The online social network has been providing ample opportunities for educators and learners to improve learning outcomes and academic achievement. A plethora of past studies and research have focused on the learning results and determined that learners were more engaged in the learning process and were more willing to contribute to peer interaction and knowledge sharing . However, very few empirical studies addressed the learning process when online social technologies were utilized. This presentation will examine the learning process through the lens of the four conditions of Bandura’s social learning theory (1971) on a Mooc platform.
The online social network has been providing ample opportunities for educators and learners (Hamid, Waycott, Kurnia, & Chang, 2015) to improve learning outcomes and academic achievement (Salmon, Ross, Pechenkina, & Chase, 2015). A plethora of past studies and research have focused on the learning results and determined that learners were more engaged in the learning process (Alam, 2008; Irwin, et al, 2012; Kabilan et al. 2010) and were more willing to contribute to peer interaction and knowledge sharing (Kim, 2008). However, very few empirical studies addressed the learning process when online social technologies were utilized.
Boyd & Ellison (2007) defined social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to create personal profiles and share information with other users with whom they shared a connection. Popular social networks include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flikr, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. These social network sites provide an online platform that have common features, such as user profiles, commenting, following, liking, email lists, etc.
How do people process the learning experience in the online social environment using social network features?
Bandura (1971) concluded that, in the social learning environment, people learn through direct experience or by observing the behavior of others. He also believed that an effective learning process involved the four conditions of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. People pay attention to the activities/images they are interested in, remember what they have paid attention to, reproduce the activities/images, and then imitate them in the future. Figure 1 illustrates the four steps of the learning process as a pyramid.
This presentation will examine the learning process through the lens of the four conditions of Bandura’s social learning theory (1971) on a Mooc platform called FutureLearn. This platform is different from online social network sites or learning management systems. It is promoted as a social learning platform because it is dedicated strictly to the purpose of learning using prevalent online socialization features.
The source of our data was a two-week short course hosted on FutureLearn called Project Time Management. A total of 6,567 individuals registered for this course, of which 4, 316 (65.7%) were identified as learners.
In order to collect information pertaining to the online social learning process from the sample population, a survey was conducted at the end of the course. The survey consisted of four parts: (1) the learner’s perception of how much attention they paid to the online social learning features embedded into the course; (2) the learner’s perception of how much of the course content they retained; (3) the learner’s perception of how well they can reproduce the learning activities; and (4) the learner’s perception of how motivated they are to repeat the same behavior in the future. To measure their perceived online social learning process, a five-point Likert scale was deployed (5 = almost always true and 1 = almost never true).
Figure 1 depicts the four conditions for the four learning steps in a social environment. The four categories of questions in the post-course survey were aligned with the four steps.
Preliminary Results
The primary learning activities embedded in this online course included reading articles, watching lecture videos, instantly commenting, discussing asynchronously, taking quizzes/tests, and following others/being followed. Learning activities, such as commenting, discussing, and following, were identified as social networking-related. The other activities, including reading articles, watching lecture videos, and taking quizzes and tests, were considered as traditional learning-related.
The learner’s perceptions referred to their personal levels of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation in the primary learning activities. Quantitative data were collected from the post-survey, which consisted of four items or statements related to social networking featured activities and three items or statements related to traditional learning activities.
The preliminary results were analyzed to reveal how learners perceived their learning process within the online social network, and the results are shown in Table 1.
Attention
As stated in Table 1, when asked if any of the learning activities increased their attention, 84% of the respondents claimed it was generally true to almost always true that reading articles increased their attention; 89.6% believed it was generally true to almost always true that watching videos increased their attention; 88.3% believed that it was generally true to almost always true that taking quizzes/tests increased their attention; and 60.3% of the respondents reported that it was generally true to almost always true that instantly commenting after each learning step increased their attention; while 63.2%, 50.6%, 40.1%, and 41.1% thought that it was generally true to almost always true that reading comments, discussing online, following other users, and being followed by other users increased their attention, respectively.
Retention
As shown in Table 2, when asked if they could remember the learning content after each learning activity was completed, 83.6% of the respondents believed that it was generally true to almost always true that they could remember well the articles they read; while 90.3% and 84% believed that it was generally true to almost always true that they could remember well the video content and quiz/test content separately. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents thought it was generally true to almost always true that they could remember the comments they posted very well; while 61.4%, 66.2%, and 44.9% thought it was generally true to almost always true that they could remember well the comments posted by other learners, topics that they discussed with other learners, and following other users, respectively.
Reproduction
A total of 51.4%, 56.7%, and 55.1% of respondents separately believed that it was generally true to almost always true that they read articles, watched lecture videos, or took quizzes and tests after seeing other learners doing them, respectively. Further, 39.7%, 49.3%, 40.5%, and 35.3% of learners separately believed that it was generally true to almost always true that they instantly commented after each step, read comments posted by other learners, discussed online with other learners, and followed other learners, respectively.
Motivation
As shown in Table 4, when asked if they were motivated to participate in different learning activities in the future, 94.6%, 95.8%, and 94.4% of the responders reported that it was generally true to almost always true that they were motivated to read articles, watch lecture videos, and take quizzes and tests, respectively, in future courses. A total of 66.7%, 70.4%, 64.8%, and 47.1% of responders separately reported that it was generally true to almost always true that they were motivated to instantly comment after each learning step, read comments posted by other learners, discuss online with other learners, and follow other learners, respectively.
Discussion
Traditional learning activities, including reading articles, watching lecture videos, and taking quizzes/tests were usually conducted at each learner’s own pace and minimal social elements were involved in these learning activities. Social networking-featured learning activities (e.g., commenting, discussing, and following) involved peer interactions to a great extent.
Table 5 reveals the learning progress for each learning activity embedded in this course. It was interesting to see that these activities formed two “clusters” based on their perception levels. Watching videos, taking quizzes/tests, and reading articles, which were identified as traditional learning activities, experienced higher perception levels of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation while social networking-featured learning activities had lower perception levels.
It was also noticed that there was a “sharp drop” when respondents were asked if they replicated the learning activities after seeing other learners doing them, especially when they were asked about the traditional learning activities. One potential explanation was that traditional learning activities (e.g., taking quizzes) involves little social interaction. Learners conducted those activities without being affected by other learners.
The data in this study provided little evidence that the respondents had higher levels of perceived attention, retention, reproduction, or motivation in the social networking-featured learning activities. In an online social learning environment, it appears that the respondents had a clear vision of the learning activities in which they wished to participate. Social networking features had very limited impact on their choice of learning activities.
Hamid, S., Waycott, J., Kurnia, S., & Chang, S. (2015). Understanding students’ perceptions of the benefits of online social networking use for teaching and learning. Internet and Higher Education, 26, 1-9.
Kim, H. N. (2008). The phenomenon of blogs and theoretical model of blog use in educational contexts. Computers & Education, 51(3), 1342-1352.
Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.
Bandura, A. (1971). Social Learning Theory. New York, NY: General Learning Press.
Images.
https://goo.gl/photos/wkfn5JwKvJVK4RNj9