This overlaps with the Online Language Learning course. The idea of designing a role-play that utilises a competitive wiki still appeals. It might be a good way of facilitating language learning. It might need to be complemented with synchronous meetings.
I was previously thinking of comparing Japanese learners' participation in such an exercise / project with a face-to-face role-play along similar lines. This faltered because there are just so many variables that it seems impossible to draw any conclusions whatsoever, no matter what the outcome.
Instead, there is now the idea of comparing an online collaborative role-play - like the Loch Ness exercise in OLL course (we have to work together to organise a trip there) - with an online collaborative / competitive one. Thus the research is purely exploratory, and there isn't so much pressure to come up with explanatory data. It might show, if used with several groups, some pattern of participation. Are learners more involved when in competition - particularly if set up as a kind of points-acquiring game?
Data can reasonably simply be drawn from observing the history of changes in the wiki and how many entries are made.
Very important: set-up of the exercise needs to be extremely clear to ensure learners understand the (possibly) motivating factors.
Maybe...
Keywords: collaboration; language learning; competitive learning
Comments
Yes, I think that there should not be any fear in trying something out just because it is "all too complex". That is true with anything that we might innovate (for "innovate" read "try out") in any educational setting. We try things out just to "see what happens". That trying out is not random. We will have hypotheses about why it should - all else being equal - be a good idea. But those hypotheses just won't be explicitly stated. So there we have a definition of a piece of educational research - we try something out to see what happens. What we tend *not* to do in our own professional practice is to include a "control" condition. We don't tend to try out with one group, and hold back with another. Often that is because we just don't *have* a number of groups. We have one course group to work with, and that is that. But there are also (alleged) ethical considerations in the notion of control - if we think that what we are trying out will improve things for the learner (and we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't) then we are reluctant to withhold that advantage from anyone. Hence, no control. Frankly, I tend to feel that that ethical argument is overplayed. We are just not *that* convinced that what we are trying out will make *all* that much difference, so why worry.
Anyway, I am ranting. Educational research is trying something out to see what happens. All the rest is (admittedly important) detail.
The "exploratory / explanatory" thing is interesting. I think that people tend to lose sight of the fact that more important than any given research study is the ongoing research *process*. Oh, I suppose I could use the editor features and say "research process". That is, one might try something out, and thereby gather exploratory evidence (sometimes called course evaluation) from which one could develop an explanatory hypothesis. Such a hypothesis would then serve to inform and direct the next stage in the process. So if this was a course on Course Design we would be going on about the importance of student evaluative feedback on our practice. Constant "monitoring" is seen as a Good Thing in course design and organisation. That is just "research". You watch. When something isn't going right you formulate a hypothesis about what that something might be, and about what might be done to improve matters, and you adjust. You then monitor the impact of the adjustment.
So how do we assure quality in our practices of teaching, and support for learning? Nobody would say - "I can't do that. I haven't done a course in 'Research Design'".