- A musical instrument can be mastered only by acting
- This “acting” creates information that addresses at least 3 senses: hearing, sight and touch
- The latter is added to the information that comes from the study material
- Humans’ ability to process information is limited
- Does that mean that study materials designed for learning a musical instrument have to be different (less informative or less concentrated) to avoid cognitive overload?
- Or, maybe the motor actions have a separate channel?
1. Issue/problem of my case study
Beginning to fill the caps of the key choices of a case study as pointed out in Hamilton, L. (2011) Case studies in educational research, British Educational Research Association on-line resource.
The problem
We struggle to design better multimedia study materials using all contemporary learning theories. We evaluate the materials in laboratory settings. On the other hand we claim that the new study materials make education more accessible. It means that we expect people to be able to learn whoever they are or wherever they live. ‘Wherever’ means outside of lab, out of our control and sight.
Do we know how do they use our materials out there? Do they care if we have presented the information in a smart mixture by addressing different channels (Trying not to overload the learner’s cognitive capacities) or do they still learn while watching TV, keeping the FB chat window open or having other irrelevant noise around?
On the other hand, companies that create multimedia (learning) games know that the more blinking and flashing they can come up with, the easier it is to sell. OK, one thing is to sell something – I have also sold thousands of guitar method books – but the other thing is to get people to learn. Do those people who actually learn, appreciate the effective designs or is it just the information they care about?
Many people start online courses but only some of them gain results. Who are these people?
I have about 230 people who succeeded to learn some guitar using my multimedia study materials. They started from scratch and ended up actually playing something and even recording it. It means that they had everything that it takes to do it: a computer, the internet connection, possibility to record audio, a guitar and some free time. Is there anything else they have in common? Well, 68% of them are male and only 32% are female.
Reading: Hamilton, L. Case studies in educational research. (2011)
This is a small article published online by British Educational Research Association: http://www.bera.ac.uk/resources/case-studies-educational-research
A few things that I lined out for myself
“…case study approach is often used to build up a rich picture of an entity, using different kinds of data collection…”
“… an alternative form of case study/…/ is the model which is used most frequently by those in education: an instrumental or delimited case study. In this latter form, the focus is usually on an issue, problem or dilemma etc within the case.”
Key choices:
- Issue/problem
- Creating a research aim and questions
- Holistic or instrumental case study approach
- Who are the key individuals who might participate
- Data collection tools – which are most likely to provide you with the kind of data which will help you to answer your research questions?
- ‘Sampling’ careful consideration of choices and key aspects which might have relevance for the project
- Risk assessment: potential problems and how you might deal with them. Possible compromises/back up cases
This little article is a teaser of the upcoming book “Using Case Studies in Education Research”. Hamilton, L., Corbett-Whittier, C., Fowler, Z. London: Sage (coming Nov. 2012)
From the references to be read:
Bassey, M. (1999) Case Study Research in educational settings. Buckingham: Open University Press
Planning a Case Study
I started my online guitar course at www.kitarrikool.ee in May 2007. Now, 5 years later it has 11 000+ registered users. Of course, not all of them are studying. The easiest way to determine whether someone has actually learned is to see if they have uploaded their recorded exercises.
Sending the recordings of the course’s first level has always been free. The rest of the online course w feedback is free for the book owners. There are many users who learned but didn’t send exercises.
Facts
- Total amount of registered users – 11077
- Uploaded files – 2502
- Sold books – 1900 (192 registered their book to enable the feedback feature)
- Users who uploaded anything – 430
- Users who studied with the help of my materials and did not attend my classes before uploading at least the full 1st level and (4 exercises) – 233 (75 female, 157 male)
- The course is made up of 8 levels
- Number of control exercises per level to be studied and recorded – 0 (8th level) to 4 (1st level), mean number of control exercises being 2.625 per level
- Number of feedback e-mails written – 1000+
Why e-learning and how is it designed to work? If questions are WHY and HOW, then a case study can help (Yin, R. 2003)
The higlighted 233 people are the ones who can help to get a picture of how and why an online musical instrument course works. The next question is: what to ask from those people?
Cognitive learning theory explained
Found this summary from the TeachersTube: