RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

DIGITAL IDENTITIES AND VIRTUAL, EDUCATIONAL, PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITIES

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di ROMA "La Sapienza" - PSICOLOGIA DEI PROCESSI DI SVILUPPO E SOCIALIZZAZIONE - ()

Research Unit Leader

Anna Maria Ajello

Description

The multidiplicinary research group (whose members are professors, permanent researchers, post doc and PhD students) has been doing research several years on the use of technologies in university didactics and in Teacher Education programs. As specified in the state of the art paragraph, the theorethical background are the sociocultural and the constructivist studies through which the research group analyse the ways to foster knowledge bulding among those taking part in training courses (both students, tutors and teachers).

During the project, the research unit of Rome will frame the reasearch activities around the following issues:
- analysis of research concerning blended training courses at university and during Teacher Education programs conducted in Italy and in other countries, which have high quality didactics and evaluating procedures;
- analysis of gender and motivational issues
- developing specific tools and interactive procedures for improving knowledge bulding and motivation in on-line learning communities;
- verifying the effectiveness of technological tools as respect for the sevral disciplinary contents, mathematics especially;
- developing assessment and self-assessment procedures, digital portfolios especially.

The aim of the project will be especially to evaluate the effictiveness of an online enviroment developed through an open-source platform (like Moodle) in which university students and students from Teacher education programs will be involved.
The online enviroment effectiveness will be evaluated through the following factors: gender differences; the ways students will take part in knowledge building procedures; the results achieved during assessment and self-assessment procedures.

We will sample students who take part in blended university courses and in Teacher education programs who will be involved in on-line training courses and in several knowledge building activities such as online forums where students can use several thinking types and scaffolding tools; cooperative writing activities; developing digital portfolios. All students-groups will take part alternately in on-line learning activities and in classes.

Qualitative and quantitative research data to go through will be online interactions, ways of using the tools available for students in online learning, products elaborated by students like digital portfolios, answers to questionnaires and semistructured interviews that will be made at the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the courses to collect students’ opinions concerning the ways training courses are organised, therefore their efficacy.
The analysis of online-interactive-styles will be made both concerning students’ gender and other students features (as specified above, some of them attend university, others Teacher Education programs) and the ways they use the tools available.

Research activities to be carried out during the three years project:

Year 1 – from month 0- to month 6
- Desk research: analysis of research concerning blended training courses at university and during Teacher Education programs conducted in Italy and in other countries, which have high quality didactics and evaluating procedures;
- Activities planning: training contents for the on-line activities and the classes, developing open source-platform, developing tools for on-line activities, setting timing and steps to make digital portfolios, dividing tasks among the members of the research unit)
- Developing a semistructured interview model to carry out interviews to choose students who could take part in the blended training courses;
- Developing questionnaires to evaluate the on-line and de-visu training activities

Year 1 – from month 7- to month 12
- To carry out interviews and to sample student-groups in the 4 universities where members of the research unit work (Rome Sapienza, Trento, Chieti-Pescara, Perugia).
- To carry out blended training courses and collecting research data

Year 2 – from month 0- to month 6
- data analysis
- comparing results with all the members of the research unit
- comparing results collected by the members of the research unit with those collected by other units

Year 2 – from month 7- to month 12
- Re- planning blended training courses taking into consideration results emerged from data analysis and comparison
- Organizing disseminating-activities, like publications and conferences, together with all research units in the project.


Expected results:
1. To try out and to evaluate blended training courses with several disciplinary contents (scientific and humanistic) and several students
2. To identify factors that motivate men and women towards technologies in different ways
3. To identify effectiveness lists for the techonological tools which are at students disposal
4. To develop a prototype digital portolio for blended learning

Check criterion for expected results:
a) To identify the same motivation factors in males and in females taking part in different blended courses
b) To identify the same effectiveness lists for the techonological tools at students disposal in the different blended courses