Jiří Pospíšil Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic Education, Research & Development 6th International Conference 4–8 September 2015 Elenite Holiday Village, Bulgaria www.sciencebg.net

1. PERSPECTIVES OF ONLINE EDUCATION IN
THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Jiří Pospíšil – Helena Pospíšilová - Milena Öbrink Hobzová – Petra Sobková
Palacký University in Olomouc
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

2. Online Education today
− Although the online education is not new thema in education, there
are still many important questions about the limits and new
possibilities
− One of the most important question is about the readiness of
nowadays society to accept new technologies and new ways of
learning and that was our key question
− Our research started with asking the questions about the
relationships between the computer skills and some crutial
demographical and economical parameters (independent variables)
of the society
− We researched the influence of sex, age, population of
respondent’s residence, actual school or employment, professional
orientation, family situation, education and economical situation of
the family to the level of computer skills needed for online education
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

3. Computer skills
− In the beginning of our research we needed to answer the key
question: What does it exactly mean „to be computer skilled for
the online education“?
− We recognized the needed skills are not the same as the
computer literacy which is more complex and measure both the
skills and the quality of skills
− To measure computer literacy we had to use some standardized
and complex test (f.e. group of ECDL tests)
− That complex measuring was not possible for the wide range of
3860 respondents and what is more important it would not
answer the question about the needed skills for the online
education
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

4. Computer proficiency
− We recognized that the personal status “to be skilled for the
online education” does not depend so much on the quality of
achieved skills but more on the willingness to use new
technologies and the range of use of the IT devices and use of
internet for learning. These competences we call e-learning
skills.
− For representing the range of IT use in the research we
introduced new complex variable – index of IT proficiency - Ip,
which is calculated from 7 different variables measured in
questionnaire. The index can take values from 0 (absolute no IT
proficiency) to 1 (high IT proficiency)
− The mean of Ip from our selection of respondents was 0.549 and
standard deviation 0.275
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

5. Computer proficiency - categories
− When we had the Ip index, we split the respondents into four
categories:
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

6. Willingness for e-learning
− Besides Ip we also measured the willingness to participate in the
online education. This variable was measured by the question “If
you find interesting online course would you join it?”
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

7. Respondents
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria
− In our research we questioned 3860 people. Following tables
show the fundamental characteristics respondents

8. Respondents
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

9. Respondents
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

10. Results
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

11. Results
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria

12. Conclusions
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria
− After all answers from the research the last question remains: What
is the future of online learning in the Czech Republic?
− The most honestly answer is that there are still many unanswered
questions about the lifelong learning of those groups which are not
so good in ICT proficiency (esp. older people and people with lower
acquirements or not well-off families)
− But, there also exists justified hope the situation becomes to be
better in this area and there are mean opportunities to improve the
e-learning skills.
− There is also no doubt the e-courses have strong educational
potential but neither this potential is limitless.
− On the other hand there still remain many questions about the
future of completely online courses or MOOCs because it seems
the wave of MOOC mania is over and now all the universities and
schools around the world are looking for the real level of importance
of these forms of education.

13. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
6. 9. 2015, Royal Castle Hotel, Elenite, Bulgaria