Integration of technological resources into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution: the context of primary schools in Pinetown District.

Abstract

This research is a qualitative study that utilises a phenomenological research study, by means of 24 teachers at primary schools in South Africa, to fulfil its purpose. This study employs an interpretivist paradigm. This paradigm has been utilised because the study aims at exploring three missing levels of integration (constructive, unconstructive, and personal) during teaching and learning. The study intended to understand why teachers resist integration of technological resources. The methods of data generation employed are three online techniques owing to COVID-19: emailed reflective activity, Zoom focus-group discussion, and Skype one-to-one semi-structured interviews. These methods have been used for the purpose of sampling. Convenience sampling was utilised to select the most accessible participants. This study was framed by the curriculum origins concepts which originate from the curricular spider web (Van den Akker et al., 2009). This study utilises the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) as the theory that shapes the study. Data were analysed through guided analysis in which deductive and inductive methods were deployed. Lastly, ethical issues that are aligned with a qualitative study were considered. These include trustworthiness, dependability, confirmability, credibility, and transferability. This study employs this collection of research methods, the aim being to answer the following critical research questions: Research Questions: 1 .Which technological resources do teachers integrate into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution? 2. How do teachers integrate technological resources into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution? 3. What informs teachers in the fourth industrial revolution when integrating technological resources into the curriculum in the way they do? These research questions were underpinned by the following research objectives: Objectives of this Study: 1. To explore technological resources integrated into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution. 2. To explain the lessons to be learned when teachers integrate technological resources into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution. 3. To understand what informs the teachers’ integration of technological resources into the curriculum in the fourth industrial revolution. From the literature, three major concepts were generated by the research phenomena: constructive integration, unconstructive integration, and personal integration. These concepts were aligned with three categories of the curriculum, namely, the pragmatic, the horizontal, and the vertical. The literature and the findings of this study point to the actions of the majority of teachers, when integrating technological resources, being informed by constructive integration. Constructive integration occurs when teachers are compelled to follow a prescribed document such as a CAPS document and manuals. Thus, teachers are following a vertical curriculum. On Skype one-on-one semi-structured interviews teachers reflected on unconstructive integration. Such occurs when teachers’ actions are motivated by their social experience; this means that teachers share information. Such suggests that teachers are driven by the needs of horizontal curriculum. Online reflective activity also revealed that few teachers integrate technological resources, and their actions are informed by personal integration. This imbalance of integration leads to the poor integration of technological resources in which personal integration was singled out as the area for attention. Consequently, the main findings of this study indicate that teachers integrate technological resources into curriculum informed by three levels of integration: constructive, unconstructive and personal integration.