Methodological issues in studying digital learning lives

Description:

Chair: Prof. Nancy Law, Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong

First, this presentation will give a short outline of efforts to understand the dynamic processes of learning situated across space and time, beyond the here and now, as presently challenging traditional definitions of learning and education. In my own research I have used the term ‘learning lives’ (Erstad, 2013; Erstad & Sefton-Green, 2013) to unpack a focus on students in motion across contexts of learning. Second, and the main part of the presentation, will be on methodological issues and challenges of studying ‘digital learning lives’ (Erstad, 2013). I will mainly refer to two large-scale projects I have been leading using ethnography as ‘logic of inquiry’ (Green, Dixon, Zaharlick, 2005). On an analytical level we have studied different knowledge practices and learning identities that young people are involved in, between school and everyday life. I will present empirical data about (dis-)continuities (Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2015) of students and their boundary crossing activities between such different knowledge practices and learning identities. Different methods and units of analysis have been used leading to diverse research results. I will focus on narrative analysis and interaction analysis used in these two projects. These issues are important to study in themselves, but also in order to reflect on the broader sociocultural perspectives of ‘21st century skills’ and the future competence developments of lifelong learners, as well as the purpose of education in contemporary societies; education for whom and in what way?