Anders Berglund Learning computer systems in a distributed course: Problematizing content and contextLearning computer systems in a distributed course: Problematizing content and context

In this paper, a research study of learning computer systems in a complex, internationally distributed course environment is described. The relation between a learner and the object of his/her studies being in focus in phenomenographic research is enhanced to encompass also the relation between the learner and factors that together form the environment of which the learning of the subject area is a part and in which it takes place. The research question, from which the need for this approach arises, concerns how master level students in computer science, who are taking an internationally distributed project-based course in computer systems, learn some aspects of computer science, and in what ways their learning situation influences their learning, all with an ultimate aim of improving students ’ learning of computer systems in project-based courses. The learning situation is modelled as an activity system (Engeström, 1987), in which the socially based nature of complex activities, as learning in a distributed project course, are analysed and described. In this paper an approach, where the learning activity is analysed and described as it is experienced by the students, is described and discussed.