Wintec Register of Research and Scholarly Activity 2004

Bev Gower and John Clayton
Centre for Learning Technologies
The objectives were fourfold:
• To establish a database on the extent to
which all New Zealand ITPs use e-learning
in their teaching programmes.
• To find the critical factors which influence
varying degrees of commitment by
teaching staff to this approach.
“e-Learning Research Project Seeks
to Identify Tutors’ Experience,
Attitude And Level of
Adoption of e-Learning.”
While the Government is pushing for an
increase in e-learning throughout tertiary
educational institutions, there is an initial need
to identify what strategies are required to
ensure the skills needed for e-learning are put
in place.
These are the carefully considered opinions
of John Clayton, Manager for Wintec’s Centre
for Learning Technologies and Bev Gower,
Academic Staff Member/Researcher. “We
need to establish the present situation in
regard to tutors’ experience, attitude and their
level of adoption of e-learning so that potential
strategies can be developed, and analysed
with the intention of encouraging tutors to
engage in e-learning environments in the
future,” they say.
To this end, John and Bev, together with Hugh
Barr, Stephen Bright and David Mitchell began
in 2004 a comprehensive research project in
the 20 New Zealand Polytechnics/Institutes of
Technology.
• To establish the relationship between
institutional policies and on-the-ground
realities in e-learning.
• To draw up a set of institutional guidelines,
based on the survey’s findings that will
encourage greater adoption of e-learning
in ITPs, and also in the wider tertiary
education sector.
The project was part of the Government’s
Five-Year Tertiary Education Strategy begun
in 2002, with the Ministry of Education
funding the e-learning research in the tertiary
sector. It was one of four carried out from
the research contracts awarded in 2004.
The project directors were David Mitchell,
currently Research Director at Wintec, and
John Clayton.
In 2004 three preliminary reports were
produced, a literature review; e-Learning:
An Annotated Bibliography, a report on
a: Survey of e-Learning Managers in
New Zealand Institutes of Technology/
Polytechnics and a report on the case
studies e-Learning in Three New Zealand
Institutes of Technology/Polytechnics. In
2005 the fourth preliminary report and the final
report will be submitted.
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