Identifying how people participate, interact, and learn
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
The identification of how people participate, interact, and learn is a category of research questions that investigates how people behave within educational situations and with educational products. The research questions in this category are focused on understanding the processes of how people learn with the product, including identifying how they behave, participate in social interactions, and use of technology over time.
Definition
Identifying how people participate, interact, and learn from an educational product or learning experience is a type of research question that focuses on identifying the steps and trends on how people learn, interact, and change their behavior over time. These research questions are useful for understanding how a person might be supported in their learning, what their needs are, or how they go about learning through their interactions and behaviors in the learning situation.
Identifying, documenting, and analyzing the process of learning is useful from an instructional design standpoint because such questions provide insights on how to design educational interactions and activities that align with the ways that people actually learn. Each educational product may be unique in how it provides participants with opportunities to learn. An understanding of the learners' individual and social learning processes (or the steps involved with learning) can help identify ways to provide support and material at the exact time it is needed for the learner. Additionally, activities can be designed that maximize the alignment to the ways that people learn.
Common Research Questions
In this category of research questions, the actual questions typically take one or more of the following general forms:
- What steps do people take to learn new knowledge and skills individually with the product?
- What actions to participants take when using the product to achieve their goals and complete tasks?
- How do participants interact socially with the product?
- What sequences or patterns of behavior are typically seen with participants as they use the product or join in the learning activities?
- How do participants use the technologies and media with the product? What are the steps that they typically follow?
- Are there common ways that different participants interact or behave similarly within the learning experience?
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