The use of ICT in teaching tertiary physics: Technology and pedagogy

In recent years, Vietnam’s government has been driving reform in education. An important goal of the reform is to promote innovative teaching and learning methods (Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training, 2001, 2008; Vietnam's National Assembly, 2000, 2005). The teaching approach has been consequently slowly changing from teacher-centred to student-centred, and information communication technologies (ICTs) are becoming integrated in education (Vietnam's National Assembly, 2000, 2005).

According to UNESCO (2005), the process of educational institutions adopting and using ICTs follow four stages: emerging, applying, infusing and transforming. Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (2010) categorises South East Asian countries into three groups based on the countries’ stages of integrating ICTs in education: group one at infusing and transforming stages, group two mainly at the infusing stage and group three at the emerging stage. Generally, Vietnam belongs to the second group who have integrated ICTs into existing teaching, learning and administration (mainly at the infusing stage). The little literature about the use of ICTs in education at Vietnam’s universities focuses on educators’ access to ICTs and their concepts of learning, and generally use quantitative methods which provide little deep insight into the pedagogical implementation of ICTs (Peeraer & Van Petegem, 2011). The literature review that was conducted did not reveal any research on the pedagogy associated with the use of ICTs in Physics at Vietnam’s tertiary level.

The objectives of the current study are to investigate (1) the ICT applications that lecturers use in teaching Physics in Vietnam’s universities, (2) frequency of application and (3) the pedagogy of the ICT use. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed in the research. Besides questionnaires administered to lecturers, interviews with students and lecturers were performed in order to triangulate the data and so enhance trustworthiness.

This paper first describes a theoretical background related to the research topic. Then the research method and findings will be discussed.