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The results were summarised and conclusions reached about future directions for online learning programmes at CCL. The findings were disseminated by this thesis

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although further journal and conference papers may also be written up later. Participants will also receive a report of the findings.

3.4

Description of the Sources of Data

Interviews

Interviews with members of the Participatory Action Research Group (PARG) (See Appendix G) were undertaken at the beginning stages of the study to gain a

collegial perspective on the process of developing and designing e-learning programmes.

Pre- and Post-Course Surveys

Pre- and post-course surveys were presented to the trainees in the online environment (See Appendix H and Appendix I). All trainees completed both surveys. The surveys considered a number of areas and collected both textual and numerical data. Both surveys were developed in conjunction with the PARG. The surveys were not identical as the pre-course questionnaires related to the trainees’ previous experiences whilst the post-course survey dealt with the content of the course. However, trainees rated their confidence with the various topics covered by the course before and after using an interval scale and these are compared across the surveys.

Pre-course Survey

The aim of the pre-course survey was to establish information about previous online learning experiences and confidence with the course topics. The survey also asked trainees what they hoped to learn from the course and how they thought the course could be made interesting and engaging. Time was provided for completing the survey during the first face-to-face session

Post-course Survey

The post-course survey was longer than the pre-course survey and consisted of four sections – the first asked questions about where and when trainees accessed the online course, the second asked trainees how effective they thought the

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programme was and to rate their confidence with the different topic areas, the third section asked trainees how engaging and entertaining they found the programme, and the fourth section asked trainees to provide any additional comments. The survey was made available online after completion of the face-to- face session. Time pressures, however, meant that the posting up of the survey was delayed and as a consequence not all trainees completed the survey until after the focus group session (see below).

Focus Group

One week after the programme ended with the final face-to-face session, the trainees met again for the focus group session. The two hour session was facilitated by myself, recorded and then transcribed. Discussion questions

(Appendix J) were designed as discussion starters allowing for the exploration of relevant themes as they developed. Although questions were devised rather than simply using topic areas, the session was run as an informal natural conversation with all participants including myself as a facilitator taking part in the discussion.

Learning Logs Completed by Trainees

The learning log was a paper booklet intended to be used by the trainees as a way of monitoring their own progress and noting any particular difficulties they had such as specific technical problems (e.g. particular videos not loading, or spelling errors in quizzes), or anything they particularly liked about the course (see sample Appendix K). It contained information about the administration of the course – email addresses, timings etc. – as well as a page for entering information about each module. The learning logs were added to the programme as an afterthought as the PARG were concerned that otherwise the trainees had nothing to “take- away” to make the course seem “real”, and nothing to refer to. Not all of the trainees used the learning logs; some preferred to add comments to the online forum. Three of the trainees however, completed the paper learning logs and returned them to me with permission to use them as additional data.

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Online Activity Tracking Logs

As well as hosting learning materials, the Moodle learning environment can also track usage of the system. In particular, every login and page view by each trainee is recorded. This makes it possible to know when a trainee accessed each page of the site and calculations can be made of how long they spent on the site and for how long they viewed each page. These data must to be handled with caution however; although it is possible to calculate “Time Spent” by considering the difference between the log out and the login times this does not mean that the trainee was actually looking at the page or reading information. On some occasions trainees did not actually log out of the site, but left the site in other ways; closing down their computer, or experiencing a browser crash for example.

Despite these restrictions it is still possible to gain a reasonable estimate of how long trainees spent on the site and what they were looking at.

Online Forum Entries

The forum was intended to be the main vehicle by which trainees could contact the tutors and each other, share concerns, and discuss answers to various problems each week. The forum was used far less than anticipated but it did become a space where trainees posted comments and feedback about the course itself, particularly technical issues. Posts from the forum also provided valuable feedback about the programme.

Researcher’s Reflective Journal

During the project I kept a reflective journal to record of my own observations, thoughts and reflections about the project and its progress. I also used the journal to record notes about informal discussions I had with the PARG, trainees and other colleagues. This provides another source of evidence, from a different perspective, about the implementation of the project, its effectiveness and impact.

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3.5

Consideration of the Levels of Analysis

The programme itself can be considered at a number of different levels, with each level having an impact on the other levels and on the success of the overall

programme. Since this research aims to discover:

How can e-learning be made effective and engaging for delivering professional development to library staff in a public library?

All of these levels are addressed in varying depths at different stages of the study. These levels are represented in Fig. 3.4, and described below.

Figure 3-4 Different levels of consideration that impact on the outcome of an e-learning programme

Context: the context of the study, including the culture within the organisation, management’s and team leader’s support of the programme, as well as the impact of living and working in a devastated city undergoing recovery all have an impact on the implementation and success of the programme.