APPLICATION OF ICT TO SUPPORT TEACHING-LEARNING IN BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN FIRST AND SECOND CYCLE SUBJECTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE

INTRODUCTION

With the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), university teaching must adapt to a new model which encourages the use of new teaching methods that will enable students to develop new skills, such as the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), based on interactive learning.

AIM

The general aim of this project is to present an ICT-based methodological proposal to support the teaching-learning process for those first and second cycle subjects taught at the University of Alicante that share Basic Psychological Processes as the backbone in their study programme.

The specific aims of this project are:
-To encourage the lecturers who teach these subjects to exchange experiences and methodologies.
-To generate work tools that will help us to promote teaching quality in these subjects.
-To improve efficiency in the management of these subjects through efficient coordination of the resources used for teaching.
-To evaluate the students’ degree of satisfaction with the methodology set out in this teaching proposal.
-To obtain information that will allow us to draw up future research projects on the impact of applying different technologies within the teaching-learning process.

METHOD

The target audience of this project are students registered in the different University of Alicante subjects involved in the project, as well as any other student, professional or individual interested in this field of study.

The work plan was carried out in sessions in which the team exchanged experiences relating to the teaching methodology used, support materials, type of practical exercises, bibliography, etc. The final activity in the project involved the creation of a work tool: http//www.psb.ua.es.

RESULTS

This web page contains the following information: glossary, useful links related to basic psychological processes, data bases, national and international journals, basic and complementary bibliography on this field of study, as well as an ad hoc survey to assess the students’ degree of satisfaction with the methodology set out in this teaching proposal.

Applying ICT to this Technological, and Educational Innovation project to support the teaching-learning of subjects related to Basic Psychological Processes, has provided our students with a work tool that will help them to develop their self-learning skills to their maximum potential.

This research has also helped to generate an efficient and useful work tool for the lecturers involved in teaching the subjects included in this project, as well as guiding students in their acquisition of skills and abilities corresponding to this discipline.

To conclude, we would like to point out that this project is particularly appealing as the groups have used the b-learning methodology which we believe makes it easier for students to follow these subjects and obtain information about the discipline, thus achieving a greater motivation to continue with their studies.

This research project was carried out with financial aid received from the Pro-Vice-Chancellorship of Technology and Educational Innovation of the University of Alicante as part of the 2006 creation of Educational Innovation Technological Networks grant programme.