Frontline Learning Research: Announcements

Introduction to Vol. 12 No.1 (2024)

Frontline Learning Research — 2024-04-08

Dear reader,

It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of a new issue of Frontline Learning Research, comprising five articles. These five articles span much of the focus of learning research, in that they between them address such different questions as teachers’ technology integration, learning in virtual simulation environments, progression of opportunities to learn through teacher training, higher education’s impact on students’ civic engagement, and dimensions of teaching quality.

Lachner and colleagues develop an analytical model of teachers’ technology integration, which unites previously unrelated strands of research into teacher competence and professional vision. The model further adds the dimension of effect of teachers’ technology integration on students’ learning processes and their achievement. The result is the TPTI-model: teachers’ professional competence for technology integration, with four main focus areas: teachers’ antecedents (professional competence); process of technology integration; processes of learning (for students); and students’ antecedents (pre-requisites). The authors point out that important next steps in research consist in empirically testing the relationships posited in the model.

Sellberg and colleagues investigate the potential for developing visual expertise in virtual simulation environments, specifically in a case study of maritime pilots. In contrast to previous studies that focus on so-called negative skills transfer due to deficiencies in the simulation, the authors explore how the trainees themselves notice, handle and learn from adapting to the shortcomings in the simulator environment. Based on their study, the authors argue that the challenges encountered in the simulation may in fact add to the expertise of the trainees. Specifically, the trainees’ awareness of specific discrepancies between navigation in the simulator and on board a boat can lead to enriched conceptual, methodological and technical knowledge of navigation.

The article by Nielsen reports from a study of how student teachers’ perceptions of their opportunities to learn in field practice develop with the progression of their teacher education programme. Focus is on opportunities to learn through observation, own practice and feedback on practice. Participants were 560 Danish student teachers; one third at each of three levels of field practice. Participants answered an online survey and Nielsen utilises chain graph models to analyse the data. She documents that teacher students’ perception of opportunities to learn through observation of fellow students and teachers declined as the programme progressed, whereas their perception of opportunities to learn through own practice increased as the programme progressed.

The study by van den Wijngaard and colleagues centres on the impact of higher education on students’ civic engagement. Based on a literature review, the authors argue for shifting focus from civic engagement itself to two constituents: political interest and agency. These two constituents are the dependent variables of the empirical part of their study. Here, the authors investigate if and how the constituents develop over time for students at a small international liberal arts college in the Netherlands. They document four distinctly different patterns in the development of both constituents. In consequence, analyses at the level of individual student profiles appear necessary, as this allows a more nuanced picture of how civic engagement evolves than analysis of at group level.

The article by Alp Christ, Capon-Sieber and colleagues takes a renewed look at an established model of teaching quality, namely The Three Basic Dimensions model which focuses on the three dimensions of cognitive activation, classroom management and student support. The authors point out that despite its prevalence, the model, and in particular the mediating paths it proposes, has only been submitted to very limited empirical investigation. The present article remedies this problem by reporting a study of the mediating role of depth-of-processing, time-on-task and need satisfaction. The model is initially supplemented with further potential mediating paths, allowing a more nuanced investigation. The empirical investigation only confirmed some of the hypothesised relationships and highlighted that conceptual and methodological choices can have a significant influence on the results.

The full issue is found here.

Warm regards,

Professor, Dr. Nina Bonderup Dohn

Editor-in-Chief, Frontline Learning Research

Introduction to Vol. 11 No. 2 (2023)

Frontline Learning Research — 2024-01-11

Introduction to Vol. 11 No. 1 (2023)

Frontline Learning Research — 2023-09-12

Dear reader,

I am pleased to announce that a new issue of Frontline Learning Research has recently been published. It contains four articles that investigate different aspects of school learning and assessment, from teachers’, student teachers’ and students’ perspectives.

Anyichie and colleagues have developed a novel framework, the Culturally Responsive Self-Regulated Learning Framework (CR-SRL framework), which supports teachers in designing tasks for culturally diverse students in multicultural classrooms. The authors have investigated two elementary school teachers’ use of the framework and their students’ engagement with the tasks in a mixed methods study, utilizing video observations, records of classroom practices, students’ work samples, student self-report and teacher interviews. Findings include a positive evaluation of the CR-SRL framework’s potential for guiding teachers and corresponding benefits to students’ engagement.

Schmidt and colleagues present a novel methodological approach to assessing students’ development of quantitative reasoning within the domain of business and economics. In this approach, items that tap domain-specific quantitative reasoning are extracted empirically from existing instruments for assessing business and economics knowledge. The authors demonstrate that these items constitute an empirically separable factor which can be validly and reliably measured. Thus, their approach offers a practical alternative to broad test batteries in assessing students’ learning outcomes.

Prast and colleagues investigate student perceptions of differentiation and within-class achievement grouping in primary mathematics education. This constitutes a novel perspective, as previous research has focused on potential didactical and socioemotional advantages and disadvantages without drawing in the views of the students themselves. The study was performed with a questionnaire answered by 428 students. Results include that students of all achievement groups primarily held positive attitudes to achievement grouping, but that there were some differences between achievement groups, with less favourable results for students in low achievement groups.

The study by Do and Hascher focuses on student teachers’ perception of challenges incurred in paired field placements where the student teachers team teach with peers. The authors have conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 pre-primary and primary student teachers. Findings show different forms of conflict at different phases of peer cooperation, with instruction being the most challenging phase, and lack of compatibility with the peer the most frequent reason for problems. The authors further document a frequent use of reactive strategies, especially the strategy of avoiding problems.

The full issue is found here.

As a final remark, I would like to thank EARLI conference delegates who participated in the sessions hosted by Frontline Learning Research (in collaboration with other publishing outlets) for their interesting questions and lively discussion.

Professor, Dr. Nina Bonderup Dohn

Editor-in-Chief, Frontline Learning Research

Introduction to Vol. 10 No. 2 (2022)

Frontline Learning Research — 2023-03-24

Dear reader,

I am happy to announce that a new issue of Frontline Learning Research has recently been published. The issue comprises four articles that introduce innovative methodological instruments and provide thought-provoking integration of hitherto unrelated focus areas within learning.

Rogat and colleagues developed a novel instrument for investigating collaborative group work, focusing on engagement in classroom activity. Building on a situative perspective, they conceptualized engagement as a shared and multidimensional phenomenon. Their instrument consists of an observational rubric which evaluates group disciplinary engagement along five dimensions. The authors report on their exploratory testing of the instrument in educational practice. They show how the instrument allows analyses of larger samples than prior approaches with the same level of rich detail.

Turkkila and colleagues explored network analysis as a methodological approach within the theoretical framework of new materialism. They report on the development of a method to construct network data from video. The method was tested and further improved with a video segment from an upper secondary school physics lesson. The test illustrated the viability of the method as regards studying the material-dialogic relationships emerging in students’ investigations in school.

The research by Hirt and colleagues investigated teacher motivation as a core element of teachers’ professional competence in promoting students’ self-regulated learning. Drawing on expectancy-value theory, they identified three motivational profiles for the teachers in their study sample. Their analysis highlighted significant differences between these profiles as regards experience in promoting student self-regulated learning, implicit theory of self-regulated learning, and the promotion of self-regulated learning. The authors stress the importance of this for future professional development programs.

Murtonen and colleagues combined several methods (eye tracking, think aloud experiments, and participants’ numerical evaluation) to research the relationship between university teachers’ professional vision, their conceptions of teaching, and their pedagogical training as regards their focus on students’ learning. Two custom-made videos with trigger events were used to investigate the teachers’ noticing of students. The study showed that teachers who visually noticed important incidents could also formulate a more accurate interpretation. It further pointed to pedagogical education as a stronger predictor of professional vision than teaching experience.

You can find the full issue here.

Enjoy!

Professor, Dr. Nina Bonderup Dohn

Editor-in-Chief, Frontline Learning Research

Introduction to Vol. 10 No. 1 (2022)

Frontline Learning Research — 2022-09-09

Dear reader,

The current issue of Frontline Learning Research presents pioneering research in terms of both methodological innovation and novel focus areas of research, with two articles investigating development of individual understandings and two articles exploring aspects of collaboration.

Maag Merki and colleagues introduced a new method to investigate teachers’ collaboration, namely time-sampling with an online practice log. This allowed data to be collected that showed that teachers’ collaborative activities varied significantly between weekdays, showing a linear decrease from Monday to Friday, regardless of the content of collaboration. Furthermore, collaborative activities that focused on school subject-specific tasks varied with teachers’ leadership role and gender.

Nyberg and colleagues researched the significance of self-efficacy for the learning of scientific reasoning in primary (Grade 4) and lower secondary (Grade 8) school. At both grade levels, they found correlations for task-specific self-efficacy. However, correlational patterns differed between the grade levels: The largest cluster in Grade 4 comprised children who significantly overestimated their performance in scientific reasoning. In contrast, the largest cluster in Grade 8 comprised students with a realistic estimate of their performance.

The research of Jones and colleagues focused on interpersonal affect in groupwork. In a comparative case-study of two groups of first-year university students, they document the pervasive nature of interpersonal affect as enacted through everyday behavior. They trace the evolution over time of the group dynamics of both groups, one negative and dysfunctional, the other positive and collaborative.

Wolgast and Barnes-Holmes performed two studies of flexible spatial and temporal social perspective taking, one with undergraduate students and one with teacher education students. Focus was on how contextual cues affect such social perspective taking. With an outset in behavioral psychology, they employed the relational frame theory to a within-subject design and analyzed data by Rasch-tree and general linear modeling.

As a final remark, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Thomas Martens for his great work as the previous Editor-in-Chief of Frontline Learning Research and to both him and the rest of the FLR team for the smooth process of handing over the role to me. I am thrilled to be the new Editor-in-Chief and look forward to the collaboration with all editors and authors.

Best wishes,
Prof. Dr. Nina B. Dohn
Editor-In-Chief Frontline Learning Research