Web-based interaction of unqualified primary teachers as off-campus students

This paper analyses demands on Web-Based Study Communities (WBCs) by off-campus students. It reports a teaching experiment where two groups of unqualified primary school teachers were given a course in teaching science. It is described as a typical case study yielding feedback for further development of the web-based environment but emphasising also the importance of web-based community formation for these students. WBCs seem to offer a most versatile addition to the learning environment of unqualified teachers studying off campus. Success in the final test had a significant correlation to the number of both sent and read messages, but the students’ selfevaluation did not reflect appreciation of this importance.