Human behaviour in educational contexts can be facilitated and supported by technology enhancements. This thesis considers a virtual 3D world as one such technological enhancement and explores its use in supporting technology acceptance in pre-service teacher education. The adaptation of different educational technology tools can often be challenging for teachers due to negative perceptions, lack of experience and a fear of technology. This thesis investigates the role that immersion within virtual environments can play to change perceptions, increase experience with and overcome fears associated to adopting technologies in the classroom. For this reason, this thesis asks the following questions: What factors and indicators show a positive influence on the participants’ perceptions of learning technologies? Do the virtual world (VW) activities encourage more VW connections and interactions inside the VW? What are the pre-service teachers’ reflections on learning in the VW setting? How is the learning experience in the VW applied to the real world classroom practice? This study focuses on the use of classroom technologies in a pre-service teaching program at the University of Malta. PreVieW (Pre-service teachers Virtual World experience) is evaluated using quantitative, qualitative and social network analysis (SNA). The combination of these three methods is used to measure the extent of the VW’s influence as a medium in affecting the participants’ perceptions about classroom technologies and their behavioural intentions to adopt technology during teaching. The results show that the VW experience has an overall significant positive effect on the self-reported perceptions of technology. Factors affecting this result are perceived ease of use, experience and attitude, whilst social network graphs show that VW activities are responsible for social group formations. Participants attribute the strengths of PreVieW to its flexibility and learner-centric activities whilst finding the technical setup as challenging. Participants reflect on the cultural differences in the understanding of teaching and learning in the VW as opposed to a traditional classroom. Findings lead to a deeper understanding of the human-computer interactions in a VW set in a formal learning experience. Following this a model is recommended proposing the integration of a VW experience in a teacher education program together with a number of propositions to enrich learning in a 3D VW.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka varför människor söker sig till Vipassanakurser, vad de upplever under kursen samt om och i så fall hur livet påverkats efter kursen. Datainsamlingen genomfördes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta deltagare som medverkat i minst en tiodagars Vipassanakurs. Gunnar Karlssons (1995) Empirical Phenomenology Psychological Method (EPP) användes som analysmetod. Genom analysen framkom fem teman som belyser drömmen om förändring, processen deltagarna genomgår under kursen med tre underteman: (1) obehagliga och behagliga upplevelser, (2) förändring och (3) förhållningssätt i form av motstånd/strävan samt acceptans, reflektioner, insikter efter kursen samt paradoxen. Resultatet visar att de som söker sig till en Vipassanakurs har en dröm om förändring, att antingen komma bort från något, ändra något i sin verklighet eller att uppnå något nytt. Deltagarna går igenom en process under kursen som innefattar obehagliga och behagliga upplevelser. Förhållningssätten till upplevelserna är motstånd/strävan som ofta leder till ett lidande och acceptans som karaktäriseras av frid och lugn. I alla delar av studien är förändring en röd tråd genom deltagarnas berättelser. Deltagarna gör reflektioner om de förhållningssätt och regler som råder på kursen, bland annat över hur tystanden upplevs och jämförelser med sekter. Insikter efter kursen ger både nya insikter om livet i stort och nya livsstilsvanor. Det sista temat är paradoxen som beskriver flertalet deltagares svårigheter att upprätthålla meditationen efter kursen trots erfarenheten av de goda effekter de märkt av meditationen under kursen. / The purpose of this study was to investigate why people attend to silent meditation courses, what they experience and if their lives are affected after the course. The data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with eight participants who had attended at least one ten days Vipassana course. The Empirical Phenomenology Psychological Method (EPP) of Gunnar Karlsson (1995) was used for analysis method. From the analysis, five themes emerged: dream of change, the process that they go through with three under themes: unpleasant and pleasant experience, change and approach either in form of resistance/striving and acceptance, reflections, insights after the course and the paradox. The result shows that those who attend in a Vipassana course have a dream of change, either to get away from something, change something or to reach something new. The participants are going through a process during the course that involves unpleasant and pleasant experiences. The approaches that emerge are resistance/striving that leads to suffering and acceptance that is characterised by peace. Through the study change is a returning theme in the participants stories. The participants are making reflections about approaches and rules that need to be applied during the course, e.g. how silence is experienced and comparisons to cults. Insights after the course arise about life in general and new life styles. The last theme is the paradox that describes the majority of the participant’s difficulties to maintain the meditation after the course despite the experience of the positive effects they noticed from the meditation during the course.

This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting faculty intention to use course management systems (CMS). The study was conducted in a private university with a mixed-method approach. First, 260 responses to a questionnaire was analysed by using structural equation modeling technique in order to examine the provided model. Second, interviews with selected 14 faculty members were conducted to understand the interrelationships. The findings indicated that, faculty intention to use CMS is mostly related with seeing value in using CMS including both personal and task/course related issues. In addition, the use of CMS should be perceived as easy which is directly influenced by the computer self-efficacy of the instructors. Discrimination of perceived personal benefits and task/course related usefulness is found to be important. Course/task related perceived usefulness is found to be weak without perceiving them personally beneficial. Availability of training and support is found to be weakly related to initial intention, however it appeared as an important variable for continuing to use CMS. &lsquo / Communicating the vision through leadership&rsquo / , &lsquo / promoting CMS&rsquo / , and &lsquo / sharing experiences and real life examples&rsquo / emerged as powerful approaches to facilitate use of CMS. Institutional policies regarding issues like &lsquo / academic freedom&rsquo / should be considered carefully while supporting the use of CMS. Moreover, to support institutional change it is important to be aware of the existence of different faculty profiles, which should be considered separately in relevant decisions.