Success and Challenges Based on Usability in Moodle: Teachers' Perspective

By

[Name of the Author]

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy - Applied Management and Decision Sciences

Abstract

The problem to be addressed in this dissertation is the gap in knowledge and information about virtual learning environments, specifically Moodle, from the teacher's perspective. Virtual learning environments should relieve and not increase the burden on educators. Some of the questions to be explored are: (1) How do teachers (instructors) feel about using Moodle with their courses? (2) What area of Moodle do educators feel is most helpful? Why? (3) How do instructors rate Moodle based on different characteristics of a learning management system as compared to other management systems? Theory related to this area of inquiry is Interpretivism philosophy of science for which Max Weber is a key theorist in its development. Recently, researchers have compared learning management systems based on their functionality, user-friendliness, and cost. Some of the key features evaluated in a learning management system are its usability, availability, security, stability, interoperability, and scalability. Learning management skills are listed as one of the categories of computer literacy in higher education. The goal of this research will be to investigate the nature of using Moodle from the teacher's perspective of usability, ease and acceptance; identify technical and user skills within Moodle based on teacher's perspective; measure the acceptability of Moodle when a 3-D module is incorporated. Moodle is an open-source virtual learning management environment allows teaching communities to produce innovations in online learning. The purpose of this research is to reveal better ways of using Moodle. The significance of the research will benefit schools in the designing of new activities for teaching and learning and how to evaluate the learning of students as they engage those activities. A qualitative case study that will employ the information and data gathered from Moodle teachers of online learning institutions over a 12-week period will be utilized. We will use qualitative data triangulation which will include phone interviews, existing data, and survey. The phone interviews will be conducted with Moodle teachers. The existing data will be retrieved from Moodle documentation and website. The survey data from Moodle teachers will be captured through SurveyMonkey. The population for this study that will be utilized will be drawn from Moodle teachers from online learning institutions. The phone interviews will be conducted with college teachers. The existing data will be gathered from literature review, Moodle documentation and Moodle web communities. Purposive sampling will be used to select teachers and will be based on their diverse backgrounds facilitating in traditional and nontraditional learning environments. Examples of the research data that will be collected include demographic data, phone interview data, current practice of technology and learning management systems, years of experience teaching, traditional or nontraditional teaching environments, teaching level and discipline. Alongside the above analysis and features being used, a Usability model shall be inducted in the development and establishment of the kind of issues and concerns ...