Dialogue on Master’s students’ research design through feedback: Co-constructing excellence in a Moodle-based collaborative learning space

Abstract

Quality feedback plays a critical role in connecting the professional world and academia for coursework-based Master’s students and it contributes to their positive academic experience and successful completion of the degree. Yet providing timely and adequate feedback is always a challenge for teachers. Technological advancement provides a way out. However, little empirical evidence exists on the role that online supervision and peer interaction can play in facilitating Master’s students’ research-related learning outcomes. Our study takes a step toward filling this knowledge gap, through examining the discourses of online group supervision in the context of a Moodle-based collaborative learning space, which has been created to take the place of traditional supervision practices in a Master of Education (MEd) programme at a university in Hong Kong. Our study aimed to find out in what ways and to what extent this new supervision model engages the students in active knowledge building surrounding the design of research projects. The case of online supervision experienced by a 2017-18 cohort of MEd students in Early Childhood Education was studied. The class of 29 students formed six groups, with four to five students in each group. In a design-based pedagogical model, each student uploads a 10- minute video presenting a research design for his/her own final research project, for the research methods course teacher and classmates to view and provide feedback on. The video presentations and online discussions through feedback were carried out over a period of six consecutive weeks, with each group given one week. We conducted participant observation of the class’s online discussions, and collected/downloaded the research proposals, video presentations, and Moodle posts of the 23 students who gave informed consent for us to use their work and texts in our study. The online posts were analysed to examine the interaction patterns and features of the online supervision. Preliminary data analyses revealed that the students’ learning embodied social processes facilitated by the teacher’s and peers’ feedback, and the structural and social support promoted the students’ agency in sharing their academic ideas and refining their research design. Overall, the online supervision model constituted an open system characterised by ongoing creation of problem situations and timely intellectual and resource support in a collaborative environment. As a result, the teacher’s role was transformed from the owner of knowledge to the facilitator of knowledge building; while the students became active principal investigators and critical reviewers constructing their research knowledge and building confidence. Our study thus demonstrates how excellence in research supervision can be co-constructed through a new supervision model executed through the affordances of a Moodle platform.