A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN THEIR
INDIVIDUAL STUDIES
Andrew Pyper, Mariana Lilley and Jill Hewitt
School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB, U.K.
Keywords: e-Learning, Online learning, Framework, Narrative.
Abstract: Technology can be very effectively used to support students in their individual studies. However, this is a
somewhat neglected area. The emphasis is on using technology to support dialogic constructivist learning
environments. This is well justified, but can be problematic. Issues such as student diversity and
engagement, the availability of tutor support within such environments and the demand for flexibility can
profoundly affect the pedagogical effectiveness of students’ learning experiences using these environments.
This paper argues that the emphasis on dialectical constructivist learning environments would benefit from
greater recognition of the importance of students’ individual work. It also details a framework that supports
tutors in designing learning experiences that encompass individual work as well as dialogic and
collaborative work. The framework is based on three main constructs; Tasks, Narratives and Resources. It
sets out a range of task types and also provides a model of resource production. In the narratives, it also
provides tutors with a way of explaining their learning designs and engaging the students in them.
1 INTRODUCTION
The framework is comprised of three constructs;
narratives, tasks and resources and is designed to
support tutors in providing learning experiences that
guide learners to an understanding of what they need
to study, how they can study it and why they should
do so. It was originally conceived as a framework to
support online learners Pyper et al. (2007) because
this is an environment where the risk of
disengagement and subsequent impairment of
learners’ education could be most substantial.
However, it is also applicable more generally in
environments that make substantial use of
educational technology in providing support for
individual learning. The framework is inspired by
and based on work by Weller et al. (2003) and
Oliver and colleagues (1999, 2001, 2002).
Weller et al. (2003) were working with learning
objects. A key aspect of learning objects is that they
should be reusable. This means that they should be
self-contained and decontextualised such that they
do not refer to other learning objects.
One of the problems associated with
decontextualising the learning objects is the loss of
an educational narrative (Weller et al,. 2003).
Narratives are widely considered to be important in
education (McDrury and Alterio, 2002; Plowman et
al., 1999), often in the form of storytelling. For this
reason, a narrative learning object was provided that
was designed to introduce the other learning objects
and to integrate them in a theme for a given section
of work. This was supplemented with the use of
class discussions (Weller et al., 2003).
Oliver and colleagues (1999, 2001, 2002)
provide a more abstracted approach by postulating a
three component framework comprised of learning
supports, learning tasks and learning resources.
Learning tasks are the activities that students would
be expected to engage in, learning resources the
learning materials that would be available to them
and learning supports describe aspects of the
environment that support the learner, usually
enshrined in the role of the tutor.
The framework is intended to provide a structure
within which learning designs can be articulated and
their different aspects described in terms of the three
constructs above. So, the learning tasks, learning
resources, and learning supports would vary
depending on the learning design. The learning
designs are intended to create a dialogic
constructivist learning environment (Oliver et al.,
2002).
297
Pyper A., Lilley M. and Hewitt J. (2009).
A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL STUDIES.
In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 296-301
DOI: 10.5220/0001980702960301
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

The tasks, narratives and resources framework is
influenced by the work of Weller et al. (2003) in
their identification of the problem of the loss of
narratives and by Oliver and colleagues work to
provide an abstract framework that can be used to
support the design of learning patterns. However, it
diverges from the former in the extent and nature of
the narratives provided and the latter inasmuch as it
does not explicitly aim to create a dialogic
constructivist learning environment.
Instead, the motivation behind the framework is
to preserve the flexibility offered by the use of
technology in education (particularly online) but to
do so using designs that support the learner in their
individual work. This does not represent a rejection
of the importance of collaborative work and
dialogues in learning design, in fact it is
acknowledged as a fundamentally important aspect
of learning and teaching. Rather, the contention is
that the use of technology in education brings with it
challenges that need to be addressed along with the
potential for an enriching educational experience.
2 THE FRAMEWORK
As previously stated, the framework is composed of
three constructs: Narratives, Tasks and Resources.
2.1 Narratives
The loss of narrative reported by Weller et al. (2003)
is not a problem unique to learning objects, but one
to which learning technology in general is
vulnerable. Perhaps it is because narratives are often
provided implicitly; substantial parts of tertiary
education provision use inherently narrative forms
(e.g. principally lectures, but also books and video
(Laurillard, 2001)) and when the form is changed the
narrative is lost. The result can be disjointed learning
experiences whose rationale may not be explicitly
available to the student, thereby impinging on their
ability to make meaning out of what they are doing.
Narratives in the context of this framework are
intended to have the following qualities:
 they are integrative- they provide structure to
potentially disparate learning activities and
resources;
 they are affective- the tutors personal opinions,
views and experiences of a given topic are
encouraged;
 they establish the level of discourse expected
from students;
 they expose the tutor’s conception of the topic
at hand, an important part of initiating useful
educational dialogues (Laurillard, 2001);
 they have a temporal aspect, so not only do they
integrate learning activities and resources in
the present but they link them to previous and
future activities;
 they provide a rationale for what the student is
being asked to do;
 they are reflective, this not only encourages
reflective practice for tutors, but also provides
an example of what the students are expected
to do when they are asked to reflect
themselves;
 it gives the tutor a more pervasive voice. As the
students work, they get a sense that this is a
course designed by the tutor, it reflects the
tutor and is richer for it (it is not just some
derivative set of learning resources);
 they support the metacognitive development of
the students by exposing the metacognitive
activity of the tutor;
 they foster the students’ internal dialogue.
So, narratives have both a cognitive and affective
role (Plowman et al., 1999). They are important in
supporting students in placing their work in a
coherent context and are intended to engage them
with the tone of the narrative. Importantly, they
provide a rich guide as to how they can engage in
dialogue with the tutor and each other, even when
they are not engaged in dialogue. Fundamentally,
they bring something that is easy to lose in
individual study and that is a sense of the human
presence behind the design of the course.
Bruner (1986) differentiates between
paradigmatic (logical argument) and narrative (story/
exposition) modes, something that relates well to
domains in which the role of the narrative may be
less clear. As an example Computer Science will be
considered. As indicated before, narrative teaching
forms make up a large part of teaching provision and
so are inherently present in the teaching of
Computer Science. However, in a technology-
mediated, task based context, it is perhaps less clear.
A significant part of learning Computer Science
involves practice so a clear temptation is to create
lots of tasks that emphasise practical work.
However, these tasks have meaning and
rationale; they would not be set by the tutor if it did
not. The implicit inclusion of these factors can
usefully be made explicit in a narrative. Rather than
using only a set of tasks to demonstrate control
structures in programming, the tutor could provide a
narrative specifying the importance of the control
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
298

structures, how they themselves approach their use,
their own perception of the task at hand. In turn this
could encourage students to express their own
understanding of the topic. Initially a narrative
account may seem more pertinent to them, and a
combination of the paradigmatic and narrative could
support them in framing their contribution to their
learning.
The discussion of narratives has purposefully
avoided grounding them in any particular
technologies; indeed the framework as a whole is
independent of technology. Nonetheless, there are
implementation issues to be considered. There is a
range of narrative media, any of which may be
useful in mediating the tutors’ narrative. However,
in order to support the properties of a narrative as
outlined above, the approach advocated in this
framework is to offer a light narrative throughout the
learning materials, something that is difficult to
achieve coherently even using some of the narrative
media (for example audio files and video files).
A key medium term aim of the use of narratives
is to encourage students to construct their own
narratives. This has been shown to be a useful means
by which students can gain an insight into their own
understanding of a topic (Plowman et al., 1999) and
would also provide tutors with a rich representation
of learners’ understanding of a given topic.
Given a student population that is increasingly
likely to be diverse in terms of their abilities and
experience, it seems that this would be an important
aid to the tutors supporting them on their terms.
2.2 Tasks
What the student does is the central construct in the
framework, everything else is intended to support
this. It is important to distinguish at this point
between tasks and activities. Tasks are static
designs; activities are what the student, alone or in
collaboration with others, does with the tasks.
The framework essentially frames the curriculum
design for a given course, and as such, has tasks as
its remit rather than activities; these are the remit of
the learner. What the learner does feedback into the
learning experience and how technology influences
it is something that is addressed in greater depth in
terms of the production of learning resources.
However, for the current discussion, the emphasis is
on what the tutor does,
The influence of the tutor is substantial, both in
terms of how they design the tasks and also how
they engage the students in dialogue. However, with
activities, learning should be led by the learner not
the technology and, especially in the case of
individual learning, not the tutor. So, the design of
the tasks is clearly crucial; passing control to the
learner can drift into abandonment if the tasks are
not carefully designed and sequenced to support the
learner’s learning activities.
For this reason, the framework includes a range
of tasks that is designed to inform learners of the
kinds of activities they are expected to engage in,
and also to support tutors in designing effective
tasks. Such decomposition has been criticised for
artificially reducing the complexity of tasks
(Jonassen, 2001), however, the decomposition is
necessary to account for cultural (Zhu and Schellens,
2008) and individual differences as well as
maintaining the flexibility of the learners’ study
patterns (Collis and Moonen, 2002).
Tasks come in six main types: Reading,
Research, Exercise, Practice, Reflection, and
Discussion. These cover a range of activities that
may be described in abstract terms as acquiring
knowledge, developing skills and making your own
meaning of them through meta-cognitive activities
and dialogue. The idea is that if a learning
experience contains an appropriate range and
sequence of these task types, then the student will be
provided with a learning environment that provides
strong support in their individual studies and also
guides them into engaging with others on their
course. Moreover, it does this without making undue
assumptions about individual learners and minimises
the demands on when and how they study.
The task types are relatively informal and broad
in order to allow tutors freedom in their curriculum
design and also to support students in their
understanding of the structure of a given session of a
course. More detail about the types is available to
tutors, as set out below, and this information can be
made available to students as deemed appropriate by
the tutor.
Currently, the greater level of detail can be found
in the sub-types of the tasks, for example, the
different types of reading. These also provide tutors
with greater fidelity in the composition of their tasks
and allow for the extension of the task types through
their input of new sub-types.
2.2.1 Reading
Reading tasks cover a range of approaches beyond
the most obvious. Reading tasks can simply be to
read something, but they can include other
approaches including skim-reading, critically
reading and further reading (usually optional).
A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL STUDIES
299

2.2.2 Research
Clearly research is a key task in tertiary education;
the research task type represents the information
gathering, collation and evaluation required in
academic institutions. However it also has a more
general meaning than academic research.
Specifically research as a task type does not include
the production element of research, for example a
model or paper; this is classified as an exercise task
(see below). Sub-types of research include;
interview, web searches, archive searches, the
history of a given place.
2.2.3 Exercise
Principally these are tasks which explicitly provide
students with feedback based on their performance.
These include formative tests in a wide range of
formats including more traditional exercises such as
MCQs and short answer questions or critiques of
papers. Clearly there is a very wide scope for how
exercise tasks can be designed and how feedback
can be provided, however, they need to be designed
carefully in order to preserve the students’ control of
their learning and to avoid overwhelming the tutors.
An exercise that set a short answer question and
required students to respond within a specified time
would likely be problematic both for the students
and tutor. These are key tasks in supporting
students’ individual study.
2.2.4 Practice
Practice tasks provide explicit opportunities for
students to consolidate what they have learned.
Practice lends itself to skills development,
something that in some domains is an intrinsically
important activity, but in all domains is important in
developing transferable skills. Practice also applies
more generally than skills development. Abstract
concepts could be restated in novel contexts and
tested and students can take what they have learned
and apply it repeatedly in their individual learning.
So, the level of guidance is an important issue
here, and must be a consideration in the design of
the task.
2.2.5 Reflection
Reflection tasks are complex and open ended.
Students are encouraged to not only construct their
understanding of an issue, but also to understand
how they did it. The intention is that this enables
them to become more effective at self-direction,
since they gain an understanding of how they learn.
It also takes them from the domain of problem
solving to one in which they can adapt their
approach to problem solving; they are not engaged
with the problem as much as they are engaged with
strategies for solving it.
It enables them to not only approach a given
proposition or problem in a conventional way, but
also to assess the value of the approach. This is an
essential part of tertiary education. It should be
noted that reflection tasks, as with discussion tasks,
are supported very closely by the narrative provided
by the tutor.
2.2.6 Discussions
Within the framework, discussion tasks are included
to emphasise their importance, and to inform the
design of the other task types; they are not directly
involved in the design of learning tasks that support
individual learning.
Within this task type are a multitude of
dialectical-constructivist (Moshman, 1982) learning
patterns, and this is reflected in the range of possible
activities; from simple discussions about a given
topic to debates in which students must defend
provided positions or take on specified roles.
2.3 Resources
Currently in the framework, resources is considered
to be a unitary construct, because the research has
focussed on methods of production, specifically the
impact of intent (Pyper and Lilley, 2007, 2008a,
2008b). This does not mean that the categorising
types of resources would not be a useful aspect of
the research; indeed, such categorisation has been
usefully applied tor media types (Laurillard, 2001).
As such it is intended to be the subject of future
work, once a better understanding of the impact of
production methodologies has been developed.
The motivation for this was the idea that the way
in which resources are produced is also an important
factor in their educational effect. Setting out
different types of resource categories would be
usefully informed by an understanding of the
potential impact of the way in which they are
produced since this could effect a range of resource
types.
A model for resource production, (Pyper and
Lilley, 2008b) as shown in Figure 1, shows how
learning resources may be created. Some learning or
teaching activity generates learning content; this
learning content varies across four main properties
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
300

(see below), such that it can be considered to be
durable learning content or disposable learning
content.
Figure 1: Model of resource production. The interaction
of the process (learning and teaching activity) and the
learning content (output) that may result in the generation
of a product (learning resources) from Pyper and Lilley
(2008b).
Disposable learning content, in the absence of
technology, is only usually retained in memory in a
processed form, if at all. It is usually verbal in
nature. Durable learning content is designed to be
retained, for example having quality control as part
of its production cycle. It is also designed to be
usable in contexts other than one within which it was
created. This is much less the case for disposable
learning content.
In essence, the distinction can be expressed in
terms of intent; if learning content is intended to
contribute to a learning resource or become one
itself, then it is more likely to have the properties of
durable learning content. If there is no such intent
and the content is created as a by-product of learning
activity, it is much more likely to be disposable
learning content.
The following are properties of learning content:
 Intent: The motivation behind the creation of
the learning content.
 Context: The extent to which the learning
content is comprehensible or useful outside of
the context in which it was created.
 Completeness: The extent to which the learning
content contains enough information to be
comprehensible to someone else.
 Longevity: The amount of time that the
learning content intrinsically endures.
As an example, an educational dialogue between
a tutor and a student could be described in terms of
these properties. The conversation is a means to an
end so is not intended to be the end product; the
students improved understanding is. It is necessarily
context dependent because the tutor must adapt their
part of the conversation to the level of understanding
shown by the student. It is unlikely to be complete,
since partial sentences make sense and may be just
as useful as full, carefully crafted sentences in the
conversation. Finally, the main way in which the
conversation will endure is in a highly processed
form in the minds of the participants. Most of the
learning content (the words and phrases) does not
endure at all.
Of these dimensions, the most affected by the
use of technology, is longevity. This is because if the
conversation outlined above was mediated by
technology, it could be retained without any further
action by the participants. The learning content (the
words and phrases used) would be disposable in all
other dimensions, but by changing one, it gains the
appearance of durability. It is stored, and so can be
accessed at any point in the future, but it has none of
the other properties of durability as captured in the
properties above.
The distinction between durable and disposable
learning content has been supported by previous
research (Pyper and Lilley, 2007, 2008a). The two
content types are useful in different ways but when
mediated by technology tend to be used in similar
ways.
This is of concern, because students are already
faced with an extremely information-rich learning
environment and even more learning content is
being added as resources to this environment. Most
importantly this is often happening as an
unconscious side effect of learning activity, not as a
considered product of it. So, we may be cluttering up
an information-rich environment that is already
overwhelming. It could be argued that students must
develop their information literacy skills for this very
reason, and that the selection of useful or salient
learning materials is part of that development.
However, there seems little need to add yet more
content to the information environment in order to
provide students with this aspect of their education.
It is of most concern that this is often occurring as an
unintended by-product of learning activity. Quite
often, it results from the use of technology to
mediate longstanding learning activities. Dialogues
have been used as an important example of this, but
the effects noted can also be seen in other contexts.
Examples include podcasts or video captures of
lectures, synchronous or asynchronous tutorials
where all the data are captured.
In more general terms, this is also the case for
any learning activity in which the end goal is poorly
defined or understood. It is important to note that
these are quite often features of tertiary level
learning activities.
This gives some idea of the ubiquity of the issue.
Where technology is used in education the lack of
A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL STUDIES
301

distinction between durable and disposable learning
content can have an effect. If this effect impairs
students’ education then the problem is indeed a
substantial one. This issue has been described in
terms of usability, for example, Mayes and Fowler
(1999). However, the usability of a system is not at
issue here. Usability is a function of the extent to
which a system fulfils the usability requirements set
down for it. A word processor might be considered
highly usable. Additionally it could be used to
produce a cogent essay or a set of notes that make
little sense to anyone other than the author. The
question is about the educational application of the
technology, not its usability. Academic conventions
do not gain in clarity from being described in terms
of usability conventions.
It is preferred here to attempt to understand the
issue in purely pedagogical terms. It may be argued
that the lack of distinction between disposable and
durable learning content represents the capture of
cognitive states as behaviour. It follows that this
erodes the distinction between learning and
performance, and given the fact that some
technologies that are most prone to the problem are
designed to support learning, not test performance,
then they are having unintended side effects.
3 FUTURE WORK
Having established the overall structure of the
framework, future work will concentrate on detailing
the different components and their interaction. It is
anticipated that resource categories would be
elucidated and the support they provide for different
task types set out.
REFERENCES
Bruner, J., 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.
Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Collis, B., Moonen, J., 2002 Flexible Learning in a Digital
World, Open Learning: The Journal of Open and
Distance Learning, 17:3, pp 217-230.
Jonassen, D.H., 1991. Objectivism versus Constructivism:
Do We Need a New Philosophical Paradigm?
Educational Technology Research and Development,
Vol. 39, No. 3, pp 5-14.
Laurillard, D., 2001. Rethinking University Teaching: A
Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of
Learning Technologies. Routledge Falmer, London.
2nd Ed.
Mayes, J. T., Fowler, C.J., 1999. Learning technology and
usability: A framework for understanding courseware,
Interacting with Computers, 11(5), 485-497.
McDrury, J., Alterio, M., 2002. Learning Through
Storytelling in Higher Education. Using Reflection
and Experience to Improve Learning. Kogan Page.
Moshman, D,. 1982. Exogenous, Endogenous and
Dialectical Constructivism, Developmental Review, 2
pp 371-384.
Oliver, R., 1999. Exploring Strategies for Online Teaching
and Learning, Journal of Distance Education,Vol. 20,
No.2, pp 240-254.
Oliver, R., 2001. Developing e-learning environments that
support knowledge construction in higher education.
2nd international We-B Conference 2001.
Oliver, R., Harper, B., Hedberg, J., Wills, S., Agostinho,
S., 2002. Exploring strategies to formalise the
description of learning designs, Proceedings of the
Higher Education Research and Development Society
of Australasia (HERDSA).
Plowman, L., Lucklin, R., Laurillard, D., Stratfold, M.
Taylor, J., 1999. Designing Multimedia for Learning:
Narrative Guidance and Narrative Construction, CHI
1999.
Pyper, A., Lilley, M., 2007. The impact of content type on
educational dialogues, ICS HEA e-Learning and
Teaching Workshop, 6th June 2007, University of
Greenwich, United Kingdom.
Pyper, A., Meere, J., Lilley, M., 2007. A Framework to
Support Teaching and Learning Online, Proceedings
of ECEL 2007 The 6th European Conference on e-
Learning.
Pyper, A., Lilley, M., 2008a. Student Attitudes to
Discussion Forums as a Publishing Medium,
Proceedings of the International Conference on
Technology, Communication and Education.
Pyper, A., Lilley, M., 2008b. Producing E-Learning
Resources; By Design or By-Product? Online Educa
Berlin 2008, the 14th International Conference on
Technology Supported Learning & Training.
Weller, M., Pegler, C., Mason, R., 2003. Working with
Learning Objects- Some Pedagogical Suggestions,
Association for Learning Technology Conference
Proceedings.
Zhu, C., Valcke, M., Schellens, T., 2008. Cultural
differences in the perception of a social-constructivist
e-learning environment, British Journal of
Educational Technology, Volume 39 Issue 6.
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
302