Presented at the University of Liverpool/Laureate Online Education Faculty Conference, Liverpool, July 2013. Authors: Kahn, P.E., Lucy Everington, L., Kelm, K., Reid, I. and Watkins, F.

1. LAUREATE ONLINE EDUCATION /
UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL
FACULTY CONFERENCE
Exploring high impact practices in the online
setting

2. Project team
• Dr Peter Kahn, DoS, EdD Higher Education
• Lucy Everington, Research Assistant
• Dr Kathleen Kelm, Director of Faculty
Development and Faculty Manager, Computing
Programmes
• Dr Iain Reid, DoS, MSc OSCM
• Dr Francine Watkins, DoS, MPH

3. Introduction
• A mixed picture exists around student
engagement for 100%-online learning:
– It has been clearly established that learning
technology can usefully support student
engagement.
– Specific uses of learning technology identified as
having a ‘high impact’ on student engagement.
– Low levels of student retention for many fullyonline courses.
– Underlying basis for understanding student
engagement remains limited; many studies based
on establishing connections through surveys.

4. Research questions
• To what extent can student engagement be
explained through reflexivity?
– How do high-impact practices in the online setting
influence student reflexivity?
– How do we help students to take responsibility for
their learning?

5. The study
• Multiple case study on student engagement
for fully-online masters degrees in Public
Health, Management and Computer
Science:
– Framed around realist social theory, drawing
out the role of reflexivity in framing intentional
forms of human action.
– Communicative reflexivity, autonomous
reflexivity, meta-reflexivity and fractured
reflexivity.
– Corporate agency underpinned by co-reflexivity

6. Study design
• Stage 1: analysis of postings to (asynchronous)
discussion boards for 22 learners.
• Stage 2: semi-structured interviews with a subgroup of 8 students.
• Experiences considered for each student
primarily in relation to two contrasting module
designs.
• Data analysis using the qualitative software,
with deductive/inductive approaches to
category identification.

7. Theoretical findings (Reflexivity)
• Given learning environments triggered
rich expressions of reflexivity as students
took responsibility in the face of
uncertainty
– High impact practices expect courses of
action grounded in different modes of
reflexivity
– Particular variation seen in relation to
communicative reflexivity and the coreflexivity needed to progress mutual
actions

8. Theoretical findings (Challenge)
• Uncertainty provides evident challenges
to students.
• Scope for dissonance between the modes
of reflexivity, practices and dispositions
expected by a learning environment and
the profile of the student.
• But the student still needs to take
responsibility.

9. Theoretical findings (Influences on engagement)
• Task-related practices
– Habits established around the timing of tasks, and
the conduct of sub-tasks (e.g. reading, organising
thoughts and writing a post).
• Social relations and practices
– Specific strategies employed to build corporate
agency; co-reflexivity supported through specific
inter-personal relations.
• Beliefs, dispositions and affectivity
– Attitudes towards knowledge; self-efficacy.

10. Generating mutual understanding
Communicative Selected quotation
practice
“I think at the beginning I wasn’t asking that many questions, either. I had my
Invitation
Provocation
Identifying a
common
interest
Reaching out
answer and I wasn’t asking a question to get a follow up on my answer
again.”
“I guess the first thing that I do is challenge someone else’s idea ... but the
end product can often lead to the exact opposite where it can change in my
mind.”
“I try to bring my own experiences, as there will be some variations on this
as people are in different countries and will have had different experiences.”
“I just look at students who are less engaging in the class showing that I can
also appreciate their posts. This is how I engage with the classroom.”
“On some occasions I felt like I had to defend my previous answer but I’d
Defending
hoped that I had done that by providing extra evidence rather than being
argumentative.”
Encouragement “When people like what you write then they watch out for the next posting,
and that works for me, because I get compliments and then want to do more
research.”

11. Examples of student profiles
• M1 – no evidence of communicative/coreflexivity; fixed view of knowledge.
• PH2 – emphasis on autonomous reflexivity,
with wider inter-personal relations not
engaged; but dissertation/other tasks entail
interactions with others.
• C2 – balanced indications against all modes of
reflexivity.

12. Implications for practice (Design)
• Understanding and designing
programmes
– Analyse the profile of reflexivity,
dispositions, task-related practices and
social practices.
– Designing programmes to reflect an
understanding of how students engage.

13. Implications for practice (Corporate agency)
• Integrating further social relations into
programmes of study
– Taking advantage of technology to introduce
additional partners into a discussion or to highlight
their perspectives (e.g. podcasts)
• Facilitation to assist students in progressing
joint concerns
– an instructor focus on catalysing corporate agency

14. Implications for practice (Tasks)
• Tasks that support corporate agency
– Group tasks, whether discussions, projects, …
– Activity that offers a ‘mutual’ take on the internet,
as with social media and ‘objective’ - ‘trip advisor’
data internet searches.
• Assisting with task-related uncertainty
– Helping students to establish new habitual
practices/sub-tasks
– Additional guidance, computer-generated
‘facilitation’/prompts, raising questions that lead to
new actions, …

15. Implications for practice (Reflexivity)
• Support students in exercising reflexivity,
especially where a mode is unfamiliar:
– Assistance in exercising given forms of reflexivity –
tools, advice, FAQs, computer-generated
‘facilitation’/prompts.
– Awareness of one’s own profile of reflexivity and
dispositions – online test linked to modes of
reflexivity, tasks that ask one to display awareness.
– Personal development activity to increase capacity
for reflexivity, whether integrated or stand alone
(e.g. discussion around establishing task-related
practices).

16. Longer-term impact
• Study linked to an on-going programme
of research
– Theoretical, empirical and practical strands
• Development of new high-impact
practices suited to the online setting
– Imagination and commitment is needed to
develop new forms of practice

17. Best in class?
• Combining student
engagement with
organisational
concerns
– Extensive innovation
occurring around
online learning
(MOOCs, intensive
forms of education,
social media, OER, ...)

18. Related reading
• Kahn P E (2013) ‘Theorising student
engagement in higher education’, British
Educational Research Journal, (available
online 7th October 2013
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10
02/berj.3121/full)