FQRSC
2006-2009

The influence of blogging, a social computing activity, on the conceptual development and epistemological beliefs of students in and outside of university environments

Strobel, J. (Concordia University)

Students are using social computing tools like blogging, with their friends and in public spaces on the internet. The processes, discourses, and truth claims experienced by using the tools are part of their overall learning experience and shape their practice in school, their conceptual development, and their epistemological beliefs. When people blog, they create diary-like hypertexts, discussing and crossreferencing their entries with similar topics on the web. Although, in the realm of education, there is much research on the influence of navigating and reading hypertexts and authoring stand-alone hypertext systems on conceptual development and epistemological beliefs, only a few studies have examined the influence of co-authoring hypertexts in social space on conceptual development and epistemological beliefs of individuals. In the existing literature on learning from hypertext, the dimensions of theory building, discourse processes, and truth claims furthermore are underrepresented.

This project will explore the processes of theory/model building, the discourse structures, and truth claims students experience in their social computing experience. Additionally, we will compare the findings with existing well-described processes, discourse structures, and truth claims in the schooling situation of students to research the impact of the blogging experience on students’ conceptual development and epistemological beliefs. Finally, the researchers will develop a preliminary model on how to meaningfully integrate the experiences of students with social computing, and the tools themselves, in the schooling context.