Assignment 4 Review - Learning Experience in LT

It has been quite a long time since this assignment when I'm reviewing it now. I'll try my best to recall what I thought of during the assignment.

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We were tasked to determining and propose solutions for improving the learning experience in Lecture Theatres (LTs).

Before any study was made, our group discussed what are the different factors contributing to the learning experience. They are:

1. Subject being taught
2. Motivation of students
3. Teaching style of the lecturer
4. Cultural background of students and lecturer
5. Lecture Theatre Environment
6. Teaching cultures of University

This helped us to internalise our thoughts and highlight what are the key points to take note when performing our study (ethnography & laddering interviews).

We decided to use an ethnography approach and laddering interview to experience what it is like in a Lecture Theatre (LT). We ourselves are students and thus we would have the necessary knowledge to determine problems. However, we used laddering interviews to gather more different opinions about the learning experience in LTs.

Ethnographical study was a straight forward. We took down notes while experiencing the learning conditions. However, we were only taking down notes pertaining to environmental factors (temperature) or problems that were at the tip of the surface of the learning experience (such as interactivity between lecturer and students). This is because we were not students of the Lecture itself, we were just seating inside experiencing. We could not obtain information if whether students were actually learning or absorbing information by the lecturer during our ethnography study. Different student have got different learning abilities. Thus, a person who is talking constantly during lecture might be actually learning better than someone who is totally quiet and focused in listening to the lecture.

This is where laddering interviews came in. Laddering interviews helped to expose more problems about the learning experience based on individuals. It also helped to expose some underlying problems when some solutions were proposed. These problems were such as culture or shyness hindered interaction with lecturer in front of a big LT.

I learnt during laddering interviews that it is very hard to expose problems in greater detail as the conversation will sometimes drift out of topic. Also, the interviewees might sometimes not understand the underlying meaning of our question, which I purposely made it “abstract” or “general” to get a interpreted answer. I thought that if I asked questions that were too specific to a problem, the answer in returned is specific to that question. That was why I asked questions as general as possible.

Later, I found that it is easier to ask from general then to specific if a problem area surfaced. Then after I have asked enough questions regarding the problem area, I would go back to the general questions and probe in deeper once again. This was my technique used in later laddering interviews for the final assignment. Laddering interviews require experience and good communication skills to really probe out the deepest information to find the root of the problem.

I find laddering interviews and ethnography are a very interesting topic or way to obtain information. As a computer science student, I have learnt to gather information in a empirical or quantitative way. But I particularly like such qualitative information gathering methods as it really reveals important details which is difficult to obtain in the formerly mentioned way. I have always knew that interviewing is a way to obtain answers, but never have know that probing as detailed as possible can lead to find the root problem!

These methods also particularly applies well in marketing or product conceptualization where the end product or service is made for the customer, so we need to know how to design for the customer. Which i feel companies should invest money into these areas.