Eric.ed.gov – Pre-Service Teachers’ Lived Experiences with Taking Courses through Learning Management Systems: A Qualitative Study

Learning management systems (LMS) are web-based platforms used for enhancing and supporting classroom teaching or delivering online instruction. Much of the earlier research has focused on their technological features and implementations into instruction. However, investigating what and how teachers and students think about and experience with LMS based on their actual usage is needed to realize educational potential of these systems. This study aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ lived experiences about taking courses through Moodle LMS. The research was designed as a qualitative study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed through content analysis technique via Nvivo 7.0 software. The sample included 25 college students majoring in Computer and Instructional Technology Education at a state university in Turkey. Majority of the participants indicated that Moodle was user-friendly, beneficial and enhancer for interaction with both instructor and course content. Participants identified “assignments”, “resources”, and “forum” as the most effective instructional modules. On the other hand, some argued that Moodle could not provide face-to-face interaction like in the classrooms and thus it was not suitable for certain math and non-math courses requiring such interaction. They also found registration to course website as the biggest technical challenge.