Abstract
We sought to establish a collaborative learning environment for our first-year university cell biology course that would be sufficiently challenging to warrant team effort and turn students into autonomous learners. We chose team-based science-writing blogs, a choice grounded in the Self Determination Theory. This theory posits that a sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness are essential requirements to perform a task in an autonomous-motivated fashion. Through surveys over a period of four years, we assessed how students perceived the blog project. Qualitative analyses revealed that students recognized and appreciated their autonomy. They also consistently considered as positive a sense of competence, expressed as being useful, and relatedness, i.e. relating with others and working together. A quantitative analysis based on an intrinsic-motivation inventory revealed that students experienced science-writing on the web as an intrinsically motivating learning task. We conclude that web-based learning triggers motivation to learn autonomously and discuss how task authenticity may play an important role in this process.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 48-62 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Internet and Higher Education |
Volume | 35 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- Blog
- Collaborative
- Learning
- Motivation
- Science-writing
- Self-determination