Wikis as a Tool for Co-constructed Learning in Higher Education – An Exploratory Study in an Albanian Higher Education

Abstract

This study explores the effectiveness of wikis in a teaching course in teacher formation and its pedagogical implications with the aim of determining whether wikis will influence the learning experiences and the learning out-comes of the students in a middle-income, post-communist country as Albania. For this, we implemented student-generated wikis into a master’s course on teaching and examined student reflections on their learning outcomes and other pedagogical effects. A mixed method methodology was employed. The findings of the study were informed by triangulating data from the analysis of the student-generated wikis, students’ reflections on the experience, as well as a comparison of the learning outcomes based on the exit exams of this group of students and the group of the prior academic year. Our data suggest that wikis help support collaborative learning, but at the same time they also encourage independent thinking. Teachers’ authority is minimized, empowering students’ ownership and authorship, leading to a continuous process of modification and improvement through interactions among group members via wikis. The data present compelling evidence in favor of wikis, as an organic tool to facilitate co-constructed learning which students seem to enjoy.