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| ---------- Project manager: Liz Masterman The study will last for 21 months and will use surveys, interviews and data reported at significant or memorable moments to create a broad-brush picture enhanced by in-depth case studies. |
THEMA: Exploring the experiences of Master’s students in technology-rich environments
What is Thema?
The Thema project is being carried out by the Learning Technologies Group within Oxford University Computing Services. It is funded from 1st March 2007 to 30th November 2008 by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) and is one of eight projects in phase 2 of JISC’s [http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_learnerexperience.aspx Learner Experiences of E-learning Programme]. Each of these projects is exploring a different aspect of students’ experience of computers and other digital technologies in their learning in a range of institutions and at different levels of post-compulsory education.
Thema focuses on the experiences of students on taught Master’s programmes, both in Oxford’s main collegiate University and its Department of Continuing Education. We believe that students at this level are of particular interest because of their heterogeneity in terms of, for example, age, educational history, life situation and IT skills. Moreover, a substantial number will be planning to embark on doctoral programmes and thus making the transition from taught to independent study.
What do we want to find out?
We are interested in students' evolving experience of technology – both hardware and software – during their courses. Starting from the assumption that they come to Oxford with an existing set of IT skills and technological tools at their disposal, which they have used in their previous studies and/or their personal and social lives, we want to investigate:
Whether - and how - their use of such tools changes during their course, through contact with the tools provided by the University (e.g. WebLearn, bibliographic software) and tools which they find out about in other ways (e.g. from fellow students or through their own discoveries).
- Whether teaching staff use technology in a way that students find motivating, and which they feel really benefits their learning.
- The extent to which students are using new "social software" such as blogs, wikis and Facebook, and whether they feel these tools might have a role to play in their studies.