Variation in Students’ Perceptions of Others for Learning

Abstract

This chapter presents a description of variation in students’ perceptions of human others as contributors to their networked learning experiences. This description attends to the considerable boundary crossing tacitly implied in an invitation to networked learning for students who are used to classroom-based lectures. This description of variation is the result of phenomenographic research which sought to understand different students’ perceptions as distinct simultaneously related. Students’ perceptions are constituted in terms of an open and inclusive hierarchical structure comprised of three qualitatively distinct ways of perceiving human others as contributors to learning in a formal networked learning environment. Distinct perceptions of other students and of teachers are proposed as in pairwise alignment. Perceptions are emphasised as fluid and situationally bound in practice. No less there is the suggestion that in deepening awareness students and teachers gravitate towards becoming teachers and learners for each other. This description may serve agents and actors of networked learning to positively assess their views, to acknowledge and accommodate diversity and to constructively work towards increasingly sophisticated ways of understanding and approaching learning with and through human others using networked technologies.