This paper reports findings from an 18 month project, funded by the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom (UK).  The purpose was to identify the experiences and engagement of using a Western designed virtual learning environment (VLE) with doctoral students in the Hong Kong.  The focus of the research is a Professional Doctorate course delivered by a UK based university and taught by ‘flying faculty’ in Hong Kong over 4 weekend workshops each year with additional support provided by UK based supervisors.  Baseline data indicated at the start of the project that the students were not engaging with the VLE.  During the project various technologies were introduced to identify those which engaged the students most successfully both.

The research question has been framed around the notion of whether there is unconsciously an ethno-centric bias in the use of the VLE.  The intended outcomes of the project centre around greater engagement by the Hong Kong students in using the VLE and/or other technologies, a deeper level of learning and a faster pace of progression by the students, thus developing evidence-informed practice that can be shared widely.     

The purpose of this research was to answer the following questions:

Is there an ethno-centric bias in the use Western designed VLEs in the delivery of post-graduate courses in the East?

What developments can increase engagement of Eastern students using a Western designed Virtual Learning Environment to enable deeper level learning and a faster pace of progression?

The use of VLEs and other technologies in United Kingdom (UK) schools, colleges and universities has been extensive since the 1990s providing a ‘combination of communications tools and file-sharing applications’ (Gillespie et al, 2007, p 3) which are designed as an information space in which interactions occur and students become actors in co-constructing the virtual space (Dillenbourg et al, 2002).  There are many drivers to using new technologies in Higher Education (Laurilland, 2008), however, there are equally arguments against using new technologies in learning and teaching.  For example Kersh, Pachler and Daly (2009, p 2) state that ‘digital technologies alone do not facilitate learning’.

Initial research with the Hong Kong students indicated that prior VLE experience had been minimal in comparison to that of UK based students.  The use of VLEs in UK universities has changed the way learning and teaching takes place with an increased use of a range of technologies such as blogs, wikis, twitter, and eportfolios (Hardy and Clughen, 2012). These changes are resulting in new and emerging pedagogy and changes in the way courses are being delivered with an increasing expectation that both staff and students have good levels of digital literacy.  Indeed standards for lecturers, set out by the Higher Education Academy (UK) in their Professional Standards Framework have been updated (2011) to place a greater emphasis on the use of digital technologies and digital literacy skills.  This is a different perspective to that in Hong Kong; a comparative study of 2000 secondary pupils across 150 schools in Hong Kong identified low frequency of use of technology in learning in schools suggesting low levels of digital literacy (Centre for Information Technology in Education, 2015).

The paper will address how the research has impacted on the design of the VLE, the introduction of additional and possibly more appropriate technologies, the successes and challenges faced by the teaching team and how the changes made to the use of technologies are engaging the students and supporting their progression and achievement.

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