Finding an Effective Approach for Delivering IT Skills Training to Administrative Staff in An Irish University.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore an effective approach to providing training in a new IT System to upwards of 300 administrative staff in an Irish University in a comparatively short space of time. The main questions this study sought to answer were: • What is an effective approach to take for providing IT Skills training to administrative university staff? • Can technology significantly improve the efficiency of delivering IT Skills training to administrative university staff? • What preferences do administrative university staff have for learning IT Skills? A review of the literature highlighted the role of experiential learning, social learning and technology-enabled learning in providing IT Skills training and the researcher explored how closely the findings from this mapped to the lived experiences of the administrative staff in the university in question. A mixed methods approach was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from the administrative staff using a sequential explanatory design involving an online survey and focus groups. The review of the literature also highlighted a gap in the discussion around the design and delivery of IT Skills training for administrative staff in Irish universities. This research sets out to fill that gap by discussing what an effective approach to IT Skills training might look like for those administrative university staff. The findings from the primary research strongly agreed with the review of the literature around the benefits of using experiential learning and social learning in IT Skills training but they were less definitive about the role of technology-enabled learning. The researcher recommends that using a careful blend of these methods could provide an effective approach to delivering IT Skills training to the administrative staff, but further research is warranted into the low uptake of technology-enabled learning reported in the primary data.