Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on
Networked Learning 2010, Edited by:
Dirckinck-Holmfeld L, Hodgson V, Jones C,
de Laat M, McConnell D & Ryberg T

361
ISBN 978-1-86220-225-2

The challenge of supporting networked personal inquiry
learning across contexts
Eileen Scanlon, Lucinda Kerawalla, Mark Gaved, Ann Jones, Trevor Collins, Paul
Mulholland, Canan Blake, Marilena Petrou, Karen Littleton
Institute of Educational Technology, Open University, e.scanlon@open.ac.uk

Abstract
Supporting learning across different contexts can be challenging. Defining formal, informal and non-
formal learning is the subject of continuing debate as each can be difficult to describe. We report on a
study that evaluated the effectiveness of a Personal Inquiry toolkit on supporting personal inquiries
into the sustainability of the food cycle, carried out across the contexts of home and an after school
club in a UK secondary school. The toolkit consisted of a web-based Sustainability Investigator that
could be accessed from any location, together with a selection of data-gathering tools such as
environmental sensors (e.g. temperature probes) and cameras. It was designed to support students
through the process of carrying out inquiries within the club and between the club and their home.
Our main focus here is on describing how the Sustainability Investigator supported students’ inquiries
that were conceived and designed within the club and conducted at home. The 30 students (aged 12-
14 years) chose to investigate home food storage, packaging and preservation. Our focus is on
exploring the nature of the semi-formal club context and how this mediated students’ use of the
Sustainability Investigator. Analysis of our field notes, log files of students’ use of the Sustainability
Investigator, together with video and audio recordings of club sessions and interviews with teachers
and pupils, suggest that while the pupils’ use of the toolkit across contexts was sporadic and varied
between students, they successfully completed personally relevant inquiries and developed positive
attitudes to the process. This was different to the predictable, sustained and consistent use of the
toolkit identified in our previous studies when the students used it (again successfully) to support
their inquiries in a formal classroom setting (see e.g. Scanlon et al. 2009). Three main features of the
school club context that mediated the ways in which the Sustainability Investigator was used by the
students across contexts were: 1) the students’ aims and priorities, 2) affordances and constraints of
the technology, and 3) institutional priorities. We use this example of a study of learning across
contexts to suggest implications of the work for the potential of a Personal Inquiry toolkit to support
learning across the life course.
Keywords
Learning across contexts, Semi-formal Learning, Inquiry Learning

Introduction

The Personal Inquiry (PI) project, funded by the Technology Enhanced Learning Program, is a three year joint
activity between the Open University and University of Nottingham (http://www.pi-project.ac.uk/). It is
researching how students can be helped to learn the skills of evidence-based inquiry (Collins et al. 2008). We
are particularly interested in how technology can be used to enhance learning across formal and informal
settings. A key issue for the project is how to design support for evidence-based inquiry learning using a
‘scripted inquiry learning’ approach. We are working with children between the ages of 12 and 15 who are
conducting a range of inquiries in science and geography. We have produced a personal inquiry toolkit. This
toolkit, running on a mini-laptop, provides ‘scripts’ that guide the learners through a process of gathering and
assessing evidence and conducting experiments on topic themes of relevance to the UK National Curriculum.
The toolkit consists of a range of scientific data gathering equipment such as Sciencescope sensors and cameras
plus a web-based application that supports students’ progress through the stages of the scientific inquiry process
(named Sustainability Investigator for the current study, in response to a teacher’s request, and will be referred
to as such in this paper).

Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on
Networked Learning 2010, Edited by:
Dirckinck-Holmfeld L, Hodgson V, Jones C,
de Laat M, McConnell D & Ryberg T

362
ISBN 978-1-86220-225-2


Over the past two years over two hundred students have been involved in a range of inquiries as part of the
project. These investigations have included students in:

1) Investigations on diet: where students made predictions as to the nutritional quality of their diet, testing these
by keeping a diary of their meals and snacks and then used these to work out their nutritional intake
(Anastopoulou et al., 2009);
2) An Urban Heat Islands investigation: where students developed hypotheses on how temperature varies across
an urban area, making measurements and observations, and using these to explain variations; (Collins et al.,
2008)
3) Investigations on Microclimates: where students decided where in the school grounds would be the best
locations for different types of activity such as flying a kite, planting a flower garden, or locating a picnic bench,
and then collected scientific data at different locations in order to test their predictions (Mulholland et al., 2009).

The design of the Sustainability Investigator is informed by the development of a personal inquiry framework
(see Figure 1). We have used this framework as an intermediate representation of the inquiry learning process
which underlies the design of our activities. It was developed from our review of the inquiry learning literature,
mainly school based studies but also incorporated studies with older learners in higher education (see e.g. Brew,
2003, Johnson, 2009). The together with the results of pilot studies identifying particular areas of difficulty for
young people pursuing inquiries (see Scanlon et al. (in preparation) for further details). The Sustainability
Investigator presents the inquiry process in terms of phases (e.g. Plan my Methods) that consist of associated
activities (e.g. Choose my Measures) (see Figure 1 and associated text for more details).



















Figure 1: An intermediate representation of the personal inquiry framework

The focus of this paper is on evaluating the effectiveness of the web-based Sustainability Investigator in
supporting students in carrying out personal inquiries across the contexts of an after-school club and their home.
We report on a study that involved 30 students and 3 teachers who attended an after-school club – Sustainability
Club –that aimed to investigate the sustainability of the food production cycle. Important features of the contexts
of both the club and the students’ homes resulted in sporadic club attendance and varying degrees of activity
being carried out at home, but students successfully completed inquiries and developed positive attitudes to the
processes involved in inquiry learning and to the topic of sustainability.

Informal Learning

Vavoula (2004) presents a typology of learning based on the presence of, and control over, the goals and the
process of learning (see Figure 2). She defines intentional formal learning as occurring when either the goals or
the process of learning, or both, are explicitly defined by a teacher or an institution. She defines unintentional,
Find my topic
Decide my inquiry question
or hypothesis
Plan my methods,
equipment, actions
Collect my data Analyse and represent my
data
Respond to my question or
hypothesis
Share and discuss my
inquiry
Reflect on my progress