Papers by Christian Stöhr
System, 2024
AI-powered language tools (AILTs) are commonly used by university students, yet there is a limite... more AI-powered language tools (AILTs) are commonly used by university students, yet there is a limited understanding of how students utilise and perceive these tools in everyday academic communication practice. Employing a post-humanist lens and based on over 1700 open-ended comments from a nationwide student survey, this qualitative study examined students' lived AILT experiences to explicate the impact of AILTs on academic communication in higher education learning and assessment. Thematic analysis of the data shows that students' academic writing is realised by assemblages of distributed spatial and personal linguistic repertoires, underscoring AILT's role in enhancing students' communicative performance and personal language development. AILTs are also conducive to transforming the academic writing process into an additional learning space. Students have developed a new identity as spatially advised learners, enabling them to assert their agency in terms of language development and subjectcontent knowledge while also holding critical perspectives on the limitations of AI. Furthermore, the findings point to divergent and eclectic student viewpoints on the ethical concerns of AILTs in assessment in the absence of university instructions. The study discusses implications for university policymaking and pedagogy in developing teaching and assessment methods that match students' stances and needs in AI-mediated academic communication.
Chalmers Studies in Communication and Learning in Higher Education, 2023
Highlights from the report:
* 5,894 students from across Swedish universities were surveyed about... more Highlights from the report:
* 5,894 students from across Swedish universities were surveyed about their use of and attitudes towards AI for learning purposes, both about chatbots (such ChatGPT) and other AI language tools (such as Grammarly).
* 1,707 survey respondents offered individual comments, adding thoughts and reflections about the effective and ethical use of AI in higher education.
* Overall, most students are positive towards the use of chatbots and other AI-language tools in education; many claim that AI makes them more effective as learners.
* Almost all the respondents are familiar with ChatGPT (but typically not with other chatbots); more than a third use ChatGPT regularly. Students’ knowledge and usage of other AI language tools, particularly language translation tools, is widespread.
* More than half of the respondents express concern about the impact of chatbots in future education; concerns about other types of AI-language tools are much less pronounced.
* More than sixty percent believe that the use of chatbots during examination is cheating; this is not the case for other AI-language tools. However, a majority of students is against the prohibition of AI in education settings.
* Most students do not know if their educational institutions have rules or guidelines regarding the responsible use of AI; one in four explicitly says that their institution lack such rules or guidelines.
Journal of Studies in International Education, 2023
Integration is vital to student well-being in higher education but integrating new students from ... more Integration is vital to student well-being in higher education but integrating new students from different countries can be challenging. To ascertain students’ integration into their new environment, this mixed method study combined the data collected from weekly diary entries of home and international students at the start of one engineering program, with follow-up interviews. These students studied primarily online due to the pandemic. The diary entries focused on their adjustment to the program from an academic, social and pair work perspective. Results show that the students reacted slightly negatively to the academic experience but very positively to their pair work. It seems that the teacher-formed pair work helped to bridge the academic and social gap and not only alleviate some of the stress caused by assignments, but in some cases, provided new social contacts. The article concludes that structural factors within the course can facilitate interaction and thus support integration.
In this article, we present the results from an attempt to utilize parts of a MOOC in a PhD cours... more In this article, we present the results from an attempt to utilize parts of a MOOC in a PhD course employing a Flipped Classroom approach to teaching and learning. Based on the student feedback and teacher experiences, we examine, how students perceived the combination of videos from a MOOC and active learning activities in the classroom. We discuss advantages and disadvantages that we observed with using videos that we have not recorded ourselves and assess which type of active learning was perceived as most useful by our students. The results show that the waste majority of students experienced the videos and learning activities as very useful for their learning. The group discussions in the practice sessions were most appreciated. The MOOC videos enabled students to engage with the video content at their own pace, even though they were partly perceived as to broad and unspecific. In sum, teachers and students experienced the course as highly rewarding, but also time consuming.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appear particularly relevant in education for sustainability.... more Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appear particularly relevant in education for sustainability. Teachers need to critically reflect on their teaching to develop as teachers and improve student learning, but the MOOC related literature has paid little attention to teacher development. In this paper, we apply and evaluate a framework for teacher development – Brookfield's critically reflective practitioner – in a MOOC context. We present a case study of two teachers who developed and delivered the Sustainability in Everyday Life MOOC. We analyse how they used Brookfield’s four reflective lenses: the autobiographical lens, the student lens, the peer lens, and the scholarship lens. While all four lenses contributed to the reflection process, they were insufficient in a MOOC context. Additional and important reflective lenses include the perspectives of the organisational leadership, the public and media as well as learning analytics. We discuss the implications of those additional...
The presentation will demonstrate how to use students’ feedback and answers to on-line quizzes to... more The presentation will demonstrate how to use students’ feedback and answers to on-line quizzes to prepare interactive sessions in flipped classroom courses. It will be shown that the analysis of the gathered data is extremely valuable to understand the students’ learning and to design the sessions according to the students’ needs.
In this paper, the relationship between student participation and performance in an online flippe... more In this paper, the relationship between student participation and performance in an online flipped course in nuclear reactor modelling is analyzed. In this course set-up, students follow pre-recorded (asynchronous) lectures on the internet before attending on-line (synchronous) sessions twice a week during a seven-week period. Two types of on-line sessions are organized: tutorials and wrap-up sessions. Attendance at these sessions is not compulsory. The tutorials aim at helping the students solve home assignments (on which the students are assessed), whereas the wrap-up sessions are structured around active student participation in the form of discussions. A cross-correlation analysis between results on the home assignments and attendance at the asynchronous pre-recorded lectures or the synchronous tutorials revealed no significant correlation. There is, however, a significant correlation between results on the home assignments and participation in the synchronous wrap-up sessions. ...
This paper aims at demonstrating the applicability of video learning in CDIO based project course... more This paper aims at demonstrating the applicability of video learning in CDIO based project courses and at evaluating to what extent it benefits students. The courses are Machine Elements (PPU210), Product Planning - Needs and Opportunities (PPU085) and Engineering Design and Optimization (PPU190) in the Mechanical Engineering programme at Chalmers University of Technology. The research was carried out by first creating a set of videos for selected topics in three courses. In total, 22 videos were created including topics such as “Benchmarking”, “SWOT”, and “Prototype lab equipment instructions”. The learning outcomes of the video lectures were mapped to the CDIO syllabus. A blended learning environment was developed, i.e. the videos were utilised as additional support alongside existing learning activities. The videos were then used in the courses and the students’ feedbacks collected through a dedicated questionnaire, the regular course evaluation survey, and in student-teacher gro...
This paper discusses the use of learning analytics in virtual and blended learning environments. ... more This paper discusses the use of learning analytics in virtual and blended learning environments. We take a course given in a 100% web-based format as an illustrative example of the potentials and pitfalls of learning analytics. More precisely, we monitored and analyzed student data on attendance of pre-recorded lectures, attendance of synchronous sessions, on-line quizzes activities, feedback on and rating of the pre-recorded lectures and finally the discussion fora. We demonstrate that, despite the expected benefits of learning analytics to improve students’ learning, large efforts with respect to the integration of various IT systems are necessary. We conclude that the ease-of-use of the learning analytics modules of such IT systems is a prerequisite for bringing learning analytics to a mature state. This will also make data cross-correlation possible, and will lead to more reliable assessments of students’ learning.
In this paper, the effect of flipping the classroom on two courses in nuclear engineering is anal... more In this paper, the effect of flipping the classroom on two courses in nuclear engineering is analyzed. These courses were previously given in a traditional campus-based format, before being converted to a flipped classroom format. One of the courses is in addition using a pure web-based set-up, in which the students and the teachers never meet face-to-face. In both courses, the students watch pre-recorded lectures, answer on-line quizzes, and provide feedback to the teachers on a voluntary basis, before attending wrap-up sessions and tutorials. Compared to the previous teaching format, the conversion to flipped courses resulted in in-creased student-teacher asynchronous and synchronous interactions, as well as enhanced understanding of the course concepts. These results are demonstrated both in a qualitative and a quantitative way. The qualitative analysis relies on the categorization of the questions received by the teachers using Bloom’s revised taxonomy for the cognitive domain a...
In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing use of e-learning in higher education, triggered... more In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing use of e-learning in higher education, triggered by both new educational technologies and new pedagogical approaches. This development raises questions about how students learn in virtual learning environments (VLEs) compared to traditional classroom environments. While several case studies have examined this question, they are often based on single course iterations and there is a lack of longitudinal and quasiexperimental comparative studies. In this paper, we examine how student activity and performance are related in a graduate course in applied physics that was reformed by replacing the traditional classroom environment with a VLE. We use longitudinal data from six iterations of the course, of which half were campus based and half were conducted online. We analyse quantitative data based on home assignments, the students’ participation in course activities as well as the quantity and quality of questions that students posed durin...
In the context of the difficult issue of managing fishing in a sustainable fashion, this study de... more In the context of the difficult issue of managing fishing in a sustainable fashion, this study develops strategies to support more efficient and effective management of the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Councils (BS RAC). Established by the EC as a new governance process in order to include new voices into the decision making process, the BS RAC consists of representatives of the fishing industry, national representatives, and environmental groups. It is charged with providing advice to the Commission in a consensus report based upon data on the status and prognosis for the fisheries, provided by scientists. Both the process of consensus building and the use of scientific advice have been problematic. This study analyses the communication process within the BS RAC through observations and in-depth interviews. Based on identified obstacles and areas of conflict, strategies and methods will be developed which seek to improve conflict solutions among stakeholders, increase understanding...
The short paper describes and evaluates a collaborative learning activity that was implemented in... more The short paper describes and evaluates a collaborative learning activity that was implemented in four physics classes in different university programs. The activity consisted of two assignments for groups of four to seven, where students find a common set of solutions to a given number of problems. After a short introduction of collaborative learning and the related literature, we present the setup of the activity and particularly address some of the pitfalls of group work, how we tried to overcome them and our experience gained. Based on student passing rates, the course evaluations and our own observations we conclude that the group assignment provided a powerful learning experience with positive effects on the student performance, attitudes and interpersonal relationships.
In this paper we apply multiple perspectives in order to investigate a co- management initiative ... more In this paper we apply multiple perspectives in order to investigate a co- management initiative of fisheries in Sweden, using the frameworks of Adaptive Co-Management and the Trinity of Voice along with a cognitive and social perspective. The analysis and evaluation of participation in environmental governance, here fisheries, focuses on the context, pre-conditions and outcomes, as well as the participatory and communicative process of the initiative, identifying critical factors supporting and hindering the success of the exercise in relation to expected outcomes. We conclude that the project generated positive outcomes and discuss the supporting factors of this result. The discussion also focuses on the need to bring a cognitive and social perspective in to the analysis as it explains the pre-conditions - in terms of the differing ways that participants view and understand ecological problems and changes - and that these views are crucial aspects of the communicative process and ...
Video utilization can be a powerful tool for teachers to stimulate students’ interest and support... more Video utilization can be a powerful tool for teachers to stimulate students’ interest and support flexible and adaptive learning. Successful video-based learning implementation cannot be assured without careful consideration regarding desired quality, learning outcomes and video development methods. The investigation and sharing of experiences considering video development is indispensable and will contribute to spreading a culture of easily made, peer-reviewed videos, which will enhance teaching and learning. For CDIO-based courses, it is required that the video development methods are agile and cost-effective in production as to support continuous update of videos relevant for the course and other course activities. In this paper, we identify and describe video development methods from different CDIO-based project courses. The methods are classified based on the content type, the production style, the required resources and the video characteristics. All presented video developmen...
This article aims at contributing to governance conceptualization and its application to case stu... more This article aims at contributing to governance conceptualization and its application to case study analyses. Two of the challenges which the theoretical and empirical work in the article addresses concern facilitation of the comparability of diverse governance cases and a specification of several key mechanisms of governance formation and reform. A proposed model of the architecture of governance systems – their major components and inter-linkages – contributes, as argued and illustrated here, to greater comparability among cases and with the possibility of improved accumulation of knowledge about governance systems. The work also identifies a few key drivers explaining how governance systems are established, maintained or changed through power, knowledge, and contestation/conflict processes.These tools are applied to empirical cases of governance structure and their functioning and reformation. I consider briefly for comparative purposes food security, chemicals, gender relations,...
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Papers by Christian Stöhr
* 5,894 students from across Swedish universities were surveyed about their use of and attitudes towards AI for learning purposes, both about chatbots (such ChatGPT) and other AI language tools (such as Grammarly).
* 1,707 survey respondents offered individual comments, adding thoughts and reflections about the effective and ethical use of AI in higher education.
* Overall, most students are positive towards the use of chatbots and other AI-language tools in education; many claim that AI makes them more effective as learners.
* Almost all the respondents are familiar with ChatGPT (but typically not with other chatbots); more than a third use ChatGPT regularly. Students’ knowledge and usage of other AI language tools, particularly language translation tools, is widespread.
* More than half of the respondents express concern about the impact of chatbots in future education; concerns about other types of AI-language tools are much less pronounced.
* More than sixty percent believe that the use of chatbots during examination is cheating; this is not the case for other AI-language tools. However, a majority of students is against the prohibition of AI in education settings.
* Most students do not know if their educational institutions have rules or guidelines regarding the responsible use of AI; one in four explicitly says that their institution lack such rules or guidelines.
* 5,894 students from across Swedish universities were surveyed about their use of and attitudes towards AI for learning purposes, both about chatbots (such ChatGPT) and other AI language tools (such as Grammarly).
* 1,707 survey respondents offered individual comments, adding thoughts and reflections about the effective and ethical use of AI in higher education.
* Overall, most students are positive towards the use of chatbots and other AI-language tools in education; many claim that AI makes them more effective as learners.
* Almost all the respondents are familiar with ChatGPT (but typically not with other chatbots); more than a third use ChatGPT regularly. Students’ knowledge and usage of other AI language tools, particularly language translation tools, is widespread.
* More than half of the respondents express concern about the impact of chatbots in future education; concerns about other types of AI-language tools are much less pronounced.
* More than sixty percent believe that the use of chatbots during examination is cheating; this is not the case for other AI-language tools. However, a majority of students is against the prohibition of AI in education settings.
* Most students do not know if their educational institutions have rules or guidelines regarding the responsible use of AI; one in four explicitly says that their institution lack such rules or guidelines.