Investigating the Effectiveness of the ‘Online Learner Profiling Questionnaire’ in Generating a Profile of Learners Based on Learner Dispositions: a Pilot Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to pilot a newly constructed Online Learner Profiling questionnaire (OLP) to address issues of reliability, collinearity and redundancy and to trial its capacity to generate reliable statistical data. The OLP was administered to a sample of Brunei students in the UK and in Brunei to measure their dispositions toward online learning based on the various capital and disposition types drawn from Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as placeholder dimensions. The end objective is to identify key dispositions representing these dimensions in order to effectively perform factor analysis. Through correlation tests and factor analysis, the study identified 6 to 8 discernible factors based on key dispositions which in turn were correlated against key capital that can be inferred as influential to the manifestations of these dispositions. These key capitals and dispositions create different configurations, or Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, and these habitus is the eventual identifying mechanism for the actual study that will incorporate the finalized version of the OLP questionnaire.