The Interrelationaship Between University Teachers' Pedagogical Beliefs, Beliefs about Web Technologies and Web Practices

Abstract

Educational technologies in university education are widely promoted for their potential to enrich, enhance and extend student laearning 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 envirnments. 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).