Learning Circuits Blog Big Question for April: Do Better

This month's Learning Circuits Blog Big Question is:

"What would you like to do better as a Learning Professional?"

I would like to do two things:

1. Really improve my "elevator pitch" to really convince sceptical behind-the-curve C-level executives that learning and development initiatives are actually going to grow their business, not send it into a Hindenburg-like crash and burn.
   
2. Bridge the gap between digital immigrants and digital natives

...we might all do better if we dared classify ourselves as developing.

(Seymour Papert, 1992)

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Evaluating Non-formal e-learning initatives: Case Study Techniques

As I asserted in a previous post, case studies allow naturalistic methods of enquiry such as individual interviews to be carried out, side-by-side with quantitative data gathering from surveys, archival records, server access logs and so on.

Interestingly in discussing the flexibility of the case study design, Yin (1994, p.285) contends that in the future, researchers will focus not on the case study method, but rather on the specifi case study data collection techniques (see Table 1) and we will increasingly see these techniques used in other “non-case study” forms of research.

Table 1 Case Study Techniques

Case Study Techniques

The use of multiple sources of evidence, in a converging manner

The explicit specification and testing of hypotheses and rival hypotheses, especially in lieu of control or comparison groups

The dominance of deductive strategies, whereby research starts with theorizing

Program logic models as a standard way of initiating a program evaluation

Pattern-matching as a common strategy for data analysis

Portfolio analysis, using qualitative criteria to differentially weigh the outcomes from a project or the projects within a program

The use of replication logic, rather than aggregating data, when comparing the results from multiple sites or cases.

This approach of modularising (to coin a term) the methodologies used in a case study may potentially enable future researchers to generalise from results attained through a case study approach to a broader context: this concept is outside the scope of this blog, but is something in my view that would have benefits in future social sciences research and evaluation of learning initiatives.

References:

Yin, R. K. (1994). Discovering the future of the case study method in evaluation research. Evaluation Practice [Internet] 15. Available from: http://aje.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/15/3/283 [Accessed 15th January 2008 subscription required]

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Stonehenge dig update - for American viewers

[image courtesy BBC]

Some more info on the Stonehenge dig that may be more relevant to the American audience: the Smithsonian Channel are partnering with TimeWatch in coverage of the dig.

You can read and interact with Executive Producer of the Smithsonian Channel David Royle's live blog from Stonehenge here.

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Stonehenge dig on Timewatch

I don't spend all my time involved in learning and development. No no no. Among my interests is my probably slightly odd nevertheless very satisfying interest in the Neolithic, and particularly the culture of the Beaker People of Western Europe. One of the most famous monuments left behind by this enigmatic culture was Stonehenge, in the Wiltshire landscape near Avebury, Woodhenge and West Kennet.

BBC's flagship TimeWatch programme is documenting the once-in-a-lifetime archaeological dig at Stonehenge over the next few months and you can follow the dig online here.

[Image courtesy BBC]

Should be interesting to watch the story unfold.

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