Journal for Educators, Teachers and Trainers

Abstract

Learning Communities have proven to be a fundamental pedagogical strategy to support formal and informal learning, both in the educational context and organizational. Due to its specific characteristics, open and flexible virtual environments, such as an institutional personal learning environment (iPLE), facilitates the creation of learning communities as they provide to its members multiple technological resources, which are necessary to promote communication, reflection and generation of new knowledge in collaboration and networking. The main objective of this study was to construct and validate an instrument to determine the usability of an iPLE, which is focused on the area of education, social sciences, and communication research. It was built to support students who are developing their Master thesis, those who are taking courses in research and other stakeholders interested to build and use a PLE.  In order to determine the validity of the instrument, the Expert Judgment technique was applied, involving seven professionals from the areas of pedagogy and educational technology. The reliability and internal consistency of the instrument was determined by calculating the Cronbach Alpha Coefficient, based on the results of the pilot test applied to a group of 146 students from the graduate programs of the Casa Grande University in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Based on the obtained results, it can be assumed that the instrument developed to assess the iPLE is valid and reliable because it fulfills with all the requirements that confirm its content validity and internal consistency required to ensure its reliability. Consequently, it can be used to assess other iPLEs of similar characteristics.