Beyond limits: Lecturers’ reflections on Moodle uptake in South African universities

The mandatory phasing in of the Moodle learning environment within South African universities has met with a variety of uptake challenges. Specifically, Moodle was officially introduced without clear exposition of the underpinning theory, training, and implementation framework for its adoption. This study reports on a qualitative case study drawing from a purposive sampling of two South African universities that have adopted Moodle to support the teaching and learning endeavour. 31 lecturers who have used Moodle within their lectures were selected, drawing their responses and data through reflective activity, Moodle group discussion and one-on-one semi-structured interviews. The analysis was guided by inductive and deductive reasoning, and the study was framed by non-formal, formal, and informal e-learning frameworks. The study revealed that the top-down imposition of mandatory Moodle implementation was resisted by lecturers, hindering uptake, and maximum potential was difficult to measure. In the absence of clear policy directives, the study recommends that the lecturers go beyond the limits and develop their own means of formal, informal and non-formal reflections to gauge the merits or limitations of Moodle. The reflections were harnessed to coin the Equilateral Moodle Reflections framework in order to maximise the potential uptake and use of Moodle in higher education.