E-learning and history
teaching in higher
education: A survey of
student experiences
and opinions
Dr Jamie Wood
University of Lincoln
Image: http://bit.ly/14ynKR3
Website: http://makingdigitalhistory.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/
Twitter: @woodjamie99

Introduction
• 2012-13: survey and desk research of staff and
student experiences and perceptions of e-learning
in History teaching
• HEA report, co-authored with Dr Antonella Liuzzo
Scorpo, University of Lincoln (source of the word
cloud on p. 1)
– Questions and methodology
– Overview
– Skills and learning enhancement
– Negative impacts/ difficulties
– Staff perspectives
– Summary

• What are benefits of e-
learning for student
learning and staff teaching
in History HE?
• What are the challenges
and drawbacks of e-
learning?
E-learning and History teaching survey

METHODOLOGY
• Survey (http://tinyurl.com/8kkz524) administered to 1st and
2nd year students at 5 UK History departments
– 38 students responded (11 x 1st years/ 27 x 2nd years)
– Mainly History, but also joint degrees
• Interview with 1 member of teaching staff at 5 UK History
departments

RESULTS (from students)
TYPES OF TECHNOLOGY USED
Virtual learning environments 37
Discussion boards 24
Video (YouTube etc.) 19
Audio (podcasts etc.) 12
Social networking (Facebook etc.) 8
Blogs 5
Collaborative document creation (Google docs etc.) 5
Document sharing (Dropbox etc.) 3
Wikis 2
Twitter 1
Photos (Flickr etc.) 1
Other 2

0
2
4
6
8
10
12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
HOW IMPORTANT ARE TECHNOLOGIES TO YOUR LEARNING?
(between 1 and 10, where 1=not at all; 10=essential)
Frequency
Rating (1-10)

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY FOR
LEARNING?
• Virtual learning environments (31 responses); used as:
– repository (21 responses)
– site for assessment and feedback (5)
– means of communication (5)
– site for enhancing learning (3):
• ‘refreshing my memory’
• ‘enabled me to easily organise my learning’
• taking ‘own personal notes’ to learn by ‘observing things’
• YouTube/ online library resources/ databases/ university
portal (2 responses each)

Reported student uses of technology
Uses (activities/ purposes) Frequency Percentage of students
using technology for
this purpose
Looking up lecture slides and handouts 38 100
Communication with other students (e.g.
Twitter, Facebook, discussion boards)
21 55.3
Discussion 14 36.8
Communication with lecturers (e.g. Twitter,
Facebook)
12 31.6
Sharing materials with fellow students and
teachers
12 31.6
Constructing resources for myself or with
other students (e.g. wikis, blogs)
7 18.4

Virtual learning environments:
benefits and drawbacks: some quotes
Discussion boards are useful because they
make visible ‘the skills of other students’
‘they also helped develop my interest and
independent inquiry around the subject, as
certain side topics were highlighted in the
lecture notes in that they were more featured’
‘with some modules, all readings were
provided on blackboard so improved ease of
access, and decreased the amount of time
wasted looking for them.’
Repositories ‘helped me to become
more independent as the access to the
slides meant that I did not necessarily
need to attend all lectures.’

‘The ability to hear historical speeches by
the original speechmaker, or to see
original newsreel clips is an essential part
of research of contemporary history.’
YouTube provides access to ‘better
lectures’ and enhanced learning
‘tremendously’
‘YouTube was more beneficial than writing
reams of notes or revision prep and even
attending lectures. The resources available on
YouTube are vast and specific. I could easily
find a video that was more specific if I want to
delve into a particular area of study.’

EXTENT TO WHICH TECHNOLOGIES ENHANCED
LEARNING IN FOLLOWING AREAS...
(students provided rating from 1-5: 1=not at all; 5=a great deal)
• Preparing for class: 4.26 (staff: 8.3/10)
• Preparing for assessment: 4.26 (6.6/10)
• Working independently: 4.05 (6.9/10)
• Reflecting on learning: 4.03 (5.9/10)
• Subject knowledge: 3.79 (6.9/10)
• Skills development: 3.03 (5.2/10)
• Collaborative working: 2.45 (3.1/10)

SKILLS DEVELOPED
Independent learning (29)
Research skills (20)
Communication (8)
Knowledge and understanding (8)
No skills improvement (8)
No response (7)

NEGATIVE IMPACTS
• Technical issues
• Repositories are useful, but too much
reliance on them:
•‘sort of dumbing down or levelling out
[...] these things might encourage a bit
more spoon-feeding’ (staff)
• Some skills are not developed:
•‘hasn’t really developed skills that I
believe are essential part of uni process.
i.e. teamwork, discussion and developing
your own interest of study’ (student)

Staff perspectives: potential positive
impacts of e-learning
• Enhancing communication due to (most) students’ familiarity with
technology and expectation that technology will be used in their learning.
• Improving engagement by (1) providing information and skills to students
who may be intimidated by more conventional academic environments;
(2) enabling students who might not be comfortable with contributing to
discussion in class to do so in an online environment; and (3) providing
fora in which students can create, share and comment on resources.
• Increasing flexibility because students can access materials away from
campus.
• Providing materials to students, often in advance of classes to facilitate
preparation, thereby removing the problem of lack of access to hard-copy
resources.
• Enabling independent and self-directed learning because students can
learn at their own time and pace.
• Enriching the learning experience by providing access to multimedia
resources.

Staff perspectives: some warnings
• Students are not necessarily ‘digital
natives’, esp. within discipline
• Researching using the Internet is
challenging
• Over-reliance on e-learning can reduce
independence
• A ‘narrowing’ effect, esp. among 1st
year and weaker students (the VLE
repository contains ‘everything’)
• Some resistance to learning activities
outside classroom and to interacting
with one another

OVERALL SUMMARY
• Limiting features
• Consistency? ‘Getting all lecturers to embrace technology would be a step
forward‘
• Staff AND students think that it doesn’t help that much in certain areas (team-
working; developing some skills)
• Narrowing/ a closed body of knowledge? Esp. for weaker students perhaps
• Can promote teacher-centred/ transmission approaches
• Virtual learning environments predominate and (along
with other technologies) are viewed positively by
students and staff
• BUT danger of ‘miscommunication’
• Independent learning and research skills vs. ease of access to resources