The role of teachers’ beliefs in the use of Open Educational Resources (OER).
In the last decade, several studies have analysed the reasons behind teachers’ decisions to use OER in their practices identifying them either as enablers or incentives or barriers (JISC 2010, Belikov & Bodily 2016, Abeywardena, Gajaraj, and Chan 2012, Mtebe and Raisamo 2014). Enablers or incentives include student achievement and increased retention rate (Pawlyshyn, Braddlee, Casper & Miller, 2013, para. 1), efficacy of OER (Hilton, 2016), positive perceptions by students and faculty members about the quality of OER when compared to traditional textbooks (Bliss, Hilton et al. 2013), cost saving (The Open Education Consortium,2015), student retention (Tresman, 2002), institutional strategy of OER (Ives & Pringle, 2013), institutional culture change (Rolfe & Fowler, 2012) and cross-institutional collaboration and innovation (Pawlyshyn, Braddlee, & Miller, 2013). Barriers include lack of experience with using OER, lack of awareness of OER (Belikov & Bodily, 2016), Internet accessibility and reliability (Mtebe and Raisamo, 2014), barriers of discoverability of resources, and time available to evaluate resources (Abeywardena, Gajaraj, & Chan, 2012), legal issues and technical challenges (JISC 2010). However, as stated by Belikov & Bodily (2016: 235)“the future of OER will likely depend on how it is perceived by individual faculty members”.
Although various studies that have analysed the reasons behind teachers’ decisions to use OER in their practices have identified a number of external and internal factors that are perceived either as enablers or barriers to the uptake of OER, I would argue that these do not necessarily explain why teachers respond differently to the use of OER in their contexts. I aim to gain a further understanding of the reasons behind teachers’ use of OER by exploring the relationships between teachers’ beliefs about OER and their decisions to integrate these resources into their practices.
Teachers’ beliefs are situated within a view of teaching as a thinking activity (Clark and Peterson, 1986), that is to say that what teachers do is a reflection of what they know and believe. Teachers’ beliefs are characterised as intuitive screens that act as filter through which teachers make sense of new information about teaching (Goodman in Johnson, 1999: 33). Johnson adds that these intuitive screens are used to ‘read’ situations and interpret new information (1999: 33).
Furthermore, teachers’ beliefs are derived from a number of different sources (Kindsvatter et al., 1988) that include teachers’ experience as students and as teachers, teachers’ knowledge base and perceptions of contextual factors. Through these sources, teachers form a system of beliefs that consists of beliefs about self-efficacy, i.e judgments about one’s own capacity to perform teaching tasks successfully (Albion 1999, Bandura, 1997); beliefs about the subject matter, about instructional practice, about the role of teachers and students and beliefs about their contexts.
For example, teachers that hold a constructivist approach and perceive themselves as facilitators and providers of opportunities may be more open to share the process of ‘knowledge creation’ with their learners through OEP which is described as “practices which support the (re)use and production of OER through institutional polices, promote innovative pedagogical models and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning paths” (Ehlers, 2011: 4).
Another example, teachers perception of self-efficacy using OER can affect their OEP. An OEP user tends to be “visible online, interacting and sharing resources in open online spaces which may imply that these teachers feel comfortable having a digital identity, are aware of the OER and have had experience in using them (Cronin, 2017). On the contrary, if a teacher is afraid of losing control when there is not enough knowledge or experience with OER, the up take may be hindered by this belief.
Teachers may use OEP if OER makes sense to them in the context of how they teach and the goals they have for students’ learning. The decisions to use OER in teaching is influenced to differing degrees by beliefs about pedagogical potential seen in the resources, by teachers’ knowledge and experience with OER which informs them what is possible and how these resources can be used; by the beliefs about their roles as teachers; by their beliefs of self such as teachers’ self-efficacy, self competence and confidence for using OER and by beliefs about their contexts such as institutional requirements, perceptions of students and colleagues and the educational system.
I believe that teachers’ belief system plays a strong role in informing teachers’ decisions and would provide a more informed understanding of the factors which seem to create tensions with regards to the integration of OER into teaching contexts.
Bibliography
Abeywardena, I. S., Gajaraj, D., & Chan C. S. (2012). Searching and locating OER: Barriers to the wider adoption of OER for teaching in Asia. Regional Symposium on Open Educational Resources: An Asian Perspective on Policies and Practice. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236170461
Albion , P.R. (1999) Self-efficacy beliefs as an indication of teachers preparedness of teaching with technology. Association for Advancement of Computing in Education. Available online at: http://www.usq.edu.au/users/albion/papers/site99/1345.html
Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: The exercise of control (New York, W. H. Freeman)
Belikov, O. M., & Bodily, R. (2016). Incentives and barriers to OER adoption: A qualitative analysis of faculty perceptions. Open Praxis, 8, 235–248
Cronin, C. (2017) Openness and praxis: exploring the us elf open educational practices in higher education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18 (5): 1–17.
Ehlers, U.-D. (2011). “Extending the Territory: From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices”. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning. 15 (2). Retrieved 27 October 2016.
Hilton, J. (2016). Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions. Educational Technology Research and Development, 64(4), 573–590. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9434-9
Johnson, K. E. (1999) Understanding language teaching: Reasoning in action (Toronto, Heinle and Heinle Publishers).
Kindsvatter, R., Willen, W. & Ishler, M. (1988) Dynamics of effective teaching. (White Plains, NY, Longman).
Mtebe, J. S., & Raisamo, R. (2014). Investigating perceived barriers to the use of open educational resources in higher education in Tanzania. International Review of Distance and Open Learning, 15(2). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1803/284
