Telling Tales on Technology

Qualitative Studies of Technology and Education

Neil Selwyn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138734012
• eBook ISBN: 9780429768323
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This title was first published in 2002.The educational potential of information and communications technology (ICT) has been speculated upon endlessly - from the early days of the micro-computer to the present excitement surrounding virtual education and e-learning. Now, with current multi-billion dollar initiatives such as the UK National Grid for Learning and US Technology Literacy Challenge, ICT is an unavoidable element of education. Yet despite a plethora of promises and policies, new technologies have failed to be wholly integrated into education. Telling Tales on Technology critically examines the role of ICT in education and explores how, given its assumed importance, new technology remains a peripheral part of much of what goes on in education. Based on in-depth qualitative studies, the book takes a comprehensive yet questioning look over the past two decades of educational technology policy and practice and positions it within the wider social, cultural, political and economic notion of the information age. Drawing on interviews with students, teachers, politicians and business people as well as comprehensive documentary analysis, this is an essential text for anyone thinking seriously about the use of ICT in education.

Part I
Taking a Qualitative Approach to Technology and Education

Chapter One

Introduction

It is now taken for granted that the use of technology in education is a ‘good thing’. This reaction stems in part from the deeply-held and often voiced belief amongst many educators that ‘information and communications technology’ (ICT) will transform and revolutionise teaching and learning processes. This trust amongst proponents of educational technology has solidified over the last two decades into an unquestioning orthodoxy that now pervades and colours most discussion of technology and education. To observe, for example, that personal computers have maybe not had the far-reaching and transformatary effect on schools that has been predicted over the last twenty years is likely to be met with a fair degree of hostility. Indeed, to challenge the ‘technological orthodoxy’ is seen by many educators as heresy – as somehow being obstructive and backward in one’s thinking, to be part of the problem not part of the solution.

Of course, an uncritical faith in technology is not the sole preserve of educationalists. As Langdon Winner (1993) observes, the bulk of technological change in society has occurred in a social and intellectual vacuum – and it would seem that the rise of educational technology has been no different. Since the microcomputer’s introduction into school and university classrooms towards the end of the 1970s, academic research into education and technology has often presented little more than an uncritical reflection of societal faith in technology. Whilst a positive approach towards technology is not in itself a disadvantage, it can be strongly argued that educational research has long been limited by an excessive technological optimism bordering on ‘technophillia’. Although a succession of authors have attempted to point out these fundamental shortcomings (e.g. Beynon & Mackay 1989, Kenway 1996, Young 1984, Kerr 1996) much educational technology research is still characterised by an underlying distrust and avoidance of theory coupled with an unwillingness to consider the social, political, cultural and economic aspects of ICT in educational settings. As Kenway (1996) concludes, social science research in this area has often been too ‘micro-focused’, with a ‘wilful blindness’ to the social and cultural contexts and wider implications of technology. One particular symptom of this wilful blindness (and the driving motivation behind this book) is manifested in the way that educational technology studies distanced themselves from the rest of social science research over the 1980s and 1990s by exhibiting an almost overt distrust of qualitative data.

Back in 1997 I wrote a very short piece for educational technology researchers discussing some of these issues. The choice of journal for this piece was deliberate – the ‘British Journal of Educational Technology’ is a specialist academic journal frequented by some of the leading lights in the field. As such the decidedly technicist tenor of ‘BJET’ made it an ideal arena in which to air my views. Having written the piece I was equally deliberate in choosing a title: ‘The Continuing Weakness of Educational Computing Research’. As a fledging writer and researcher I assumed naively that a provocative title alone would make some impact on the BJET readership. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I would not be so presumptuous to imagine that a journal article could hope to raise anything more than a flicker amongst the six or so academics that are likely to come across it when published. Looking back I am not surprised that this thought-piece has failed resoundingly to change the world of educational technology research, or whatever similar lofty intention I had in mind when writing it.

Yet, if this article had one saving grace then it was short. At just under three pages long it briefly set out its stall and, for this alone, it has begun to gradually provoke a reaction from the wider world. In particular, the piece has proved a popular choice for graduate students of Educational Technology in US universities when asked by their lecturers to summarise and critique an article and then disseminate their thoughts via the world-wide web. As I have surreptitiously come across these online reactions over the last five years the arguments presented by the students have often prompted me to revisit and reconsider my original broadside against the educational technology research community.

Some of the students’ responses are as stridently dismissive as the article itself – arguing that I was obviously feeling nothing more than ‘mean-spirited’, ‘down’ and ‘disillusioned’ at the time of writing (although feeling disillusionment with what is never made entirely clear). A few students have contended that my arguments are now redundant given the wealth of quantitative research carried out in this area over last five years (although my over-riding point was that educational technology was lacking in quality not necessary quantity of research). A few students very kindly claim to have had some of their perceptions altered in light of the article’s arguments. These more supportive responses are occasionally extended to the point of taking my initial arguments further that I would have felt comfortable at the time. As this Graduate Student from the Iowa State class of 2001 argues in her response:

‘Selwyn’s point that there is too much quantitative research and not nearly enough qualitative research struck a real chord within me. I would argue that there little research from either paradigm. Far too many of the research studies I read leave me asking too many questions about methodology, research questions, results, interpretation etc. Many activities occur under the guise of quantitative research, but almost invariably I find myself asking if the researcher(s) measured what they thought they were measuring, and if they measured anything at all [....] It would be a stretch to attach any real significance to these findings, and yet a great many researchers attempt to do so’.

Yet the most provocative responses have come from students who read my piece as a wholly negative attack on educational technology research – adding nothing to the field and only ‘offering criticism and never any answers’. This was never my intention. On the contrary, I had hoped idealistically to provoke myself and other researchers to address the gaping holes in academic examination of education and technology and forge a ‘new wave’ of education technology research. I had intended to make a case for in-depth, considered, rigorous research which was rooted in and reflected the wider ‘real world(s)’ of education and technology. So to read five years on that I was merely pointing out the shortcomings of others without doing anything about it was, I felt, a little unfair. There has been some good work in this area since the mid 1990s but obviously not with enough prominence to register with everybody in the educational research community.

This book, therefore, is a belated personal response to these criticisms. It presents a selection of my work carried out in Cardiff University and the University of Bristol which has tried to adopt a careful, qualitative approach towards education and technology. In empirically examining education and technology I have adhered to a research framework which is discussed in more detail in Chapter Two, essentially based around the strength of qualitative methodologies in providing views of education and technology at different levels – from the ‘macro’ level of government and industry to the ‘micro’ level of the individual learner. Adopting this multi-layered perspective in organising the empirical bulk of the book then leads onto three discrete sections. Chapters Three, Four and Five give a flavour of the ‘macro’ level of education and technology in the UK – in particular the politically and economically constructed nature of ‘educational technology’ in the early days of the Thatcher government as compared to the present day New Labour administration; arguably the two defining periods of educational IT policymaking in the UK. This is illustrated through two discursive analyses of the rhetoric surrounding technology and education – each providing a view of the different shaping forces behind what we have come to regard as ‘educational technology’. This ‘macro’ level picture is complemented in Chapter Five by an in-depth interview study with some of the key political and commercial interests in the shaping and implementation of the current ‘National Grid for Learning’ initiative – revealing the extent and nature to which education and technology almost unavoidably falls prey to a combination of ‘public’ and ‘private’ shaping forces and motivations.

The second empirical section of the book consists of three studies which examine educational technology from the perspective(s) of individual learners. When first engaging with the literature during the mid-1990s as an undergraduate student, I was surprised by the absence of learners’ voices amidst all the earnest discussions of education and technology that I came across. Yet as the ultimate ‘end users’ of technology in education hearing the voice(s) of learners stuck me as crucial in developing a realistic understanding of new technologies in education. An integral strand of my work over the last seven years has, therefore, focused on individuals’ responses to technology in education – represented here in three chapters looking at seven and eleven year old primary school children, sixteen and seventeen year-old sixth form students and, finally, undergraduate students at university. When reading these accounts in succession I am struck by the remarkable similarities in the responses of these learners, particularly the way that the bounded nature of the educational context has a profound effect on the way that ICT is approached and rationalised.

The final empirical section of the book presents two contrasting pictures of what many technologists would currently consider as the ‘future’ of education and technology – ‘e-learning’ and ‘virtual’ scholarly collaboration. Beyond the rhetoric of ‘virtual’ education chapters nine and ten attempt to empirically unpack the realities for teachers and learners, highlighting the often mundane nature of these over-hyped and under-critiqued areas of education. Finally, given the preceding empirical barrage the book concludes with a consideration of what lessons can be learnt. Chapter eleven reflects on the dilemmas of taking a critical, qualitative approach to researching technology and education, whilst chapter twelve maps out the strengths, weaknesses and future necessities for work in this area.

In carrying out this work over the past seven years I have been assisted greatly by a variety of funding sources: my work examining A-level and vocational students was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council; the work on adult learners’ use of ICT was funded by the Spencer Foundation in the USA; the project examining undergraduate students was funded by the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants; my work looking at primary school children was funded by a Cardiff University Young Researcher grant; and my time looking at the public and private foundations of educational technology policy making was supported by the Cardiff University ‘Learning Capital Project’. I am particularly grateful to all the participants in these research projects – the learners, teachers and representatives from government and industry – who have patiently explained to me their experiences of, and perspectives on, educational and technology. I have also been aided immensely throughout the past seven years by the numerous academic colleagues who I have worked with on the research projects presented within this book – especially Stephen Gorard, John Fitz, Sara Williams, Neil Marriott, Pru Marriott and Kate Bullon. I would also like to thank Gareth Rees, Emma Renold, Trevor Weiland and Keri Facer for their discussion and advice along the way. However, as is always the case, the responsibility for any inaccuracies or blatant mistakes is mine.

Neil Selwyn

Cardiff 2002

Chapter Two

Taking a Qualitative Approach to Technology and Education

Introduction

A belief in the power of information and communications technologies such as the computer has fast become orthodoxy as ‘developed’ societies such as the UK are seen to lurch from the industrial to the post-industrial (Bell 1973, Touraine 1969, Reich 1991). Indeed, the growing development of the computer has been heralded by many commentators as one of the defining features of the last two decades of the twentieth century and of profound significance for the first years of the twenty-first (Negroponte 1995, Gates 1997, Dyson 1998). Currently, this ‘technoromance’ continues in the guise of widespread enthusiasm for the convergence of multimedia and telecommunications technologies into ‘information and communication technologies’ and associated applications such as ‘e-commerce’, ‘e-tailing’ and even ‘e-government’ – thus further cementing the computer at the heart of ‘modern’ British society.

This technological faith has proved especially deep-rooted with regards to technology and education. Over thirty-five years ago, Patrick Suppes (1966) reasoned that the flexibility and interactive nature of computer technology would have an almost immediate and permanent effect on the educational process. Two decades later this claim was echoed by Seymour Papert (1980) who, from a Piagetian perspective, argued that forging new relationships between computers and humans would result in ‘a future where the computer will be a significant part of every child’s life’ (Papert 1980, p. 18) and later that schools, as a result, would be obsolete (Papert 1995). Other authors have enthusiastically echoed these claims over the years, typified by Stonier and Conlin’s (1985, p. 10) assumption that:

[The] entire educational system will begin to revolve increasingly around the computer. Combined with teachers and parents, books and classrooms, the system over the next few decades will change. At the core of it will be the computer.

Such hyperbole has not just been the preserve of a few over-zealous educators. Indeed, this enthusiasm has been stridently reflected in educational policymaking over the last twenty years. The current new Labour government in the UK, as we shall see in following chapters, has invested considerable faith, and more importantly finances, into information and communications technology as part of their quest for the ‘modernisation’ of schools and the raising of educational ‘standards’. Via ‘National Grids for Learning’, ‘Universities for Industry’, ‘e-universities’, ‘ICT learning centres’ and ‘Virtual Teacher Centres’, the current educational climate has been infused with a sense of technological evangelism, reminiscent of the utopianism prevalent at the beginning of the 1980s and the Thatcher administration. Moreover, unceasing expenditure by parents anxious to augment their children’s education has given rise to a multi-billion pound industry in computer-based home learning. Education and learning have been at the heart of Britain’s conceptualisation and consumption of new technologies over the last two decades.

Although the exact nature of the technology may have altered, ICT in its various forms has proved unique in educational terms in that, unlike any other innovation, its benefits to schools and colleges, learners and teachers have remained largely unchallenged, quickly becoming an established educational orthodoxy (Robins and Webster 1989). Against such consensual optimism the prospect of critically questioning education and technology would appear to be an unproductive and churlish option.

Yet given this increasing ideological and financial importance it is more vital than ever to ask awkward questions of education and technology. It is important to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of educational technology, its strengths and weaknesses and, above all, the often messy and never straight-forward nature of its implementation and insertion into the social settings of the school, college and university. In short, academic engagement with technology and education needs to adopt an objective air – one that has, more often than not, been sadly lacking. Indeed, as a field of academic enquiry over the past thirty years, educational computing has until recently remained the preserve of small groups of well-intentioned, enthusiastic yet under-funded and isolated ‘hobbyists’ – individuals whose driving motivation was often an intrinsic interest in technology, often from a purely personal perspective. However, the rapid policy expansion of educational technology now means that such a ‘closed’ capture of the field can no longer afford to continue. The ‘hobbyist era’ of education technology appears increasingly anachronistic as ICT enters the mainstream of educational policy and practice. Nevertheless the current salience of technology in educational policy and practice terms has, as yet, been slow to permeate the field of educational technology research – which continues to remain rooted in rigid technicist paradigms and a narrow perspective of what ‘educational technology’ entails. The remainder of this c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List Of Tables and Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Part I Taking a Qualitative Approach to Technology and Education
• Part II The Politics and Economics of Technology and Education
• Part III Individual Learners and Technology
• Part IV Qualitative Explorations of ‘Virtual’ Education
• Part V Lessons to be Learnt?
• Bibliography
• Index