Theme 3: Quantitative Methods
In the first text by Lowenthal, P. R. & Leech, N. (2009). Mixed research and online learning: Strategies for improvement.
They talked about different way of performing research and culminating
data by a new method that they’ve come up with. This is called the mixed
method and it combines both quantitative data and qualitative data,
where the differences are that in quantitative data you gather a large
amount of “simpler” questions which are easily described with a value
for example. How good was this Hamburger? 1-10, Where as Qualitative
data is a much more abstract measurement where you go in depth with you
questions and don’t have a predefined answering table. For example: What
did this hamburger make you feel, and why? By combining these both
methods Lowenthal & Leech tries to make research much more accurate
and more relevant. The paper mentions that this method will increase in
popularity in the near future and if so, the overall quality of research
on online learning will increase. To conduct a mixed research is more
complicated than doing either qualitative or quantitative research by
themselves, this might be because its a relative new way of researching,
but for it to really take of, researchers must really try this new
method out.
The second text: Cleveland-Innes, M. & Campbell P. Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment.
Was about finding out if emotions exists in an online learning
environment, and if so, how to best utilise them. The existence of
emotions in online learning helps to explain and understand how to
better form an educational frame that encourages and endeavours students
to perform better in online learning environments. The study concluded
that emotions do exist in online learning environments and that it can
play as a factor for both sides, as it can either be a negative where
the students feel sad or anxious, but also work as a positive with
feelings of happiness and accomplishment.
Online
learning environments or E-environments is still a fairly new platform
that hasn't had the great impact many people predicted. With new
platforms and environments comes new challenges that I think are the
reasons why it hasn’t really taken yet. But as the area matures and the
environments gets done the way its supposed to it might become a real
competitor with traditional learning environment. And finding out that
emotions play a social role in this subject is an important step to
making it work the best it can.
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