Maggie Hartnett

Using educational theory and research to refine agricultural extension: affordances and barriers for farmers’ learning and practice change

ABSTRACT Purpose: To examine the factors that support and hinder farmers’ learning and to investigate the impact of an innovative learning program on farmers’ practice change. Design/methodology/approach: Individual interviews and focus group discussions were held with 24 farmers over 20 months. Observations were made of these farmers as they participated with eight agricultural and social scientists in a range of innovative experiences to learn about chicory and plantain establishment and management. These learning experiences were designed around evidence-informed educational pedagogies. Data sets were analyzed using NVivo to determine common themes of affordances and barriers to learning and actual practice changes. Findings: The affordances for learning and practice change include belonging to a learning community, enhancing self-efficacy, engaging with scientists, seeing relative advantage, reinforcing and validating learning, supporting system’s integration and developing an identity as learners. Barriers to learning and practice change include issues of: trialability, complexity, compatibility and risk. Practical implications: The importance of basing new models of extension around evidence-informed pedagogies known through educational research to promote learning and practice change. Theoretical implications: Sociocultural theory and self-efficacy theories of learning are critical to the success of effective agricultural extension programs. Originality: To date, little empirical research about the affordances and barriers for pastoral farmers’ learning has been based on contemporary educational research.

Diversity in online learners: Searching for differences that may matter

Online learning environments increasingly provide opportunities for interaction with and among individuals from diverse cultures. The more we acknowledge and understand the nature of diversity amongst online learners, the greater the opportunity to build effective, supportive learning environments for all. Given the almost limitless diversity between individuals an important first step is to identify dimensions that may affect the online learning experience. This paper provides a preliminary study to identify relevant diversity dimensions based on a review of the literature. It is intended to inform future research to derive principles of instructional design for creating effective online learning environments.

Differences in the digital home lives of young people in New Zealand

Digital technology is changing every aspect of life from how we communicate to the way we learn. International trends would suggest that digital access is becoming increasingly widespread in developed countries. But general trends may hide the fact that some households still do not have access to the internet for a variety of reasons. Differences in digital access and use, particularly along socio-economic lines, may be less visible but are still present. This paper reports on a two-phase study that explores home digital access and use of young people (16-17-years-old) from a range of socio-economic backgrounds across New Zealand. Phase one sought to establish what home access is available, while the second phase explores what kinds of digital technologies are used and for what purpose among a subset of young people. Results indicate that differences in digital access do exist among young people from different socio-economic backgrounds. These differences include the number of digital devices in the home, the types of devices available, and whether the device(s) are shared or individually owned. These findings are particularly important in light of the finding that these young people perceived that digital access and use at school is inadequate and lagging behind everyday use. This suggests that there is still a considerable way to go to ensure equal digital opportunities for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Case Studies

This chapter reports on research from two case studies that investigated motivation to learn from a situated ‘person in context’ perspective. Specifically, it examines undergraduate students’ motivation within two formal and separate online learning contexts. The chapter begins with descriptions of each of the cases. This is followed by the presentation of findings. The first part explores the nature of motivation of learners within the cases drawing on the continuum of human motivation from self-determination theory (SDT) outlined in chapter two. This is followed with a detailed exploration of the salient social and contextual factors that influence students’ motivation to learn in these online environments. Throughout the second part of the chapter the underlying concepts of SDT, namely autonomy, competence and relatedness are used to organise the findings.

What Do the Case Studies Tell Us About Motivation

This chapter discusses and synthesises the key findings across the two cases reported in chapter three both in terms of the motivation of learners and the ways in which certain social and contextual influences supported or hindered the expression of different types of motivation. The concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness, from self-determination theory, are used as lenses to show how the identified social and contextual influences either supported or undermined learners’ psychological needs and, consequently, their motivation. Important commonalities as well as differences, between the two cases, are explored and discussed. Attention is also drawn to how these findings extend and build on the existing body of research on motivation in online education.

The Importance of Motivation in Online Learning

This chapter begins by looking broadly at learning as a process of knowledge construction and the increasing role of digital technologies in this process within tertiary education contexts. This is followed by an introduction to online learning along with definitions, discussion of foundational online learning concepts and contemporary pedagogical approaches used in online learning environments. Next, the reasons why motivation is an essential consideration in online teaching and learning contexts are explored. Then, existing research into motivation to learn in online environments is discussed in light of contemporary theoretical motivation frameworks. Finally, self-determination theory (SDT)—an intrinsic-extrinsic theory of motivation—is discussed in detail. In particular, the continuum of human motivation that outlines a range of different types of extrinsic motivation and the underlying psychological concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness that SDT is built on are discussed. In doing so, justification for the use of SDT as the conceptual framework for this work is provided.

Motivation Guidelines for Teachers, Designers and Learners

Chapter five builds on the previous chapter and discusses how the findings can be used to develop practical guidelines for professionals tasked with building online educational environments as well as those teaching and learning within them taking into consideration the motivational needs of learners. These include useful suggestions that instructors can apply to their online teaching; ideas for professionals responsible for the ongoing development of staff teaching online; suggestions for instructional/learning designers and academic managers responsible for the development, quality and retention rates of online courses and programmes; and learners who want to understand the conditions needed to support motivation to learn in online courses.