Antje Proske

Promoting self-regulated learning in web-based learning environments

Self-regulated learning with the Internet or hypermedia requires not only cognitive learning strategies, but also specific and general meta-cognitive strategies. The purposes of the Study2000 project, carried out at the TU Dresden, were to develop and evaluate authoring tools that support teachers and students in web-based learning and instruction. This paper presents how the authoring tools of the Study2000 project can implement psychologically sound measures to promote (a) active and elaborated learning activities and (b) meta-cognitive activities in a web-based learning environment. Furthermore, it describes a study involving 72 university students in the use of such a web-based learning environment in a self-regulated learning setting at the university level. Results show that students spent almost 70% of their study time with texts, 11% with learning tasks and 12% with the active and elaborated learning tools, whereas meta-cognitive aids where hardly used (<1%).

Informal Learning with Technology: The Effects of Self-Constructing Externalizations

ABSTRACT Especially in the context of technology-enhanced informal learning, it is crucial to understand how to design information sources in such a way that learners are not overwhelmed by the demands of the learning process, but at the same time are engaged in higher order thinking processes. Guidance aids learners in dealing with the demands of a learning process. The authors examined the effects of different levels of guidance provided by an information source. To this end, the effects of a preconstructed externalization are compared to a self-constructed externalization. Thirty-eight students participated in the study. The results revealed no significant differences between the groups with respect to posttest retention. However, performance in application tasks was promoted by the condition associated with a lower level of guidance. This suggests that having learners self-construct an externalization might be a suitable means to elicit learners’ higher order thinking processes in technology-enhanced informal learning.

Challenges of Investigating Metacognitive Tool Use and Effects in (Rich) Web-Based Learning Environments

This chapter summarizes the rationale and findings of several studies using rich open-ended web-based learning environments (Web-LEs) as learning technology in higher education. The purpose of the studies was to examine self-regulated learning activities by tracing university students’ learning activities within a rich open-ended Web-LE by log file data. Hence, the Web-LEs used in these studies provided non-embedded as well as embedded tools supporting cognitive as well as metacognitive learning activities. Students in all studies were free to decide when and how to use these tools. To use them, they had to activate the selected tool explicitly by clicking on the respective button on the Web-LEs’ interface. The rationale for the design of the Web-LEs and for analyzing and interpreting the log file data was derived from psychological task analyses which were based on a multidimensional view of self-regulated learning within Web-LEs (e.g., Narciss et al., 2007; Winter, 2008). This chapter outlines this rationale, describes the resources and tools of the rich Web-LE called Study Desk, and summarizes several studies investigating how students used the tools of the Study Desks. Finally, limitations, challenges and implications of using log file data for investigating self-regulated learning with rich Web-LEs are discussed.

Designing a constructive learning activity with interactive elements: the effects of perspective-shifting and the quality of source material

ABSTRACT When teachers or instructors create computer-based learning environments, they often solely consider technical aspects of interactivity. As a consequence, learners’ main role is to respond to requests of the learning environment (e.g. by answering multiple-choice questions). This aspect of interactivity is, however, not sufficient to understand the complex benefits of interactivity for learners’ knowledge acquisition. In order to create a higher level of interactivity, an instructional task that encourages learners to design learning materials for fellow learners is used in this paper. We will show that this instructional task can induce interactive elements because learners are encouraged to take not only their own perspective into account when designing. In addition, we investigated if the quality of source material affects knowledge acquisition in design tasks. In a two-by-two design, students (n = 108) had to design either a learning environment for others (i.e. to perform perspective-shifting), or a representation of acquired knowledge for themselves (no perspective-shifting) with less or more coherent information sources. Results indicate that performing perspective-shifting can be a powerful technique for eliciting interactive learning behavior and, thus, for learning. The quality of information sources does not influence knowledge acquisition to a great extent.

Supporting Prewriting Activities in Academic Writing by Computer-Based Scaffolds

One approach to assist writers in dealing with the problem of managing cognitive resources during writing is to scaffold writing by computer. Unfortunately, empirical research on computer-based writing scaffolds is quite limited. This study investigates to which extent computer-based scaffolds should be provided to support efficient prewriting. The writing environment scaffolds prewriting by instructing an adequate sequence of prewriting activities on consecutive file cards. Writers’ behaviour and performance were investigated in two versions of the writing environment (lean vs. enriched version). Writing performance was further analysed with respect to students’ writing strategies and motivation. The results indicate that particular motivational variables play an important role when prewriting is scaffolded by a computer. Implications of these results are discussed with regard to the restrictions and benefits of computer-based scaffolding of prewriting activities.