Learning ecologies of lifelong learners: development and outcomes

Advancements in information technologies have opened up access to learning resources that support lifelong learning. The learning ecologies paradigm has been advocated to capture the nuances of learning as afforded by these advances and across contexts. However, studies adopting this paradigm to subtleties of lifelong learning are limited. This study proposes and evaluates a detailed conceptual framework and an associated data collection methodology to explore lifelong learners' learning ecologies. The hallmark of the framework is the consideration of the multiple topical ecologies making up the overall lifelong learner’s learning ecology. The thesis uses a mixed method approach to follow 24 lifelong learners, enrolled in an online course, based in Egypt, over an 8-week period, to understand the development and outcomes of their learning ecologies. The study found that lifelong learners, while interested in a myriad of topics, activate, downscale, and hibernate topics as needed over time. Topics are relatively homogeneous in their ecological makeup, especially when compared with the overall ecologies. Moving between topics, lifelong learners showcase an ecological signature that reflects both their innate preferences and the wider context within which they live and learn. The study’s framework operationalises three outcome variables to study the effects of the variations in learning ecologies: (a) amount of learning activity, (b) progress along the individual topics studied, and (c) satisfaction with the support provided by both the topical and overall ecologies. The study found satisfaction to be very subjective and individually driven. Diversifying the learning resources has been identified as the strategy most associated with higher levels of satisfaction. Satisfaction with the overall ecology is not associated with total amount of learning activity. And satisfaction with the respective topical ecologies is not associated with the progress along those topics. Increasing the number of resources, as opposed to diversifying their types, has been associated with both higher levels of activity and more progress. Multiple other factors have been significantly associated with level of activity and progress respectively.