Awareness, Experience and Organizational Maturity of Open Education (2021)
Data analysis of different attitudes and preferences
Current research is lacking to provide such individual target profiles representing subjective preferences of usage as well as awareness and expectations (Mishra et al. 2016). One crucial factor in the uptake of OER in higher education and business are the different preconditions that various stakeholders bring to the table. Mishra et al. attest to “a need to understand teachers’ psychological and behavioral determinants that may influence better use of OER” (2016). Furthermore, Cronin (2017) argues that openness in education is “always complex, personal, contextual, and continually negotiated”.
We therefore focus on this theme and aim to understand what motivation and awareness as well as attitudes and capacity different actors have, and how they differ according to their position in the education and training orchestration, if they are education professional or institutional leaders.
In our research we therefore ask the question: How can the attitude, the capacity and the awareness of educational professionals and of institutional policy makers be understood, described, differentiated and characterized? In an online survey we asked educational professionals and institutional leaders from business and higher education. A double gap emerges, with attitudes and quality perceptions differing despite similar backgrounds regarding OER awareness, experience, capacity, and organizational maturity. Also, an institutional policy – practice gap can be observed between leaders and professional educators with differing perceptions and attitudes between these groups presenting a challenge to the uptake of OER in higher education and business contexts.
