HABITUS PROFILES AS INDICATORS OF BRUNEI STUDENTS’ DISPOSITIONS TOWARDS LEARNING IN ONLINE LEARNING SYSTEMS A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 PENGIRAN S PENGIRAN OMARALI SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT Blank page 2 List of Contents List of Contents 3 List of Figures 8 List of tables 9 List of Boxes 10 Definition of terms 11 List of Abbreviations 13 List of previous work 14 Abstract 15 Declaration 16 Intellectual Property StateMent 16 Acknowledgments 17 About the author 18 Chapter 1. Introduction to the research 19 1.1. Research background 19 1.2. Statement of the problem 20 1.3. Research setting 22 1.4. Research thesis 24 1.5. Research obJective 25 1.6. Significance of this research 26 1.7. Outline of the thesis 27 Chapter 2. Literature review 30 2.1. Introduction 30 2.2. An overview of online learning 31 2.3. Online learning tools 33 2.3.1. Adaptive Online Learning Systems 35 2.3.2. Multimodal Online Learning Systems (MOLS) 37 2.3.3. Personalised Learning Environments 39 2.4. Online learners and who they are/ they are not 41 2.5. Rationales for online learner profiling 47 2.5.1. Profiling learners based on their demographic traits 48 2.5.2. Defining heterogeneity and dynamicity 50 2.5.3. Profiling learners based on their dispositions 53 Learning styles 56 Personality 59 Study habits (skills and strategies) 61 Technology-driven dispositions 63 2.5.4. A summary on learner profiling using learner theories 66 2.6. Profiling learners based on a combination of learning models 68 3 2.7. Bourdieu’s theory as a theoretical framework 70 2.7.1. Defining the habitus 70 2.7.2. The interplay between Bourdieu’s key constructs 73 2.7.3. Criticisms on Bourdieu’s theory 75 2.8. Research questions 79 2.9. Chapter summary 81 Chapter 3. Preliminary research strategy 84 3.1. Introduction 84 3.2. Establishing the research paradigm 85 3.3. First pilot study 89 3.3.1. Designing the pilot questionnaire 89 3.3.2. Sampling and piloting the questionnaire 91 3.3.3. Analysing the pilot questionnaire 92 3.3.4. Results of first pilot study 93 3.4. Second pilot study 94 3.4.1. Designing the pilot interview schedule 94 3.4.2. Sampling and conducting the pilot interview 98 3.4.3. Analysing the pilot interview 98 First Cycle Coding 99 Second Cycle Coding 99 Post-coding and results 100 3.5. Research strategy and research approach 103 3.6. Conclusion 104 Chapter 4. Methodology 106 4.1. Introduction 106 4.2. Sequential Transformative Mixed Method design – An overview 107 4.3. Justifications for using a questionnaire 110 4.4. The final design of the questionnaire 111 Stages 1 to 4 112 Stages 5 to 8 112 Stages 9 to 12 113 4.5. Analysing quantitative data using Factor Analysis 113 4.6. Justifications for the qualitative interview method 116 4.7. The final design of the interview 117 4.8. Two-Cycle Coding as the method of analysing qualitative data 120 4.9. Abductive inferencing as the method of analysing mixed data 123 4.10. Population and sample 125 4.10.1. Background of the target population 125 4.10.2. Sample and sampling criteria 128 4.10.3. Ethical considerations 129 4.11. Conducting the research 131 4.11.1. Recruitment of participants 131 4.11.2. Online administration of the OLP-28 questionnaire 132 4.11.3. Performing interviews via web-conferencing 132 4.11.4. Organising and storing data 133 4.12. Chapter summary 134 4 Chapter 5: Quantitative analyses, results and findings 135 5.1. Introduction 135 5.2. Identifying latent variables through Factor Analysis 136 5.2.1. Descriptive statistics 136 5.2.2. Frequency and distribution of responses on individual items 140 5.2.3. Identifying the suitability of the data for Exploratory Factor Analysis 143 5.2.4. Exploratory Factor Analysis 144 5.2.5. Labelling the 6 Factors 147 5.3. Identifying respondents’ profiles using the 6-factor model 149 5.3.1. Generating respondents’ factor scores 149 5.3.2. The subJective truncation of factor scores 150 5.3.3. The subJective simplification of truncated factor scores 154 5.3.4. The early indicators of habitus types 156 5.3.5. Considerations of other simplifcation strategies 157 5.4. Inferencing the number and types of habitus 159 5.5. The Habitus Lattice 162 5.6. Validity and reliability 168 5.7. Chapter summary 169 Chapter 6: Qualitative analyses, results and findings 170 6.1. Introduction 170 6.2. Describing the sample 171 6.3. Describing the interviewees 173 Type A interviewees 174 Type B interviewees 175 Type C interviewees 176 Type D interviewees 176 Type E interviewees (and Ec variant = Erawan) 177 Type F interviewees (and Fb variant = Fadillah) 178 Type G interviewees 178 6.4. Coding the interviews 179 6.4.1. Holistic Coding 180 Holistic code 1: The impact of moving to college (environment) 180 Holistic code 2: Technology in everyday life (technology) 181 Holistic code 3: The role of other people (social agents) 182 6.4.2. First Cycle Coding: Inductively identifying codes and categories 183 6.4.3. Mapping the First-Cycle codes 185 6.4.4. Second Cycle Coding: Deductively comparing habitus types 189 Technology category 190 Learning category 195 Social Agent category 200 Environment category 204 Personal category 207 6.4.5. Comparing members of the same habitus 213 Type A - Ahmad, Amirul and Amal 214 Type B - Bakar and Bahrin 215 Type C - Chuchu and Catrina 216 Type D - Diana and Danial 216 Type E - Emran, Eddy and Erawan 217 Type F - Faisal and Fakrul 218 5 Type G - Gina and Ghaffar 219 6.5. Triangulation of responses on the 6 factors 220 6.6. Trustworthiness 224 6.7. Chapter summary 226 Chapter 7. Discussion 228 7.1. Introduction 228 7.2. Part 1: Interpreting the habitus 229 7.2.1. The heterogeneity of learner habitus 230 7.2.2. The interconnectivity of learner habitus 232 7.2.3. The dynamicity of learner habitus 234 7.2.4. Conatus: The causes for learner habitus to shift 236 7.2.5. Limitations of the Lattice Theory 238 7.3. Part 2: Responses to the research questions 242 7.3.1. RQ1: What are the different types of habitus? 243 The Industrious learner 243 The Fragmentary learner 244 The Innovator 244 The Direct learner 245 The Selective Learner 246 The Avant-garde learner 247 The Synergic learner 248 7.3.2. RQ2: How might a learner’s habitus influence how he or she performs in an online learning system? 249 The Industrious learner 249 The Fragmentary learner 251 The Innovator 253 The Direct Learner 255 The Selective Learner 257 The Avant-garde learner 258 The Synergic Learner 259 7.3.3. RQ3: What online learning systems are capable of catering for the different types of learner habitus? 264 7.4. Chapter summary 269 Chapter 8: Conclusion and recomMendations 272 8.1. A summary of the literature 273 8.2. A summary of the answers to the research questions 274 8.3. Limitations of the study 276 8.4. Recommendations 277 8.4.1. Moving forward: An online learning profiling toolkit 278 8.4.2. Moving forward: Revising the research 279 8.5. Final reflections 280 References 282 APPENDICES 317 Appendix A – Amendment of items from OLP V.1 to OLP V.2 317 Appendix B – Results from the OLP V.2 pilot study 322 Appendix C – Results from the First Coding Cycle of the Second Pilot Study 324 6 Appendix D – Consent form 332 Appendix E – Participant Information Sheet 334 Appendix F – Principal Component Analysis for item reduction purpose 335 Appendix G – Output from the final Exploratory Factor Analysis 338 Appendix H – Results of cluster analyses 341 Appendix I – List of codes as Nvivo nodes generated from 17 interview transcripts 343 Appendix J – Selected interview transcripts 345 Appendix K – Sample transcripts 358 Total number of words: 74,143 7 List of Figures Figure 1. Timeline of studies on 'digital natives' and their sample pool ............................... 45 Figure 2. The habitus: The interactions of capitals and dispositions within a learner .......... 71 Figure 3. The 'practice': The interaction of the learner habitus and the field ...................... 72 Figure 4. Phase B interview: Semi-structured interview questions ...................................... 96 Figure 5. Phase C interview: Structured and formal interview questions ............................ 97 Figure 6. Phase D: Informal interview questions .................................................................. 98 Figure 7. Habitus Type A (pilot study) ................................................................................. 101 Figure 8. Habitus Type B (pilot study) ................................................................................. 102 Figure 9. Research strategy flowchart ................................................................................ 103 Figure 10. The Sequential Transformative Mixed Method Design research trail ............... 109 Figure 11. The 12 stages of designing the OLP questionnaire ............................................ 111 Figure 12. Structured-unstructured interview type antipodes ........................................... 118 Figure 13. Focused non-directed interview type antipodes .............................................. 118 Figure 14. The pilot interview schedule .............................................................................. 120 Figure 15. Gender distribution of sample ........................................................................... 137 Figure 16. Age distribution of sample from 16 to 21 years old .......................................... 137 Figure 17. Distribution based on respondents' previous online learning experience ........ 138 Figure 18. Output from raw data Parallel Analysis of OLP-28 showing cut-off at 6 factors 145 Figure 19. Scree plot eigenvalue comparison of raw data (OLP-28) and permutations ..... 146 Figure 20. Labels of the 6 Factor model and their corresponding items ............................ 148 Figure 21. Excerpt of respondents' factor scores based on Bartlett's factor scoring ......... 149 Figure 22. Stack bar chart of 6-factor score combinations for 407 cases ..........................