Higher Education teachers' use of social computing in their teaching: the case of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
Educational technology literature explores the reasons Higher Education (HE) teachers
provide for why they use (or do not use) social computing (Web2.0) applications in their
teaching. Reasons are often provided as lists of factors impacting use, rather than systemic,
context-based explanations of how patterns of use or non-use have developed over time, are
instantiated, and shift in specific instances. This case study, based at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa; focuses on 18 HE teachers. The context is
challenging, complex and in a state of systemic flux; providing sufficient reasons for teachers
to choose not to innovate in teaching. When the study data was produced, the institution had
experienced an institutional merger (eight years prior), reorganisation into a college structure
(within a year) and was plagued by annual student protests related to student access.
A critical realist approach was used as the underlabourer for the study. Teacher use of social
computing is represented by an innovation reinforcement cycle of Commitment, Effort and
Results. Mechanisms operating at each point in the cycle provide micro-points of interaction
or system delays. HE teacher agency is articulated through the use of individual tactics and
processes based on social capital. Processes, represented by system causal loops, illustrate the
dynamics within the social teaching (and learning) arena and interactions with the
institutional structures and processes. The ‘Circuits of HE Teaching Power’ framework
represents the flow of power through institutional standing conditions, processes of systemic
and social integration, and influences the arenas of negotiation in which actor agency
operates. The circuit is completed when actor agency influences standing conditions.
Underlying institutional and academic social norms are reinforced through obligatory passage
points (OPPs) which seek to govern and control behaviour. Outside the institutional
boundary, external forces may influence, and be influenced by, processes of both social and
system integration. This theoretical framing is focused on being able to integrate an
explanation of processes at both the individual and systemic levels, indicating its relevance at
the operational-, tactical/management- and strategic/policy-level. This explanatory framing
can also be used as a methodological device: from the individual teacher micro-scale to the
institutional macro-scale, as well as at a variety of levels of abstraction, ranging from the
transitive empirical and actual layers to the potentially more intransitive layer of the Real.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.