discerning why a shadow occurred. The empirical material comprised a screening (n = 7), three video-documented interventions, and 78 individual pre- and post-test interviews (n = 39) at 4 - 5 years old. Three somewhat different patterns of variation were implemented within a playful frame in the three groups. The results indicate low and non/significant improvements in cycle A, somewhat higher and significant improvements in cycle B, and substantially higher and significant improvements in cycle C. The study indicates a promising ability to combine a playful approach with the variation theory perspective to stimulate children’s understanding of a quite advanced scientific phenomenon. The careful process of identifying potential critical aspects, the awareness of the relationship between the whole and its parts, and the concretization of simultaneity are discussed as key aspects of these findings.

School–University Action Research: Impacts on Teaching Practices and Pupil Learning

The aim of this article is to describe a design and implementation of a school–university action research project about teaching and learning biology and mathematics in primary school. Nine teachers in grades 1 to 6, in collaboration with two researchers, were using content representation (CoRe) in learning study (LS)-inspired cycle as pedagogical tools when planning, implementing, and reflecting on lessons and pupil learning. By using pre- and post-tests, the teachers acquired knowledge about pupil subject-specific knowledge and learning. Some examples are given on how the tools in the project influenced the teaching practices and pupil learning. This research design brought together university and school practitioners to work collaboratively in a professional learning community, which developed teaching and learning in biology and mathematics.

A case study of one high performance baseball coach’s experiences within a learning community

The purpose of the present study was to examine the learning experiences of a high performance, head baseball coach within a learning community. We drew upon the barriers and enablers of a learning community to structure the current study's learning community intervention. Our learning community was comprised of one collegiate summer league head baseball coach and three coach educators (i.e. facilitators). Data were collected via eight weekly learning community meetings (i.e. recorded and transcribed), the coach’s daily journal and post-learning community meeting journal, and the memory of his coaching experiences. The findings, which suggest a potential framework for sustaining an effective learning community, resulted in six themes (i.e. problem setting, problem sharing, questioning to prompt reflection, prescribed suggestions, collaborative solutions and psychological wellness) that describe the coach’s experiences both internal and external to the learning community. The findings are discussed in relation to research on learning communities, experiential learning and reflection. Furthermore, we provide implications for future research by considering the learning community’s influence on the head coach’s reduction of stress and the utilisation of technology to sustain a stable learning community setting.

Judgments of learning depend on how learners interpret study effort.

In self-paced learning, when the regulation of study effort is goal driven (e.g., allocated to different items according to their relative importance), judgments of learning (JOLs) increase with study time. When regulation is data driven (e.g., determined by the ease of committing the item to memory), JOLs decrease with study time (Koriat, Ma'ayan, & Nussinson, 2006). We induced learners to interpret differences in their study time (Experiment 1) or in another learner's study time (Experiment 2) as reflecting either differences in data-driven regulation or differences in goal-driven regulation. This manipulation was found to moderate the relationship of both study time and rated effort to JOLs. The results were seen to support the idea that JOLs are based on study effort but the effects of experienced effort are mediated by an attribution that intervenes between the metacognitive regulation of effort and the monitoring of one's learning. The results invite an attributional theoretical framework that encompasses both data-driven and goal-driven regulation and incorporates the option of attributing experienced effort to either or both of the 2 types of regulation.

Learning Study – the dual process of developing theory and practice

Purpose– Variation Theory has been used as a source of guiding principles for pedagogical design, lesson analysis and improvement in Learning Study (LS). The purpose of this paper is to argue that the LS approach provides an important opportunity for teachers and researchers not only to improve the teaching strategies together but also refine the Variation Theory in action.Design/methodology/approach– A case study of teaching writing in Chinese at Primary 4 level of a LS project is selected using analysis of covariance to identify lessons that had significant differences in student learning outcomes. Analysis focuses on examining one of the major claims in Variation Theory which is that “contrast should precede generalization” in order to explore if this argument is able to provide a possible answer to the difference in student performance in the two classes of students of similar ability learning the same topic. Teachers’ contribution to the discussion of the application of the theory is analysed to explain the different teaching strategies chosen.Findings– The case study shows that in a LS platform, teachers’ teaching act and their interaction with theorists contributed to a dual process of developing the practice as well as the theory itself. The results of students’ learning serve as evidences for the claim that “contrast should precede generalization” as the theory suggested.Originality/value– Most of the lesson study and LS projects emphasize teachers’ learning through the participation in the process. This paper illustrates that in conducting LS approach, when there is conscious effort to direct discussion toward how to handle the content in terms of Variation Theory explicitly, the result could contribute to the development of the theory itself. Hence, the LS provides an important opportunity for teachers and researchers to refine strategies as well as theories of teaching and learning together.

From Doing to Learning: Changed focus during a pre-school learning study project on organic decomposition

We explored the use of the learning study (LS) model in developing Swedish pre-school science learning. This was done by analysing a 3-cycle LS project implemented to help a group of pre-school teachers (n = 5) understand their science educational practice, by collaboratively and systematically challenging it. Data consisted of video recordings of 1 screening (n = 7), 1 initial planning meeting, 3 analysis meetings, 3 interventions, and 78 individual test interviews with the children (n = 26). The study demonstrated that the teachers were initially uncomfortable with using scientific concepts and with maintaining the children's focus on the object of learning without framing it with play. During the project, we noted a shift in focus towards the object of learning and how to get the children to discern it. As teachers’ awareness changed, enhanced learning was noted among the children. The study suggests that the LS model can promote pre-school science learning as follows: by building on, re-evaluating, and expanding children's experiences; and by helping the teachers focus on and contrast critical aspects of an object of learning, and to reflect on the use of play, imagination, and concepts and on directing the children's focus when doing so. Our research showed that the LS model holds promise to advance pre-school science learning by offering a theoretical tool useable to shift the focus from doing to learning while teaching science using learning activities.

Patterns of Variation: A Way to Support and Challenge Early Childhood Learning?

The purpose in this article is to elaborate on how the use of patterns of variation designed by variation theory can challenge and develop the early childhood education (ECE) practice. The analysis is based on six learning study (LS) projects conducted in Swedish ECE. A LS is a systematical, theoretical based development of teacher professionalism, often in close cooperation with researchers. The projects included 17 teachers, 140 children and 7 researchers. The video documented empirical material consists of 16 analysis meetings, 14 interventions and 407 pre-, post-, and delayed posttests. Each project is a concrete example of the use of patterns of variation to increase early childhood learning. In all cases a tendency of qualitative changes in children’s ways of discerning the object of learning could be noticed. The purpose is to search for how this can be understood from a variation theoretical perspective. The main focus is on changed ways of performing the interventions to search for how patterns of variation were used to create and capture the learning situations throughout the projects. One of our findings is that we have seen that it takes more than one intervention for the teachers to capture which aspects of the object of learning are critical in the targeted group, but as the iterative process allows them to try out the design more than once, they manage to find them. The second finding is that the teachers changed focus from taken for granted assumptions of each child to focusing on their own design to facilitate the child’s learning. Finally, the aspect supposed to be discerned has to vary against an invariant background to be discerned by the children, and to separate the principle from the representation is needed to be able to generalize their new knowledge.

Using Learning Study to Understand Preschoolers’ Learning: Challenges and Possibilities

This article reports a meta-analysis based on a multiple case study of the use of learning study (LS) to understand children’s learning in Swedish preschool. The aim is to investigate whether and how the LS model can be developed, adjusted and used to meet contemporary demands placed upon preschool teachers for increased content focus and improved cognitive outcomes. The research questions are (1) How can the LS model be adapted to understand preschool children’s learning? and (2) What challenges and possibilities arise in such process? The material consists of video documentation of eight meetings, 10 interventions and 237 individual, hands-on interviews with preschoolers collected within five LS projects in Sweden including seven researchers, 10 teachers/student teachers and 86 children. Four features (approach to learning, way of guiding the children, content focus and assessment of children’s learning) found to be possibly challenging in the tension between the school based LS model and the preschool context are used to demonstrate changes made to the LS that allowed it to be adapted to preschool settings. We conclude that the LS model may be applied and adjusted to preschool settings to deepen the teachers’ understanding of children’s learning, but the tradition of seeing learning in preschool as doing, having fun or playing should be challenged and revised in a new way unique to this setting. An educational practice combining play with learning in a more purposeful way has to be developed along with better methods to assess children’s learning.