CALEDONIAN ACADEMY – A RESEARCH CENTRE IN TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Overview and Case Studies

The Caledonian Academy is a centre for research in Technology-Enhanced Professional Learning.

Our mission is to make a lasting impact on the field of learning sciences, through:

(i)  performing methodologically-robust and well-designed research that leads both to novel discoveries and to usable applications;

(ii)  communicating our findings within and beyond the scientific community;

(iii)  mentoring early-career researchers to become some of the best learning scientists of their generation.

Caledonian Academy leads socially-relevant research driven by real-world interdisciplinary problems, driven by tackling various application domains in the energy and finance sectors, among others. We engage in outreach activities, specifically by offering public seminars and communicating research outputs to practitioners and policymakers through industry-focused events and publications. We work with companies like Shell, BP International, ConocoPhillips, and Centrica, and professional organisations such as the Energy Institute, the Chartered Institute for Securities Investment, the Higher Education Academy, and the Joint Information Systems Committee.

We are always looking for new partner companies and organisations to work with to devise new processes and tools to support professional learning, continuing professional development, and learning from incidents. We are also interested in working with organisations to define and explore key issues of workplace learning with digital technologies through leading-edge research studies.

The Caledonian Academy includes:

·  Dr Anoush Margaryan, Acting Director and Senior Lecturer. Email:

·  Dr Colin Milligan, Research Fellow. Email:

·  Dr Isobel Falconer, Honorary Senior Research Fellow.

·  Eleni Boursinou, PhD candidate. Email:

The Caledonian Academy 70 Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, Scotland, United Kingdom.

The Caledonian Academy is based at Glasgow Caledonian University in the UK: www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/

We work in partnership with leading research centres and industry partners, including Shell,

ConocoPhillips, BP, Centrica, Energy Institute & the British Safety Council 20

CALEDONIAN ACADEMY – A RESEARCH CENTRE IN TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

The Caledonian Academy is based at Glasgow Caledonian University in the UK: www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/

We work in partnership with leading research centres and industry partners, including Shell,

ConocoPhillips, BP, Centrica, Energy Institute & the British Safety Council 20

CALEDONIAN ACADEMY – A RESEARCH CENTRE IN TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING


Engaging with learning from incidents in the workplace.

LFI-Engage: Research funded by Shell, Energy Institute, & Centrica

This industry-academia research project was led by the Caledonian Academy at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2012-2013. Industry partners included the UK Energy Institute, Shell and Centrica. The research was conducted across industrial sites at the Shell Scotford Upgrader, Canada, and Centrica Killingholme Plant, UK. The aim of the project was to develop an easy-to-use set of tools that could be used by people in companies to analyse and improve their learning from incident (LFI) processes and practices– the LFI-Engage Toolkit. The LFI-Engage Toolkit was designed to be used by frontline managers, safety officers and employees to guide the implementation of LFI initiatives across industrial sites. The toolkit forms a part of the ‘Hearts & Minds’ tools available from the Energy Institute. (For more information, visit http://www. energyinst.org/heartsandminds/)

Starting Point

Companies have invested heavily in implementing approaches to LFI. However, the return on investment is not optimal. There are three main problems that prevent companies learning from incidents:

·  Problem 1: LFI activities do not focus on how people use information about incidents;

·  Problem 2: Key opportunities for learning throughout the incident lifecycle are missed;

·  Problem 3: People are given limited scope to make sense of incident information and relate it to their own work.

Methodology

The LFI-Engage project addressed the aforementioned problems by developing the LFI-Engage Toolkit in collaboration with workers at the industry sites. The first phase of the project included development and two rounds of validation of the Learning from Incidents Questionnaire (LFIQ). The LFIQ was answered by a total of N=1096 respondents across Shell and Centrica. The second phase of the project included organising two focus group workshops with the employees at the sites in order to collaboratively develop a series of tools that would help companies improve their LFI processes and practices.

Figure 1: LFI-Engage Toolkit overview

Project Team

Professor Allison Littlejohn, PI (currently at the Open University)

Dr Anoush Margaryan, Co-I

Dr Dane Lukic, Research Fellow

Industry collaborators

Mr Stuart King, UK Energy Institute

Mr Tyne Archer, Shell International

Mr Steve Mousseau, Shell, Canada

Mr Lee Read, Centrica, UK

Website (including links to publications): http://www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/lflengage/

Working & Learning at the Boundaries of Knowledge: Research with the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment

Knowledge workers are increasingly asked to generate new knowledge as part of their day-to-day role; for example, in the finance industry where recent crises and subsequent changes to regulations necessitate process innovation. Established training and development approaches have become ineffective and, instead, organisations must move to support their workers to self-regulate their learning (SRL: Zimmerman, 2000).

Context and Method We studied knowledge workers in the financial services industry, identified through professional bodies including the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment (CISI) and the Chartered Banker Institute. The study comprised two phases: development of a survey instrument to detect participant’s SRL profile, followed by an interview study procedure to explore the range and form of SRL strategies exhibited by these knowledge workers.

Research Questions and Findings

How do professionals plan, implement, and reflect on their learning goals in the context of everyday work?

The study highlighted the close relationship of learning and work, with virtually all the learning situations described being externally driven (expanded or new role, new tool, new process, and organisational change). While initial motivation to learn was almost always externally driven, a few participants were able to articulate some intrinsic motivation. Workers defined their learning needs primarily through some form of gap analysis, or through talking to colleagues. Here, there appears to be a difference between the High- and Low-SRL groups, with the High-SRL group strongly favouring gap analysis. Low-SRL learners appear to be somewhat dependent on external regulation from line managers. Almost all participants undertook planning and there was some evidence that High-SRL learners may have been more likely to undertake detailed planning. Some High-SRL learners were able to articulate more complex (extending beyond the core task) goals, and others reported highly specific goals.

How do individuals draw upon others (the collective) in self-regulating their learning?

All participants relied heavily on others in their learning network to support or facilitate their learning. High-SRL seemed to have a somewhat broader network than Low- SRL, with slightly lower reliance on immediate team members, significantly lower reliance on line managers, but more links to colleagues from different organisations.

How do professionals use technology to support their self-regulated learning?

Technology is integral to these workers’ roles and undoubtedly mediated their learning; however, we found little evidence of specific use of tools for planning, implementing, and reflecting on goals. For the performance phase, the most used technology is Google search: used to find preliminary information and to inform learning. There was widespread use of social networks, with Twitter and LinkedIn being most cited, and used to find information and make connections respectively. Although the overall use of technology is similar between High- and Low-SRL, the use of social networks differs.

Project Team

Dr Colin Milligan, CO-I

Professor Allison Littlejohn, CO-I (currently at the Open University)

Dr Pia Fontana, Research Associate

Industry Collaborator

Mr George Littlejohn, CISI

Website (including links to publications): http://www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/wlbk/


Professional Learning in Massive Open Online Courses

Research funded by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation

Background

This study explored the role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in supporting and enabling professional learning, or learning for work. The study was contextualised within ‘Fundamentals of clinical trials’, a MOOC for health professionals offered by edX.

Findings

The study commenced with a review of the literature on self-regulated learning (SRL) in online contexts. In MOOCs, the learner is required to take greater responsibility for managing and self-regulating their learning. Our review highlighted a number of studies that provide insight into the design of online experiences that promote or support SRL, many of which would be applicable in MOOC design. The findings of the literature review were used to inform the development of the Design Team Questions Tool, an audit instrument to explore the design decisions underlying MOOC environment and learning design. The audit tool was used to collect data for the current study, and the current version of the instrument is available as a template http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.907150 for others to use and refine. The main data collection phase of the study involved the use of a quantitative instrument followed by a set of semi-structured interviews. The quantitative instrument (413 respondents) was used to identify High- and Low-SRL learners for the interview phase. It was also used to collect views on motivations, expectations, and interaction within the MOOC. A range of motivations and expectations were observed. High SRL learners were able to articulate more specific motivations and expectations than the Low-SRL group, irrespective of the nature of these motivations/expectations. Descriptive data summaries for the quantitative data set are available from

http://tinyurl.com/PL-MOOC-DataSummary (PDF).

35 interviews exploring learning behaviour in the MOOC were conducted. The interviews highlight a mismatch between expectations and motivations, which are largely focused on professional needs, and goals articulated, which centre on participation and completion. We interpret this finding as evidence of mismatch of course design to learner needs, with the course design and format causing the learners to adopt a more passive approach to learning. Recommendations from the study can be accessed as a PDF, from figshare at: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1420557

Summary of Recommendations

The design of MOOCs that seek to support professional learning should (where possible):

1.  Enable professional learners to link theory learned in the MOOC with their work practice by setting personal goals, or by personalizing course goals. The integration of expertise developed through the MOOC with expertise derived from professional practice could lead to improved learning.

2.  Help professional learners to reflect on the knowledge gained from the course and how it may be embedded into their work practice before the end of the course.

3.  Support professional learners to continually monitor their learning to determine its ultimate value beyond their immediate learning experience.

4.  Capitalize on the diversity of motivation, expectation, and prior knowledge and experience that is inherent within all MOOC cohorts.

5.  Encourage professional learners to discuss ideas from the course with co-workers in their external professional network as well as with other learners on the course.

6.  Utilize the existing knowledge and experience that professional learners bring to the learning context.

Research Team

Dr Colin Milligan, CO-I
Professor Allison Littlejohn, CO-I, (currently at the Open University)

Website (links to pubs. and instruments): http://www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/pl-mooc/

Action Research Partnership with Shell International

Action-Research Partnership

The Caledonian Academy led an Action-Research Partnership with Shell (2008-2010) to advance current approaches to work-based learning. Shell, the international oil and gas company, needed to address key challenges in its approach to work-based learning. The demographic changes in the workforce and the close integration of formal and informal approaches in learning and development were top of its list.

Shell’s central aim was to harness the power of collective intelligence in supporting employees in the transition from education to the workplace.

The research partnership centred on the concept of collective knowledge: that the key knowledge within an organisation is constantly being enhanced and refined through the daily activities of its employees.

Social technologies (such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, social bookmarking tools, and virtual worlds) allow the individual employee to access the power of the collective: consuming the knowledge and expertise held throughout the organisation, creating new knowledge based on their own experience, and connecting with others to learn and to pass on new practice.

Blue Skies Research

Alongside action research activity, aimed to improve performance within Shell, the group advanced more conceptual research around the relationship between knowledge building and collective learning that will be of interest to learning experts from education and the corporate sector.

Networked technology tools can empower employees to take control of their development: to chart their own learning pathways, find new resources and people who can help them achieve personal and organisational goals. How best can these new technologies and approaches to workplace learning be deployed to enhance the effectiveness of knowledge workers?

Figure 1: Individuals can consume and create new knowledge, and connect with others to chart their learning pathways

Project team

Professor Allison Littlejohn, (Former) Director

Dr Anoush Margaryan, Senior Lecturer

Dr Colin Milligan, Research Fellow

Caledonian Academy

Glasgow Caledonian University

http://www.gcu.ac.uk/academy/

Industry collaborators

Dr Sebastian Graeb-Konneker

Dr Donna Hendrix

Mr Gerry Nicholson

Timescale: 2008-10

Funded: Shell


Learning from Incidents:

Research with Shell International & Energy Institute

This industry-academia research project was led by the Caledonian Academy at Glasgow Caledonian University. Industry partners included the Energy Institute, Shell, and Conoco Philips. The project developed new approaches to enhancing learning from health and safety incidents in the workplace. The research was conducted across industrial sites at the Shell Mossmorran Gas Plant and the Conoco Phillips Humber Oil Refinery, both in the UK. The aims were to:

·  Find ways of improving learning from incidents in the workplace;

·  Transfer learning from incidents to the workplace through a participatory methodology involving key staff;