Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 B, Didactics
Paper Session
Contribution
Being able to learn independently is indispensable for successfully organizing your time at university. Individual learners are influenced by the teaching practices in higher education, which are often primarily shaped by university lecturers. However, ideas about the design and requirements of self-study often remain vague for this group (Gerber, 2023). One way to address this challenge is to familiarize lecturers with different conceptual understandings and design dimensions of self-study, particularly in light of the fact that the German-speaking scientific discourse on concepts of self-study has so far been largely independent of the rich theoretical and empirical work on related concepts such as self-directed, self-regulated, and self-organized learning (e.g. Dyrna, 2021). Thematizing own ideas and concepts of self-study, especially from an international comparative perspective, seems to open up new opportunities to contribute to the further development of self-study in the European Higher Education Area. Such thematization and reflection were undertaken with lecturers from Germany and Ukraine as part of three workshops on higher education didactics.
Based on the theoretical assumption that metaphors, in particular, have an influence on thinking, speaking, and action (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), the hypothesis can be derived that the metaphors used by university lecturers to describe self-study reflect their ideas of academic teaching and learning and have an impact on their didactic activities. Lakoff and Johnson (2003) propose that our "unreflected everyday actions [Author's translation.]" and our "everyday language [Author's translation.]" are largely structured by metaphorical concepts. In the following, a metaphor is understood as a transfer of meaning "from one area to another" (Schmitt, 2017, p. 39). A "metaphorical concept" is a bundling of corresponding individual metaphorical phrases and formulations (Schmitt, 2017). Rau and Kosubski (2019) view metaphors in learning and educational contexts as having the potential to express individual and collective ideas about specific topics linguistically and to make them accessible for reflection because they "bundle specific individual or cultural patterns of thought, perception, feeling, and action [Author's translation.]" (Schmitt, 2017, p. 52). The reconstruction of metaphorical concepts opens up opportunities for reflection regarding the linguistic means of one's own didactic expressiveness as well as the everyday language of certain target groups (Rau & Kosubski, 2019). The potential of metaphors as tools for reflection is being discussed and examined, particularly in the English- and German-speaking debate in higher education didactics (e.g. Ekoç-Özçelik 2022; Scharlau, 2020; Bager-Elsborg & Greve 2019; Wegner & Nückles, 2013; Visser-Wijnveen et al., 2009).
The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the perceptions and beliefs of university lecturers regarding the concept of self-study through the use of metaphors. In pursuit of this overarching goal, the research addresses the following questions:
- Which metaphors do university lecturers employ to depict self-study?
- How do university teachers conceptualize their role as educators in the context of self-study with respect to the chosen metaphors?
- What disparities exist in the metaphors and interpretations between teachers in Ukraine and Germany?
Method
Sample: Thirty-nine lecturers (35 women and 4 men) from Germany and Ukraine took part in this study. They were university lecturers who attended a workshop on digital teaching and the design of self-study, which was developed as part of the ViBeS project. The workshop was voluntary for all lecturers and took place in September 2022 and August 2023 at the University of Vechta in Germany and once digitally as part of a collaboration with Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University in Ukraine. In the sample, 27% are employed as scientific staff, 27% as employees with a focus on teaching in higher education and 46% as professors. The participant groups had diverse discipline affiliations. They have been working in university teaching for between less than two years and more than twenty years. Instrument: During three workshops, the lecturers were instructed to create a metaphor that explicitly compared self-study to something else, using the format "Self-study is like...". They were also asked to provide an explanation for the chosen metaphor. These compositions served as the primary data sources for the study. Procedure: The process involved collecting metaphors and explanations during an asynchronous preparation phase for a synchronous workshop. Participants were given text fields to elaborate on explicit comparisons and to formulate corresponding explanations or interpretations of the selected metaphors in a learning management system. A total of 38 metaphors were formulated by the participating lecturers. During the workshop, the emphasis was on stimulating discussions based on the previously formulated ideas and confronting alternative views and perspectives on self-study. Additionally, the teachers engaged in developing and discussing a group metaphor using the think-pair-share method. Data analysis: Based on the outlined data collection, the aim of a metaphor analysis was to gain insights into the lecturers' concepts and the linguistic and didactic articulation options for describing self-study. For this purpose, metaphorical concepts of self-study (Schmitt, 2017) were reconstructed. The methodological implementation was based on the project by Rau and Kosubski (2019) on the analysis of metaphors for digital media. The analysis was carried out in three steps, which were iterated in a circular procedure: (1) Identification of the source domains and elements of the target domain; (2) Reconstruction of the transfers of meaning; and (3) Reconstruction of the metaphorical concepts. The processed data and results were discussed in a research group for communicative validation of various analysis steps.
Expected Outcomes
The metaphors that emerged reveal a variety of original ways of expressing self-study. Most lecturers described self-study as a process. Some of these processes had a specific goal (e.g. preparing for a half marathon), while others were ongoing processes (e.g. cycling through different landscapes) or were conceptualized with an uncertain outcome and path (e.g. walking in darkness; making a first parachute jump without an instructor). Only a few participants directly described their role as lecturers in the context of self-study (e.g. as advisors or supporters). The initial results and the workshop concept appear promising for the professional development of university lecturers for two reasons. The reconstructed metaphorical concepts emphasize different aspects of academic teaching and learning in the context of self-study and express them metaphorically. For example, the concept "SELF-STUDY AS EXERCISE/TRAINING" focuses on the acquisition of knowledge and skills in the sense of the appropriation metaphor of learning (Wegner & Nückles, 2013). In contrast, the concept "SELF-STUDY AS VISIBLE MOVEMENT (WITH SUPPORT)" conceptualizes self-study as more student-oriented, giving students more choice in their learning process and seeing lecturers as supporters. The (international) comparative consideration of the different concepts thus offers various opportunities for discussion and reflection on the design of self-study in an age of uncertainty. On this basis, it is possible to discuss the consequences for the professionalization of university lecturers in media and higher education didactics regarding the design of cooperative and collaborative learning in self-study, and to derive concrete implications from the results for workshops.
References
Bager-Elsborg, A., & Greve, L. (2019). Establishing a method for analysing metaphors in higher education teaching: A case from business management teaching. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(7), 1329–1342. Dyrna, J. (2021). Selbstgesteuert, -organisiert, -bestimmt, -reguliert? Versuch einer theoretischen Abgrenzung. In J. Dyrna, J. Riedel, S. Schulze-Achatz, & T. Köhler (Eds.), Selbstgesteuertes Lernen in der beruflichen Weiterbildung: Ein Handbuch für Theorie und Praxis (pp. 84–106). Waxmann. Ekoç-Özçelik, A. (2022). Metaphors as Trails of University English Language Instructors’ Perceptions about Emergency Remote Teaching in Turkey. TEFLIN Journal - A Publication on the Teaching and Learning of English, 33(2), 257. Gerber, L. (2023). Was ist Selbststudium? Gestaltungsdimensionen des Selbststudiums im erweiterten Bildungsraum. In H. Rundnagel & K. Hombach (Eds.), Kompetenzen im digitalen Lehr- und Lernraum an Hochschulen (Vol. 140, pp. 83–93). wbv Publikation. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Rau, F., & Kosubski, I. (2019). «Digitale Medien sind wie Pilze»: Eine Analyse studentischer Metaphern zu digitalen Medien. MedienPädagogik: Zeitschrift Für Theorie Und Praxis Der Medienbildung, 36, 81–96. Scharlau, I. (2020). Fachkulturen unter der Lupe: Metaphern in Reflexionen über die Lehre. Hochschuldidaktik im Spiegel der Fachkulturen, 6(25), 376–387. Schmitt, R. (2017). Systematische Metaphernanalyse als Methode der qualitativen Sozialforschung. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. Visser-Wijnveen, G. J., Van Driel, J. H., Van Der Rijst, R. M., Verloop, N., & Visser, A. (2009). The relationship between academics’ conceptions of knowledge, research and teaching – a metaphor study. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(6), 673–686. Wegner, E., & Nückles, M. (2013). Kompetenzerwerb oder Enkulturation? Lehrende und ihre Metaphern des Lernens. Zeitschrift Für Hochschulentwicklung, 8(1), 15–29.
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