Action Reserch for Creating Knowledge and Promoting Discourse in E-Learning Environment

The study reviews the experience of educational action research during acquisition of an e-study course in a bachelor programme. The objectives of the study were to: (1) ascertain the effectiveness of action research in a technologically grounded learning environment and (2) determine how work in e-study environment affects students’ interest and need for communication and discourse. Using statistic and qualitative methods, the study explored the experience that students gained from a three-stage process of designing their personal frames of reference for evaluation of the content and metacontent of business fundamentals. Each stage of action research focused on the use of research participants’ personal knowledge and group-generated discourse to create their personal business theories. E-study environment was designed by integrating the e-study environment of Riga Technical University with the opportunities that Google docs affords for organisation of group work and summary of its results. The study revealed several possibilities for improving e-study environment with techniques that make it a more sustainable form of learning