Entornos personales de aprendizaje de estudiantes universitarios costarricenses

Abstract

The main objective of this doctoral thesis is to analyze the personal learning environments of Costa Rican university students. For this purpose, a quantitative research has been conducted. The methodological design was structured in various phases. The first one was of an explorative nature, and was carried out with education students. It afforded a general overview of this collective’s PLE configuration. For the second phase, a more comprehensive questionnaire with various scales validated by experts was prepared to inquire after PLE formation and usage in higher education, employing various analysis perspectives as reference. During the finale stage, said questionnaire was administered to the last year university students in all programs at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. Among the most notable results, it is worth mentioning that the university students maintain positive attitudes towards the use of technology, though they present a moderately developed PLE both in formal and informal learning environments. The most used tools are those designed to access information and, to a lesser extent, those that facilitate communication, generating content being the least developed dimension of PLE.