learners wrote in their journals were date-stamped and appeared separate from each other, which makes it possible to observe the progress and change in the learners’ thinking and the development of the learner groups over the span of time that they spent on their studies.
The learners knew that the teachers of the four courses could read the journals when they were written in the work areas of their courses. Some teachers took this opportunity to support their learners in the learning process by giving them feedback regularly, while some others only commented when they felt the need to do so. As the tutor, the author of this study concentrated on solving any technical difficulties that the learners might have and offering a supportive comment when he saw that a learner needed one. In general, however, the author attempted to let collaboration and learner interaction take place naturally so that his presence would not unnecessarily affect the content of the material to be used in the study. The learners used this private channel and their journal to write about many things that affected them over the course of their studies, such as their difficulties and interpersonal problems in their groups, their personal difficulties that affected their studies, their study techniques and their successes and failures. They also commented on the teaching styles of the various teachers and how it felt to them to study in an online environment, working on various different learning tasks.
There were no set rules on how much the learners had to write in their journals, or how often. The journal entries did not affect the learners’ grades in any way and writing them was not obligatory. It is the author’s belief that any rules “given from above” could disturb the free process, and cause the learners write ‘something’ in order to meet these expectations, rather than write openly about themselves and their own experiences. The result was that some learners wrote very long entries, very often, whereas some others only wrote once or twice during a single course. Some learners stayed away from their personal feelings in their writing, while others shared their emotions and fears openly.
Over the course of the studies, the author made some attempts to persuade those learners who wrote very little on their journals to reveal some details of their experiences. To achieve this, the author offered various open questions about group work and learning in general and at the end of the studies the learners were encouraged to write about their overall feelings about the studies and take a “look back.” These interventions were done in a manner that would not lead the research participants to write in a particular way, but
would encourage them to write from their own point of view, about topics that were important to them. This is very important to the type of phenomenographic methods that the present study employed (see subsection 5.4.1).
All in all, the study journals provided a very rich material for the present study, totalling over 300 pages of regularly set text, and although some learners wrote much more than others, everyone’s personal voice can be heard.
5.2.2 ABILITIESFOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING QUESTIONNAIRE
Ruohotie (2002a) notes that, in order to understand the relationship between motivation, volition and self-regulation, the Research Centre for Vocational and Professional Education at the University of Tampere has extensively studied the possible integration of the current understanding of motivational and volitional cognitive processes in self- regulated learning.
The questionnaire used in the present study, Abilities for Professional Learning, or APL, was developed by Ruohotie (2000a), who used Pintrich’s (1995) Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire as the basis. He revised this original questionnaire on the basis of new research in Finland. The questionnaire includes two categories, one measuring motivation and the other learning strategies (see Table 2). The motivation category is further divided into three sections of values, expectancies and affective components.
Ruohotie (ibid.) notes that the value section has three subscales: intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation and meaningfulness of studies. The expectancy section has two scales: control beliefs and self-efficacy, while the affective section includes a scale for test anxiety. The learning strategies category is divided into four sections with single scales for each: metacognition in learning, metacognition in practice, learning by doing and resource management. More detailed descriptions of the scales are presented below.
Motivational Scale
• Intrinsic Goal Orientation: The learners’ estimate of how interested they are in deep contemplation, learning new things and solving problems that they find interesting.
• Extrinsic Goal Orientation: The learners’ estimate of how important they consider success in their studies and showing others what they are capable of doing.
• Meaningfulness of Studies: The learners’ own beliefs and assumptions about how useful and interesting it is to study the chosen field.
• Control Beliefs: The learners’ belief that their success and failure in their studies is dependent on themselves.
• Self-Efficacy: The learners’ beliefs and assumptions about how capable they are of performing at the level required to be successful in their studies.
• Test Anxiety: The learners’ estimate of how much a test or an assessment situation distracts their performance (for example, because of nervousness or stray thoughts).
Learning Strategy Scale
• Metacognition in Learning: The learners’ beliefs about the extent to which they consciously direct (i.e. plan, observe and assess) their own learning during studying.
• Metacognition in Practice: The learners’ beliefs about the extent to which they consciously direct (i.e. plan, observe and assess) their own learning during practical implementation of their skills.
• Learning by Doing: The learners’ beliefs about how effectively they will learn new skills and knowledge in practical situations.
• Resource Management: The learners’ beliefs about how effectively they use their available time and energy on studying.
In the version of the APLQ used in the present study, there are 28 questions (statements 1- 28) in the motivation category and 40 questions (statements 29-68) in the learning strategies category. Table 5.2 shows how the questionnaire is structured and shows how the different items on the questionnaire belong to the above-mentioned scales in the original APLQ. Table 5.3 presents the structure of the Learning Strategy Scale.
Table 5.1: Structure of the Motivational Scale of the
APL questionnaire (Adapted from Ruohotie & Nokelainen 2002a:183)
Table 5.2: Structure of the Learning Strategy Scale of the APL questionnaire (adapted from Ruohotie & Nokelainen 2005)
All the responses are given in Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). The questionnaire (English version) is presented in Appendix 1. In previous research, it has been noted that the variables in this questionnaire tend to be skewed towards positive values (Ruohotie & Nokelainen, 2000; 2002), which makes it unsuitable for linear statistical analysis without modifications. Therefore, the responses to the APL
Motivational Scale (A) Statements (28) in APLQ 1 Value Section
1.1 Intrinsic Goal Orientation A1, A18, A23, A25 1.2 Extrinsic Goal Orientation A8, A13, A27 1.3 Meaningfulness of Studies
2 Expectancy Section
2.1 Control Beliefs A2, A10, A20, A26 2.2 Self-Efficacy A6, A7, A12, A17, A22 3 Affective Section
3.1 Test Anxiety A3, A9, A14, A16, A21 A4, A5, A11, A15 (rev.), A19, A24, A28
Learning Strategy Scale (B) Statements (40) in APLQ 1 Cognitive Strategies
1.1 Rehearsal B36, B56
1.2 Elaboration B32, B50
1.3 Organisation B39, B46, B60
1.3 Critical Thinking B35, B44, B48, B59, B63 2 Metacognitive Strategies
2.1 Planning and Self-Monitoring
2.2 Self-Evaluation B66, B67, B68 3 Learning by Doing B43, B49, B61, B65 4 Resource Management
4.1 Time and Study Environment B29, B33, B40, B55
4.2 Effort B34, B45, B57, B64
4.3 Peer Learning B31, B42, B47, B37 B30, B38, B41, B51, B52, B53, B54, B58, B62
questionnaire are investigated in the present study with modern modelling techniques, namely Bayesian network modelling. These techniques are described more thoroughly in the next subsection.