Hypothesis and Evaluation

Arnold Pears

Specific Hypotheses


That wireless environments encourage spontaneous meeting and sharing of information in a wider range of locations than those provided by traditional learning spaces. This mode of interaction should stimulate Peer Learning.

Experimental Setting

Many important collaboration spaces exclude the possibility of using commputer information. Examples Wireless communication makes new information and collaborative tools available in these environments.

This pilot project will investigate teaching, learning, technical and research aspects of supporting widescale wireless learning environments. Loosely coupled collaboration between Uppsala and KTH though similar courses in computer networking provides the opportunity for comparative studies.

This document concentrates on defining methods and experiments that investigate specific aspects of the teaching and learning impact of providing wireless networking.

Important Questions

How does wireless networking change the teaching and learning environment?

The pilot study concentrates on a subset of these important areas.

Specific Studies

Wireless vs Non-wireless collaboration

How does collaboration occur in the context of wireless and non-wireless enabled groups of students?

Characteristics

Measure

Intra-institute Peer Learning

Peer learning in wireless communication courses between students at Uppsala and KTH. Evaluation of the frequency and usefullness of peer learning activity between students in similar courses with very similar projects at two separate institutes.

Hypothesis: Students form working groups based on content/context not local geography. Widespread access to communication makes locality irrelevant to learning.

Inter-institute Peer Learning

Peer learning in the context of the Networks 2 course at Uppsala University. Evaluation of the frequency and usefulness of peer communication between local students in the Networks class at Uppsala. These students are working on different specific projects within a single course where they are in weekly contact and share the same local network resources.

Hypothesis: Students form high level theoretical collaborations at a more abstract level than their specific projects.

Impact of Wireless technology on collaborative behaviour

Comparative investigation of behavioural characteristics of students at Uppsala and KTH who are working in groups using wireless communication.

Independently measure (using a common standard) the frequency and types of interactions in which students interact using wireless technology in the courses at Uppsala and KTH. Comparison of this data will reveal similarities and dissimilarities in the use of wireless networking that are of significance to both teachers and educational researchers. This study will also provide a basis for further investigations into the nature of learning in wireless environments (as outlined in the project framework document).

Hypothesis: Access to wireless networking should have generalizable benefits for educators. Such benefits should be evident in all courses supported by wireless networking and should be identified and classified.

Methodological Approach

The pilot project will study pedagogic and learning implications of the use of wide space wireless learning environments using a combination of qualitative and quanititative techniques.

Qualitative assessment of expectations and outcomes for students and teaching staff will be conducted using a combination of interviews, activity logs, and surveys. This will establish a context for future qualitative assessment of learning and teaching practices, and help to identify key issues for further study. We plan to use different techniques to obtain the activity logs [time study] and evaluate them [data quality, answer rate, ease of use, etc.] in order to obtain high quality data.

Quantitative measures of network traffic levels, and support costs will be collected and used as indicators of the cost of providing the environment in comparison with more traditional techniques.

Specific measurement activities