Uus meedia kui õpikeskkond EHTE hotellimajanduse eriala õpilaste näitel
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
In the given B.A. thesis „The new media as a study environment with the example of a group
of students majoring in hotel management at the Estonian School of Hotel and Tourism
Management (EHTE)” I focused on „new media” as the essence of the study environment,
while looking for relations between theoretical viewpoints regarding the use of e-studying and
empirical experiences thereof.
The empirical part of the given B.A. thesis is based on a questionnaire, which was developed
in the process of a term paper (Vokksepp 2007) and which comprises the following research
questions:
a) How and by which means do the EHTE students make use of the e-study environment
of IVA? More specifically, which kinds of means are in used actively and which ones
are used more rarely during the study process or which ones are rather avoided
altogether.
b) How is the cooperation among each other and with the instructor being evaluated
while studying in the web?
c) How do students relate to e-study and the IVA study environment in general? Is there
reason for improving the IVA e-study environment and if so, what in particular?
d) What is the general opinion about e-study and how can the students’ attitudes have an
effect on the initiation of full-scale courses at the Estonian School of Hotel and
Tourism Management for the academic year of 2007/2008?
There were 55 respondents for the questionnaire; however, since two questionnaires were
filled out insufficiently only 53 responses were counted. Among the respondents there were
47 women and six men at the age of 19-32 years providing an average age of 21 years. Out of
the respondents there are 38 persons, which means more than two thirds, who are living in
Tallinn.
The following statements, forming the major results of the B.A. thesis, need to be pointed out:
a) Young people feel comfortable in the use of the Internet, the use of an e-study
environment is not complicated for them,
b) studying communities need consistent direction in order to function purposefully,
c) the text-based nature of the studies does not create a problem; however, since the
students prefer emotional means, e.g. videos and emoticons, then this kind of means
should also be implemented,
d) the IVA environment shows failures for the use of reflective means – forums and tests,
e) the option of having a blog as another reflectional means will obviously not find users
in the IVA e-study environment; instead, as a suggestion by the author of the thesis,
the use of a search window for a particular database, e.g. Wikipedia, an estonian –
english dictionary etc. could be provided by default,
f) in terms of their organisation all e-study environments examined in the B.A. thesis are
directed towards an asynchronous performance of studies. In a strategic plan of
developing e-studies this may turn out into a mistake, for in this case a great part of
the potential provided by the “new media” will remain unused. The author of the given
thesis suggests paying attention to the synchronous part of e-studies as well.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)