Person Centered e-Learning in a Major Academic Course:
What are the Results and What Can We Learn from Them?
Renate Motschnig-Pitrik
University
of Vienna,
renate.motschnig@univie.ac.at
ABSTRACT
During the last term, more than 300 students took part in a
web-engineering course following a style that integrates e-learning elements
into the Person-Centered e-Learning (PCeL) style developed at our department.
The course serves as the focal object for tracing key aspects of the most
recent action research cycle we conducted. This paper illustrates our way of
combining theory and practice. In particular, we motivate our approach, sketch
its socio-technical baseline, the patterns derived from the teaching/learning
scenarios, experiences, students’ reactions and an empirical analysis of the
project. We conclude that the situated use of technology in thoughtfully
designed learning scenarios has the potential to increase students’ motivation
and make learning more meaningful and pervasive. However, in order to add value
to blended learning, instructors need well-developed interpersonal attitudes
such as realness, respect and understanding.
Keywords
Blended learning, Person-Centered e-learning, motivation, action
research, Person-Centered Approach
INTRODUCTION
While we have been conducting blended learning courses in a
Person-Centered style for more than two years, the preceding term saw a major
step forward in two respects. Firstly, we employed our cooperative, blended
learning style that builds upon Rogers’ Person-Centered Approach in a
compulsory course with more than three hundred students. Secondly, we
accompanied the lecture on web engineering and corresponding 12 lab courses
with a qualitative as well as an empirical study that we fit into our overall
action research strategy, as described in (Derntl & Motschnig-Pitrik, 2004)
in this volume. The primary contribution of this paper is to present and to
analyze a snapshot of practice and research on Person-Centered e-learning
(PCeL). By sharing our experience with the readers we hope to facilitate
further development that builds on these experiences and extends as well as
transcends their current context.
In a nutshell, the basic hypothesis underlying Person-Centered Teaching/Learning
can be stated as follows: Human beings are constructive in nature and strive to
actualize and expand their experiencing organism. According to Rogers’ Theory
of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships (Rogers, 1959) the
actualizing tendency can unfold itself best in a climate that is characterized
by three attitudinal conditions, known as Rogers’ variables: Congruence,
also called realness, genuineness, transparency, authenticity, openness; acceptance,
also called respect, unconditional positive regard; and empathic
understanding, a deep understanding for the feelings and meanings of the
other. These must be held or lived by the facilitator and communicated to the
learners such that they actually can perceive them. This can hardly be achieved
if an instructor is primarily occupied with lecturing. In our view, modern
learning technology relieves the instructors from excessive lecturing in so
far, as a major degree of material can be put on the learning platform and
provides a rich source of resources that students can explore in a problem- or
task oriented manner. Time in face-to-face meetings can be used for real
interactions among all participants: Topics can be elaborated in small groups,
problems of common interest can be turned to cooperatively, students can give
feedback to presenters of material, etc. Also, learning technology allows for
sharing of results and discussions on individual contribution, presentation,
differences, analogies, etc. such that students learn from more than their own
project and thereby get a broader view on their work. As paradoxical as it may
seem at the first glance, we argue and provide evidence that the use of
e-learning elements has the potential to make education that emphasizes
interaction, self-initiated work, authentic problems, and a constructive
learning atmosphere, more feasible. However, our empirical data show that this
kind of education is superior only, if instructors are perceived by students as
real, respectful and understanding. Otherwise, motivation goes down and
students feel they profit less than in conventional courses!
The paper is organized as follows: The next section we introduce PCeL and
explain our preference for this paradigm while acknowledging some hard
challenges inherent in its philosophy. Section 3 presents the diagnosing,
planning, and action taking phases of one action research cycle while focusing
on selected patterns of activity sequences we followed in the web-engineering
course. Section 4 is devoted to the strategy and results of evaluation.
Finally, we interpret our results and discuss our learning as well as further
research.
Person-Centered e-learning – concept and hypotheses
Student-Centered Learning is a personally significant kind of learning
that, integrates new elements, knowledge, or insights to the current repertoire
of the learner’s own resources such that he or she moves to an advanced
constellation of meaning and resourcefulness (Barrett-Lennard, 1998).
Student-Centered Learning can be characterized by the following goals:
- a
participatory mode in all aspects of learning and decision-making,
furthering self-responsibility;
- a climate of
trust in which curiosity and the natural desire to learn can be nourished
and enhanced;
- helping
students to achieve results they appreciate and consider worthwhile and
inwardly meaningful;
- uncovering
the excitement in self-initiated discovery, which leads students to become
life-long learners, fosters originality, and brings out the creative potential
of the individual;
- helping
instructors to grow as persons finding rich satisfaction in their
interactions with learners and thus increase their personal
resourcefulness;
- Increasing a
person’s capabilities to experience and explore his or her own processes,
thus raising the awareness of meaningful ways of inquiry, in other words,
learning how to learn. This generic meta-capability enhances the person’s
disposition to successful problem solving in new situations.
(adapted form Rogers, 1983, p. 3 and complemented by ideas from
Barrett-Lennard, 1998, p. 187-188)
Research in the Student-Centered Approach proved (Aspy, 1972;
Cornelius-White, 2003; Rogers, 1961) that students achieve superior results
along with personal growth in terms of higher self-confidence, creativity,
openness to experience, self-respect, and respect towards others and their
environment, etc., if they learn in an atmosphere or climate in which the
facilitator (instructor, teacher, etc.) holds three core attitudinal conditions
and if they perceive them, at least to some degree (Rogers, 1961):
- Realness,
with synonyms such as congruence, transparency, genuineness, authenticity;
- Acceptance,
else referred to as respect, unconditional positive regard, caring
attitude, concern for the individual;
- Empathic
understanding, a deep form of understanding of the meanings as well
as feelings of the learner.
Concrete situations often are challenging for instructors to express the
proper proportion among the three dispositions in the context of external requirements.
Person-Centered courses depend not only on the instructor’s plans but due to
their participatory mode bear in themselves the unexpected, the chance to learn
from situations in the “here and now”, that requires a large amount of internal
flexibility in both facilitator and students. Consequently, as will be
discussed in Section 4, personal resourcefulness of the facilitator has
significant influence on the students’ learnings.
We view our choice of the Person-Centered Approach (PCA) as baseline for
blended learning as justified on multiple grounds: Firstly, it builds on a
thoroughly researched psychological and educational paradigm (Aspy, 1972; Cornelius-White, 2003; Rogers, 1983).
Secondly, it goes deeper than other approaches in deriving actions from a
philosophy of being that is facilitative, constructive, and furthermore,
considers the personal resources of the individual in relationship with others.
In other words, it promotes congruent expressions based on a confluence of
authenticity, acceptance and empathic understanding. Thirdly, as shown in a
recent study (Motschnig-Pitrik, 2002) on the qualifications of business
informatics graduates, the direction of personal development furthered by the
PCA closely matches the personal profile that industry expects from graduates.
Finally, we view the open, self-responsible, and yet relationship focused
tendencies inherent in the PCA as smoothly complementing the open spaces and
free contacts enabled by web-based environments.
Based on our arguments explored above, our overall hypothesis is that a
thoughtful integration of Person-Centered learning with web-based elements
synergistically improves the quality of learning and results in
teaching/learning processes that are feasible in current academic environments.
We aim to explore this hypothesis by employing action research (AR) and, in the
following, turn to one cycle of diagnosing, planning, action taking,
evaluation, and specifying learning (Susman and Evered, 1978; Kock, 2003).
The
Role of Patterns
in the context
of Person-Centered e-Learning
Diagnosing
The ideas and the hypothesis just mentioned can be viewed as partial
results of the diagnosing phase. Regarding technology, we see that conventional
platforms are too low level and time-consuming to be used for directly
supporting PCeL. Consequently, we decide to develop simple, user-centered
web-templates that directly support PCeL patterns, as described below.
Action planning
In the process of striving
towards the facilitation of learning on three levels: Intellect, skills, and
intuition, we offered students the option to work in small teams of 2–4 persons
on the elaboration of material that we, as a learning community of about 355
persons, might find helpful in the context of our studies and projects in Web
Engineering. We provided downloadable versions of all lecture notes and
complemented them with case studies and links. The lecture on Web Engineering
was accompanied by 12 lab groups such that about 30 students participated in
each group and cooperated in small teams on mainly self-initiated, practical
projects. Typical projects were small web-applications with database
connection, a study on features of virtual communities, web-based
questionnaires, etc. There were four instructors for the whole Web Engineering
module, such that each was in charge of 2–4 groups of lab courses, and one
student facilitator, Jürgen Mangler, who managed the documents and processes on
the online platform. The first author facilitated three lab courses and was at
the same time lecturer, module coordinator, and co-designer of the evaluation
procedure described in Section 4.
Action taking
84% of the students decided to
cooperate on constructive work rather than take the exam. It was clear from the
outset that a major goal was self-initiated, cooperative teamwork and learning
with an emphasis on communication, reflection, and a critical,
application-dependent selection of techniques. With these goals in mind, we
suggested the Web Engineering Learning License (WELL) project to be
offered to students in order to provide them with the option to engage in
self-directed constructive work rather than take a conventional exam, which was
offered as an alternative.
UML (Unified Modeling Language) (OMG, 2003) activity diagrams specifying
the dynamic model of the learning scenario (Derntl & Motschnig-Pitrik,
2004) for the WELL project are given in Figure
7
and described below. Students should propose (or select) a topic, sign the
agreement, find resources or ask for them, plan the table of contents and the
date for an intermediate version to be signed by the instructor, elaborate
their project and finally upload their contribution onto our e-learning
platform such as to make it available to be read by others (cf. the publish
contract activity in the diagram on the left-hand side of Figure
7).
Afterwards, in the blended evaluation phase, which is given in detail
on the right-hand side of Figure 7,
each team had to submit a self-evaluation of their work with a suggestion of
grades for each team member. The self-evaluations were visible for the
instructors only. Each student taking part in the WELL project, furthermore,
had to peer-review at least three contributions of teams other than his or her
own. In a final session the students discussed their contribution with the
instructor and he or she checked their understanding of the subject matter in
relationship to the core web engineering contents, but without going into
detail. This mode offered a fair compromise between complete freedom and basic
understanding of the core material.
We found that learning contracts are practical devices helping one to
bridge the gap between curricular requirements and self-initiated and
self-directed learning. They allow students to take on responsibility in an
open-ended learning space, where success can be approached in an incremental
fashion, very much like in an industrial project. Thus, learning becomes a
transitional experience between complete freedom to learn whatever is of
current interest to the learner, to evidently respecting the course- and
curriculum requirements. Our way of managing learning contracts online
illustrates in which ways technology and humanistic educational principles can
be brought together in order to make learning more meaningful and exciting for
all involved. Interestingly, although the WELL contracts required some
additional effort, all 4 instructors are committed to repeat the experience in
the coming term.
Figure 7: UML activity diagrams
in the Learning Contract (left-hand side) and Blended Evaluation
(right-hand side) patterns.
|
|
|
Students’ reactions and empirical evaluation
Evaluation
In this phase we asked for reaction sheets in order to find out how the
course was received by the students. Furthermore, we were interested, for
instance, in how web-based communication and learning were perceived, and
whether various qualities of learning and motivation were increased. We
expected that, in comparison to other courses, learning from web-based
communication would be better, students’ would grow more regarding their social
skills, and their motivation to participate would rise. Hence, questions
regarding these aspects were included in an online questionnaire that the
students submitted in the beginning and in the end of the course.
In a reaction sheet, one student writes: “First of all I’d like to
mention that WELL is a great idea. Often it is the case that one hears and
learns the material in a lecture, but does not really understand it, because
one doesn’t have the time to go into all topics of the lecture. Nevertheless, I
have some suggestion regarding the proceeding of WELL. Comparing the individual
contributions one sees that they differ strongly. It might be wise to prescribe
some format and rules, such as minimal and maximal page number, base structure
of the contents, structure and expected number of citations, layout, etc....”
Another student mentions briefly: “In this course you see that it is possible
to give free space for students, even if the requirements are of a precise
nature. Of course, the WELL contracts contributed to having more contact to the
students (but also caused more work). Yet a third one comments: “From the
personal point of view it was a very positive course with a good atmosphere and
working climate. Technically, I would have wished more support during the
realization of the project. I find the idea with WELL cool, because I can avoid
the stress during the last weeks of June, if one does the time management more
wisely than we did. Many thanks.”
These and further reactions illustrate the students’ willingness to
openly share their experiences and reactions. The authors now have available
several perspectives and suggestions for improvement, such as providing a
catalogue of formatting-guidelines and hints for the WELL projects.
In addition to online reaction sheets we have conducted an empirical
study confirming that 72.8% of the students who participated in the WELL
project valued its long term learning effect as higher (41.9% much higher and
30.9% somewhat higher; cf. Figure 8)
when compared to taking a conventional exam. Additionally, 64% of the
participating students considered the engagement in the WELL project as more
time-intensive. We emphasize that the values reported here stem from our first
approach to this novel form of assessment and we intend to improve several
aspects of WELL contracts, both technically and by publishing guidelines.
Figure 8: Long-term learning effect and time
investment perceived by WELL participants compared to conventional exams (n=136).
Figure 9: Motivational factors in a typical course
(n=131) compared with groups of the four Web Engineering instructors (n1=38,
n2=36, n3=32, n4=25).
Besides letting students estimate the learning effect, we find it
particularly worthwhile to compare students’ motivational orientations in
traditional courses with courses following the Person-Centered learning
philosophy, such as the Web Engineering course that included the WELL contract.
Figure
9
shows that, traditionally, engineering students tend to be most motivated by
factors like the improvement of professional skills, their interest in the
provided content, and collegial cooperation with peers. Interestingly, the
motivation to participate in blended learning courses like Web Engineering can
be strongly influenced by factors such as the provision of a positive working
climate, an appealing way of conducting the course, and allowing for active
participation of students. It is noteworthy that instructors being rated high
on interpersonal values like realness, respect, and understanding, as was the
case with instructor 1 and 2 (compare Figure 4), have the capability to
significantly increase students’ motivation. Instructors being perceived as
moderately real, respectful, and understanding, unfortunately, do not raise and
occasionally even diminish students’ motivation to participate.
Figure 10: Response behavior,
Person-Centered Attitudes and competence of four instructors in the course on
Web Engineering WE-2003. (n1 = 47; n2 = 39; n3 = 47; n4 = 27) (scales: 1..very
low to 5..vey high)
There were no statistically significant differences regarding the
expected and the perceived motivation of all web engineering students
to participate in this course, except for competition. In web-engineering,
students typically cooperated more and competed less. However, comparing the
expected and perceived motives to participate in web engineering with respect
to groups of the four instructors, motivation due to the
course style was increased in groups of instructors 1 and 2, who were ranked
high in Person-Centered attitudes. In groups of instructor 1 the increase was
statistically highly significant (t-test, p £
0.001, n = 35). Also, in groups of instructor 1, motivation due to students’
interest in the topic (t-test, p = 0.03, n = 35) was increased significantly
(compare Figure 3). An F-test, given in Table 1 showed further significant
difference between the four instructors. Looking for the concrete factors that
contributed to this increase we found that, precisely as in a PCeL course on
project management, the positive atmosphere proved to be the strongest of all
motives related to the course style (with a mean of 4.26), followed by the
collegial teamwork with peers. Unlike in project management, however, the
strongest of all motives to participate in web engineering was to increase
one’s professional competence and the interest in the provided content (both
ranked 4.31 in groups of instructor 2 and instructor 1, respectively). Next
followed the positive working climate (ranked 4.26 in groups of instructor 1),
the wish to improve one’s competence in the area (ranked 4.22 in groups of
instructor 1), and the collegial cooperation with peers (ranked 4.19 in groups
of instructor 1). Statistically, however, the slight differences between these
motives are not significant. Consequently, there is a strong indication that
instructors with high Person-Centered attitudes and sufficient competence in
the subject matter are capable of increasing students’ motivation along factors
distributed on all three levels of learning, intellectual, skills, and
feelings. It also follows, that several aspects of motivation are decreased by
instructors who are perceived as being just about average in Person-Centered
attitudes. It is remarkable that these changes in motivation are brought about
in courses with just two hours per week over the period of one semester! A
further consequence of our research is almost astonishing in how precisely it
supports Person-Centered theory: The increase of motivation goes back, in the
first place, to the instructor’s capability of providing a positive working
climate where, furthermore, students can participate actively. Given the
instructor is perceived as highly real, respectful, and understanding, the
positive climate is perceived by students as a top motive for
participating in the course.
Another statistically significant difference we measured concerns the
learning outcome in terms of project work. Individual projects were peer
evaluated such that each student (out of 299) was supposed to evaluate at least
three projects of his or her choice. During this evaluation he or she could
distribute 1 to 5 bonus points to each project he or she reviewed.
Interestingly, the weighed received bonus points of students participating in
groups of instructor 1 accounted to 46.94, whereas the average points for
groups of instructor 2 to four were less than 38.33. This indicates a clear
trend but further research is necessary to prove the influence of the three
core conditions on achievement in project work.
|
Dependent Variable |
|
M |
SD |
average means (Mcollumn – Mrow) |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
Instructor 1 |
Instructor 2 |
Instructor 3 |
Instructor 4 |
|
success- F = .66 (p = .58) |
Instructor 1 |
3.42 |
0.95 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
|
Instructor 2 |
3.39 |
0.85 |
|||||
|
Instructor 3 |
3.43 |
1.11 |
|||||
|
Instructor 4 |
3.12 |
1.05 |
|||||
|
competition- F = 1.47 (p = .23) |
Instructor 1 |
1.96 |
0.99 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
|
Instructor 2 |
1.55 |
0.86 |
|||||
|
Instructor 3 |
1.72 |
0.96 |
|||||
|
Instructor 4 |
1.64 |
0.88 |
|||||
|
competence-orientation* F = 3.00 (p = .03) |
Instructor 1 |
4.22 |
0.67 |
- |
.16 |
.31* |
.46*** |
|
Instructor 2 |
4.06 |
0.65 |
-.16 |
- |
.15 |
.30 |
|
|
Instructor 3 |
3.91 |
0.63 |
-.31* |
-.15 |
- |
.16 |
|
|
Instructor 4 |
3.76 |
0.81 |
-.46*** |
-.30 |
-.16 |
- |
|
|
interest- F = 4.54 (p £
.001) |
Instructor 1 |
4.33 |
0.48 |
- |
.30* |
.49*** |
.45*** |
|
Instructor 2 |
4.03 |
0.64 |
-.30* |
- |
.19 |
.15 |
|
|
Instructor 3 |
3.84 |
0.74 |
-.49*** |
-.19 |
- |
-.04 |
|
|
Instructor 4 |
3.88 |
0.84 |
-.45*** |
-.15 |
.04 |
- |
|
|
course-style-orientation*** F = 9.90 (p £
.001) |
Instructor 1 |
4.07 |
0.66 |
- |
.43** |
.78*** |
.82*** |
|
Instructor 2 |
3.64 |
0.68 |
-.39 |
- |
.35* |
.39 |
|
|
Instructor 3 |
3.29 |
0.86 |
-.78*** |
-.35* |
- |
.04 |
|
|
Instructor 4 |
3.25 |
0.86 |
-.82*** |
-.39* |
-.04 |
- |
|
Table 1:. Motivational orientations of
students: Analysis of variance with instructor as independent variable and the motivational
orientations as dependent variables. Numbers of participants for instructor 1 n
= 62, instructor 2 n = 66, instructor 3
n = 77, and instructor 4 n = 47; ntotal = 252. *** … p
£ .001, ** … p £ .01, * … p £ .05, n.s. … not significant, df = 3.
Discussion and Further Research
This paper presents a snapshot on one action research cycle on
Person-Centered e-learning (PCeL) that adapts Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered
Teaching to the requirements of conventional curricula, and extends it by the use
of Internet-based communication and learning. In brief, I have shared some
experiences with trying to sensitively integrate web-based learning technology
into humanistic education in order to make Person-Centered Learning more
feasible in today’s world.
Specifying Learning
As expected, alternating between face-to-face meetings and
online-communication results in a synergy between these two modes. We have
experienced that the interleaving of presence in “here and now” encounters and
online contributions “authored from each individual’s process”, encompassing
previous experience, current reflection, and future expectation has been
experienced as a highly constructive mode of sharing and learning cooperatively
from multiple perspectives. I strongly believe that constructive cooperation
based on thorough understanding of persons and subject matter came about faster
than is the case in pure settings with face-to-face or online learning.
However, it is only fair to mention that the effort required for the blended
style still overtakes conventional teaching. Nevertheless, extra effort is
slowly going down as our tools improve and experience increases. Also, the
extra effort trades repetitive tasks for learning and development.
Having discussed the goals, characteristics, reactions, evaluations, and
experiences of Person-Centered e-learning (PCeL) let us try to respond to the
question: What is the added value of PCeL and where does it come from? Clearly,
the students’ reactions as well as the empirical evaluation have shown that
students’ most significant motives for participating in a PCeL style course
have been the experiencing of a positive atmosphere, the increase of
professional competence, and collegial cooperation with peers. Interestingly,
these top motives each address one of the three levels of learning: intellect,
skills and feelings, and the differences in mean values of these top motives
were statistically not significant. These findings strongly support Rogers’
theory of whole-person, or experiential learning that emphasizes the
integration of cognitions, emotions, and skills, based on the actualisation
tendency that is directed towards actualising the whole organism. Our
evaluation has also confirmed that instructors who are perceived as highly real
or transparent, respectful, and understanding motivate students more strongly
than instructors who range lower in these attitudes. In other words, if
persons, relationships, and the environment are constructive or resourceful,
learning is most desirable, sought for, effective, and significant in the sense
of actualising the whole organism (Rogers, 1983).
Further research will take several directions. First, we are conceptually
modeling some generic PCeL elements – we call them PCeL patterns (Derntl &
Motschnig-Pitrik, 2004) with the goal to support them with appropriate
web-design elements. These are intended to provide scenarios or expressions for
deep and persistent learning on the one hand and to support and simplify the
organization, administration, and evaluation of PCeL courses on the other hand.
Second, we continue with case studies and actions research on PCeL and,
concurrently, improve the test instruments in order to be able to observe the
effects of changes. Third, we are in the process of populating a virtual
community of persons interested in the Person-Centered Approach in higher
education (http://elearn.pri.univie.ac.at/pca)
in order to have a medium to share experiences and coordinate research and
everybody interested in joining is welcome. Last but most challenging and
influential comes the field of staff development in the spirit of humanistic
educational ideas and the use of new media in blended learning.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks are due to Ladislav Nykl, who had a strong influence on
shaping Person-Centered e-learning. I further like to thank Dietmar Treichel
and Thomas Zeleny from tomcom GmbH for providing the dayta platform, Jef
Cornelius-White for his valuable comments, my colleagues Michael Derntl and
Jürgen Mangler for their enthusiasm, contributions, and support, and Katharina
Mallich for the statistical evaluation. The evaluation was in part supported
from the ‘Wirtschaftskammerpreis’ of the University of Vienna.
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