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Volume 3 Issue 2 September 2005
Learning Logs:
Assessment or Research Method?
Tim Friesner1 and Mike Hart2
1Business and
Management, University of Chichester, UK
2Business Management
Group, University of Winchester, UK
t.friesner@ucc.ac.uk
mike.hart@winchester.ac.uk
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A learning log is a vehicle that is used to assess learning
from experience. Logs are an increasingly popular tool, often used in
conjunction with work placements, work-based learning or courses that are
underpinned by a philosophy that action learning is a pedagogical approach
that best achieves learning outcomes. Learning logs are viewed firmly as
an assessment. They are ideal for encouraging learners to reflect on
learning, and they have a structure that is quite different to traditional
assessments such as essays and reports. However they are also a source of
reflective data. So for example, if one has 10 learning logs from 10
students that record learning over 10 weeks of work with 10 different
companies, not only do you have 10 assessments, but also 10 case studies
with very rich reflective data. From this perspective there is the
potential to consider learning logs as not only an assessment but also as
a research method. This paper evaluates the proposition that logs are a
research method. It initially considers learning logs as an assessment and
examines the nature and value of reflection. Then the structures of logs
as both mode of assessment and research method are compared. An experiment
using logs as a research method is described. Here data capture is
discussed, and a integrated approach for interpreting the data is
re-introduced (Friesner and Hart 2005). Finally the nature of reality and
learning logs is examined, based upon Bannister 2005, before conclusions
are made.
Keywords: Learning
logs, research method, reflection, learning, experiential learning,
experience.
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