Designing new learning experiences? : exploring corporate E-learners’ self-regulated learning

The context of this study is corporate e-learning, with an explicit focus on how digital learning design can facilitate self-regulated learning (SRL). The field of e-learning is growing rapidly. An increasing number of corporations use digital technology and elearning for training their work force and customers. E-learning may offer economic benefits, as well as opportunities for interaction and communication that traditional teaching cannot provide. However, the evolving variety of digital learning contexts makes new demands on learners, requiring them to develop strategies to adapt and cope with novel learning tools. This study derives from the need to learn more about learning experiences in digital contexts in order to be able to design these properly for learning. The research question targets how the design of an e-learning course influences participants’ self-regulated learning actions and intentions. SRL involves learners’ ability to exercise agency in their learning. Micro-level SRL processes were targeted by exploring behaviour, cognition, and affect/motivation in relation to the design of the digital context. Two iterations of an e-learning course were tested on two groups of participants (N=17). However, the exploration of SRL extends beyond the educational design research perspective of comparing the effects of the changes to the course designs. The study was conducted in a laboratory with each participant individually. Multiple types of data were collected. However, the results presented in this thesis are based on screen observations (including eye tracking) and video-stimulated recall interviews. These data were integrated in order to achieve a broad perspective on SRL. The most essential change evident in the second course iteration was the addition of feedback during practice and the final test. Without feedback on actions there was an observable difference between those who were instruction-directed and those who were self-directed in manipulating the context and, thus, persisted whenever faced with problems. In the second course iteration, including the feedback, this kind of difference was not found. Feedback provided the tipping point for participants to regulate their learning by identifying their knowledge gaps and to explore the learning context in a targeted manner. Furthermore, the course content was consistently seen from a pragmatic perspective, which influenced the participants’ choice of actions, showing that real life relevance is an important need of corporate learners. This also relates to assessment and the consideration of its purpose in relation to participants’ work situation. The rigidity of the multiple choice questions, focusing on the memorisation of details, influenced the participants to adapt to an approach for surface learning. It also caused frustration in cases where the participants’ epistemic beliefs were incompatible with this kind of assessment style. Triggers of positive and negative emotions could be categorized into four levels: personal factors, instructional design of content, interface design of context, and technical solution. In summary, the key design choices for creating a positive learning experience involve feedback, flexibility, functionality, fun, and freedom. The design of the context impacts regulation of behaviour, cognition, as well as affect and motivation. The learners’ awareness of these areas of regulation in relation to learning in a specific context is their ability for design-based epistemic metareflection. I describe this metareflection as knowing how to manipulate the context behaviourally for maximum learning, being metacognitively aware of one’s learning process, and being aware of how emotions can be regulated to maintain volitional control of the learning situation. Attention needs to be paid to how the design of a digital learning context supports learners’ metareflective development as digital learners. Every digital context has its own affordances and constraints, which influence the possibilities for micro-level SRL processes. Empowering learners in developing their ability for design-based epistemic metareflection is, therefore, essential for building their digital literacy in relation to these affordances and constraints. It was evident that the implementation of e-learning in the workplace is not unproblematic and needs new ways of thinking about learning and how we create learning spaces. Digital contexts bring a new culture of learning that demands attitude change in how we value knowledge, measure it, define who owns it, and who creates it. Based on the results, I argue that digital solutions for corporate learning ought to be built as an integrated system that facilitates socio-cultural connectivism within the corporation. The focus needs to shift from designing static e-learning material to managing networks of social meaning negotiation as part of a holistic corporate learning ecology.

Affektitehdas. Työn rationalisoinnin historiallisia jatkumoita

Affektit, kapitalismi ja työn rationalisointi yhdistyvät toisiinsa erottamattomasti. Nykykeskusteluissa työstä ja työelämästä rationalisointi jaetaan usein tekniseen fordistiseen rationalisointiin ja sitä tunteellisempaan postfordistiseen rationalisointiin. Tämä tutkimus osoittaa, affektiivisen rationalisoinnin käsitteen kautta, että työn vanhat ja uudet tieteet asettuvat jatkumoon. Työn tieteissä tietoa työläisestä tuotetaan asettamalla ominaisuuksia aina uudelleen määriteltävään työläisen luokittuneeseen ja sukupuolittuneeseen affektiiviseen figuuriin. Tiedon tuottamisen näkökulmasta muun muassa tayloristiset työn tehostamisen fantasiat, ihmissuhdekoulukunnan ideologiat sekä uuden työn autonomiset järjestykset sisältävät yhtenäisiä piirteitä. Tutkimuksen pääkysymys on: miten affekteja rationalisoidaan työssä, työn tieteissä ja niiden kerrostumissa. Tutkimuksessa kysytään myös, miten affekti kiinnittää luokittuneet ja sukupuolittuneet subjektit työn rationalisoinnin aatteeseen ja millaisia mahdollisuuksia työläiseksi tulemiseen niissä tarjotaan. Kysymystä lähestytään monipuolisen aineiston ja lukuisten teemojen kautta. Aineistoina toimivat muun muassa rationalisoinnin klassikko-teokset, operaismo-vaikutteisen prekariaattiliikkeen pamfletit, ajatushautomoiden uuden työn visiot, self-help-teokset uranaisille sekä Helsingin Sanomien työelämäkeskustelut. Tutkimuksen monipuolista aineistoa lähiluetaan ja tulkitaan siihen luodun erityisen metodologian kautta, joka koostuu kolmesta osa-alueesta: historiallistaminen, paikantuminen ja figuurit. Kaksi ensimmäistä korostavat kontekstien ja position merkitystä tiedon tuotannossa, kolmas osoittaa tiedon tuottamisen valtasuhteita. Työn tieteiden visiot ideaalityöläisestä materialisoituvat figuurien kautta negaatioina kuvaten sitä, millainen ideaalityöläinen ei ole. Väitöskirja aineistoineen paikantuu Suomeen, mutta se osoittaa työn tieteiden ja affektiivisen rationalisoinnin globaaliutta sekä sidonnaisuutta Yhdysvaltoihin, sen yrityskulttuuriin ja esimerkiksi työtehotutkimuksiin Hawthornen elektroniikkatehtaalla vuosina 1924–1933. Väitöskirja tuo uusia näkökulmia nykykeskusteluun työstä, työläisistä, kapitalismista ja affekteista. Se osoittaa, että itsen tuntemisen ja kertomisen tieteitä, kuten psykologiaa, tarjotaan usein ratkaisuksi kapitalistisen tuotannon aiheuttamiin suuriin ja pieniin kurjuuksiin, vaikka terapeuttinen tunnekulttuuri itsessään on muodostunut osana rationalisoinnin ja kapitalismin ambivalentteja kehiä. Tutkimus myös muistuttaa, että työn järjestyksien keskiössä säilyy työläisen ja affektitehtaan konflikti silloinkin, kun fordistinen imperatiivi ”älä!” vaihtuu postfordistiseen kehotukseen ”tunne”.

Visual Customer Segmentation and Data Exploration with the Self-Organizing Map

Advancements in information technology have made it possible for organizations to gather and store vast amounts of data of their customers. Information stored in databases can be highly valuable for organizations. However, analyzing large databases has proven to be difficult in practice. For companies in the retail industry, customer intelligence can be used to identify profitable customers, their characteristics, and behavior. By clustering customers into homogeneous groups, companies can more effectively manage their customer base and target profitable customer segments. This thesis will study the use of the self-organizing map (SOM) as a method for analyzing large customer datasets, clustering customers, and discovering information about customer behavior. Aim of the thesis is to find out whether the SOM could be a practical tool for retail companies to analyze their customer data.

Business intelligence – enabling self-service: A case study in a global manufacturing company

Business intelligence (BI) is an information process that includes the activities and applications used to transform business data into valuable business information. Today’s enterprises are collecting detailed data which has increased the available business data drastically. In order to meet changing customer needs and gain competitive advantage businesses try to leverage this information. However, IT departments are struggling to meet the increased amount of reporting needs. Therefore, recent shift in the BI market has been towards empowering business users with self-service BI capabilities. The purpose of this study was to understand how self-service BI could help businesses to meet increased reporting demands. The research problem was approached with an empirical single case study. Qualitative data was gathered with a semi-structured, theme-based interview. The study found out that case company’s BI system was mostly used for group performance reporting. Ad-hoc and business user-driven information needs were mostly fulfilled with self-made tools and manual work. It was felt that necessary business information was not easily available. The concept of self-service BI was perceived to be helpful to meet such reporting needs. However, it was found out that the available data is often too complex for an average user to fully understand. The respondents felt that in order to self-service BI to work, the data has to be simplified and described in a way that it can be understood by the average business user. The results of the study suggest that BI programs struggle in meeting all the information needs of today’s businesses. The concept of self-service BI tries to resolve this problem by allowing users easy self-service access to necessary business information. However, business data is often complex and hard to understand. Self-serviced BI has to overcome this challenge before it can reach its potential benefits.

Quality of outsourced IT services in different degrees of offshoring

The Finnish IT service market can be described to be at a turning point. The clients are ever more interested on services delivered from offshore but certain issues keep them cautious. There is a lack of knowledge on what implications different degrees of offshoring have on service quality. Although there has been significant amount of research related to both service quality and offshoring, several questions are unanswered, terminology remains ambivalent and research findings are inconsistent. The study focuses on the interception of these two fields. The purpose of the study is to learn more about service quality in different degrees of offshoring. At the same time it aims to contribute in narrowing the research gaps. The degree of offshoring can be divided to three delivery modes: onshore, collaboration and offshore. The study takes a mixed method approach where the quantitative and qualitative phases are executed sequentially. First data was gathered from incident management system. Resolution time in different degrees of offshoring was analyzed with Kruskal-Wallis and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests. In addition, the compliance to Service Level Agreement (SLA) in different degrees of offshoring was examined with cross tabulation. The findings from the quantitative analysis suggested that the services with offshore delivery mode perform the best in terms of promptness and SLA compliance. However, several issues were found related to the data and for that reason, the findings should be considered with prudence. After the quantitative analysis, the study moved on to qualitative data collection and analysis. Four semi-structured interviews were held. The interviewees represented different organizational roles and had experiences from different delivery modes. Several themes were covered in the interviews, including: the concept of quality, the subjectivity or objectivity of service quality, expectations and prejudices towards offshore deliveries, quality produced in India, proactiveness of offshore resources, quality indicators and the scarcity of collaborative deliveries. Several conclusions can be made from the empirical research. Firstly, the quality in different delivery modes was found to be controversial topic. Secondly, in the collaborative delivery covered in the study, the way tasks and resources are allocated seem to cause issues. On the other hand inexperienced offshore resources are assigned to the delivery and on the other hand only routine tasks are assigned to the resources. This creates a self-enforcing loop that results in low motivation, low ownership and high employee turnover in offshore. Nevertheless, this issue is not characteristic only to collaborative deliveries but rather allocation of tasks and resources. Moreover, prejudices were identified to affect the perceived service quality in non-predictable way. The research also demonstrated that there is a need in focal company for further data gathering and analysis.

Business intelligence – enabling self-service: A case study in a global manufacturing company

Business intelligence (BI) is an information process that includes the activities and applications used to transform business data into valuable business information. Today’s enterprises are collecting detailed data which has increased the available business data drastically. In order to meet changing customer needs and gain competitive advantage businesses try to leverage this information. However, IT departments are struggling to meet the increased amount of reporting needs. Therefore, recent shift in the BI market has been towards empowering business users with self-service BI capabilities. The purpose of this study was to understand how self-service BI could help businesses to meet increased reporting demands. The research problem was approached with an empirical single case study. Qualitative data was gathered with a semi-structured, theme-based interview. The study found out that case company’s BI system was mostly used for group performance reporting. Ad-hoc and business user-driven information needs were mostly fulfilled with self-made tools and manual work. It was felt that necessary business information was not easily available. The concept of self-service BI was perceived to be helpful to meet such reporting needs. However, it was found out that the available data is often too complex for an average user to fully understand. The respondents felt that in order to self-service BI to work, the data has to be simplified and described in a way that it can be understood by the average business user. The results of the study suggest that BI programs struggle in meeting all the information needs of today’s businesses. The concept of self-service BI tries to resolve this problem by allowing users easy self-service access to necessary business information. However, business data is often complex and hard to understand. Self-serviced BI has to overcome this challenge before it can reach its potential benefits.

Expressing the self in postmodern travel consumption: a case study of students

The study approaches student travel from the perspective of postmodern consumption. The background is in the observation that the student travel market has a vast potential, but it is not necessarily capitalized upon to the extent it could. This might partly have to do with the peculiarities of postmodernity: consumption is characterized by unpredictability and abstract motives. The research questions are built around what constitutes student travel consumption and how can students be categorized according to motivation, behaviour and values. Also identity and expressiveness are present and it is evaluated, if travel services facilitate these background is the observation that the student travel market has a vast potential, but it is not necessarily capitalized upon to the extent it could be. This might partly have to do with the peculiarities of postmodernity: consumption is characterized by unpredictability and abstract motives. The research questions are built around what constitutes student travel consumption and how can students be categorized according to motivation, behaviour and values. Also identity and expressiveness are present and it is evaluated whether travel services facilitate these constructs. The topic is approached by discovering the key concepts such as self-identity. This was done in order to create survey questions that reflect the underlying theories. The survey was sent to chosen student groups of Turku School of Economics. The data was analyzed using statistical methods, mainly principal component analysis, in order to categorize students’ motives and behaviour into distinct profiles. The findings indicate that students have a high level of awareness in their travel consumption choices. Travel services seem to facilitate identity and lifestyle expressiveness, one central dimension of postmodernity. Psychographics such as motivation seem to work well as a segmentation criteria when it comes to the student traveler market. Travel offers students an opportunity for relaxation, escape, enjoyment and gaining new experiences and social contacts. Furthermore, the enjoyment of the travel experience extends to the pre- and post-trip time.