A qualitative study of staff attitudes towards

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A qualitative study of staff attitudestowards
e-learning
Marcos Alcocer, Jan Mayer-Sahling, David
Milne, Elaine Bentley, Vivien Rolfe University
of Nottingham PGCHE Group Project
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Background

• There is a recognition of the importance
  e-learning, yet some educators fail to make best
  use of these opportunities.
• Studies show that electronic resources are well
  received by students, but staff are
  unenthusiastic (Scott 2004, others).

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Aims

• To determine whether Arts and Science staff
  consider e-learning to be effective for
  teaching and learning.
• Use a qualitative approach to gain a rich
  insight.
• How do staff define it?
• Advantages and disadvanges?
• What are the barriers?

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Methods

• Cross-school comparison (Politics, American
  Studies, Nursing, Medicine, Bioscience).
• Semi-structured questionnaire.
• Staff were interviewed, and recorded tapes were
  transcribed.
• Data analysed and themes identified by one
  person.

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Interviewees

• 36 chosen at random
• Lecturer to Professor
• 2 30 years teaching experience
• Range of computing experience

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Results What is e-learning?

• Participants did not have a common idea of the
  meaning of e-learning.
• I dont call putting lecture notes on a website
  e-learning, I call that being lazy.What I
  understand by e-learning is learning that takes
  place via the Internet on a computer as opposed
  to via a lecture or a text book.
• distance learning with full replacement of
  the normal lectures.

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Advantages (clearer in the sciences)

• Students can repeat learning.
• Saves the environment and printing out handouts.
• 3D and animation is useful for explaining
  science.
• E-Learning affords speed andaccessibility to
  databases, papers etc.

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Disadvantages

• Drop in quality of education
• Substituting staff with e-learning does not
  provide quality education. E-learning leads
  to students being spoon fed information
• Plagiarism
• Is rife

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Disadvantages

• Relationship between student and teacher
• Art subjects very much have a dialogic
  relationship between student and teacher.
  E-Learning discourages a two way discourse to the
  detriment of the students educational
  development .
• Autonomy
• Arts teachers worried that E-learning may
  reduce
• autonomy in the learner.

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Disadvantages

• Interaction between tutor/student and student
• E-learning does not allow the tutor to convey
  enthusiasm for the subject.
• Training and workload
• Gaining familiarity with e-learning devices is
  hugely time consuming.

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Disadvantages

• PowerPoint
• Arts and Social Science lecturers observed that
  PowerPoint was often used gratuitously.It
  doesnt enhance the learning process.
• is a glitzy fad

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Barriers to use

• Lack of awareness
• Im not even aware of the packages or resources
  available.
• Personal prejudice
• This may be down to personal bias, but also a
  culture of resistance in my (arts) department.

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Barriers to use

• RAE pressures
• I am here to do research not to think about
  e-learning..
• Type of subject
• Some subjects (arts) are based around discussion
  and do not lend themselves to e-learning
• The level of analysis and discussion is not deep
  enough

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Summary

• No clear definition of e-learning.
• Advantages were clear to science/medical staff
  (flexible learning, technology enhances
  learning).
• More disadvantages to arts and social science
  teaching (lack of tutor-student relationship, no
  depth to learning, lack of student autonomy).
• Barriers included lack of awareness, lack of
  time, unreliable technology, not suitable for
  some subjects.

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Conclusions Drop the e

• People are still confused as to what e-learning
  means. The confusion may be creating a barrier.
• JISC last week drop the e.

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Conclusions

• The educational value of e-learning is not
  apparent to Arts and Social Science staff so
  different strategies for implementation would be
  required.

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Emerging Questions

• Do learning styles (of the tutor) influence their
  uptake of e-learning?
• Does an e-learning activity provide educational
  value over and above traditional teaching?
• Which subjects benefit most from e-learning? Do
  the Sciences need more?

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