Teachers’ Opinions on the Use of Personal Learning Environments for Intercultural Competence

Abstract

Background: The aim of the present study was to evaluate teachers’ opinions on the use of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) for the development of students’ intercultural competences. Methods: This investigation carried out a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews applied to a sample of n = 100 Compulsory Secondary Education teachers in Andalusia (Spain) with an average teaching experience of 13.13 years (SD = 6.63). The interview shows excellent content validity (Content Validity Index for the interview overall, S-CVI = 0.94). The concordant codes and sub-codes were established in the analysis with the participation of two researchers and an external expert. Then, the data was analyzed using NVivo software. Results: The results show the opinions of the teachers grouped into six separate codes: intercultural learning communities, learning improvement, intercultural development of the student, disinformation, inapplicability, and inappropriate use. Conclusions: In general, it is concluded that the teachers consider the benefits of using PLE in the development of students’ intercultural competences. Despite this, some opinions reveal a lack of training and motivation, or the lack of ability teachers have on the subject, as well as in their classrooms, with the result that the PLE is not applicable for intercultural education.