PhD Tesis Lecture

The purpose of the research is twofold. First is to analyze the reasons for the lack of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) integration into university teaching. Second is to explain why it occurs, what factors justify the existence of barriers and which is the best way to address and lessen their impact. To achieve this purpose, two objectives are established: a) Elaborate an explanatory model of university teacher barriers to using ICT in teaching; and b) generate a proposal that facilitates ICT integration into university teacher performance and break down the barriers identified.

The research is developed under an interpretative paradigm and we apply a sequential mixed methodology in a multiple case study. The multiple case study is composed of institutions with clearly different characteristics, with the purpose of avoiding as much as possible the influence of size, entitlement or location in the results. We analyze four Catalan universities: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat de Lleida, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and Universitat de VIC. To collect this data, we apply a questionnaire, a semi structured interview and documentary analysis.

The results show that there are specific barriers to technology integration, from a personal and professional domain (internal barriers) and institutional and contextual (external barriers). Analysis show significant correlation between some barriers and between some factors. In order to show graphically the relationship between barriers, we have created an explanatory model of barriers to digital technology integration. In conclusions we affirm that in university teaching there is still work to do for achieve integration of digital technologies because there are some barriers that are blocking this implementation. For the purpose of improving the situation, we propose an improvement plan for institutions. This plan includes a self-assessment questionnaire to diagnose the use of ICT and the existing obstacles in an organization, guidelines about how to implement this change; and a set of actions to develop in order to eliminate the barriers detected.

The defense court was headed by Dr. Mercè Gisbert Cervera, from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, acting as a secretary Dr. Anna Díaz Vicario, from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and as a vocal Dr. Miguel Júlio Teixeira Guerreiro Jerónimo, from Instituto Politécnico de Leiria. The PhD thesis was graded Excellent Cum Laude.