Conference:
ECER 2009
Format:
Paper
Session Information
Contribution
The text presents the first result of a research project “E-learning at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University by the view of its key participants – teachers and students using the e-learning in teaching”. The research project has been supported by a dean grant appointed for supporting creative activities of faculty doctoral students. The research project connects to a research project “Pedagogical and didactical questions of e-learning in teaching at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University” that took place in 2007 (by Zounek and Švaříček) and on that I partially participated. That research project tried to answer on basic question: In what ways do teachers consider a didactic use of ICT in their courses? I connect that research project and develop it on student’s view of study supported by e-learning at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic). The results of the research project bring confrontation of two views: of a teacher and of a student. The goal is not to evaluate an e-learning course, but to show a discrepancy or an agreement in a pedagogical thinking and an approach of a teacher and a learning style of a student.
The main research question is: How do the key participants perceive the e-learning at Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University? Specific questions the researchers asked are the following: How do teachers think about their e-learning course’s goals? Are there any influences of current trends in an e-learning for their pedagogical thinking? How do they build up their e-learning courses? Do students prefer distant approach or blended approach? How do students perceive the way of the faculty e-learning and its organization?
A main goal of the research project is to describe and to interpret a perception the e-learning by its key participants. Previous research projects at the faculty were pointing their look to teachers or to quality of e-learning courses only, so it’s suitable to extend knowledge by a view of another key participant – students.
Method
The author has chosen a mixed research design – he has included quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
In the first qualitative part, the main method of data collection consisted in a series of in-depth interviews with chosen teachers and chosen students, which included observation and think alouds. Semistructured in-depth interviews had a collaborative form where the interviewer and the interviewee worked together on creating of the meaning. The qualitative part will enable to reveal a substantial outlines of opinion of respondents.
The following quantitative part will use a questionnaire survey of students of chosen e-learning courses accessible in Moodle – one of the faculty e-learning systems. The questionnaire survey will target on students attitudes and perceptions of e-learning generally and the e-learning course they take part in. Results of the quantitative part will put results of the qualitative part to a wider context.
Expected Outcomes
The author will present partial results of the qualitative part of the research project. Results of the previous research projects at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University show, that the teachers use the e-learning mainly as an e-support of their in-class instruction or as an electronic textbook. The contribution will aim for searching of reason of that situation, searching of obstacles of further development and try to find out advantages of blended approach for teachers as well. I try to catch dynamics of topic development on the basis of comparison of results of previous research projects at the faculty.
A hypothesis of student’s attitude is that they welcome an e-learning teaching form spreading because of the better accessibility of teaching text. They still prefer, however, traditional way of teaching itself. The research project thus expects the confirmation of the hypothesis.
References
SIEMENS G. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. 2004. [cit. 2009-02-09].
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