Pavel Brebera
3. Empirical evidence
3.1 Research context and methodology
The aim of the empirical investigation was to identify the specifics of the students´ perceptions of the learning contexts which were defined as the key sources for the completion of the pre-defined tasks. The task of preparing and giving a professionally-related presentation in front of the audience represented the “formal learning contexts”, the completion of a microblogging task via the social network Instagram was used as an example of the “informal learning contexts” (for a more detailed analysis, see Brebera 2017, Brebera 2018) and a peer-reviewed process of creating the material potentially displayable on the LinkedIn platform was used in order to exploit the potential of the “non-formal learning contexts”. The research was carried out by means of the mixed design, i.e. it combined the quantitative data collected via a structured questionnaire with the qualitative data elicited in the form of students´ free response in an open-ended feedback questionnaire, during four semesters of the academic years 2016-17 and 2017-18. Altogether, 152 students of both full-time and part- time study Master degree programmes taught at the particular technical faculty of the University of Pardubice, in the Czech Republic, participated in the research. Since the choice of each particular task was optional, different numbers of students decided to select the particular options according to their preferences, as summarised in Table 1.
As for the instructions for the individual tasks, the students were expected:
to prepare a professionally-related presentation of the recently completed Bachelor paper which would take 7-10 minutes and cover all relevant aspects of the topic, i.e. theory and research, and respond to the questions of the audience during the presentation seminar;
to generate min. 100 lines of text within approximately 3 - 7 Instagram posts representing the broad topics
“Me and Transport”, “Me and English” and “Me and My Job”, including the responses to the contributions of the others;
Pavel Brebera
to prepare a text representing their professional self-presentation structured according to the categories used within the LinkedIn platform, i.e. Professional summary of min. 100 words of text accompanied by a structured CV, and then provide a review of the material written by one of the colleagues according to given criteria (content, organisation, language adequacy)
Table 1: Categorisation of research participants
The study programme
Total The selected option Full-time students Part-time students
Presentation 12 22 34
Instagram project 24 21 45
LinkedIn project 19 54 73
Total 55 97 152
3.2 Research results
3.2.1 Quantitative analysis
The results of quantitative analysis primarily confirmed the effectiveness of the differentiated instruction sine each of the optional tasks proved to be generally well-accepted in terms of its usefulness. The fact that the students were given the possibility of choosing one of three options according to their preferences seems to influence their attitude towards language learning in a very positive way, as documented by a high degree of perceived meaningfulness of the selected option (see Fig. 1).
Figure 1: The perceived usefulness of individual tasks
According to Fig. 1, the highest degree of task acceptance can be observed in case of the LinkedIn option, representing the non-formal learning contexts, which might be interpreted in terms of the highly personalised efforts to meet the externally defined formal requirements of the labour market. The other two tasks demonstrated similar levels of acceptance, though the presentation as the formal learning option obtained more responses at both extreme ends of the “perceptions continuum” while the data concerning the informally- conceived Instagram task can be interpreted in terms of its moderate general acceptance.
Other interesting findings can be observed in the area of expected degree of voluntarism of formal, informal and non-formal tasks within the language learning curriculum. The data in Fig. 2 confirm that the incidental nature of informal learning activities is reflected also in the perceptions of the Instagram project participants who opt for the non-compulsory nature of the Instagram project and at the same time, they would appreciate a higher degree of freedom in choosing the material for their posts. On the other hand, the representatives of formal and non-formal learning assignments manifest either the tendency towards having the presentation as a compulsory task or towards a higher degree of specifying the expected outcome of the LinkedIn material.
Pavel Brebera
Figure 2: Aspects of voluntarism within formal, informal and non-formal learning contexts
Other interesting outcomes of the quantitative analysis reveal for example some relevant contextual information about the previous experience with the use of social networks Instagram and LinkedIn as potential sources of language learning in informal and non-formal contexts. For example, only 9% of all participants of the Instagram project admitted that they had published some posts in English in the past, and only 8% of LinkedIn project participants had attempted to create the LinkedIn profile in English prior to the project. Besides, in case of the LinkedIn project, 80% of all respondents admitted that they either had not established the LinkedIn profile before or that they had not been using it at all.
With regard to the above mentioned implications arising from the quantitative analysis, the search for deeper insights into the reasons why the students decided to choose the particular learning opportunity and how they perceived its specifics was carried out by means of the qualitative analysis.
3.2.2 Qualitative analysis
The main focus of our previous studies on the aspects of social learning within the foreign language courses has already resulted in identifying some basic categories of the perceived strength and weaknesses of informal learning via the Instagram project. The motivation to join the project was mainly expressed in terms of
“curiosity”, “previous experience with the use of Instagram”, “appreciation of informal learning contexts” or “an opportunity to use the language authentically for real life purposes” while the main drawbacks were observed in the area of “aspects of organisation of an online project” (e.g. non-participation of the students in the initial stages of the project) which resulted in the students´ calls for a higher level of formalising the primarily informally-designed learning project (for more, see Brebera 2018, p. 181-182).
Similarly to the participants of the informal learning project, also some representatives of formal learning project, i.e. the presentation, expressed their motivation in terms their previous experience, but they mainly focused on the aspects of “professional relevance” (“It is a good training of skills for my job.”), “personal relevance” (“I think I have an interesting topic of the Bachelor paper, which would be good for presenting.”) or perceived “practicality” (“I had my presentation in Czech so I just prepared its English version.”; “It seemed to be the easiest and quickest option.”). Other types of comments demonstrated the “reluctance to use social networks” (“I am not a fan of social networks.”) and the “preference of spoken production to writing” (“I preferred the oral form as there are too many written tasks in other subjects.”). The main drawbacks were perceived in the area of either “productive or receptive use of specialised vocabulary” (“I was not sure about the English equivalents of some specialised vocabulary;” “My topic was quite sophisticated and nobody knew what I was talking about.”).
A high level of acceptance of the LinkedIn task demonstrated by its participants in a quantitative survey was confirmed also in the qualitative analysis. The focus on acquiring the skills which might be potentially validated in real-life contexts seemed to be the main motivator for the participants of the LinkedIn project. The students often mentioned an “opportunity to receive feedback on their real professional CV” (“Based on the feedback, I can have my CV checked and completed”) or a “real career advancement opportunity” ("It can be useful for finding new job opportunities. Thanks to it, I can get in touch with a lot of people”). Similarly to the Instagram
Pavel Brebera
project, some students commented on the aspects of “novelty and curiosity” of the professionally-oriented social network LinkedIn (“I used this opportunity to finally establish the LinkedIn profile”; “I wanted to know how LinkedIn works.”), and the practical nature of preparing the material for the LinkedIn profile was sometimes expressed in terms of “contrast of the practical LinkedIn with irrelevant options from the area of formal and non-formal learning contexts” (“I had enough presentations in my previous studies and I do not see any point in creating the Instagram posts, so LinkedIn was the only reasonable option.”).