Peer to Peer Adult Learning Engagement in Online Collaborative Learning: Characteristics and Learning Outcomes
Adam AbediniFaculty of Engineering & IT
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
/ Babak Abedin
Faculty of Engineering & IT
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Iwona Miliszewska
Faculty of Engineering & IT
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Abstract
While many studies have investigated younger learners in formal and structured online environments, adult learning in informal and unstructured online space is under-researched. This paper thus presents preliminary results of a systematic review on adult learners’ peer to peer (P2P) interactions in online collaborative learning environments. In total, 31 studies were selected based on predefined selection criteria and reviewed by means of a narrative review method to thematically gather information across the studies. The first aim of this review was to investigate the terminologies used to define adult P2P engagement in online collaborative learning environments. Secondly, the review investigated the impacts of P2P adult learners’ engagement in learning outcomes. Thirdly, this study examined factors that may facilitate and hinder P2P adults’ engagements in such environments. Although the contributors to achievement in online contexts appear to be generalised, most papers investigate effects of peer to peer adult learning on learning outcomes. These effects appear broad and suggest that (1) they may be more specialized way to improve adult learning efficiency, and (2) there are various unexplored factors that may be more important in facilitating peer to peer adult learning in on-line collaborative learning enlivenments.
Keywords: Peer-to-peer engagement, learning outcomes, online collaborative learning, Review
1.Introduction
Understanding how adult learners engage with their peers in online collaborative learning environments is increasingly important, as more adults choose online platforms to engage into learning practice and personal development (Broadbent et al. 2015; Choo et al. 2013; Malinen, 2015; Pavalache-Ilie et al. 2014; Salaber 2014). Concerning the effect of P2P adult learning practice on learning outcome, we would expect the extent of adult-related differences to the type of learning characteristics in an online collaborative learning environment. For example, it is not clear how the adults engage with their peers with learning material to achieve learning outcomes (Brookfield, 1995) and it seems adult learning practice is mostly a continuous activity during learners’ life time (Salleh, 2015) rather than a short-term activity towards a degree with the pure direction from instructors (Ference et al., 1998). Also adults deal with a lot of life challenges these days including busy time frame, multiple career roles in society and living longer (Crecone, 2008) and transition from traditional learning environment to online collaborative learning environment adds more difficulties to the adult learning practice (Eastmond, 1998); therefore the focus of this research is to conceptualize adult learners’ characteristics in online collaborative learning environments and investigate how adult learners engage with their peers in online collaborative learning environment and how this effects on learning outcomes.
Learning engagement in online collaborative environments can be categorised in various ways. For example, Salaber (2014) divided that into engagement with the coordinator/instructor, engagement with faculty or the learning organization, and engagement with their peers. Pellas et al. (2013) categorised engagement as interaction with others (peers) or interaction with a learning environment and university. The focus of this paper is on adult learners’ engagement with their peers, and whether and how this may relate to their learning outcomes in online collaborative learning environment. While a growing body of research focuses on engagement in online collaborative learning environments (Han et al. 2014), few studies have targeted adult P2P learning engagement and its effects on learning practices. Previous researchers have investigated aspects of engagement such as its effects on learners’ capabilities (Artino, 2012), deeper aspects of their interaction with online collaborative learning environments (Limbu et al. 2014), level of engagement in the online environment (Esteban-Millat et al., 2013; Nam, 2014), the specific type of engagement needed to achieve academic goals (Hung et al., 2014), and theirP2P engagement skills (Kuong, 2014). The literature on online learning to date has stressed the value of all learners’ engagement in achieving better learning outcomes (Kuong, 2015), and that the capabilities of online collaborative environments facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P)engagement (Hew, 2014). However, effective P2P adult learning engagement requires more focus on adult learning characteristics and its processes for facilitating P2P engagement and achieving better learning outcomes (Stott, 2014). While most previous studies in the literature concur that P2P engagement in online learning environments has a positive effect on learners’ learning outcomes, less attention has been paid to characterise P2P adult learning in online collaborative environments. Also, recent studies have called for more research into the impact of adult P2P engagement on learning outcomes and the factors that may impact it. Thus, this paper aims to address these gaps through conducting a systematic literature review and synthesize the existing research in this area. The broad aim of this research is to investigate P2P adult learning characteristics in online collaborative learning environments, the impacts of P2P engagement on adult learning outcomes, and how the engagement occurs through the factors that may facilitate or hinder adult learning engagement in online learning environments. Given the above aims, two main research questions guide this research:
RQ1.What are the characteristics of adult learning in online collaborative learning environments?
RQ2.Which factors may facilitate or hinder adult learners’ engagement with their peers? what is the impact on learning outcome?
In order to get an overview of the state-of-the-art of research on P2P adult learning in online collaborative learning environments, previous reviews on the topic were reviewed (sections 2-4), aiming to provide an overview of what is known and to expose the gaps in current research.This review set three research aims that are deemed relevant for research as well as practice. This focus on terminologyused in previous research to describe adult learning characteristics, gaining insight in what P2P engagement in adult learning is about, and clarifying what effective learning outcome. The aims were addressed using a systematic literature search and a narrative review method to synthesise the literature that was selected (section 4). In the results section, the three aims described above are elaborated upon based on analyses ofthe collected studies. This is followed by an overview of conclusions and discussion on the main results (section 6).
2.Research Background
Adult learning is a part of continuous learning concept that takes place for a lifetime (Cercone, 2008; Salleh et al., 2014). It includes a set of interconnected activities to enhance life through improving skills, knowledge and capabilities. This continuous process considers learning as a “process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984). Also experimental learning along with characteristics of adult learning are very important tools for teaching adult learners (Salleh et al., 2014). Additionally, and according to Egizii et al. (2015), the adult learners seek a learning style that meets both individual learning and the need of participating in real world life. This way of learning contributes to allowing learners a new place in the society and gaining a competitive advantage in the workplace after graduation. Merriam and Caffarella (1991) described adult learning as a self-directed learning practice, which is triggered by real life experiences, which means adult’s everyday actions are components of the adult learning process. Moreover, Erdei et al. (2014) explained that studying adult learning is important, because of expansion of learning in all level of education and participation, potential to influence learners in society, advantage of renew education based on objectives and more flexibilities to deliver.
While adult learning is a branch of leaning (Salleh et al., 2014 ) and there is a lot of research on adult learning in traditional and offline classes (Cercone, 2008), less has been done in characterizing adult learning in online collaborative learning environments. This study aims to use existing theories for characterizing adult learning, and extend it to apply on online collaborative learning environments.Although the above definitions of adult learning place the importance on the adult learners’ behaviour, learning theories help in describing adult learning characteristics and provide the overall framework for teaching and learning activities (Merriam & Caffarella, 1999; Pence, 2016).
Amongst various adult learning theories, this study adopts Andragogy adult learning theory for characterizing adult learning in online collaborative learning environments. Andragogy adult learning theory (Knowles, 1973) models adult learning practices in real life. This theory, also known as Management of Technology (MoT) pedagogy or Lifelong Learning (LLL) theory ( Muresana , 2014; Sung; 2014) , was later extended by Dan Berg et al. (2015) for describing adult learning practices in online learning environments. Andragogy was considered for this current study, because it is a learning theory that is designed to address the specific adults’ needs, it was developed based on significant differences in learning characteristics between young and adult learners(Knowles, 1980), and was adopted by various scholars for online learning environments (Cercone, 2008, Dan Berg et al., 2015).Andragogical theory explains adult learning characteristics in terms of the following four main assumptions (Knowles, 1980):
(i) Independent self-concept: Andragogy refers to adult learners’ independent practice and ability to direct their own learning practice (Knowles, 1989). In another word, adults with schooling practice experience have been constructed as "dependent" learners, and instructors direct them from old habits to start thinking responsible of their learning (Cercone, 2008; Pence, 2016).
(ii) Experienced-Centred: The second assumption underlying andragogy is the importance of using learners’ experience in relation to the new information (Knowles, 1989), which means "an adult accumulates a growing reservoir of experience, which is a rich resource for learning" (Merriam & Caffarella, 1999). This importance assumption emphasised by Cercone (2008) “adult students can build on previous knowledge and experience by relating new information to past events and experience”.
(iii) Professional outcome: The third assumption shows that the readiness of practice learning is related to the output of developmental tasks for acting social roles (Knowles, 1989) and “the readiness of an adult to learn is closely related to the developmental tasks of his or her social role" (Merriam & Caffarella, 1999). Also Cercone (2008) mentioned that adults want to know the rationality behind of learning and its effect on their work or day to day life.
(iv) Problem-Centered: The forth assumption emphasises the orientation to learning practice. Adult learners are most problem-cantered in comparison with subject-cantered for young and child learners (Knowles, 1989). It is important that the learning activities align with relevant life problem. The adult learners believe that they are being prepared for real tasks and responsibilities after completing learning practice in more complex environments (Cercone, 2008).
3.Gaps in the literature
Several attempts to apply adult learning theories into different situations (Smith, 2002; Crecone, 2008), however the question of how the adult learning characteristics categorized is still posed. The existing papers are helpful to identify and categorize adult learning in general term. But they are less helpful to those seeking understanding of the adult learning in online collaborative learning environments. This becomes clear when we compare different applied study of andragogy theory for adult learning. First concern is related to characterizing of adult learning practice in online collaborative learning environments. The past researches developed them independently and didn’t link them into online collaborative learning environments. Most researchers referred their adult learning characteristics on the concept of the age of learners.
3.1. Characteristics of P2P adult learning engagement in online collaborative learning environments:
Peer to peer adult learning in online collaborative learning environments have not been characterised in the past literature (Crecone, 2008). Adult learners are busy in their life and very self-motivated(Huang, 2012). Defining the characterises of adult learners are important to provide an efficient engagement framework to improve learning outcomes. Hence, in the next step this review attempts to provide a clarified characteristics category of adult learning by defining different forms of adult learners characteristics and possible ways of being categorized and conceptualised using relevant theories. Moreover, currently there is a lack of application of relevant theories for adult learning practices in online collaborative learning environments (Ruey, 2010).This review presents the first attempt to synthesize recent studies that focus on directly to p2p adult learning engagement using andragogy theory.
3.2.How P2P adult engagement occurs in online collaborative learning environments and what is the learning outcomes?
Although various theories, principles and models have been suggested to facilitate online learning, describing learning outcome in P2P adult learning engagement is not without its challenges. For example, the learningstyle in online learning environment is still new to some adult learners, and adult learners may have trouble adjusting to the online collaborative learning environment (Hashim et al., 2014), including capacity of using social media for interaction (Wang et al., 2015). Moreover, it is difficult to predict how adult learners will engage with their peers, and whether the enragement will motivate them, and may experience much less satisfaction than the learning practice processes assume.Conrad (2008) found that learners seldom demonstrate the benefits they acquire from participating in online learning activities in their workplace. Whether and how a constructivist online course helps adult learners learn more authentically and meaningfully from a holistic perspective deserves to be further examined. The purpose of this study is to explore in what way and how adult learners benefit from a constructivist-based online learning environment. More specifically this study intends to address the following aims and research questions.
Adult learners can arrange their
learning around their everyday lives without being constrained by time and place.
Moreover, online learning allows learners to take courses not available on campus
resulting in cost effective learning environments, and utilizes some appropriate delivery
and instruction methods. So, it becomes quite clear that a lot of people can benefit from
this second chance to educate themselves.
4.research Method
In the last couple of years, there has been much research about adult learning and its effect on learning outcome. While the advantages of the online collaborative environments provide flexibility of time and space, users can self-manage their learning, activities and communications over the Internet to improve life satisfaction (Chu, et al., 2012). Systematic literature review was chosen as a method in order to identify and review how adult learning characteristics have been defined, elaborated and presented in academic research articles. A systematic review is conducted using a systematic, rigorous standard, aiming not only to summarize existing research on the topic but also to includean element of analytical criticism. In a stand-alone literature review, literature in a chosen field is reviewed without collecting or analyzing any primary data; at most, results from the reviewed studies might be analyzed as data for the literature review (Vangrieken et al., 2015). We followed Kitchenman’s (2007) and Cao et al. (2014) guidelinesin our literature reviewofP2P adults’engagement in online collaborative learning environments. The keyword terms were key elements of engagement such as “adult learning engagement “and“online collaborative”. The other key criterion was that the studies’ focus was on P2P Adults’ engagement. To exhaustively explore our key focus, we reviewed each selected study in depth and noted how these papers addressed objective of our research. To obtain the best quality, we chose the top 10 journals recommended by Australian Council of Professors and Heads of Information Systems ( as well as top 10 journals for Online Education research recommended by Scimago Journal & Country Rank ( (Cao et al., 2014). The selected publicationswere reviewed and organized into a spreadsheet under the following headings:
- “adult learning” OR “adult learners” AND
- “online learning environments” OR “computer supported collaborative learning” AND
- “engagement” OR “peer to peer interaction”
The review had four specific research aims: to (i) explore characteristics of adult learners, (ii) gain insight into the impact of P2P adult learning on learning outcomes, and (iii) identify the factors influencing P2P adult learners’engagement. These aims were addressed using a literature search and a deep review method to synthesise the selected literature.
Fig.1 : The publication selection process.
The search was conducted in September 2016 using online databases to retrieve initial papers. As Table 1 shows, most articles were found through the online databases and categorized based on selected journals. The overarching search terms used were “adult learning”, “online learning environments” and “engagement”. The first selection in the wide variety was done on the basis of titles. Publications with titles that did not contain the search terms were excluded. The remaining papers were further assessed by their abstracts.Next, if necessary (if the abstract did not provide sufficient information) the full text was assessed. Then, a snowballing technique was used, in which the references of sources that were deemed relevant were examined to find other important studies. These were again judged based on their title, abstract and, if necessary, further reading. The relevance of the delivered sources was judged using selection criteria specified in advance that are discussed in the next subsection.To ensure the relevance of the selected literature, the following criteria were applied during the selection process.
- The discussed engagement in selected papers had to pertain to P2Padults’ engagement and interaction (e.g., not to interaction with systems or interaction with tools and online environments) and adults’ collaboration had to be the primary focus.
- Sources had to have a primary focus on online collaboration (two or morelearners collaborating within a subject or mutual interest).
- Literature discussing P2Padults’ engagement (direct/indirect) in online collaborative learning environments in languages other than English was excluded.
Journal Type / Journal / Keyword Search / Included in final paper
Information Systems / European Journal of Information Systems / 19 / 1
Information Systems / Journal of Information Technology / 11 / 3
Information Systems / Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology / 42 / 1
Education / Journal of Engineering Education / 15 / 1
Education / Journal of Research in Science Teaching / 16 / 1
Education / American Journal of Education / 69 / 3
Education / Review of Educational Research / 64 / 0
Education / Computers and Education / 21 / 5
Education / The Internet and Higher Education / 3 / 2
Education / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences / 50 / 9
Education / Computer in Human behaviour / 3 / 1
Education / British Journal of Educational Technology / 19 / 5
Total / 366 / 31
Table 1: Studies initially identified and ultimately included, by journals.