The interrelationship between university teachers' pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and web practices

Steel, Caroline Helen (2009). The interrelationship between university teachers' pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and web practices PhD Thesis, School of Languages and Comp Cultural Studies, The University of Queensland.

       
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Author Steel, Caroline Helen
Thesis Title The interrelationship between university teachers' pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and web practices
School, Centre or Institute School of Languages and Comp Cultural Studies
Institution The University of Queensland
Publication date 2009-03
Thesis type PhD Thesis
Supervisor Mike Levy
Joy Cumming
Total pages 255
Language eng
Subjects 130306 Educational Technology and Computing
130313 Teacher Education and Professional Development of Educators
130103 Higher Education
Formatted abstract Educational technologies in university education are widely promoted for their potential to enrich, enhance and extend student learning experiences (Hedberg, 2006). In the last decade, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become a standard educational technology solution at most universities. While LMS have been purchased with enthusiasm, they have not always been integrated into university teacher practices with the same enthusiasm, and little work has been completed to assess differential effects across individual teachers, contexts and disciplines. If universities hope to encourage uptake of LMS and other technologies, studies are required to examine how teachers reconcile and translate their beliefs in these environments. Research into university teacher beliefs has suggested that belief systems infiltrate teacher thinking, planning, decision-making, behaviour and their application of educational technologies (Bain, McNaught, Lueckenhausen, & Mills, 1998; Reeves & Reeves, 1997).

This study explores these ideas through examining the interrelationship between university teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and their web practices. Rich qualitative data was collected from six case study participants who were using an LMS in their practice. The data collection procedure required participants to create blended (open and closed) concept maps to represent the two belief systems under investigation. These maps served as scaffolding for interviews on their belief systems as well as providing an alternative and visual representation of their knowledge structures and the relational propositions between their belief concepts. A retrospective stimulated recall task was used to explore participant’s course websites. Analysing this qualitative data individually and across cases revealed important insights into the interrelationships under investigation. Affordance theories particularly, offered an accommodating view of how teachers make decisions about their web practices with reference to their beliefs and their whole teaching and disciplinary context. The findings have strong implications for academic development and teacher education related to technology integration. The findings clearly show that there is no ‘one size fits all’ teacher development approach that will enable our teachers to successfully express their individual pedagogies in web environments. There are many complex factors at play that are interactive and recursive.
Keyword Teacher beliefs
Conceptions of teaching
Affordances
Learning design
Web technologies
LMS
Academic development

 
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Created: Mon, 08 Oct 2012, 16:52:34 EST by Dr Caroline Steel on behalf of School of Languages and Comp Cultural Studies