‘Lessons Learnt’: the student view in the #VLEIreland [Virtual Learning Environment] project

This paper offers an overview of general results and of longitudinal aspects of the data collected to date from student populations which generated from the #VLEIreland project. We argue how results shed light on common misconceptions around VLE usage, and what VLEs can offer from a pedagogical perspective. Building on previously published research results; this paper incorporates a total of 22 data collections, representing almost 24,000 responses, and deals with the general findings and some trends emerging from the data. Overall results year on year have shown that VLEs are used frequently and increasingly by the respondents, but much remains to be done in order to incentivize their use to generate student engagement, and move beyond the use of VLEs as content repositories. While being mindful of the methodological limitations of survey methods relying on self-selection, the breadth and scale of the data gathered across thirteen institutions over a decade offers a degree of reliability, and we attempt to mount a strong challenge to some common myths around the use of VLEs in our discussion.

Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning