Exploring Students’ Experiences of Moodle to Facilitate their Learning

Abstract

Moodle is one of the online learning management systems that has brought about dramatic innovation in the teaching and learning method. This research aims to study the use of Moodle as an online teaching platform to facilitate students’ learning. It specifically aims to identify the factors that may have an impact on students’ accomplishment in addition to the obstacles faced by them in using this online platform for their academic studies. This study applied the case study research design within the qualitative research paradigm. Purposive sampling technique was applied by taking the third year undergraduate students from a private university of Karachi, Pakistan. The main reason for selecting this group of students was that the third year students would have had more experience of using Moodle and thus would be able to better express their views. The data was collected via students’ focus group discussions, teachers’ interviews and students’ online performance on Moodle. The thematic analysis took place where the recorded data was first transcribed, different codes were generated and then categorized. The findings indicated that the factors that contributed to students’ accomplishments in using Moodle are mainly dependent on students’ learning motivation and achievements and the collaboration and communication that takes place between them and the teacher via the e-learning platform. The results also demonstrated that the obstacles that students faced relate to the frequent disturbance in computer devices and misusing of online discussion forums by some class mates.