Collaboration and Learning Styles in Pure Online Courses: an Action Research

Marija Blagojević (University of Kragujevac, Serbia)

Marjan Milosević (University of Kragujevac, Serbia)

Abstract: Collaboration provides numerous possibilities for realisation of active learning/teaching concepts in e-learning. For this reason it is recomendable to determine the optimal way in which to develop collaborative activities, with the possibility of adapting the appropriate modules' use in accordance with learners' characteristics. The paper presents a description of a behaviour pattern analysis, which deals with learners with different learning styles using collaborative modules. An action research was conducted using data from Master degree program that is conducted purely online. The research goals were to find out if there was a potential for improvement of collaborative modules usage, utilizing students‘ preferences and produce recommendations for module future usage. The results showed that there was no difference among learners with different styles regarding either the frequency of access to collaborative modules or the frequency of different actions performed on these modules. Based on these results, a recommendation emerged to keep using these modules in similar way as before and put effort in finding additional data that could be used in further adaptation construct.

Keywords: Felder-Silverman learning style model, Kolb learning style model, collaboration modules, electronic courses, learning style

Categories: I.5, L.0, L.2, L.3