TY - JOUR
T1 - Co-designing tools for workplace learning
T2 - A method for analysing and tracing the appropriation of affordances in design-based research
AU - Dennerlein, Sebastian Maximilian
AU - Tomberg, Vladimir
AU - Treasure-Jones, Tamsin
AU - Theiler, Dieter
AU - Lindstaedt, Stefanie
AU - Ley, Tobias
N1 - Funding Information:
The research has been co-funded by the European Union’s 7th Research Framework project Learning Layers (Grant agreement No. 318209; http://results.learning-layers.eu/ ), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme project CEITER (Grant agreement No. 669074; http://ceiter.tlu.ee ) and the Austrian COMET Program – Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies. The Know-Center is funded within the Austrian COMET Program under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and by the State of Styria. All co-design interactions of the “Bits and Pieces” case study were subject to ethical application and approval through the University of Leeds, School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee (EDREC/12/009 and SoMREC/13/097) and the National Health Service Research Governance Process (B001_30_01_13_123029 and 001_07_08_14_161142).
Funding Information:
The research has been co-funded by the European Union?s 7th Research Framework project Learning Layers (Grant agreement No. 318209; http://results.learning-layers.eu/), the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme project CEITER (Grant agreement No. 669074; http://ceiter.tlu.ee) and the Austrian COMET Program ? Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies. The Know-Center is funded within the Austrian COMET Program under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and by the State of Styria. All co-design interactions of the ?Bits and Pieces? case study were subject to ethical application and approval through the University of Leeds, School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee (EDREC/12/009 and SoMREC/13/097) and the National Health Service Research Governance Process (B001_30_01_13_123029 and 001_07_08_14_161142).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Sebastian Maximilian Dennerlein, Vladimir Tomberg, Tamsin Treasure-Jones, Dieter Theiler, Stefanie Lindstaedt and Tobias Ley.
PY - 2020/5/4
Y1 - 2020/5/4
N2 - Purpose: Introducing technology at work presents a special challenge as learning is tightly integrated with workplace practices. Current design-based research (DBR) methods are focused on formal learning context and often questioned for a lack of yielding traceable research insights. This paper aims to propose a method that extends DBR by understanding tools as sociocultural artefacts, co-designing affordances and systematically studying their adoption in practice.Design/methodology/approach: The iterative practice-centred method allows the co-design of cognitive tools in DBR, makes assumptions and design decisions traceable and builds convergent evidence by consistently analysing how affordances are appropriated. This is demonstrated in the context of health-care professionals’ informal learning, and how they make sense of their experiences. The authors report an 18-month DBR case study of using various prototypes and testing the designs with practitioners through various data collection means.Findings: By considering the cognitive level in the analysis of appropriation, the authors came to an understanding of how professionals cope with pressure in the health-care domain (domain insight); a prototype with concrete design decisions (design insight); and an understanding of how memory and sensemaking processes interact when cognitive tools are used to elaborate representations of informal learning needs (theory insight).Research limitations/implications: The method is validated in one long-term and in-depth case study. While this was necessary to gain an understanding of stakeholder concerns, build trust and apply methods over several iterations, it also potentially limits this.Originality/value: Besides generating traceable research insights, the proposed DBR method allows to design technology-enhanced learning support for working domains and practices. The method is applicable in other domains and in formal learning.
AB - Purpose: Introducing technology at work presents a special challenge as learning is tightly integrated with workplace practices. Current design-based research (DBR) methods are focused on formal learning context and often questioned for a lack of yielding traceable research insights. This paper aims to propose a method that extends DBR by understanding tools as sociocultural artefacts, co-designing affordances and systematically studying their adoption in practice.Design/methodology/approach: The iterative practice-centred method allows the co-design of cognitive tools in DBR, makes assumptions and design decisions traceable and builds convergent evidence by consistently analysing how affordances are appropriated. This is demonstrated in the context of health-care professionals’ informal learning, and how they make sense of their experiences. The authors report an 18-month DBR case study of using various prototypes and testing the designs with practitioners through various data collection means.Findings: By considering the cognitive level in the analysis of appropriation, the authors came to an understanding of how professionals cope with pressure in the health-care domain (domain insight); a prototype with concrete design decisions (design insight); and an understanding of how memory and sensemaking processes interact when cognitive tools are used to elaborate representations of informal learning needs (theory insight).Research limitations/implications: The method is validated in one long-term and in-depth case study. While this was necessary to gain an understanding of stakeholder concerns, build trust and apply methods over several iterations, it also potentially limits this.Originality/value: Besides generating traceable research insights, the proposed DBR method allows to design technology-enhanced learning support for working domains and practices. The method is applicable in other domains and in formal learning.
KW - Affordance
KW - Appropriation
KW - Design-based research
KW - Health care
KW - Informal learning
KW - Sensemaking
KW - Workplace learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084188206&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/ILS-09-2019-0093
DO - 10.1108/ILS-09-2019-0093
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084188206
SN - 2398-5348
VL - 121
SP - 175
EP - 205
JO - Information and Learning Science
JF - Information and Learning Science
IS - 3-4
ER -