- Within the framework of the comprehensive educational reform of Moroccan universities, the twinning project financed by the European Union has the general objective of accompanying, assisting and promoting the reform of the Moroccan higher education system within the framework of its strategic vision 2015-2030 and its approach to the European Higher Education Area, which has a twofold aim: to enhance the employability of graduates and to improve the governance of the university system. The purpose of this paper is to present the work carried out in the component 3 of this project, focused on the diversification of teaching methods (elearning strategy). This component has aimed to provide guidelines and recommendations for addressing the main problems of Higher Education in Morocco and improving its quality.
Keywords—e-learning, Higher Education, Educational technology, Technology Acceptance, TAM, Morocco.
In 2015, the Moroccan Government's Higher Education, Training and Research Council approved the Strategic Vision 2015-30 under the title "For a School of Equity, Quality and Promotion", which aims to achieve the following objectives by 2030:
The promotion of the individual and the society.
This is a comprehensive reform based on a new methodological approach, with a particular focus on the consolidation of the higher education system. Morocco is also seeking to come closer to the standards and guidelines of the European Economic Community through higher education and scientific research, intending to increase the quality of the higher education system and its governance processes. Additionally, a modernisation of the higher education system brings with it an openness to the international market.
In this context, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Regional Ministry of Education of Castilla y León signed a twinning project in November 2017 to adapt the Bologna recommendations in Moroccan universities, addressing issues related to educational technologies, ECTS, diversification of the training offer and recognition of university degrees, among others, in order to generate a process of transfer of European knowledge and experience.
Twinning projects are an instrument of institutional cooperation of the European Commission with the candidate countries and the countries of the region of the European Union's Neighbourhood Policy where, through technical assistance carried out by public institutions of the member countries of the European Union, it promotes the strengthening of the public administrations of the beneficiary countries.
This paper aims to give an overview of the work carried out by the University Institute of Educational Sciences of the University of Salamanca on the diversification of teaching methods (e-learning strategy) in the framework of the twinning project.
The work has been organised in the following sections. The second section describes the main components in which the twinning project is organised. The third section describes the methodology used to carry out the study in Moroccan higher education institutions. The fourth section presents a brief account of the results obtained. Finally, the last section summarises the main conclusions of the study.
Education Area" (Appui au Système de l'Enseignement supérieur au Maroc dans le cadre d' un rapprochement avec l'Espace européen de l'Enseignem), is a European project whose general objective is to accompany, assist and promote the reform of Morocco's higher education system within the framework of its strategic vision 2015-2030 and its approach to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in order to improve the employability of graduates and the governance of the university system. The project has lasted two years (January 2018 - December 2019), and its development is organised into six components involving different Spanish institutions coordinated by the Regional Ministry of Education of Castilla y León:
Component 1: Approximation of the legislative and regulatory framework to EU standards.
Component 2: Diversification of training provision. Component 3: Diversification of teaching methods. Component 4: Policy and implementation of ECTS in the framework of LMD degrees (Bachelor, Master and Doctorate).
Each component has a person in charge of coordinating the different missions carried out in Morocco as part of the component so that the objectives of the component are achieved.
In particular, this work falls under component 3 [
This component has been developed according to the
needs formulated by the Moroccan Ministry of Education,
related to the modernisation of the higher education system
and the need for openness at the international level, thus
complying with the recommendations of the Bologna process
on which the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is
built [
In particular, component 3 focuses on incorporating
eLearning solutions [
Component 3 was carried out over six missions in Morocco and a visit to the University of Salamanca and the University of Burgos by a delegation of Moroccan representatives (Fig. 1). The four phases of the study were carried out during different missions:
3.1.1 Assessment of the state of the art
3.1.2 Questionnaire design
3.1.3 Quantitative result analysis
3.1.4 Conducting interviews Questionnaire application
Report Fig. 1. Design of the study according to the phases and missions.
Phase 1: analysis of the context and design of the research (Mission 3.1.1)
o o o o o
relationship with the quantitative results (Mission 3.1.5).
Phase 4: Recommendations to diversify teaching methods in all fields of study.
The first phase focused on the collection of information for
the design of the study. Specifically, it focused on the
collection of documentation to understand the reality of
Higher Education in Morocco: massification, shortage of
teachers, weak technological infrastructures, few indicators of
access to online training, incipient appropriation of solutions
based on mass instruction platforms, such as MOOC (Massive
Open Online Course) [
In response to this need, a mixed approach study is
proposed, with an explanatory sequence [
Finally, after implementing the instrument with the support of the Moroccan Ministry of Education, the third mission of Component 3 (Mission 3.1.3) has focused on carrying out the analysis of the results collected from 1 July 2019 to 4 November 2019.
3.1.5
Qualitative result analysis
Report Universit y
The study population is made up of teachers from Moroccan public universities, regardless of their professional category. Concerning private universities, the Ministry has indicated that they should be excluded from the study population.
According to figures from the 2018-2019 official statistics
on university higher education in Morocco (Direction des
Stratégies et des Systèmes d'Information, 2018), the
population is composed of 14 400 teachers. However, the
report for the academic year 2017-2018 [
The sample corresponding to the qualitative phase was composed of a total of 26 subjects: 20 university teachers (with and without experience in the educational use of ICT) and 6 university key agent managers from the different Moroccan universities organised into four groups.
The instruments were designed at the beginning of the second and third phase. The quantitative instruments were designed based on the information obtained in the first phase. To design them, a model was made to evaluate the current state of integration of Educational Technologies in the teaching-learning processes in the Public Universities of Morocco, both at the level of accessibility and support and concerning their useful inclusion in university teaching.
In particular, as part of the analysis of the situation, two
instruments were developed, a questionnaire of indicators on
the penetration and use of educational technologies in
Moroccan public universities [
The indicators tool has been developed based on the
UNIVERSITIC reports [
The second instrument is a questionnaire based on the
extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) [
Concerning the instrument used for the qualitative part, a set of semi-structured interviews was designed to address the issues of interest revealed during the previous quantitative analysis. Thus, these interviews were organised around the following topics: institutional resources for the use of new technologies, level and types of use of ICTs in the teaching of the interviewees, perceived benefits of the use of ICTs, main difficulties in the use of ICTs and areas for improvement, institutional support for the incorporation and use of ICTs in teaching. In each of the interviews, the questions were Participati adjusted to the opinions and interests expressed by the on % participants, allowing other issues to emerge such as the characteristics of the students or the change in the teaching and educational model needed to accompany the implementation of ICTs in higher education.
During Mission 3.1.2, the instruments described above were defined in order to apply them in the 12 Moroccan public universities. The first instrument, "Questionnaire of Indicators on the Penetration and Use of Educational Technologies in Moroccan Public Universities", was answered in a unique way by each public university, taking into account the importance of the answers reflecting the reality of each institution in the most reliable way. The questionnaire has been shared as a form in PDF format so that it has been sent to the key agent of each university to provide the requested data. The process has been developed from April 2019 to November 2019.
The second instrument, "Questionnaire of Acceptance of Educational Technologies for Teaching in Moroccan Public Universities", is aimed at teachers in all public universities in Morocco. This questionnaire has been carried out online, so the data collection process has consisted of sending it to all public universities and making several reminders in order to obtain at least 50-60 responses per university. The process has covered the period from April to November 2019.
The qualitative information was collected through four discussion groups with university teachers and management and administration staff held in December 2019.
About the analysis of the first questionnaire, referring to indicators of penetration and use of new technologies, it is necessary to highlight the need for improvement in infrastructure to solve some shortcomings that hinder the use of new technologies on campus, such as the lack of availability of WiFi connection in 100% of university spaces or the low number of free computers available to students.
However, despite the shortcomings detected in infrastructure and support, all universities have a virtual teaching platform, which indicates an interest on the part of both the institutions and the Ministry in implementing eLearning solutions. On the contrary, these platforms are underused, as the number of teachers using them is a negligible percentage of the total population.
Secondly, the results of the analysis of the questionnaire on the acceptance of new technologies (Table II) show that, although the willingness of university teachers to use educational technologies is positive, there is a wide range of improvement.
In total, high scores (above 5.5) were obtained on 18 items, medium scores (between 4.5 and 5.5) on 10 items and low scores (below 4.5) on 6 items.
The analysis of their content allows the detection of two priority areas for improvement:
Training of university teachers in the use of new technologies: since most of the items with the scores refer to the perception of the effort and the own capacity to use the tools.
Development of awareness programmes: taking into account that the scores obtained in the items of the dimensions related to the social image are below 4.5 in most cases.
Finally, the results of the qualitative phase were in line with those obtained in the analyses of the questionnaires, helping to delve into some issues and providing details about some of the problems identified in the first phase. Regarding the available resources, most of the interviewees corroborated that there is a lack of both material and human resources and a problem of accessibility to online resources, which hinders the implementation of ICTs in a generalised way. On the other hand, there was a general demand for more training for teachers, with a twofold focus: technical training in the use of the tools, and pedagogical training in the specific educational uses of these tools, all accompanied by institutional programmes to stimulate the use of learning technologies among teachers, reflected in information and training campaigns as well as an adequate recognition of the time dedicated to eLearning tasks. Finally, the discussion groups also revealed a need to improve communication between teachers and administrative spheres, with the dual objective of being able to receive information about institutional resources and programmes, as well as being able to convey their concerns and needs about the process.
Firstly, some limitations of this study should be highlighted. In the quantitative part, the main limitation encountered was that most of the sample came from few higher education institutions. For its part, one of the main limitations of the qualitative phase was that most of the informants came from the same institution. However, this limitation was compensated for by having a diverse group of participants (teachers with and without experience in handling ICTs, administrative staff, academic heads).
Besides, it is also necessary to take into account, when interpreting the results, the high student-teacher ratio in Moroccan universities, given that there are 63 students for every teacher (62.93).
In general, despite all the needs and areas for improvement identified by the participating teachers, they showed a good disposition towards the use of educational technologies. However, it should be pointed out that the management and technical agents did express some reticence on the part of the teaching staff, which can be explained by the effect of the social desirability bias, which means that teachers may tend to respond to what they consider will be better received by the interviewer. This reticence can be explained by several of the reasons explained above, such as the extra workload involved in starting to use ICT or the lack of institutional stimulus programmes.
However, in both phases of the study, it is clear that inexperienced teachers consider technologies to be useful for their work, although they do not specify specific didactic uses, which again highlights the need for training programmes in the pedagogical use of ICT.
In this sense, the positive results expressed by the participants in the discussion group held with the teachers who are experts in the use of ICT (held at the Institute of eLearning at Mohammed V University) open the door to taking the work carried out at that centre as a model, bearing in mind that its teachers seem to have made a successful adoption of these tools, showing knowledge of both technical handling and educational possibilities.
The final conclusion of the study, especially ratified with decision-makers in the Ministry of Higher Education and government teams from Moroccan public universities, is the need to introduce learning technologies under a strategic framework that allows the important challenges identified to be tackled with adequate guarantees of success and sustainability.
This work is part of the Projet Jumelage Enseignement Supérieur 2018-2020 “Appui au Système de l'Enseignement supérieur au Maroc dans le cadre d'un rapprochement avec l'Espace européen de l'Enseignement supérieur” (Ref. Referencia: MA13/ENPI/SO/02-17 (MA/58)).