Follow us on Twitter to find out about our latest videos, publications, news and other resource updates.
This study was designed to trial the use of the graphic organising software Inspiration 8 to find out how valuable it is as a tool for undergraduate students in helping them to plan essays. The pilot was carried out with a seminar group of undergraduate students in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, as they undertook the production of formative essays for the core second year module ‘Death and Burial’.
The Inspiration software offers a variety of approaches to organising information, following the broad learning categories of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic styles - VAK - (without the addition of a reading - ‘R’ - category which is included by some Educationalists to this learning style nomenclature). The VAK learning style model is comparatively simple when considered against other theoretical models such as the Jungian stable personality type model used by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1993) or Honey and Mumford’s (1986) Cognitive Style Index based on Koleb’s more flexible learning preference theory. The debates over learning styles theory and pedagogical practice were however not addressed in this pilot study, simply because the software itself used a VAK approach and time was limited.
The software suggests that it offers an inclusive approach to learning for all students, as everyone uses a combination of V, A and K learning styles to greater or lesser extents. Writing for JISC TechDis, Ellen Lessner, an ILT Development Coordinator with a number of years of experience of promoting assistive software comments that, ‘Using a mapping programme can benefit many learners, especially those with strong visual preferences (this includes many deaf learners) and those who find difficulty planning written work’ (Free software for Readback and Mapping). It is on this basis that the responses to the software of students with dyslexia and those without visual preferences, were of particular interest in the pilot. Would the outcomes suggest that it was worth promoting the software to all students, not just those who have visual preferences?
The mind mapping style of the software draws on the ideas of teacher Tony Buzan, who developed the concept of the Mind Map following his ‘research into areas such as psychology, the neurophysiology of the brain, science, memory, mnemonics and creative thinking’ (Buzan, Smith & Morris, 2002:9). Buzan’s conclusion was that traditional ways of taking notes and planning using long written notes could be barriers to learning (ibid). Instead, he suggested the Mind Map as a ‘tool that mirrors the way that the brain stores and retrieves information. It is a powerful way of expressing the thought patterns, pictures and associations that already exist in the brain.’ (ibid: 7). Therefore suggesting it is an ideal option for visual learners.
In Higher Education in the UK however, the emphasis appears to remain primarily on linguistic approaches to learning, i.e. reading, writing and verbal communications. It has been suggested that students whose cognitive learning styles are more predominantly visual, including many dyslexic learners, might therefore be placed at a disadvantage if learning styles are not considered when developing teaching pedagogies. Inspiration is presented as a tool to help students plan and organise ideas and information, think through complex problems and understand structure. Because cognitive aspects of student learning styles, such as structuring, analysing and critical processing (Vermunt, 1996:26) are important in the development of essays, the pilot offered an opportunity to find out how useful a group of students at the Archaeology Department found the software for planning their first essay, for the Death and Burial module. However, Inspiration is targeted at a school-age audiences, not those in Further or Higher Education, and therefore it would also be interesting to see whether the software was considered valuable at an undergraduate level.
Inspiration offers various options to enable students to make use of graphical representations of plans and ideas using images, words and sounds, hyperlinks to web-pages, documents and emails – taking the traditional paper-based planning process and making it considerably more flexible and multi-dimensional. It offers the following graphical organisers options:
Functions such as being able to insert notes as aide memoirs, collapse sections of maps in order to focus on particular areas, quickly type and relate ideas using the ‘Rapid Fire’ option, move, link and colour-code ideas, concepts and examples and hyperlink references to maps, offer a variety of integrated possibilities for users to develop, keep track of, and structure their essays.
It also offers an Outline option, which at the click of a button converts any of the above list of graphical maps into a traditional written, linear and hierarchical plan. A user also has the option to start out by producing an Outline plan and if they wish convert, it in the other direction, to a graphical representation. The Outline is able to be easily altered using drag and drop and auto-headings, and retains the same functions such as the graphical plans, including hyperlinks, multi-media attachments and notes.
The group were all undergraduates students in their second year at the Department of Archaeology. It could be surmised that Archaeology as a discipline attracts students with a variety of learning preferences because it offers a combination of practical as well as lecture-based learning. A seminar group was identified purely on the basis that it would avoid a ‘self-selecting’ group to become involved if a general ‘call for participation’ were made. However self-selection on a smaller basis was still exerted in practice. Because involvement in the Inspiration pilot was entirely optional, the students from the group who chose not to engage with the pilot beyond showing an initial interest were effectively ‘de-selecting’ themselves.
It was interesting to see that while all of the students in the group showed interest in the software during discussions following seminars and lectures, a small proportion did not follow through to the next stage of actually taking part. Students were encouraged to let me know in person or to contact me by email in relation to taking part in the pilot. The option of completing a ‘non-user survey’ was also offered to the group (once in person following a Death and Burial lecture, and twice by email). This was done in an attempt to at least capture an idea of the learning style of the students who chose not to engage. Two of the four students who chose not to actively take part in the pilot, contacted me to say that although they were interested, it was not going to be possible due to personal time constraints. However, no ‘non-user’ responses were returned.
Out of the group of fourteen students, of the ten who choose to fully engage with the software pilot, four considered themselves dyslexic (two diagnosed and two not), one of whom was a mature student. All except the one mature student were either 19 or 20 years of age. The gender split was 40% female and 60% male. Half of the students identified their learning style as being ‘Visual’, one students as ‘Visual and Kinesthetic’, one as ‘Kinesthetic’, two as ‘Auditory’ and one did not identify their learning style.
The students were given an introduction to the pilot and what it was about at the start of their Death and Burial module following a seminar and one of the module lectures. As well as speaking to the students, information and how they could take part and possibly benefit from trailing the software was emailed out. This email included a document which provided information about the software and about the concept of VAK learning styles, as well as telling them about support session options.
Students who engaged with the pilot were offered the options of attending a software support session or booking one-to-one training with myself. During the sessions, students learned how to use the software with my guidance and support. They had the option of also using the Inspiration user manual, either in hard-copy or pdf. However by far the most popular approach to learning the software was to go through with me example which I had produced and then try it out for themselves in a workshop-style approach.
A feedback survey was constructed for the students to complete and return once they had used the software in the planning of their essays. It aimed to capture information about the extent to which students found the software useful in the development, structuring and production of their essay, whether it was user-friendly and if they would use it again. It also requested information about what learning style the student felt they had, and whether they considered themselves to have a disability and/or dyslexia. Brief, reflective field-notes were also made in regard to student comments on and responses to the software during the pilot.
Most students found the software useful during the initial development of ideas and thinking for their essays. It was rated as ‘extremely helpful’ by 55% of the students, ‘very helpful’ by 22% with the remaining percentage split between ‘useful’ and ‘no difference’. The strongest positive responses to the software for this phase in essay development were from students who identified themselves as dyslexic, visual learners. In particular, these students found the rapid fire option, which allows quick, visually represented brainstorming, to be of use. The students in the group whose learning styles were auditory responded negatively to the software for this phase of development, finding it relatively unhelpful, with one student commenting that it was ‘distracting’. Overall, the students with a visual preference found the most useful aspects for building initial ideas and thinking to be the ability to link ideas and plan the steps needed to develop their essays. There were a couple of comments that the usefulness at this stage was down to the concepts presented, which were not actually specific to using the software as opposed to pen and paper. One kinaesthetic learner commented however, that it did make ideas development more ‘visually interesting’ using the software, while a visual learner thought that that the interface was ‘too complicated and offered too much “eye candy” and not enough flexibility’. It was also interesting to see that even the software could not fully take account of a students learning orientations or regulation - while using the software in a support session, one of the ‘visual learner’ students said that if she used the image libraries as part of her mind-map, she would just spend the whole time messing about looking for pictures instead of working!
All of the students who used the software found it useful to some degree for planning the content and structure of their essays, although the response was more spread across the scale of ‘helpfulness’ than for the initial planning and structuring process. There was an almost entirely even split between categories. ‘no difference’, ‘helpful’ and ‘extremely helpful’ all had the same number of students responding, with ‘very helpful’ gaining the majority by one. In particular, the outline and transfer functions which allows the mind-map or diagram created to be converted into a hierarchical, linear plan divided into headings and sub-headings etc. (which retains hyperlinks and is still able to be altered using functions such as drag and drop) and then exported into a Word document was seen as useful in the planning phase. In relation to problem solving and the development of the essay however, the general response was less positive than for planning and structuring. The students were split about equally as to whether using the software at this stage of essay production was useful. Of those who felt it valuable, it was mainly in with regard to the ability to organise and keep track of thoughts visually. There appeared to be no real trend in regard to the learning style of the students as to positive or negative comments. However, none of the students rated or commented on the software being ‘unhelpful’ at any stage.
All of the students found the Inspiration software simple to learn and work with, with one student commenting that the ‘software could be picked up by anyone and within ten or fifteen minutes they would be confident with its use.’ The interface was generally considered good and user-friendly, with only one comment that a more ‘simplified interface with less clutter’ would be preferable. Some of the most useful functions of the software were considered to be:
What students found least useful was the option to link audio-visual files to Inspiration documents. However, in discussions with some of the students, it seems that this is more a reflection of the discipline being studied (i.e. Archaeology), which offers limited scope for such material to be integrated. The pictures from the image libraries were also considered to be a not particularly useful or relevant resource for purpose by some of the students, this appeared to be the only point upon which the students found the software to be aimed at a slightly lower level.
All except one student said that they would use the software again for planning essays, projects or doing revision. The majority of responses were highly positive about the prospect of using the software again, and this was apparent across the different learning styles. One visual learner said that using Inspiration had ‘changed [his] views completely on the importance and usefulness of planning’. A comment which would surely encourage teaching staff to recommend that all of their students give the software a try!
The Inspiration software was discussed with four members of staff at the department:
the coordinator for the Death and Burial module.
Each of the staff members spoken to thought that the software was a useful tool for students in planning their essays. Only two of the four considered it interesting or useful for their own work in planning, and trailed the software. The module coordinator commented that she personally found it impossible to understand information presented in a graphical mind-map or diagram format. However, she felt that there may be considerable potential for the undergraduate students in using the software if integrated into the various courses and assessments, in particular, the assessed seminars. She was keen to know the outcomes of the pilot and suggested that it would be interesting to follow it up by offering the software to all students (including postgraduates) and to make a longer-term comparison of assessment results.
The two members of staff who tired out Inspiration also supported this idea. The lecturer who deals with developing student study skills, suggested a funding application to roll-out the software across the Department following the pilot. She was particularly interested in the software for students with dyslexia. The Examinations Officer, found her trailing of the software, as a visual learner, particularly valuable for planning presentations. This was because as it enabled her to focus in a visual and spatial way on concepts, not on the more traditional linear steps used in structures. She felt that this brought a different perspective which helped her to think creatively about what it is that she wanted to get across to her audience. She also commented that she found the software extremely useful as a time management tool, integrating a daily diagram template into her current diary and system for workload planning, an outcome which she had not expected from the software.
As the pilot researcher, I also used the software for planning the structure of the pilot as well as the report. My own learning preferences are equally balanced between visual, auditory and kinesthetic, and I have been a regular mind-map user for a number of years both in my studies and in professional life. I found the software a useful tool from the perspective of its flexibility, but in particular because it is able to be used simply on computer. As I require assistive technologies because of physical constraints, the Inspiration software was therefore excellent for me. I found it more straightforward and user-friendly than other graphical organising software available.
Although ontological and pedagogical debates in Education about learning styles remain rife (Robotham, 1999), the practical value of this software seems evident for the majority of students who trailed it during the pilot. However if the Inspiration software were to be fully integrated into a Departmental learning and teaching strategy, the issues and controversies which are raised by learning style approaches (Coffield, Mosley, Hall and Ecclestone, 2004: ix) would need to be properly addressed to ensure that students made the most of the possibilities the software presents.
One of the possibilities with the software is that it might encourage students to develop in the learning styles they have a lower preference for. This would mean that they became more able to adapt their mental model of learning to specific contextual requirements. One student commented during a support session, that he had never thought about the way that he learnt before, he just assumed there were things he could do, and things he couldn’t and that was it. As Vermut (1996:29) suggests, ‘Learning style is not conceived of as an unchangeable personality attribute, but as the result of the temporal interplay between personal and contextual influences.’ An interesting developmental avenue to follow up if Inspiration were integrated into study-skills support for students.
Over the course of the pilot, I observed the way the students engaged with the pilot itself as well as the software. There did not appear to be any difference between interest in the software, or how useful it was found to be by male as compared to female students. However, it was notable that the female students all chose to come to the group support session, compared with 80% of the male students organising one-to-one tutorials. Unfortunately in this pilot and because of the lack of ‘non-user’ data does not allow for any conclusions to be drawn in regard to a possible correlation between learning style and choice about engaging with software of this type – an avenue for possible further research?
From the moment when the students become involved, to the first time they sat in front of the computer, and finally the way they submitted their feedback, it was clear that the simplistic VAK model was not entirely helpful in predicting how students might respond, nor how useful they would find the software. Other aspects such as learning orientations (e.g. attitudes, concerns, intentions), self and external regulations (Vermut, 1996:28) appeared to interrelate with learning style (e.g.VAK) to effect the way that students engaged with the software, and how easy and useful they found it to use. Without further data from a much larger trail, it would be somewhat dubious to make simplistic assumptions about, for example, that fact that the two ‘Auditory’ learners involved found the software least useful. Therefore although there appeared to be some trends in relation to VAK learning style, it would be difficult with a small pilot such as this to draw any objective conclusions. Perhaps more significantly, and subjectively, the students with dyslexia who engaged with the software did respond very enthusiastically from the onset. The mature student with dyslexia, had in fact been using Inspiration software previously for planning her essays, and was keen to take part in the pilot because she had found it so useful.
This report has been written while the students await the return of their Death and Burial essays, so their marks are not known at this stage. However, it might be suggested that in such a limited pilot such as this, extrapolating any improvement in essay results might be somewhat preemptory. From my own perspective, what is of more value is how the students feel about their ability to produce a well structured essay with the support of the software. From the results of this pilot I would suggest that overall, Inspiration improved student confidence in essay planning and should be seen as a valuable tool for all students, not just those with visual or kinesthetic type learning-styles or dyslexia.
Buzan, T., Smith, J. and Morris, 2 (2002) Mind Maps in a Week, Hodder and Arnold, London
Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., Ecclestone, K. (2004) Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post 16 Learning: A systematic and critical review, Learning Skills Research Centre, London
Honey, P and Mumford, A. (1986) The Manual of Learning Styles, Peter Honey, Maidenhead
Jakobsdóttir, S. (2001) ‘Some effects of information and communications technology on teaching and learning in Iceland’ Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 10,1-2:87-100
Lessner, E. Free software for Readback and Mapping, accessed: 15/01/07
Myers, I (1993) Introduction to Type: A guide to understanding your results on the Myers-Briggs type indicator, Oxford Psychologists, Oxford
Robotham, D (1999) ‘The application of learning style theory in higher education teaching’, accessed:20/01/07
Vermunt, J.D. (1996) ‘Metacognitive, cognitive and affective aspects of learning styles and strategie: A phenomenographic analysis’, Higher Education, 31:25-50
 |
 |
|
