Teachers’ use of ICT in higher education: evaluation of Moodle as a learning management system(LMS)

Resumen

Moodle, as a Learning Management System (LMS), offers useful virtual resources that complementface-to-face teaching in higher education. It allows using graphs, websites, video-broadcasting, andJava and ActiveX technologies as a support for Educational courses encouraging the emergence ofmore sophisticated knowledge and the development of communities of learning. However, thisworldwide resource is often used as a repository and not as the interactive environment that hasbeen extensively promoted. The present work describes how this platform is used at a SpanishUniversity. A sample of 392 undergraduate students replied to a 20-item Likert type questionnaireand three additional open-ended questions on the advantages, limitations and enhancements of thetool. Besides, statistical differences (i.e. chi-square) between ICT teaching courses and non-ICTcourses were scrutinized. A mixed method approach was employed: correlational and descriptivestatistics were calculated for three dimensions of the questionnaire (content management,evaluation and interactivity) and topical analysis for the open-ended questions. The main resultsindicate that students valued highly the use of Moodle by their teachers, although there weresignificant differences between the two groups in the dimensions of contents and evaluation (ICTcourses were rated highly), but not in interactivity. Those outcomes, besides a detailed category ofMoodle uses from the topical analysis, shed light on how this tool can be improved as a way offavouring its didactic value (i.e. collaborative learning) as opposed to the technical use of it that hasbeen predominant so far (i.e. repository of contents).