Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 30, January 2014, Pages 760-770
Computers in Human Behavior

Music students’ behavior on using learning objects closer to the domain characteristics and the social reality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.039Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Students are more motivated when using social and domain related integrated resources.

  • Perception of learning opportunities, social influence, ease of use and hedonic motivation lead to usage intention.

  • Qualitative research analysis confirms the influence of usage intention constructs.

  • Sound resources influence the perception of learning opportunities, social influence, ease of use and hedonic motivation.

  • Sound and social resources influence the learners’ intention on using a learning object/activity and a learning environment.

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the behavior of music students on using learning objects that are closer to the domain characteristics and to the learners’ digital social reality. A model for supporting the development of learning objects with these characteristics is described and a case study was conducted with high school students that performed a music activity that was created using the proposed model in order to demonstrate the applicability and benefits of our approach. Results show the importance of considering the proposed model on guiding courseware development for education, especially on the music education context. Moreover, we noticed through a qualitative analysis that the students seemed to be more motivated when using social and sound manipulation integrated resources because of their perception of learning opportunities, social influence, ease of use, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions and usage intention.

Introduction

Human capital refers to the knowledge, information, ideas, skills, and health of individuals. The global economy cannot succeed without considerable investment in human capital (Becker, 2002). Modern economies require that people continuously invest in the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and information.

Livingstone (1997) affirms the core thesis of human capital theory is that peoples’ learning capacities are comparable to other natural resources involved in the production process; when the resource is effectively exploited the results are profitable both for the enterprise and for society as a whole. Therefore, in the knowledge intensive society, learning plays an important factor.

Learning requires contextual knowledge, i.e., still in recent years, increased and detailed attention has turned toward the question of domain specificity. Humans simply could not come to know what they do know in a purely domain-neutral fashion (Hirschfeld & Gelman, 1994). On the other side, teaching is also domain specific (Gess-Newsome & Lederman, 2001). Therefore, the specificities of the domain must be considered in education and content closer to the domain characteristics can improve learning.

Other important aspect to learning is technology support. The use of personal computers, mobile technology and internet has changed the way people think, communicate and live (Wei & Young, 2011). These changes can also be seen in the Educational area, where advanced technology aims at supporting and improving the way people learn. Computer supported distance learning environments (also called as on-line distance learning or simply e-learning) started to emerge and were rapidly spread (Rózewski, Kusztina, Tadeusiewicz, & Zaikin, 2011), in such a way that the development of e-learning solutions was considered one of education areas that had grown faster at the ending of the 20th century (Gilbert, Morton, & Rowley, 2007). This model is strongly used both on school and corporate education.

Similarly to these changes on the technologies used for teaching, it’s also important to highlight the emergence of a new society, constituted of individuals who have born and grew together with the expansion of this everyday technology use. Called as Generation Y the ones who were born after the 1980s and Generation Z who were born after the 1990s (Grail Research, 2013), these people understand the use of technology on their activities better and more natural than prior generations. These new human beings, also called as Digital Natives (Prensky, 2001), use technology for leisure, to work and also in education.

The use of online social networks platforms is growing, especially by Digital Native students. For instance, a study (Smith & Borreson Caruso, 2010) conducted with 30.616 undergraduate American students showed that 90.3% of them dedicate time every day to use social networks’ environments. The education literature background also states that social interactions are important to the learning process (for instance on Vygotsky, 1986). Thus, the use of online social networks environments seems appropriate to be exploited on education scenario to improve apprentices’ learning performance.

In addition, it is important to analyze how students use the resources offered in an education activity in order to extract their behavioral pattern. Through this understanding, a lot of information can be derived, such as those to customize the student experience with Learning Objects (LO) or to cluster similar students together (Wolpers, Najjar, Verbert, & Duval, 2007), and metrics to find out what and how certain resources influence the acceptation of the used technologies by students (Pynoo et al., 2011).

This paper presents a model for developing learning objects (LO) that are closer to the domain characteristics and in accordance to the learners’ social reality. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the model, we applied it to the context of music education. Then, we developed sound manipulation resources (taking into account the domain characteristics) as well as social resources (considering the social reality). After that we performed a case study using these resources in a learning activity and analyzed the students’ behavior.

The main objective of our research was to explore the students’ behavior on using LO that were built according to a model that ensures the interconnection of social and domain adapted elements. Will the resulting LO assist the students to learn the required concepts? Which characteristic will be more demanded by the student? What are the consequences on student’s behavior on using the technology?

This paper is organized in 5 more sections. Section 2 presents characteristics associated to the student’s behavior on using learning technologies, mainly those related to the acceptance of technologies and more specifically the usage intention. Section 3 explains the importance of the Music domain as well as the C(L)A(S)P Model, whose applicability we also reinforce through a generalization of its concepts and related theories. Section 4 describes our approach for developing Learning Objects and Activities based on the C(L)A(S)P Model. Some resources that were developed with this approach and an example of a LO are also described. Section 5 describes the case study and the results. Finally, in Section 6 we present some final remarks.

Section snippets

How to analyze the students’ behavior?

In order to analyze the students’ behavior on using learning objects that are closer to the domain characteristics and to the social reality, we considered concepts related to the acceptance of technologies, such as Learning Opportunities, Social Influence, Ease of Use and Hedonic Motivation, as well as Facilitating Conditions and Usage Intention. These concepts are related to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (

The music domain and the C(L)A(S)P Model

Although human capital is usually related to functional knowledge and skills, and strongly connected to the enterprises areas, culture may also represent an important driver of economic growth. Bucci and Segre (2011) analyzed the existence of a relationship of complementarity between cultural and human capital investments. According to their research, in the long run a higher growth rate of real per-capita income can be attained the more cultural and human capital investments are complementary

Developing learning objects/activities based on the C(L)A(S)P Model

In order to support the development of learning objects and activities that are closer to the (music) domain and considering social resources, basic components (such as action logs, object transmission, and object sharing) are combined or specialized according to the domain (such as sound manipulation log, sound transmission, and sound sharing on Facebook). After that, these components are classified according to the C(L)A(S)P parameters and stored as C(L)A(S)P resources (for instance, pitch

Case study

The ten developed LO were used in a case study with twenty-three (23) high school students in a basic music education class. The participants’ average age was about 15 years old.

The unit of analysis was the individual performance of the students’ musical education activity using the developed LO and the comment resource. The objective of the main activity was to explore the concept of the sound pitch parameter. The learning objective was to understand that the higher the pitch, the more acute is

Conclusions

The proposed model provides different perspectives for the development of human capital so that it is possible to foster innovation (through the Creation parameter), critical thinking (Analysis parameter), better production (Practice), theoretical grounding (Literature) and skill and abilities (Skill) in a collaborative environment (Interaction).

A model like LO-C(L)A(S)PI that integrates Creation, Analysis, Practice, Literature, Skill and Interaction features (or Composition, Audition,

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the high school which allowed us to validate this research and also to every student who participate on the case study. A special thanks to the teacher who believed on our ideas and supported us to make this work possible. This work was partially supported by FAPERJ (through grants E-26/170028/2008 INC&T Program – Project: Brazilian Institute of Research on Web Science, and E-26/ 101.509/2010 – BBP/Bursary Representation and contextualized retrieval of learning content), and CNPQ

References (62)

  • E. Alberich-Artal et al.

    Virtual virtuosos: A case study in learning music in virtual learning environments in Spain

    European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning

    (2012)
  • M.O. Albuquerque et al.

    Cataloguing and searching musical sound recordings in an Ontology-Based Information System

    International Journal of Knowledge Society Research

    (2011)
  • P.A. Almeida et al.

    Students’ questioning and creativity: how are these related?

    International Journal of Knowledge Society Research (IJKSR)

    (2011)
  • Almeida, P., de Jesus, H. P., & Watts, W. (2011). 8 Kolb’s learning styles and approaches to learning through the use...
  • Y. Anzai et al.

    The theory of learning by doing

    Psychological Review

    (1979)
  • E. Aronson et al.

    The jigsaw classroom: Building cooperation in the classroom

    (1997)
  • G.S. Becker

    The age of human capital

    Education in the Twenty-First Century

    (2002)
  • J. Biggs et al.

    Teaching for quality learning at university

    (2011)
  • F.D. Davis

    Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology

    MIS Quarterly

    (1989)
  • N.K. Denzin et al.

    Handbook of qualitative research

    (2000)
  • R.H. Ennis

    Is critical thinking culturally biased?

    Teaching Philosophy

    (1998)
  • M. Fishbein et al.

    Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research

    (1975)
  • C. Franco

    Efectos de un programa de meditación sobre los niveles de creatividad verbal de un grupo de alumnos/as de Bachillerato

    Suma Psicológica

    (2009)
  • Frosini, F., Mitolo, N., Nesi, P., & Paolucci, M. (2008). Collaborative solution for music education. In International...
  • D.R. Garrison et al.

    Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education

    American Journal of Distance Education

    (2001)
  • J. Gilbert et al.

    E-learning: The student experience

    British Journal of Educational Technology

    (2007)
  • A.C. Graesser et al.

    How does one know whether a person understands a device? The quality of the questions the person asks when the device breaks down

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (2003)
  • Grail Research, Consumers Tomorrow Insight and Observation about Generation Z [pdf]....
  • G. Guest et al.

    How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability

    Field Methods

    (2006)
  • G.W. Hill

    Group versus individual performance: Are N+ 1 heads better than one?

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1982)
  • View full text