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by Silke Rehman (Author)
Designing for maximum online engagement? What if you found that your engagement strategy actually alienated a large group of online students? This book benefits those tasked with effective online educational strategy and instructional designers alike. It summarises dissertation research (MSc Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh) motivated by a desire to better understand solitary learners' resistance to the dominant social constructivist paradigm's call for more peer interaction during online learning. Challenging the classification of non-interactors as problem cases in a one-size-fits-all learning design, this phenomenological research generated deep understanding of what students perceive as their optimal peer interaction for learning, specifically in relation to their needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness as proposed by self-determination theory to drive motivation and satisfaction. Research was conducted in a Master level online learning environment specifically designed for high social engagement, explicitly demanding frequent student interactions. Results demonstrate a striking diversity of meanings, preferences and roles of peer interaction perceived by the students interviewed that defies the simplistic notion of peer interaction as an always desirable and 'unproblematic good'. 3 groups, solitary learners, cognitive interaction seekers and emotional interaction seekers, with different optimal peer interaction preferences could be identified and their need satisfaction assessed using self-determination theory as a critical lens. Reported optimal peer interaction coincided with the peer interaction quantity and quality that best satisfied needs according to self-determination theory. Strikingly, the exact same online learning design context satisfied universal needs differently, suggesting that mediating variables like beliefs, attitudes and personality seem to drive differing optimal levels. Apart from emotional interaction seekers who felt disempowered to reach their optimum peer interaction levels, participants proved highly resourceful at generating clever coping strategies to create their optimum peer interaction level within the online environment encountered. Against expectations, not those resisting peer interaction but only those seeking it fit the problem case classification and require better design to achieve satisfactory learning environments. Rather than a one-size-fits-all design that forces all students to interact more against their preferences thus causing stress, flexible designs are recommended that allow students with different peer interaction preferences to co-exist and feel empowered to create their subjective personal optimum in mutual understanding of differences. Issues associated with the prevailing deficit model are discussed with a particular focus on the less prominent voice of the solitary learner. Recognising limitations, recommendations for practice are made and areas for further research are identified.A note on methodology: Combining a hermeneutic phenomenological approach with template analysis within an interpretive paradigm facilitated a rich and nuanced qualitative understanding of different optimal peer interaction preferences and motivations while studying online. Data was collected through asynchronously written reflective answers followed by online synchronous interviews among a purposive sample of mature online postgraduate part-time students who had successfully graduated and indicated either high or low importance of peer interaction for their learning.
