J O H N M Ac M I L L A N

M O N I C

A J M C L E A N

Making first-year tutorials count Operationalizing the assessment-learning connection

Keywords: argumentation, feedback, for mative assessment, infor mation technolo gy, reflection

This article reports the design and effects of a practical, pedagogic experiment motivated by the wish to encourage greater 'active learning' in first-year tutorials along with a range of other learning skills, in particular the practice of 'good' argumentation. The project has its roots in a formal accredited programme in teaching and learning that provided frameworks for thinking about how to change the assessment regime and in a measure of dissatisfaction with the existing,'conventional' organization of the tutorial as a site of learning. The aim was to create an environment in which the students prepared thoroughly for each tutorial, engaged in challenging discussion, and reflected on what and how they were learning. The method employed was to centre the assessment regime on the tutorial itself in conjunction with frequent and rapid feedback on student work.

Introduction

A project called 'Making (First Year) Tutorials Count' was designed to require students to reflect on their own learning and on the process of discussion and argumentation so that they understand better the nature of 'good', that is, well reasoned and well supported, argumentation. It was also designed for the improvement of oral and written communication skills. The project originated in the conjunction of the first author's own continuing professional development as a tutor (in the form of Keele University's accredited course for teaching and learning in higher education, then led by the second author) and a concern, developed in over ten years of teaching, that 'the tutorial', defined as a group of between 8 and 18 students, often failed to fulfil its potential as a site of active learning.

active learning in higher education

Of particular interest was the question of how to operationalize the conceptual linkages that had emerged during the formal course on teaching between student learning and the assessment regime. Concerns about the first-year tutorial centred upon the theme that students were not fulfilling their own potential as active participants and that their own thinking about the subject matter was not being sufficiently developed, extended, or challenged. Preparation levels often appeared to be rather low or, if high, not reflected in students' actual contribution to the discussion. This might be due to differential levels of intellectual self-confidence, leading to variations in levels of participatory engagement among students, and/or a manifestation of 'utility-maximizing' behaviour by students who recognized that grades for the course depended principally upon achievement in essay and exam rather than tutorial performance. A higher level of intellectual proactivity and engagement was hoped for. All of these factors contributed to a sense that there was scope for greater individual and collective intellectual fulfilment which could, in part, be attained by establishing an environment in which students feel obliged to prepare and think about the topic in advance and in which, during the tutorial itself, they put forward their own opinions, have them challenged, and engage with the opinions of others. It was also thought important that students be 'rewarded' in terms of their efforts being reflected in the grades for the module.

Besides seeking to encourage greater research and preparation for the tutorial, the project also sought to pursue other learning goals. These included developing greater self-confidence in terms of oral communication skills, understanding of 'good argument', and reflection upon one's own learning post-tutorial, as well as upon the factors that had determined the path of discussion during the tutorial and which had led some points to be well received and supported within the group and others less so. At one level this understanding was expected to be in terms of the 'quality' of the points made, that is to say the clarity of their formulation and presentation, degree of knowledge and evidence that underpinned them, and appropriate use of supporting illustrations and examples. At a deeper level, it was hoped that this method would encourage appreciation of the views of others, and, in particular, that there might be good reasons why others may perceive issues differently or else approach them in a different way. At the same time, it was thought worthwhile that students should better recognize how other factors, such as efforts by participants to dominate a discussion or pursue diversionary behaviour, can marginalize certain voices and influence the quality of outcomes.

As a full-time academic lecturer in politics and international relations, not education, how did education theory help? Fundamental here was the concept of 'active learning', defined as opportunities for students to make sense of the subject matter for themselves and often contrasted with 'passive learning' that characterizes the conventional student experience of lectures. These concepts are derived from constructivist views of learning which emphasise that: 1. Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner, not passively received from the environment. 2. Coming to know is a process of adaptation based on and constantly modified by a learner's experience of the world. (Jaworski, 1996: 2) However, whilst lectures are often criticized in the educational literature (Bligh, 1998), tutorials, as opportunities for learning, seem to escape rather lightly (Abercrombie, 1989;Bligh, 2000;Wood and Moran, 1994). But, despite having used a range of 'active learning' approaches, for example students working on various exercises in a combination of small and large groups, the feeling that more could be done to develop active learning in tutorials remained. It was, however, the relationship drawn in the theoretical, pedagogic literature between student learning and the assessment regime that was especially thought-provoking.

A number of authors make the point that from the students' perspective the curriculum is defined by the messages that assessment regimes send to them (Black et al., 2003;Gibbs, 1995Gibbs, , 1999;;Ramsden, 2003). Whilst part of this insight refers to the resources (principally time) students will devote to the various different demands of a module, there is a related point about the way in which the assessment regime sends signals to students about which activities are regarded by academic staff as more important than others. Important also is the extent to which the assessment regime is 'formative'. Formative assessment refers to the use of the assessment regime to deliver constructive feedback to the student as distinct from 'summative' assessment that indicates the mark and level of attainment. But, whatever the assessment regime, there is consensus that feedback is crucial for student learning. There is also some consensus that feedback that is likely to improve learning should be frequent and immediate (Angelo and Cross, 1993;Banta et al., 1996;Schwartz and Webb, 2002) and should 'connect' with students' understandings of what is expected of them (Hounsell, 1987(Hounsell, , 2003)). This is partly for the obvious reason that there is greater opportunity for students to evaluate progress across a range of areas, but perhaps also, because of what Hounsell (1987) refers to as the 'inter-subjective character of feedback ' (p. 114). That is to say, students would be further motivated by the practice of iterated, individual, face-to-face discussion between the tutor and student over a relatively short time frame, in which there is both a level of consensus-seeking over the tutor feedback and willingness to listen and respond to the views of the student and comment on specific areas of improvement (or lack thereof) based on previous feedback discussion (Black and Wiliam, 1998;Sadler, 1989;Scoggins and Winter, 1999). Further, there is some evidence that, for students, self-perception of increasing competence is one of the key drivers of greater motivation (Fazey and Fazey, 2001;Ryan and Powelson, 1991), which endorses Hounsell's point that 'motivation [is] less a personal attribute than a function of the relations between an individual and a situation [START_REF] O U N S E L L | Essay Writing and the Quality of Feedback[END_REF]: 117). Finally, Biggs' (2003) work illuminates the need to make the assessment regime congruent with the aim of actively engaging students in thinking and arguing.

Designing the assessment regime

The module in question was a first-year course designed to develop understanding of the historical, political, economic and cultural reasons why states perceive the world differently and how this is manifest in a range of contemporary foreign policy issues. There were approximately 100 students enrolled on this compulsory 20-credit module, with the project running for three successive years from 2001 to 2003. The course was taught through 15 lectures, one introductory two-hour tutorial and three further two-hour tutorials. The existing assessment regime comprised one 1500-word essay and one two-hour exam. Whilst departmental colleagues were generally tolerant when not supportive of the project, there was, nevertheless, a general expectation that the revised assessment regime would not add to the collective burden. Accordingly, something within a total of 3000 words of submitted work was in order. That this was a firstyear module meant that the grades did not count towards the final degree mark. This in practical terms meant that there was greater willingness within the department to take risks with a radically new assessment regime.

The nub of the regime was to dispense with the essay and exam and put the two-hour tutorials at the centre of the assessment process. Hence five days prior to the tutorial students would submit, electronically, a 500-word 'briefing paper' designed to express their considered position on the question they were asked to address. The intention here, then, was to motivate students not only to read about and research a topic, but also to think about it and, indeed, to produce an academically credible, wellsupported, reasoned and coherent stance on a particular question. This part of the assessment regime was designed to develop skills of writing, research and the preparation of an informed stance or argument on a particular question and to prepare the student for the active engagement being encouraged in the tutorial.

During the tutorial itself two or sometimes three principal activities would take place. The first would be that students would discuss, in groups of three to five, their respective answers to the question in hand, based on the positions they had prepared in their briefing paper. Students were required to see how well their own arguments stood up to peer scrutiny and to reflect upon strengths and weaknesses in the light of the arguments of others. Student reflection on this part of the process was then expressed through an 'evaluation report' (of which more below). Second, at the same time as students were discussing their positions in small groups, the tutor discussed each student's own briefing paper with them individually for about five minutes. This discussion would focus upon many of the aspects common to assessing virtually any piece of written work: structure, coherence, use of evidence, clarity, use of sources and referencing, and the bibliography. Besides this general feedback, however, the tutor and student would also identify specific areas for the student to concentrate on for the next assignment. During the conversation the tutor continually sought affirmation that the student understood the point being made and why it was significant. The tutor would also give students written comments (but no marks) summarizing the main points. Third, the tutor would sometimes convene a whole group discussion in the latter stages of the two-hour meeting in order to work on some specific issue that had emerged in the course of reading the briefing papers, usually, but not always, to do with how to address an academic question. Three days after the tutorial students would then submit, again electronically, a 500-word 'evaluation report' which summarized their thoughts both on how successful their own position had been in terms of persuading others, and whether and in what ways they had modified their own position as a result of the discussion. It was this part of the assessment regime that was designed to encourage and assess the higher learning goals of student self-awareness of their own learning, the development of students as reflective learners, and their appreciation of 'good' argument. Of course, as a tutor I hoped they would appreciate for themselves the value of wide reading and preparation and develop the ability not only to construct a case but also to anticipate possible objections or counterpoints. Implicit in this process was the ability to 'see the others' point of view', which was both fundamental to the pedagogic aims but also to the subject matter of the course: understanding the foreign policy of various different states. Indeed, if there is an ethical core to this model of assessment it is to be found here, for fundamental to 'political knowledge' in general and a major theme in contemporary social science is coming to terms with ideas of 'difference'. In this vein, the process of argumentation is itself a route to understanding, for one factor implicit in the activity of small group discussion is an appreciation of the point that others can interpret the world differently for perfectly good reasons and that social and political knowledge often comprises the development of inter-subjective understandings (as distinct from verbally forcing one's view upon others).

This aspect of the assessment regime was intrinsically more challenging, being of a more abstract nature. However, even at a rather basic level, it required students to develop the skill of 'active listening', which is itself no small achievement. Part of the tutor feedback entailed encouraging students who had spotted differences in the arguments and claims of others to explore further whether there might be some points of overlap or consensus and what was actually at stake in the differences. These 'higher' educational aims embodied in the evaluation report were made clear in the 'criteria for assessment' that were included in the module outline that contributed to setting the context for what was done during the seminars and to clarification of the educational goals. In practice, the extent to which students came to grips with these aims varied, but my own strong impression is that many in the groups did broadly understand what was required, with a small number producing sophisticated accounts.

Completed comment sheets would be returned electronically, with a grade, within five days and certainly in time for the students to take the comments into account prior to embarking upon their next assignment for the module. This was important if the iterated character of the feedback regime was to be allowed the fullest opportunity for improving student performance.

The 'newness' of the regime was itself an issue, for not only were students faced with learning a new subject, but also a new set of assessment practices. Vital in mitigating the possible impediments to learning this might create was clear information about the schedule and deadlines on the reading list and an introductory tutorial at which the aims are explained and discussed and at which students themselves have the opportunity to analyse a sample briefing paper and evaluation report. The sample material, written by the tutor, was of a high standard in terms of analysing and engaging with the requirements of the question, structuring the piece accordingly, clearly stating the key points and supporting these with appropriate evidence and examples, through to credible interpretation and conclusion. Much time in the introductory tutorial was spent relating the paper and the report to the criteria for assessment and seeking to develop student appreciation of where the strength in the paper lay.

The role of the tutor

Whilst the role of the tutor as provider of constructive feedback and encouragement is clear enough, it is also important that the tutor seeks to establish some form of consensus upon certain ground rules for discussion in small groups. Fundamental here is the importance of respect for the opinions of others, which is itself a prerequisite of the assumption that one must validate one's own subjective beliefs, opinions and knowledge claims through subjecting them to the oxygen of publicity and the scrutiny of others. Hence drawing attention to the difference between argumentation and persuasion, on the one hand, and domineering and bullying behaviour, on the other, was particularly important given that small groups were largely operating without a tutor present who in a conventional large group would intuitively play the role of discussion moderator. This said, however, students were themselves encouraged to be aware of this role, and by implication encouraged to adopt it.

For much of the tutorial the tutor was engaged in one-to-one discussion with individual students that itself contributes to a relatively non-interventionist role in the small group discussions. This, however, raises concerns, fuelled by overhearing factually misleading, misunderstood or poorly expressed points, over whether the students are learning enough 'hard facts' about the subject. Yet, the degree of control that a tutor should take to fulfil educational goals without stifling the learning capacities of students is an abiding dilemma in teaching (Readings, 1996;Stenhouse, 1972;Weimer, 2002). Accordingly, whilst this situation is not ideal, there are a number of factors that the tutor should bear in mind before intervening in small group discussion. The main counterpoint to concerns about knowledge-levels in small groups is that the tutor can use the opportunity of written and oral feedback on a one-to-one basis to leave the student in no doubt that the student's knowledge base of the subject is highly important and to correct any errors. Indeed, 'knowledge demonstrated' was one of the stated learning objectives and assessment criteria for the briefing paper. Beyond this, however, interpretation of small-group student discussion is not in fact straightforward. First, the situation might be evidence of students contributing points that, in a conventional tutorial, they may not have had the confidence to present for fear of making a mistake, particularly in front of the tutor. Second, within the small group there was the prospect of peer correction, which is itself educational in terms of the aims of this project. Third, whilst students might not get everything right under this method, there was no indication that they were learning more in terms of a subject's knowledge base under the old system.

Were the aims achieved?

The subjectivity of self-report can to some extent be mitigated by evaluation based on discussions between tutors on the module, relatively detailed student feedback gained from end of module written evaluations, and by drawing again on educational literature. Ultimately, however, this project was a pilot scheme that readers are invited to evaluate in the light of their own teaching situations. In so doing, however, expectations need to be put into context. Total tutorial provision comprised eight hours, so even though the tutorials required much greater involvement in terms of student-hours there are, nevertheless, limitations as to what one might reasonably expect. Furthermore, these are first-year students studying in a context in which the unit of resource has decreased quite rapidly and Perry's (1999) study of students at Harvard in the 1960s demonstrated the difficult and gradual nature of intellectual development, even in comparatively generously resourced conditions. Such limitations noted, however, it is nevertheless probably more appropriate to evaluate the regime in its real-world context, that is in relation to the pre-existing assessment regime it was designed to replace rather than in relation to abstract or ideal conditions.

Conventional composition and writing skills had not been at the forefront in the design of this project, yet, probably the most tangible benefit of this method was improved written expression, including the skill of 'building' or 'crafting' one's points and arguments. This is directly related to how feedback was given. The 500-word word-limit impressed upon students the need to formulate their points concisely and to make every paragraph and sentence 'add value' to the overall argument. The typical weaknesses of structure, coherence, expression and clarity that one finds in first-year essays of 1500 words were replicated in this format, but direct and frequent feedback in which the students had annotated copies of their briefing papers returned to them enabled close and specific identification, discussion and monitoring of such weaknesses. The individual tutor-student conversations were surely important here in allowing a closing of the gap between my own and the students' expectations (Hounsell, 1987). This chimes with those who advocate that learning a discipline is less a matter of technique than of the 'social practice' and 'discourse' of the discipline, which is not necessarily easily entered into by students (James, 2000;Jones et al., 1999;Lea and Street, 2000;Lillis and Turner, 2001;Northedge, 2003).

The question of whether and to what extent the module developed oral communication skills is more difficult to answer, in part because these were assessed indirectly. Perhaps the most that can reasonably be said is that the necessity of presenting one's position in a small group, in conjunction with tutor feedback and encouragement to push one's position further, created appropriate conditions in which this aim could be realized (Hounsell, 2003;Ramsden, 2003). Or to put this differently, it would have been difficult to fulfil the requirements of the module or to have been present at a tutorial without actively participating in the small group discussions. More broadly, both oral and written communication skills, at least in an academic context, are facilitated and reinforced by certain common characteristics such as knowledge of the subject and familiarity with the scholarly literature. There are two senses in which this subject knowledge could plausibly have developed student self-confidence. First, the notion of published academic work as an authoritative voice from which the student could gain a sense of and participate in an existing,'live' debate provided both platform and support. Second, the notion of academic sources as authoritative grounding for the student's own position -encouraged through the use of scholarly practice such as referencing and footnoting -also enabled the student to take risks through being able to express uncertainties or pursue clarification or the development of points through referring to a third party's point or argument, rather than having to take full responsibility for a poorly understood but interesting position oneself. There was scope, then, for students to be interpreters as well as protagonists. The question of whether students developed as 'active listeners' can be answered with greater confidence owing to the evidence of reflection on their own and others' initial positions in the light of group discussion found in their evaluation reports.

Student evaluation of the module was highly positive. This is an important indicator: there is strong evidence that students' perceptions of the context in which they are learning influences their 'approach'; positive perceptions are associated with a 'deep approach' whereby they intend to make sense of subject matter and are more likely to be engaged with it (Prosser and Trigwell, 1999). In particular students valued the higher frequency of feedback and also the chance to concentrate on improving specific aspects of their work as identified in the feedback, therein illustrating the benefits of successive pieces of formative assessment. Iterative, formative and individual feedback is fundamental here. Many students did respond positively to the question of higher learning goals (student's own reflection on the learning process, ability and confidence to present an argument), but interpretation of these comments is not straightforward because one would hope that all discussion methods would lead to improvement in these areas -if only through greater practice. However, it can be reasonably supposed that the explicit identification and discussion of these as learning 'goals' registered and accelerated their development on the part of the student (Clegg and Ashworth, 2003;Ramsden, 2003). As one would expect, the great majority of students felt that they prepared more for tutorials under this method of assessment and most felt that the workload overall was either about the same or more than for the essay/exam format; few thought less. A number of students also commented that they had to learn the subject in greater depth than for the essay/exam format.

Constraints and transferability

This project was made possible by a small HEFCE grant awarded by Keele University's Learning and Teaching Committee that enabled the member of staff to 'buy out' of some teaching in order to design the project and prepare the materials. Owing to departmental and career pressures for subject specific rather than pedagogic research it is unlikely that this project would have been undertaken without this grant. The project also benefited from a supportive Head of School and Assessment Tutor. Indeed, a supportive department and institution is probably a necessary condition for the development and successful running of such a project. Also, it is important that tutors on the course are sympathetic to the aims and method of the project or else at least approach it with an open mind.

A potential limitation of this regime arises from the short turnaround period for assignments. This meant that tutors have to make time available to deal promptly with student work and also imposes limits on the numbers of students each tutor can deal with. In practice, if one is assuming the tutor has a 'normal' full-time academic workload then a working maximum is something in the region of 30 to 34 students per tutor with a maximum of about 15-17 students per two-hour tutorial class. Essential also is the web technology and word processing skills in order to facilitate the electronic submission of work and return of comment sheets.

On balance, the overall workload for the tutor is probably slightly higher than for the essay/exam format, owing principally to the number of assignments that are processed. At the same time, however, the assessment load is contained within the teaching period itself, freeing more time outside of this period for research.

Whilst this assessment regime has high potential transferability across the political and social sciences, it is probably best suited to subjects in which there are a number of different perspectives. It is best thought of as one of a range of assessment regimes able to foster a certain range of skills in the student. As such, it is envisaged as a complement to and not a replacement for other forms of assessment in the first year.

Biographical notes

 [email: monica.mclean@learning.ox.ac.uk]


G R A E M E K I R K Pat R I C K

Online 'chat' facilities as pedagogic tools A case study

Keywords:

This article assesses the pedagogic value of the 'chat' facility in the Blackboard integrated learning platform. It draws on a case study carried out by the author in the 2001-2 academic session. A level three class in research methods involved students in group working away from class and student feedback indicated that more support was needed to coordinate this independent work, without compromising its independent character. The 'chat' facility seemed to hold out the possibility of enhancing conventional, class-based techniques for generating informal discussion between students and, more particularly, for the coordination of their activities between classes. The lecturer perceived the integration of the facility into delivery of the unit as highly problematic, however. The reasons for this are discussed and a number of explanations are considered. Possible solutions are put forward.

Introduction

This article offers a critical assessment of the 'chat' component of Blackboard, a generic intranet facility or platform, developed by Q Associates (http//www. qassociates.co.uk). The facility provides an on-screen window wherein users can exchange short text messages with other users. This version of computer-mediated communication is familiar from other settings; it is most often used as a facility on websites whose users are united by a shared common purpose, such as finding love, or losing weight. To assess its utility as a teaching aid I decided to integrate it into the delivery of a final year class in sociological research methods in semester one of the 2001-2 academic year. This report is based on that experience and my efforts to reflect upon it.

According to Hora and Kling (1999) not enough qualitative, studentcentred work has been done to assess and explore the ramifications of computer-mediated teaching and learning strategies. This report is intended, in a small way, to fill this gap. The approach taken here resembles theirs in that it incorporates the author's commitment to situated learning. By this is meant that the success or failure of a specific teaching tactic or delivery mode must be measured relative to a cluster of variables that have been identified as relevant to the experience of teaching and learning (Lyman, 1999). I begin, therefore, with a definition of the situation that preceded my attempt to introduce Blackboard, in terms of the characteristics of the students, their learning goals, and the learning strategies that had proved to be successful the previous year. In this definition of the problem-situation, I include a description of the chat facility itself and some preliminary remarks on the character of the medium I was trying to introduce.

The next section describes a class that was conducted using the 'chat' facility and some of the problems I perceived with it. The behaviour of class participants is markedly different from normal,'real world' class behaviour. This is both positive, in that most students showed an increased willingness to 'speak', for instance, and negative, since a salient proportion of the verbiage produced in the 'virtual' class was off the point and unrelated to the tutor-determined learning outcomes of the session. However, thorough investigation of the data reveals that this was somewhat of a misperception on the part of the lecturer. This turns out to be the most interesting aspect of the study.

In the third and final section, I draw on these reflections and some of the literature on 'text-worlds' to speculate on alternative strategies for implementing 'chat'. My main argument is that features of the virtual classroom (VC) give rise to negative reactions on the part of tutors, while these mesh with the socially and culturally conditioned attitudes of students to produce an unduly negative view of the potential of the new medium. In explaining this I hope also to generate insights into how this outcome might be avoided in future.

Teaching and learning 'research methods'

The rationale for using Blackboard to support delivery of my final year class in research methods was clear. Students on the unit acquire generic research skills, and they do so primarily through hands-on experience. The unit is a year long and in the first semester they work in groups to design a research project, which they carry out in semester two. An important issue in the delivery of the unit is the maintenance of a balance between independent study/practice and more formal teaching that is carried out in the form of a two-hour long seminar once a week. The first time I taught the module, student feedback expressed dissatisfaction arising out of a perceived lack of direction and of having to find their own way through the work without sufficient lecturer input. The teaching log from the previous year showed that this problem had been successfully overcome, largely by instituting discussion of each group's progress at the beginning of each class. Starting the class in this way affected the character of everything that followed, so that my talks on specific research methods benefited from regular interruptions and assertive questioning by students. Student performance in the first assessed exercise for the unit showed a marked improvement, with evidence that students perceived more connections between their research projects and the discussions we were having in class. However, a new problem emerged, as it became apparent that the internal cohesion of each group had been undermined. More groups reported that some individuals were working on their own rather than sharing their ideas with the group away from class. While the changes made the previous year seem to corroborate the idea that active engagement and discussion improve learning, concentrating this experience in the classroom seemed to have a negative impact on students' capacity to work well in their groups. Using the virtual classroom, then, held out the prospect of an alternative environment for discussion in which the interactions between students, student groups and lecturer might be altered. It would also alert students to the availability of alternative media of communication -networked computers -that they might use when working away from class.

Student characteristics

The students have been taught research methods in both their previous years of study. Significantly, parts of this teaching have been done using computers -they have worked in computer labs to acquire basic statistical skills in year one and have built on this with at least a few weeks in the labs in their second year. They have achieved basic competence in the use of methods before they arrive on the research methods unit. The majority of students on the research methods course are female (37/40, or 92.5%). They present with an imbalance between their actual knowledge and competence in this area and their degree of self-belief and confidence in relation to this. Since they are training to be active researchers, it is essential that they leave university with a much stronger sense of their real abilities than they have when they begin their final year of full-time undergraduate study. One of their key needs, therefore, is to develop confidence in their skills and abilities. An initial survey of this cohort's reasons for being in the class, however, revealed that student expectations of a methods course include the idea of relative passivity. Whereas on other units they expect to be challenged and to voice their own opinions, students perceive methods units as 'not so political' and as 'involving less of themselves'. This seems to go along with an expectation that the classes will be quite 'directive' and that they will be given workbooks containing exercises that have correct and incorrect answers. Careful listening to the lecturer will enable them to find the 'correct' answers. There is a tension, therefore, between student expectations and lecturer objectives for the unit.

Learning strategies

The learning strategy that had evolved on this unit was based on student participation and discussion. The classes were centred on a structured talk about a specific method, or an issue associated with social research, such as ethics. They were intended to clarify the nature of good social research while at the same time enabling students to draw on their own experiences to question the established knowledge, or received wisdom, on the strengths and weaknesses of a method, for example. Each class had the same structure, encouraging students to feel secure in that they knew what to expect each week. The first hour would begin with discussion of a researchbased article that had been circulated to them the previous week. In this discussion, students would be encouraged to assess the research described in the article and to relate its strengths to the research they wanted to do themselves. After a 15-minute break, students worked in their groups. A research problem or question would be presented and they would be asked to come up with solutions or answers. For example, the week prior to the session conducted in the VC, the students were asked to develop a questionnaire that would enable them to assess how well a small group of researchers might be expected to work together. Each session concluded by directing students to the article that would form the basis of the next week's discussion (the case study).

The medium

Blackboard is essentially a customizable website that enables lecturers to create designated spaces associated with specific taught units or modules. These spaces are then limited in terms of accessibility to those students who are registered for the units. Within the space, the lecturer can opt to include the following features:

• Discussion boards: These are modelled on internet 'bulletin boards '. Anyone with access to the unit site may contribute to, or open up a discussion 'thread' by writing a short message and 'posting' it to the board. Subsequent visitors to the site see a list of titles and can choose to read messages and to post replies. Small groups of students can be assigned their own discussion boards.

• Drop-off points: Under such headings as 'Course Materials' and 'Course Information', lecturers can choose to place documents, hyper-text links and even interactive quizzes for their student users. • News and announcements: Lecturers can determine which point in the Blackboard site is encountered first by students. If they choose to use the site attached to a given unit as a vehicle for announcements associated with the week-by-week running of a unit, then there is a page set aside for this purpose. This 'announcements' page is an obvious location for 'welcome' messages.

• Communication: This includes an email facility, whereby anyone on a unit can send a message to the university email address of any other participant. If students are assigned to groups (see below) then it is also possible to send a message to all the members of a given group. Under the communications heading we can also locate 'chat' (for an anatomical breakdown of the VC in principle, see French et al., 1999). • Groups: Lecturers may organize students into groups and make a range of the above facilities available on an exclusive basis to the members of each group, in addition to the collective provision available to all persons taking the unit.

Navigability is ensured by the fact that in the use of all of these facilities a series of control buttons, situated down one side of the screen, remains constant. A limited amount of time spent experimenting with this would familiarize anyone with the most salient parts of a given site. The colour of the buttons and the overall appearance of the site can be customized by the lecturer, within fairly broad constraints.

The virtual class: A case study

In order to help integrate Blackboard into the delivery of the unit, it was decided to schedule one of the two hour classes in the VC, in week 3 of semester one.

Goals and structure of the session

The session had to have a structure that was consistent with the other classes, in order to minimize students' sense of discontinuity and of 'being used' in an experiment. Normally, each week would begin with discussion of the previous week's exercise, followed by a review of the case study. As stated above, the week prior to the Blackboard session, students had worked on producing a questionnaire that might be put to the members of another group. The lecturer had placed one of these questionnaires on each group's discussion board, along with instructions on how to use the email facility to reply to the group that had produced that questionnaire. Thus, each group had its questionnaire administered to one other group and all the members of each group had the task of completing a questionnaire and returning their replies to the group that prepared it. This was a straightforward task, although it did require them to follow two sentences of written instructions.

In keeping with the policy of issuing a case study each week, students had been asked at the end of the previous week's class to visit and explore a website relating to the movie, The Matrix, before coming to the VC. The address for this website was issued to everyone and a link to the site was available from Blackboard. A handout explaining how to access Blackboard had already been provided by a colleague who was also using the facility and I knew from her that the students had used it before and so should have no trouble locating the relevant part of the site to participate in the virtual class. In keeping with the format for the 'real' classes, the students were to meet with me in the main VC and discuss the case study (in this case the Matrix website). We were then to break into groups to analyse the questionnaire data returned by other groups.

The Matrix website

The website is maintained by The Philosopher's Magazine and it uses the film to promote the idea of radical doubt, as first articulated by René Descartes, and to invite visitors to speculate on their own way around the 'dream argument'. Roughly stated, this argument raises the possibility that all of our sensory experience may be illusory, or a dream. This situation, known as radical doubt is dramatized through the central storyline of the film in which we follow a character who discovers that our world, the world of developed societies in 1999, is an illusion produced in his and, by implication, our minds by a huge computer. The website uses a similar scenario to introduce the idea of radical doubt. It invites us to consider the idea that our world may be an illusion, produced by a computer system. To lend plausibility to this, it invites visitors to answer a series of trick questions, including one about playing cards. This question is particularly significant as it uses an old card-trick to create the impression that the computer knows what the user is thinking in advance of their disclosing it. The effect is somewhat eerie, similar to that produced by watching The Matrix for the first time.

As stated, each of the case studies used in the delivery of the course concerns a specific aspect of the research process, including attention to the underlying methodological principles that guide sociological enquiry. My aim in introducing students to the Matrix website was to lead them into some reflection on the standpoint of the ethnographer, who is supposed to approach novel social environments with an open mind as to the significance of the actions and events observed there. I saw this as an exercise that would be consistent with the aim of conducting a VC, for fairly obvious reasons. My hope was that the exercise would promote reflection on the ultimate character of social reality, on epistemological issues that underscore social enquiry, and on the nature of the 'chat' experience itself.

Research methods

I participated in the experiment as the tutor in the VC. This enabled me to gain a sense of what was going on and to apply the same reflective principles to VC experience as I would to my success or failure with respect to achieving learning outcomes in a conventional class session. In addition, however, I found that conducting the session in Blackboard provided me with tools for reflection in the form of an archive transcript of the session in the VC. Second, the standard unit review questionnaire was modified to include space for comments on this session and on the Blackboard facility in general. Third, I reviewed the session at the start of the following week's classes, through informal discussion. Finally, a discussion board 'thread' was initiated on the topic of how useful students found Blackboard in general.

The investigation was a case study in Flyvbjerg's (2001) sense of a detailed exploration of a specific context, with emphasis on researcher reflexivity as both an important part of the process being described and a research tool.

Evaluating the virtual class

The VC session should be assessed for its utility in relation to the learning outcomes identified above for the class and the unit as a whole. The teaching log for the session shows a large degree of dissatisfaction on my part. In particular, there is a strong sense there that students have not behaved in a way that was appropriate or that I expected of them. For example, while the class was supposed to have started at 9:00am, I was still waiting for students to arrive in the VC at 9.23am. When students did begin to arrive, their interaction was primarily with each other and seemed simply to ignore my attempts to engage them. Indeed, in my diary for this session I find the following sentiment: 9.43am: Attempt to impose some kind of order in dialogue with X and Y (students) seems to lead to their immediate exit.

The archive

Examination of the archive for the session shows that, indeed, there is a certain amount of extraneous and apparently completely undisciplined exchange: Conversations like this, involving a succession of students asking what they were supposed to do, characterized the first part of both sessions in the VC. Different groups of students, not always members of the same research group, would drift in and participate in similarly disjoint conversations and then disappear again. Occasionally, they would return, to be redirected to the Matrix website. Finding myself having the same conversation over and over, I resorted to writing the schedule for the class on the virtual whiteboard within the VC. This did not prevent the following exchange, however: Although this was my reaction to the session at the time, however, a quantitative analysis of the interaction as recorded in the Blackboard archive does not justify my feeling of frustration at student behaviour. Rather, interaction in the VC seems to fall into four categories:

• 'Working': In these portions of dialogue there is discussion of class content in an overt and obvious sense. • 'Self-consciousness': Portions of dialogue are directly concerned with the technical aspects of the situation. For example, students ask how to do something, or the lecturer is involved in repeating explanations, usually concerning the use of Blackboard itself. • 'Setting up': This is the kind of greeting and welcoming that goes on in a normal classroom, where a teacher attempts to put students at their ease and ensure that they are comfortable in the learning situation. • 'Irrelevance': These are genuinely off-the-point exchanges, normally between students, such as the conversation about Blind Date above.

If we break portions of the archive down into segments according to their membership of one of these categories, we find the following, surprising set of statistics:

• Working: 45% (1362 lines) Q: What if we just make all these diversions up like whether it's real or not cos we can't handle that this is all there is to life?

R: That is what I thought 2.
And later:

GK: now we're all on the right track anyway. I am trying to subvert common sense: reality may not be what we take it to be. Why is that a useful starting point for us as social researchers? X: its the idea that we r all searching 4 hidden truths and meanings when there may not be any

This exchange suggests that a key aim of the session has been realized. At least some of the students are seeing the connection between their experience on the Matrix website, the notion of radical doubt and a presuppositionless mode of social enquiry. Moreover, nearly all students 'spoke' in the VC, just as they do in the real one, suggesting that confidence was growing too -another objective of the session. This finding comports with those of Williams (2002), who reports that 46 percent of material posted by students to discussion boards in the early stages of implementationthe first few weeks -of a similar facility to Blackboard was, in his word, 'nonsense'. The nonsense quota diminished with time, however, indicating that students indulged in this as a way of getting started with the new medium.

Student views

Student feedback on the session showed that they had a more realistic appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses than was found in the teaching log. The discussion at the beginning of the following week's classes revealed the following:

• Universal assent to the idea, expressed by one student, that Blackboard was easy to use. • A similarly universal feeling that the VC was not useful, though it was enjoyable (comparable findings are reported by Schutte, 2000 andHiltz, 2000). • Disagreement over whether the VC was intrinsically trivializing.

• Interest in the 'coercive' role of lecturers in 'real' classrooms -this arose as a topic in both sessions.

This more ambivalent reaction to the VC is more consistent with the actual nature of the experience than my own initial assessment. That students said they enjoyed using the VC suggests that they were probably learning something during the experience. They were, after all, mastering a new programme, discussing, with varying degrees of success, their questionnaires, and in many cases engaging with the Matrix website. Moreover, their assessment that the experience was not useful should be understood in light of the comments above concerning student expectations. Students often believe that if they are having fun then they are not really working. This is, as we know, completely wrong as the two are far from mutually inconsistent (Ramsden, 1998). Given the previous comments about confidence among students on the unit and their tendency to seek out a more humbling and submissive experience to call 'learning', it seems likely that the VC was more useful to them than they or I realized at the time. This finding corroborates that of Aberson et al. (2000), who found that similar levels of teaching success are possible with divergent delivery media.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these discussions, in light of the archive data above, is the fact that students felt that lecturers were more coercive in traditional classrooms. This surprised me, as my quite sharp comment, made in an attempt to terminate the Blind Date discussion, struck me at the time as unusually severe. However, it was not particularly effective -as the transcript shows. It seems that the students enjoyed the liberation that not being physically present allowed them. The normal sanction of public embarrassment was largely lifted by the relative anonymity of the VC. In these circumstances, playful banter and chit chat, which are always present in the murmuring noise that we are aware of in a class(!) are sanitized and included as on an equal level with the 'official' discourse of the classroom. The students experienced this as subversive and enjoyed it. At the time I felt undermined by it, but I now view matters differently.

Students were also asked for their feedback on the VC some weeks afterwards, through the medium of the revised unit review questionnaire. They were aware that I had been hoping they might use it again and I had told them that I would be available to them in the VC at regular times each week. None of them had done this. Moreover, none of them had contributed to my discussion string on the usefulness of Blackboard. Their responses, therefore, tended to take the form of apologies. They contained, however, some interesting insights into how students perceived Blackboard in general and the VC in particular. Responses tended to fall into six categories:

1. Asserted that time was the issue and that they would have used the VC if formal class time had been given over to it (9/22.5%): 'Not enough time in college to go on to Bb.'; 'Not enough time to play around with Blackboard' (note the reference to 'play'); 'Not enough time to go on, too much to do for other modules'. 2. Described Blackboard as a mode of giving feedback, suggesting that they saw it as a direct channel to the lecturer, rather than as a resource for themselves (4/10%): 'I did not use Blackboard to "feedback" because I used other ways, like class discussion'; 'I would rather speak to the tutor face to face'. 3. Saw enough of their peers in reality, especially the people in their research group, so had no need of the site for their research (8/20%): 'I see the people relevant to me every day anyway'; 'I see everyone in my group quite often so I did not see the need'. 4. Believed that others were not using it and so saw no point in doing so themselves (12/30%): 'No one else uses it so I don't see the point'; 'Nobody else seems to use it so I don't really see the point in going on myself'; 'As not many people use it, I don't often log on'. 5. Intimidated by technology (6/15%): 'I'm not a computer person'; 'I am still not completely comfortable with computer technology (Luddite)'. 6. Forgotten it existed (1/2.5%): 'To be honest I had forgotten about Blackboard'.

Conclusions

In concluding this article I will interpret the data in terms of what they tell us about the utility of the 'chat' facility as a Blackboard component, how it compares with other teaching environments, and raise some questions about how it might be used more effectively in light of the findings presented here. The interesting anomaly uncovered here concerns the lecturer's perception that too much 'nonsense' was being spoken by students in the VC, whereas in fact the nonsense quota is probably about the same as in 'real' classroom situations. The factors that produce this false perception seem to be threefold:

1. Student babble becomes more salient in this medium, because all text is the same. Whereas in the 'real' classroom situation it is possible, indeed probably second nature, to screen out the hubbub generated by students, this is not so easy when the hubbub bubbles forth onto the screen. This can be a disconcerting experience, but it is likely that some such nonsense always plays a role in classes, as people put themselves and each other at ease. It is also worth pointing out that casual conversation in class can provide a break from learning, potentially improving students' concentration at other times. 2. Students talk nonsense with greater confidence than usual. This seems to be a function of the novel environment of the VC, in which the physical proximity and mutual visibility of the classroom situation are overturned. Students may have been familiar with such environments from other, more flippant contexts, and have internalized an association between chat-rooms and a trivializing attitude. In his discussion of this issue, Feenberg draws on Goffman's distinction between an internal, sacred self and the self one consciously presents to others in everyday interactions. In the VC, he suggests:

By increasing the individuals' control of image, while diminishing the risk of embarrassment, computer talk alters the sociological ratio of the two dimensions of selfhood and opens up a new social space. (Feenberg 1989: 25) This increased willingness to talk nonsense is, of course, an opportunity for teachers in HE, not because we place a special premium on gibberish but because it can be the start of a more productive interaction. It is important, however, that teachers expect such behaviour in the initial phase of student use. 3. The standard cues and 'proximity' expressions (Boden and Molotch, 1994) are not available to the lecturer, with the result that authority has to be invoked sooner. This is disagreeable to the lecturer, who perceives himself as a democratic personality and a member of a 'learning community' with the students, rather than as an authority figure. It creates a discrepancy between the basis of one's professional self-esteem and one's perception of one's own practice. This is disconcerting and informs a negative assessment of the new medium.

Student feedback shows that, overwhelmingly, students did not use the VC because they did not believe that others were doing so. This could be addressed by promoting the facility as both regularly used and containing assessed exercises. Their perception of the facility as, in some sense, 'fun' seems to have inhibited them also, as they did not see it as sufficiently taxing to count as 'proper work'. This, alongside the perception of many that Blackboard was essentially a 'feedback' mechanism, highlights the problem discussed at the outset of a 'culture of deference' among Northumbria students, which may be related to their class backgrounds. In any case, the way to address this does not rest in debunking Blackboard or the VC, which have performed as well as would any other delivery mechanism under these circumstances. Rather, we should aim to exploit gains in student confidence by using the technology to empower them further. I submit that this may best be achieved by giving them more control over the Blackboard environment itself. If this could be done in a way that was challenging, without being overbearing, then it would also address the students' sense that work in the VC was too playful to be real learning.

  GK: The questionnaires: have you all done them and e-mailed them to the groups that wrote them?

  you going to ask any more times!!!! GK: Laughs P: Ha ha ha GK: Sorry -I forget who I've asked. Probably something to do with not being able to see anyone R: I think we are all enjoying this!!everyone! I don't understand how you get the other questionnaires, I could only do group B Am I being stupid? she did get picked and she's gone to the Yorkshire dales.At this point, the students resume a previous discussion, concerning the fate of a mutual friend, also a class member, who has been on the TV program, 'Blind Date'. This culminates in the following:GK: Do you think you could defer discussion of your friend's dating activities for a few minutes, please? Matrix then. that card thing was cheating. . .

P

  what we find out about so called reality may not be true anyway GK: Please say more, P Z: reality is what u make of it surely Y: Aim to be open-minded and not influence the research by our own views and experiences

  This suggests that there is a discrepancy between the lecturer's perception of the session and the actual accomplishments, highlighted by the archive. A sample of real work is the following, which, as the figures suggest, is more representative of what actually occurred in the VC: GK: The question is, how do you know what is real and what is not? You don't, you just live with it. There is nothing to prove either way what is real and what is not to you don't know GK: The reason for looking at the Matrix was to get at the issue of what counts as reality. If we say that reality is what works -and not something deep and mysterious -then, presumably, it is socially constructed?

	P: u don't
	Q: you don't
	R: We don't know
	S:
	• Self-consciousness: 27% (834 lines)
	• Setting up: 25% (762 lines)
	• Irrelevance: 3% (102 lines)

P: Maybe more socially maintained than constructed Q: Good point R: so, reality is socially constructed?

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Kate O'Brien for many fruitful discussions during the research process and to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their helpful comments.


David Kember

Chan Kwok

Chan Shun Wan

Siu Chan

Yung

Tze Chan

Wai

Yuk Chang

Cheung Mui

Lau Kwong Wing

Kwai Heung

Lai Lee

Sam

Wai Lee

Chi

L Dav I D K E M B E R , C H A N K Wo K Y I N G, C H A N S H U N Wa N, C H A N S I U Y U N G, C H A N T Z E Wa I , C H A N G Y U K M U I , C H E U N G K Wo N G W I N G

K Au

Wa I H E U N G

How students cope with part-time study

Keywords: attrition, coping mechanisms, model, part-time study, persistence active

à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

A model of coping mechanisms

The demands for lifelong learning have resulted in movements towards mass higher education, which in turn means that an ever increasing number of students are engaging in part-time study (Daniel, 1993). The mode of study is very challenging because the students have to find time and motivation to attend classes, study course material and complete assignments alongside their work, the demands of their family, and any time they still manage to find for a social life. Many do not cope. Not surprisingly the completion rates for part-time courses tend to be lower than for comparable full-time courses (Tight, 1991). Despite the greater attrition from part-time courses, research into college persistence has mainly followed the seminal work of Tinto (1975), which was based on full-time study by on-campus residents.

An attrition study which did focus on part-time students was that of Yorke (1999). The limitation of this work is that it employed two methods which the mainstream research into attrition from full-time courses found to be unfruitful. One approach examined the relationship between persistence and demographic variables such as age, gender and social class. Very few significant differences were found, indicating that students are not predestined to fail because of their background. What they and their teachers do makes a difference. The other method sought reasons for withdrawal from non-completers. As is usual with autopsy studies, all the attributions were to factors beyond the control of the students, the most common, as usual, being demands of employment. Attribution theory (Weiner, 1972) predicts that those who see themselves as unsuccessful will give reasons outside the locus of their control. Accordingly, such studies offer limited insights into attrition by failing to inquire why students who face similar external pressures, such as employment demands, do succeed in completing their programme.

A study of part-time completion, which went beyond seeking attributions or correlations with demographic factors, attempted to develop a model of coping mechanisms for part-time study (Kember, 1999). The model contained three coping mechanisms which successful students adopted to fit in study requirements alongside existing commitments; these were sacrifice, support and the negotiation of arrangements. Sacrifice implied the need to give up something previously enjoyed. Support referred to the need for psychological and material help from others. Negotiation implied determining how to accommodate competing goals and fit them into a timetable. The model showed evidence of these mechanisms existing in three domains pertinent to the significant commitments of parttime students; namely, work, family and social obligations. A further study (Kember & Leung, 2004) added the self as a fourth domain. Qualitative data suggested that the previous model had not taken sufficient account of the importance of motivation and determination in coping with part-time study. The framework was therefore expanded to three coping mechanisms and four domains. This model was then tested quantitatively. Structural equation modelling showed a good fit of the data to the mechanism by domain model. The coping mechanisms were shown to be related to a measure of sense of belonging, which was interpreted as an indicator of likely persistence. The expanded four domain model was then tested with qualitative data gathered from interviews with 53 part-time students (Yum et al., 2005). This article reports a further qualitative test and illumination of the model with a different sample of students using data gathered from an on-line forum.

Method

Data were gathered from students enrolled in a course about adult education, studied in the part-time mode. The students were asked to submit, to an on-line forum, suggestions of factors which influenced likely completion and examples of how they or colleagues coped with part-time study. The researchers were also the subjects of the study as they were the entire enrolment in a course called Adult Education and Professional Development in an articulated PgC/PgD/Masters in Teaching in Professional, Vocational and Higher Education. All of us were teaching in one of these sectors at the same time as completing the course by parttime study. We had, therefore, both a practical and a theoretical interest in the topic of this article. The first named author was the coordinator of the course.

The course was offered by a university in Hong Kong, so all the students were resident there. Completion rates were high for a part-time course, though this probably was mainly caused by the past educational experiences of the enrolees and the positive efforts to develop class coherence. Possible effects of Confucian-heritage culture are discussed where appropriate. These may have had a small effect on the degree to which coping mechanisms were employed, but do not appear to affect the nature of the mechanisms as these were the same as those in a study of students in three countries (Kember, 1999). The course was an option which was normally taken in the second year of enrolment following the completion of mainly compulsory introductory courses in the first year. Thirteen of the 14 students enrolled in the course were in their second year of the programme so had themselves experienced at least one year of part-time study. The remaining student was in her first year. Most of the students had enrolled in the course because they themselves taught in adult or vocational education, or had a role in training or professional development, so they were also very familiar with pressures on other part-time students, including their own students.

The mechanism for collecting data was through contributions to an online forum conducted through the course's website which made use of the standard WebCT forum facility. The majority of the course was conducted through face-to-face classes in the evening, but several sessions were devoted to virtual classes, so there was experience of the types of flexible learning modes often employed in courses for adults. Part-time study was designated as a major topic, since the course aimed for students to understand modes of offering courses and training to adults. This section was one of the ones covered through on-line forums. To provide some basis for promoting, ordering and framing the on-line discussion, contributions were in response to two questions of which the first was quite broad. The students were asked to comment upon the framework generally and to discuss its appropriateness. The usefulness of the framework was probed by asking the students to identify the least important elements of the framework. About half of the comments responded to the question indirectly. The relative importance of the domains is discussed in the sections which follow. If there were a broad consensus that particular parts of the framework were not relevant, then the model would be questionable. On the other hand, the ability to have a meaningful discussion of the topic around the frame would provide evidence of its conceptual soundness. The second topic asked for examples of the use of coping mechanisms. The examples could be of students themselves, colleagues, their students, family or friends. The examples were expected to be given in a similar form to interview quotations, though as it turned out the messages were quite full and considered compared to many interview comments.

The 14 students contributing input to the forum can be equated to a respectable number of interviews in a qualitative study. The students were quite typical, at least by age and gender, for part-time students in Hong Kong. Representativeness was not a particular issue since the study aimed to provide an explanatory construct, rather than analyse attributes of a population. A total of 68 messages were posted on the forum. The distribution was fairly even, with each student contributing at least three messages. Moderation messages by the course coordinator were not counted in this total. As many of the messages were surprisingly long, compared to typical email messages or items of input to computer conferences, the volume of data was sufficient for a thorough study.

The first part of the analysis consisted of sorting the comments to the elements within the matrix. This took place before the end of the forum discussion to allow the participants to comment on the distribution. It was significant that there were no comments which did not fit within the framework. This is taken as an indication of the adequacy of the model for describing coping mechanisms. All the messages were analysed for consistent themes. The initial analysis was by the first author as the forum proceeded and the outcomes were posted on the forum for discussion. A draft report was discussed in class at the end of the forum. Based on this class discussion, a first draft of this article was written and distributed to each of the authors for contribution and comment. The article uses typical quotations from the overall dialogue to illustrate points and constructs. The quotations are from the posted messages, and are normally shortened.

Importance of domains and sectors

In response to the second discussion topic, asking for examples relating to specific elements of the framework, a total of 42 messages similar to examples or quotations were posted. The number of examples for each sector of the framework is given in Table 1.

Mechanisms

Of the three mechanisms, there were nearly twice as many examples of support as sacrifice or negotiation. It seems clear that support from the family and the workplace is important for success in part-time study. It should, however, be noted that a significant proportion of examples were given for all three mechanisms, showing that all are important.

Balance

Of the responses to the initial discussion question, five students argued that no individual domain was necessarily most or least important, but students needed to maintain a balance. A further two indicated that self-sacrifice was important, and this involved trying to cater to all domains. A good example of trying to achieve a balance is given below.

A C T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N 6(3) 234

Work

Most of the remainder of the article will consider the four domains in turn.

Within the discussion of the domains will be illuminations of how selected mechanisms apply to that domain. Work is dealt with first.

The importance of the work domain is clear. The second highest number of examples related to the work domain, and the number was well ahead of either the self or social domains. In responding to the first question, which asked for indications of the least important domain, four students responded by stating that work was the most important domain. The one assertion that work was the least important domain was essentially saying that work was of such significance that students should only enrol in a course if they were clear that work demands would not prevent them completing course requirements.

Work is a very important domain to consider before deciding to enrol in a parttime course. However, once the student gets enrolled, this becomes the least important one.

Work/sacrifice

The sacrifice mechanism in the work domain had three comments, but all were concerned with the difficulty of maintaining standards at work while still managing to find time to complete the course requirements, particularly at times when assignments were due. There was no one prepared or able to significantly compromise their standard of work to participate in the part-time course. This is not at all surprising as very few employees would be in a position to unilaterally cut back on their commitment to work in favour of devoting time to study.

Work/support

The highest number of messages relating to an individual element of the matrix was tied between work and family support. Of the work support comments, five referred to receiving support from superiors to enrol and study in the part-time programme. It is gratifying that those in educational positions do themselves recognize the need for their own staff to participate in education and staff development.

I had consulted my supervisor before I enrolled in the programme, who gave me positive and encouraging feedback. Study is quite related to my current job, the knowledge learnt or experience obtained could help me reflect and enhance my professionalism in the workplace. My supervisor also commented that I got more insights and my horizon seems broadened to contribute more and better ideas at work. In addition to support in the initial stage, the continuous advice I got from my supervisor further motivated me to integrate work with study in harmony.

Work/negotiation

The support offered by the employers did in some cases extend to negotiating arrangements to facilitate study, usually by making sure that the student was free to attend classes. The process normally involved rearrangement rather than a reduction in load. Several of the comments sorted into the work support element contained a subsidiary aspect of this type.

Since I worked on shift duty for the past few years, my boss needed to arrange my duty roster in order to help me to attend all the lectures. It increased the workload for him and caused inconvenience for my colleagues. Although I liked that post very much, I have changed to a non-shift post to minimize inconvenience for them.

Family

There was some discussion of whether age and family status would influence the perceived importance of the family and social domains. There was a suggestion that older students might have to take work and family responsibilities more seriously. Others suggested that the relative importance of the family and social domains might depend upon marital status. The messages show that family was interpreted according to the students' own situation. This has been found with other research in Hong Kong (Kember, 1995). Those with spouses, and particularly children, interpreted family mainly as being the immediate family of their spouse and children. In common with many other part-time higher degree programmes in Hong Kong the intake included students in their early 20s, a number of whom were still living with their parents. Such students interpreted family as being mainly their parents and any siblings. Extended families are important in Chinese societies (Bond, 1996;Ho, 1996;Wu, 1996), so a number of the examples did imply wider interpretations of family. The number of examples given in the family domain was the highest. No one suggested that the family was the least important sector. Examination of examples suggests that just about everyone considered that family was an important domain, but that age and marital status affected interpretations and implications.

Family/sacrifice

The examples of the sacrifice mechanism within the family domain generally referred to a family member, most commonly the spouse, accepting that part-time study implied that there was less time available for previous activities. One example is of a case cited in one of the messages.

Since she had spent only a little time with her daughter, the mother-and-child relationship was not as close as the father-and-child relationship. Sometimes the little girl preferred spending time with her father rather than her mother.

Family/negotiation

The negotiation mechanism implied the family working out ways to reorganize their schedules to allow time for study and attending classes. Commonly one member of the family took over tasks or obligations which had previously been handled by the student. In families where both spouses were studying, which can be quite common in Hong Kong, considerable juggling with time could be needed.

My husband needs to work three evenings per week and I am teaching an evening course on Friday. Moreover, we have a six-year-old daughter who requires much of our attention. My husband and I have to take turns to take care of her activities, homework, etc. It is difficult to fit any more in my timetable. Fortunately, the adult learning classes are scheduled on Tuesday; I can still squeeze myself a bit for the classes.

Family/support

In Chinese society achieving motivation has traditionally had a strong family or community reference (Lee, 1996;Yu, 1996), in contrast to its portrayal in western psychology texts as an individual competitive drive (Kember et al., 1999). It is consistent with this tradition to find strong support from family members for those who study, and this frequently includes the extended family, particularly older members (Salili, 1996).

I am very lucky that I have a lovely mother. She supports me very much in my study. Since I am released from all the housework with her help, I can concentrate on my study at home. When I am busy doing my assignments and preparing for my examinations, she always cooks my favourite food to release pressure and turns off television and radio for me to have a silent environment to study. I am sure that my study life would be much harder without her.

Social

The direct responses to the question of the least important domain were eight comments all citing the social domain. The social domain also had the least number of examples given, and half of these referred to sacrificing the social domain. The substance of the responses to both topics was consistent. To complete a part-time course tends to imply some level of sacrifice of social lives, often to the extent that there was not a great deal of a social life left, particularly at times when assignments were due.

Social/sacrifice

Longstanding social relationships were sacrificed in the name of study. The course was taught mainly through face-to-face classes so that meant that anything clashing with scheduled classes was dispensed with. Even if the course had been in flexible mode, though, the result would probably have been much the same.

I have been scheduled to play badminton with seven colleagues from 5:00 to 6:00pm every Tuesday and Friday over the past eight years. We can keep fit and also have a chance to chat and share the pleasant or unpleasant experiences in school. However, my classes are usually conducted on Tuesday. So I have to sacrifice an enjoyable weekly social gathering during my period of study.

Social/negotiation

In place of social meetings with previous friends, the class group became a social reference point for many. The programme had encouraged social cohesion through activities, discussion sessions and group assignments. By the second year of the programme some well-established social groups had formed within the class.

I must admit the fact that social life is more difficult to maintain after graduation, especially when the largest portion of time and energy of the day is devoted to work. However, most of my friends are engaging in the various modes of self-development or lifelong learning activities. They understand the difficulties to arrange gatherings and are used to the long planning and negotiating period, before any socializing activities can be successfully organized. I am glad that I could also make friends with the colleagues in the course, which, I believe, is built by strong group coherence, through collaborative and co-operative modes of learning, which should always be encouraged in parttime study.

Self

The second least number of examples was given for the self domain. This may be a somewhat misleading figure as the examples attributed to other sectors gave indications of widespread and significant acts of personal sacrifice, high levels of personal self-determination, and of students developing routines to enable them to complete study tasks. It is possible that the students found it easier to provide more concrete examples involving others than to give personal examples describing their state of mind. It is well accepted, for example, that interviewed students are rarely able to detail their general approaches to learning, so these are inferred from answers to questions which ask the students to explain how specific study tasks were undertaken (e. g. Marton et al., 1984).

Self/sacrifice

With the sacrifice mechanism there is something of an overlap between the self and social domains. When sacrifices are made it is normally the social life which is forfeited.

To study part-time means you have to sacrifice much time with your family, your social life and even your hobbies. It may be a very high opportunity cost.

Self/support

The support mechanism for the self domain was interpreted in terms of motivation and self-determination to complete the course. A combination of intrinsic interest in the course and motivation through career development and professional advancement has been found to be common among Hong Kong students (Kember et al., 1999).

I take months to adapt since I have to adjust my life by going out for more evenings, leaving my children for my husband. It is because of interest, and motivation is an intrinsic one. Sometimes, when I got conflict with my job, I have struggles and feel stressed. Somehow, when I reflect on my objectives of studying on this course, I become more relaxed and encouraged.

Self/negotiation

There is also a strong motivational component to the self/negotiation element of the framework. There is a need to find the motivation to rearrange commitments and time allocations. Self-negotiation implies having the determination and discipline to devise and stick to plans for setting aside sufficient time for study.

It seems besides . . . not many classmates talk about the effect of the 'self domain '. I would see it as a very important factor. One has to take the initiative to re-arrange one's life to accommodate the extra workload and demand from the part-time study. It may mean putting aside one's hobbies, sacrifice sleeping and leisure time, etc. Without self-motivation (internally, not attributed), even if all other sectors are in a positive status, one may still fail the study. My profession and my major interest have always been about making and watching films. Normally, this has taken up lot of my time. Now I have decided to pursue this course hoping to improve my teaching skills, I have to negotiate with myself the priority between the two different things. I need to give up watching films on Tuesday evening in order to attend classes. I need to postpone some filming projects in order to gain time to study. However, I can't give up everything or I will become out of touch with my profession and also with the industry which will in turn affect my teaching. And this will need a self-negotiating process to maintain the right balance.

Conclusion

There are a number of indications of the legitimacy of the framework for explaining how students cope with part-time study. It was possible to hold an extended forum discussion of the topic of part-time coping mechanisms around the framework. All contributors managed to find several examples which fitted the framework. There were no counter examples which did not and no-one argued that it was not possible to explain how they or students they observed coped with part-time study through the mechanisms in the model.

Perhaps the most important argument for the value of the model was the degree to which it was able to draw out and integrate previously tacit notions of how the students had adapted their lives to cope with part-time study. The richness of the examples given for every sector indicates that this framework provided a graphic, useful and valid picture of how students cope with the very demanding task of fitting in the demands of part-time study alongside other commitments in their busy lives.

The utility of the model was not explicitly addressed in the study, but it is reasonable to visualize it as having value in counselling part-time students. Many new students fail to adapt to part-time study because they do not adopt coping mechanisms. If there were counselling sessions at the time of enrolment students might be warned of the time demands posed by part-time study. Discussion of mechanisms which need to be adopted could then enable the prospective students to be better prepared by making plans on how they will fit the study time demands alongside their existing commitments.

The rates of attrition from part-time courses can often be quite appreciable. The research which led to the framework for this study (Kember, 1999) included examples of difficulties in adopting coping mechanisms as well as cases of successful adoption. There is, therefore, evidence that failure to adopt coping mechanisms is a significant cause of attrition from parttime courses. With prior counselling, based upon the framework it may well be a cause which can be alleviated to some extent. It would appear to be easier for both colleges and students to try to prepare plans for coping with the pressure of being part-time than to deal with potential academic study problems.

The method adopted for the study is interesting in several respects. Gathering data through an on-line forum is much less common than the normal approach of using interviews. The status of the researchers as being part-time students themselves, as well as students enrolled in a course in which part-time study was legitimately a major topic, created a motive for serious reflection upon the issue.

Table 1 Number of messages for each element of the framework

 1 As I had four days off last week, I tried to allocate my timeslots so as to satisfy every domain. I attended a forum (for work) last Saturday, visited my old classmates on Sunday (social), had a meeting with the colleagues in this course to discuss the teaching project on Monday (for study), and treated my family to a big buffet to celebrate the Moon Festival on Monday night (family), and took my driving lesson on Tuesday (self). I think I had a well spent holiday. Honestly, I was a bit exhausted. But I think that's the way I should live my life.

		Sacrifice	Support	Negotiation	Total
	Self	3	2	1	6
	Work	3	8	3	14
	Family	4	8	5	17
	Social	2	2	1	5
	Total	12	20	10	42

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of David Murphy and Paula Hodgson, the other teachers in the course, to its planning and development. We also thank Paula and the MegaWeb team for building the website.

B O N D, M . H . (1996) 'Chinese values', in M. H. Bond (ed.) The Handbook of Chinese Psychology, Kong: Oxford University Press. DA N I E L , J. (1993) [email: david.kember@cuhk.edu.hk]