Learning Science Research Centre(LSRC)

Welcome to the Learning Science Research Centre

Human learning, as the 3^rd millennium begins, faces the challenges and opportunities of being cross-cultural, technology-enhanced and sustainable. That is: we learn in situations involving more than one culture, we learn in partnership with information technologies, and we need to learn without physical travel to every relevant location. These circumstances existed in the past, but as globalisation advances, as information technology proliferates, and as concern for energy and environment grows, we need to take a fresh look at learning.

The Learning Science Research Centre was established in 2006 at the University of Nottingham, Níngbō, China to address these issues. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, and we work in close collaboration with the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham, UK (LSRI), and with the Centre for Research in Applied Linguistics at UNNC (CRAL).

We are especially interested in the learning experience of students in cross-cultural and bilingual settings, and in the application of educational technology to support this learning experience. 

The Doctoral Programme

The doctoral programme at the Learning Science Research Centre is a collaboration with LSRI at Nottingham UK, and uses a split scheme in which the student has both a supervisor at Níngbō and a supervisor at Nottingham, UK. The student spends the majority of time at Níngbō, and may also spend time at Nottingham, UK. This provides the student with a wide range of resources and expertise, and the opportunity to study at two research institutes.

For further information on the centre, and for enquiries concerning doctoral work, please contact the Head of the Learning Science Research Centre, Dr Don Peterson at donald.peterson@nottingham.edu.cn.

Research

Some areas of current research interest are listed below. Areas 1-5 concern issues in teaching and learning at UNNC itself, while areas 6-10 concern issues in a broader range of contemporary learning situations.

(1) English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI). --- This is used at UNNC for all teaching, and increasingly at Chinese universities for a proportion of teaching. Along with issues of language go issues of pedagogy: norms of delivery, narrative style and interaction. In particular, EMI raises issues of (real or apparent) differences between Chinese and Western learning style. One particular issue is that of cross-cultural misunderstanding: where the teacher 'frames' the learners' behaviour in ways which seem reasonable but are in fact inaccurate. At UNNC, researchers engaged with these issues are Paul Knight and Don Peterson, and at LSRI, Walter van Heuven and Charles Crook.

(2) English as a Second Language and Bilingualism. --- Issues of bilingualism are relevant in China, where English is increasingly being taught, and to activity at UNNC where students are taught in English, and where many students spend part of their study programme at the University of Nottingham, UK. Of particular interest is the use of information technology to support the learning of a foreign language. Researchers at UNNC engaged with these issues are Don Peterson and Paul Dempster, and LSRI currently collaborates with Sharp Laboratories of Europe on the L-Mo (Language-Mobile) project which aims to make language learning fun and effective.

(3) English for Academic Purposes (EAP). --- Important questions arise concerning the effectiveness of an EAP course as an agent of change when students from countries with a broadly Confucian tradition are studying in a British or Western context. Some of these questions concern the meta-cognitive processes required in cross-cultural educational contexts, and the efficacy of EAP as an agent of success. Mark Morgan at UNNC is engaged with these questions.

(4) Remote Video Teaching (RVT). --- The increasing use of RVT across the three campuses of the University of Nottingham raises issues of how best to use this medium in cross-cultural contexts. One issue is that of redundancy. A common ideal in communication is to avoid 'repeating ourselves' and to be concise. However when students are taught by remote video link, in what is for them a second language, by a teacher from another culture, it may be that particular types of redundancy are beneficial. E.g. it may be helpful to say the same thing in several ways, and it may be especially important to coordinate oral and graphical delivery. UNNC students provide a relevant population of learners for research, and one issue of interest is that of 'apparent understanding' (e.g. it may happen that a small minority of students understand the lecture, and afterwards are very helpful in explaining it to the others, meaning that delivery is not actually as effective as it seems). At UNNC, researchers engaged with these issues are Paul Knight, Don Peterson and Mark Morgan, and at LSRI, Do Coyle.

(5) Uptake of e-learning in Higher Education. --- Many UK Universities are investing resources into the adoption of Virtual learning Environments (VLEs) such as WebCT in an effort to provide e-learning opportunities. One of the key challenges associated with introducing a new institution-wide e-learning initiative is facilitating uptake among students and the staff that support them. A number of factors have been identified as influencing e-learning uptake in the Western academic context. These include:

• Student and staff skills (ICT and other), attitudes and experience
• Pedagogical issues
• User training and support
• Incentives and motivation to engage with e-learning
• Institutional policy and strategies
• Technical infrastructure and support

WebCT will become available to all UNNC students and staff in the 07/08 academic session. Understanding the nature and role of the factors underlying e-learning uptake in the UNNC context will be essential to promoting the use of WebCT and other e-learning initiatives. Investigating aspects of uptake at UNNC may also provide new insights due to the uniqueness of the stakeholders and the institution. These include the profile of the ‘typical' UNNC learner which may differ from that of their Western counterparts, and the emerging institutional context. Researchers at UNNC engaged with this area are Kevin Poppelwell and Karen Ford.

(6) Learning Dance. --- China's 'ethnic minorities' have rich traditions of dance, and the preservation and teaching of these traditions is of interest both inside and outside China. A general problem in the teaching of dance is that notations such as Labanotation are hard to learn, interpret and use. A solution to this learning problem is to use motion capture technology to record the movements of a dance, and to produce an animated 'mannequin' or 'avatar' which can be manipulated by the learner so as to adjust speed, angle of view, etc. This work at the institute, led by Don Peterson, plans to produce online animations as useful learning objects in the learning and preservation of these traditions.

(7) Learning to Adapt: Expatriate Adaptation and Stress. --- Expatriates face major cognitive challenges. One issue of interest is that of decision-to-integrate: whether the expatriate decides to learn about and accommodate the new culture or to save effort and 'live in a bubble'. Another is whether spouse and family make the same decision. The effects of a decision to ignore the new culture may vary according to length of stay, job, decisions made by spouse and family, language, the cultural distance of the host location, and any preparation and training given before arrival. Relevant populations are Western expatriates working in China, and Chinese students from UNNC locating in Nottingham, UK in the second half of their 2+2 degree programmes. Researchers at UNNC engaged with these issues are Don Peterson, Alex Newman and Darryn Mitussis.

(8) Cross-cultural Learning about Art. --- Western people seeking to understand art produced in China, and Chinese people seeking to understand art produced in the West may employ theoretical frameworks of greater or lesser relevance and efficacy. One issue of interest is whether the frame of reference of the person interpreting an artwork or a tradition of artwork is commensurate with that of the artists who produced the artworks. Chinese art naturally has roots in Chinese cultural and philosophical traditions, and provides a fascinating case of the possibility of misfit in interpretive paradigm in cross-cultural learning. At UNNC, Paul Gladstone, Head of International Communications at UNNC, works on these issues, and a conference is planned in this area in collaboration with Don Peterson.

(9) Learning Disabilities. --- The syndrome of autism was first identified in 1942/3 and has received increasing attention ever since. At the institute, Don Peterson works on the psychology of autism and on the use of computers to support people with autism. Don is especially interested in the conceptualisation of the ‘mental' and ‘executive' aspects of the syndrome, and in the implications of this conceptualisation for effective computer support.

(10) Global Learning. --- At the institute, Don Peterson works on epistemology for the 3^rd millennium. The conditions of knowledge and learning in ancient Greece were different to those found now under advancing globalisation and information technology, and Don argues that the remit of epistemology has changed as a result. Issues of justification and truth are still with us, but there is now increased pressure on (a) the need, given an ocean of available information, to filter out and apply what is useful in particular contexts, and (b) the need to ‘muddle along' when faced with multiple and incommensurate frames of reference. In the philosophy of learning, Don works on the concepts of ‘filtering' and ‘framing', and also on the application of the concept of Verstehen (or learning to understand one another) in e-commerce.