Pedagogical beliefs, teaching practices and use of open educational resources in the Republic of Ghana

Abstract

ABSTRACT Open Educational Resources (OER) aim to open up the access to education for everyone, further enhancing learning quality and facilitating knowledge sharing. Since their official adoption in 2012, OER have gained much attention with various studies being conducted to investigate how educators and students perceive these resources. However, less investigation was paid to OER adoption in developing African countries. Therefore, to promote social justice and facilitate OER adoption in these countries, this study investigates the pedagogical beliefs, teaching practices and use of OER in the Republic of Ghana. The mixed method (questionnaire and semi-structured interviews) was adopted to gain an in-depth understanding into the perceptions that Ghanaian educators have based on their experience with OER and how their interpretations or meanings they have derived from their experience affect the use of OER. The reported findings highlighted that while Ghanaian educators have positive pedagogical beliefs about OER and are using them in their teaching practices, several challenges are reported that might hinder OER adoption in Ghana. For instance, educators raised concerns about intellectual property and difficulty of finding OER. Based on these findings, this study provided recommendations for different stakeholders, to facilitate OER adoption in Ghana, and in similar African countries.