Teachers’ Perceived Value, Motivations for and Adoption of Open Educational Resources in Animal and Food Sciences

Abstract

Abstract-Teachers' motivations behind their view on valueand adoption of open educational resources (OER) were investigated based on 101 questionnaire answers from teachers in animal welfare, animal science and food science. A factor analysis uncovered the underlying dimensions for teachers' motives and indicated that they were complex and linked to subject area. Underlying dimensions for the motives to adopt OER were identified at three levels; individual (e.g. altruism), institutional (e.g. collaboration with peers), and societal (e.g. reaching beyond borders of the academy). The underlying dimensions for the inhibitors for adoption at individual and institutional level were challenges regarding individual competences, quality assessment and teaching practices. When using activity theory, an affinity space could be identified for teachers in animal welfare with its own norms and expectations with regards to the open educational practices. The results suggested that sharing for the benefit of others and collective collaboration with other peers were stronger incentives for teachers in the specific subject of animal welfare than it was for teachers in broader and less contested subject areas. Animal welfare teachers also had low agreement with problems such as OER being deviant to higher education and for being difficult to adapt to teaching context, and these teachers also had a higher adoption rate than other teachers. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that OER challenges the boundaries of higher education and that an affinity space can enable OER adoption.

Discipline-Based Education Research for Animal Welfare Science

“…Of pedagogic approaches, digital education is a common topic within the higher education sector (38)(39)(40)(41)(42) and industry environments (43)(44)(45). This may seem surprising initially, as digital education is often synonymous with "distance learning, " and distance learning presents a challenge for the teaching of practical skills (46).…”

Developing an Open Educational Resource and Exploring OER-Enabled Pedagogy in Higher Education

“…A large amount of research exists that explores factors that might motivate faculty to adopt OER and factors that might present challenges (Algers & Silva-Fletcher, 2015;Anderson et al, 2017). The literature shows that faculty are motivated to adopt OER in order to cut costs for students and to enhance educational equity (Belikov & Bodily, 2016) as well as to pursue pedagogical freedom (Dermody, 2019).…”

The Utilization of Open Educational Resources in the Collaborative Learning Environment to Enhance the Critical Thinking Skill

“…The most important thing is how to integrate technology as a tool to support the learning process so that students can achieve their competencies better. The role of the teacher in this integration process becomes very important for the success of learning process (Algers & Silva-Fletcher, 2015, Atenas et al, 2015Harsasi, 2015;.…”

“…Education is not only mastering knowledge but also including the expertise to integrate the experience to be a new and more meaningful thing (Algers & Silva-Fletcher, 2015;Guo et al, 2015;Obradović et al, 2016). The teacher can assemble problem-solving activities to enhance critical thinking (Howard et al, 2015;McPeck, 2016).…”