digital kids, analogue students - connecting repositories · 2013-07-05 · digital kids, analogue...

Digital kids, analogue students: A mixed methods study of students’ engagement with a school-based Web 2.0 learning innovation

Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan

M.Ed, M.Bus (Research), GradDip (Tesol), B.Acc (Hons)

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

2009

Centre for Learning Innovation, Faculty of Education

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

i

KEYWORDS

Learning innovation, digital learning, online learning

Information and communications technologies, virtual learning platforms

Web 2.0, new media technologies, social networking technologies

Innovation adoption, innovation diffusion

Technology uptake, technology use

Schooling, senior schooling, education

Generation C, youths, young people

Cognitive playfulness, cultural agility

Multimodality, multiliteracies

Classification and regression tree

Membership categorisation analysis

ii

ABSTRACT

The inquiry documented in this thesis is located at the nexus of technological

innovation and traditional schooling. As we enter the second decade of a new

century, few would argue against the increasingly urgent need to integrate digital

literacies with traditional academic knowledge. Yet, despite substantial investments

from governments and businesses, the adoption and diffusion of contemporary

digital tools in formal schooling remain sluggish. To date, research on technology

adoption in schools tends to take a deficit perspective of schools and teachers, with

the lack of resources and teacher ‘technophobia’ most commonly cited as barriers to

digital uptake. Corresponding interventions that focus on increasing funding and

upskilling teachers, however, have made little difference to adoption trends in the

last decade. Empirical evidence that explicates the cultural and pedagogical

complexities of innovation diffusion within long-established conventions of

mainstream schooling, particularly from the standpoint of students, is wanting.

To address this knowledge gap, this thesis inquires into how students evaluate and

account for the constraints and affordances of contemporary digital tools when they

engage with them as part of their conventional schooling. It documents the

attempted integration of a student-led Web 2.0 learning initiative, known as the

Student Media Centre (SMC), into the schooling practices of a long-established,

high-performing independent senior boys’ school in urban Australia. The study

employed an ‘explanatory’ two-phase research design (Creswell, 2003) that

combined complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve both

breadth of measurement and richness of characterisation.

In the initial quantitative phase, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to

the senior school student population to determine adoption trends and predictors

of SMC usage (N=481). Measurement constructs included individual learning

dispositions (learning and performance goals, cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness),

as well as social and technological variables (peer support, perceived usefulness and ease of

use). Incremental predictive models of SMC usage were conducted using

Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modelling: (i) individual-level predictors,

iii

(ii) individual and social predictors, and (iii) individual, social and technological

predictors. Peer support emerged as the best predictor of SMC usage. Other salient

predictors include perceived ease of use and usefulness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals.

On the whole, an overwhelming proportion of students reported low usage levels,

low perceived usefulness and a lack of peer support for engaging with the digital

learning initiative. The small minority of frequent users reported having high levels

of peer support and robust learning goal orientations, rather than being

predominantly driven by performance goals. These findings indicate that tensions

around social validation, digital learning and academic performance pressures

influence students’ engagement with the Web 2.0 learning initiative.

The qualitative phase that followed provided insights into these tensions by shifting

the analytics from individual attitudes and behaviours to shared social and cultural

reasoning practices that explain students’ engagement with the innovation. Six in-

depth focus groups, comprising 60 students with different levels of SMC usage,

were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Textual data were analysed using

Membership Categorisation Analysis.

Students’ accounts converged around a key proposition. The Web 2.0 learning

initiative was useful-in-principle but useless-in-practice. While students endorsed the

usefulness of the SMC for enhancing multimodal engagement, extending peer-to-

peer networks and acquiring real-world skills, they also called attention to a number

of constraints that obfuscated the realisation of these design affordances in practice.

These constraints were cast in terms of three binary formulations of social and

cultural imperatives at play within the school: (i) ‘cool/uncool’, (ii) ‘dominant

staff/compliant student’, and (iii) ‘digital learning/academic performance’. The first

formulation foregrounds the social stigma of the SMC among peers and its resultant

lack of positive network benefits. The second relates to students’ perception of the

school culture as authoritarian and punitive with adverse effects on the very student

agency required to drive the innovation. The third points to academic performance

pressures in a crowded curriculum with tight timelines.

iv

Taken together, findings from both phases of the study provide the following key

insights. First, students endorsed the learning affordances of contemporary digital

tools such as the SMC for enhancing their current schooling practices. For the

majority of students, however, these learning affordances were overshadowed by

the performative demands of schooling, both social and academic. The student

participants saw engagement with the SMC in-school as distinct from, even

oppositional to, the conventional social and academic performance indicators of

schooling, namely (i) being ‘cool’ (or at least ‘not uncool’), (ii) sufficiently

‘compliant’, and (iii) achieving good academic grades. Their reasoned response

therefore, was simply to resist engagement with the digital learning innovation.

Second, a small minority of students seemed dispositionally inclined to negotiate the

learning affordances and performance constraints of digital learning and traditional

schooling more effectively than others. These students were able to engage more

frequently and meaningfully with the SMC in school. Their ability to adapt and

traverse seemingly incommensurate social and institutional identities and norms is

theorised as cultural agility – a dispositional construct that comprises personal

innovativeness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals orientation. The logic then

is ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or’ for these individuals with a capacity to

accommodate both learning and performance in school, whether in terms of digital

engagement and academic excellence, or successful brokerage across multiple social

identities and institutional affiliations within the school.

In sum, this study takes us beyond the familiar terrain of deficit discourses that tend

to blame institutional conservatism, lack of resourcing and teacher resistance for

low uptake of digital technologies in schools. It does so by providing an empirical

base for the development of a ‘third way’ of theorising technological and

pedagogical innovation in schools, one which is more informed by students as

critical stakeholders and thus more relevant to the lived culture within the school,

and its complex relationship to students’ lives outside of school. It is in this

relationship that we find an explanation for how these individuals can, at the one

time, be digital kids and analogue students.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Postmillennial schooling: More important but less relevant? 2 1.2 Digital engagement and innovation diffusion in schools 5 1.3 Research purpose and questions 8 1.4 Research setting 10 1.5 Research design 14 1.6 Significance of the study 16

1.6.1 Implications for theory 16 1.6.2 Implications for method 17 1.6.3 Implications for policy 17 1.6.4 Implications for practice 18

1.7 Overview of the thesis 18 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 21

2.1 Schooling for a digital world 21 2.1.1 Supply-push and demand-pull schooling 21 2.1.2 Beyond supply or demand 25

2.2 The technology revolution 27 2.2.1 Technology, speed and change 27 2.2.2 Web 2.0 and Generation ‘C’ learners 31 2.2.3 Implications for schooling and learning 34

2.3 What to learn? How to learn? 35 2.3.1 What to learn: Literacies and skills for the conceptual age 36

2.3.1.1 Digital-age literacies 37 2.3.1.2 Powers of adaptability, creativity and communication 38 2.3.1.3 Risk-taking, learning and performance 40

2.3.2 How to learn: Learning environments for the conceptual age 42 2.3.2.1 From Cartesian to ecological paradigms of learning 42 2.3.2.2 Beyond social constructivism toward connectivism 44

2.4 Responses from the schooling sector: Policy, practice and research 45 2.4.1 Policy and practice 46 2.4.2 Research and knowledge gaps in the field 47 2.4.3 Potential contributions of this thesis 51

2.5 Innovation adoption and diffusion in schools 56 2.5.1 Adoption and diffusion defined 59 2.5.2 Technological factors 64 2.5.3 Social/Contextual factors 68 2.5.4 Individual factors 72

2.6 Summary 75 CHAPTER THREE: METHODS 77

3.1 Overview of research purpose and questions 77 3.2 Research setting 81

3.2.1 The school and students 81 3.2.2 The student-led digital learning initiative 82

3.2.2.1 Technological design 83 3.2.2.2 Organisational design 86 3.2.2.3 Pedagogical design 88

3.3 Case study research approach 90 3.4 Design of the study 92

3.4.1 From methodology to design 92 3.4.2 Research phases, methods, tasks and outcomes 94 3.4.3 Validity and reliability 98

vi

3.4.4 Research participants 101 3.4.5 Data collection procedures and analysis 102

3.4.5.1 Numeric data: Self-report questionnaire 102 3.4.5.2 Questionnaire data analysis 108 3.4.5.3 Textual data: Focus group interviews 109 3.4.5.4 Textual data analysis 110

3.5 Ethical issues 112 3.6 Summary 114

CHAPTER FOUR: QUANTITATIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION DESCRIBING AND PREDICTING ADOPTION BEHAVIOUR

115

4.1 Overview 115 4.2 Review of the quantitative research instrument 118

4.2.1 Data collection procedures and research constructs 118 4.2.2 SRQ 1.1 – Reliability and validity of measures 124

4.2.2.1 Internal consistency 124 4.2.2.2 Convergent validity 126 4.2.2.3 Discriminant validity 131

4.3 Students’ engagement with and evaluation of the SMC 133 4.3.1 SRQ 1.2 – Trends and patterns of SMC engagement 133 4.3.2 SRQ 1.3 – Students’ evaluation of social & technological affordances 140

4.4 SRQ 2.1 – Individual level predictor variables 143 4.4.1 Descriptive statistics for individual learning dispositions variables 144 4.4.2 CART/Decision tree methodology 146 4.4.3 Decision Tree 1: Individual learning dispositions & SMC Usage 149

4.5 SRQ 2.2 & 2.3 – Social and technological predictor variables 155 4.5.1 Descriptive statistics for social & technological variables 155 4.5.2 Decision Tree 2: Individual learning dispositions, peer support & SMC usage 157 4.5.3 Decision Tree 3: Individual, social & technological variables & SMC Usage 159

4.6 Summary of key findings 162 CHAPTER FIVE: QUALITATIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION STUDENTS’ ACCOUNTS OF ADOPTION BEHAVIOUR

165

5.1 Revisiting key findings of the quantitative phase 166 5.2 Shifting the analytic focus from individuality to sociality 171

5.2.1 MCA as analytic framework 172 5.2.2 Applying MCA to the research problem 179 5.2.3 Focus group as method 180

5.2.3.1 Size and sampling 181 5.2.3.2 Practicalities and protocols 184 5.2.3.3 Analysing focus group data 188

5.3 Overview of the central thematic: SMC as both useful and useless 191 5.3.1 SMC: Useful-in-principle 196

5.3.1.1 Promoting student expression, agency and ownership in learning

196

5.3.1.2 Multimodal ‘one-stop’ learning resource for developing 21st century skills

199

5.3.1.3 Enhancing transboundary peer-to-peer interactions 208 5.3.2 SMC: Useless-in-practice 213

5.3.2.1 Social-reputational barrier 215 5.3.2.2 Institutional-pedagogical barrier 233 5.3.2.3 Academic-performativity barrier 253

5.4 Summary of key findings 277

vii

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION 282 6.1 Overview 282 6.2 Rationale and research questions revisited 283 6.3 Summary and synthesis of key findings 287

6.3.1 Phase One: Measuring digital engagement through description and prediction 287 6.3.2 Phase Two: Moving from measurement to characterisation of constraints and

affordances 290

6.3.3 Phase Three: Synthesising measurement and characterisation 294 6.4 Contributions to theory, methodology, policy and practice 299

6.4.1 Digital kids, analogue students 299 6.4.2 Complexities of digital innovation in mainstream schooling 306 6.4.3 Cultural agility and productive negotiations of contestations 310

6.5 Limitations and future research 313 6.5.1 Cultural agility as knowledge object 313 6.5.2 Study design 314 6.5.3 Data 315

6.6 Concluding remarks 316 REFERENCES 318 APPENDICES 356

Appendix A: QUT UHREC ethics approval for the research study in general 356 Appendix B: QUT UHREC ethics approval for the use of research instruments 357 Appendix C: Participant information sheets and consent forms 358 Appendix D: Screenshots of the SMC to illustrate its online design features 364 Appendix E: Student self-report questionnaire 368

viii

LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Techno-economic paradigms and governing ‘commonsense’ principles 30

Table 4.1 Specific research questions and sub-questions 116

Table 4.2 Brief review of research constructs and measurement scales 119

Table 4.3 Internal consistency of measurement scales 125

Table 4.4 Factor loadings of measurement scales 130

Table 4.5 Eigenvalues and variance explained 131

Table 4.6 Discriminant validity coefficients of measurement scales 132

Table 4.7 Descriptive statistics for individual learning dispositions variables 144

Table 4.8 Descriptive statistics for social and technological variables 156

Table 5.1 Focus group topic guide 187

Table 5.2 Transcription notations 191

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) 64

Figure 2.2 Categories of individual innovativeness and percentages with each category 72

Figure 3.1 SMC organisational structure 87

Figure 3.2 Case study components 92

Figure 3.3 Research phases, tasks and outcomes 97

Figure 4.1 Levels of student interest in key learning areas 134

Figure 4.2 Students’ usage levels of the SMC 135

Figure 4.3 SMC user categories 136

Figure 4.4 Student engagement level with SMC learning features 137

Figure 4.5 Student interest level in SMC learning features 138

Figure 4.6 SMC in school a good idea? Student mean responses by year levels 139

Figure 4.7 Student perceptions of peer support, usefulness & ease of use of the SMC 141

Figure 4.8 Perceived usefulness of the SMC for various learning & schooling aspects 142

Figure 4.9 Optimal Decision Tree One: Individual learning dispositions (predictors) and SMC usage (target)

149

Figure 4.10 Optimal Decision Tree Two: Individual learning dispositions & peer support (predictors) and SMC usage (target)

157

Figure 4.11 Optimal Decision Tree Three: Individual, social and technological variables (predictors) and SMC usage (target)

160

Figure 5.1 Social-reputational barrier – Cool/Uncool 230

Figure 5.2 Institutional-pedagogical barrier – Domineering staff/Dispossessed student 247

Figure 5.3 Academic-performativity barrier – Demanding teacher/Diligent student 266

Figure 5.4 Academic-performativity barrier – Good parent/Responsible child 274

Figure 6.1 Cultural agility 298

ix

ABBREVIATIONS

Becta British Educational Communications and Technology Agency

CART Classification and Regression Tree

CFA Confirmation Factor Analysis

ICTs Information and Telecommunication Technologies

KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin

MCA Membership Categorisation Analysis

MCD Membership Categorisation Device

NCEE National Center on Education and the Economy

NCREL North Central Regional Educational Laboratory

NRC National Research Council

NSBF National Schools Boards Foundation

OECD Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development

Ofsted Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills

OP Overall Position (a tertiary entrance rank used in the Australian State of Queensland for selection into universities)

PAF Principal Factor Analysis

QCS Queensland Core Skills Test (Queensland state-wide exam for selection into universities)

QUT Queensland University of Technology

RBS Pseudonym for the case study school

SD Standard Deviation

SMC Student Media Centre

SRP Standardised Relational Pair

SRQ Specific Research Question

TAM Technology Acceptance Model

UHREC University Human Research Ethics Committee

x

STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or

diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and

belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another

person except where due reference is made.

Signed:

Date:

5 August 2009

xi

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

EMPIRICAL PIECES BASED ON RESEARCH DATA OBTAINED IN THIS STUDY

JOURNAL ARTICLES (PEER REVIEWED)

Tan, J. P-L. (2009, forthcoming). Digital or diligent? How students negotiate academic

achievement and Web 2.0 learning. Journal of Learning Design, forthcoming, Special

issue: Agency of Technology in Learning Settings.

Tan, J. P-L., & McWilliam, E. (2009). From literacy to multiliteracies: Diverse learners

and pedagogical practice. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 213-225

(Special issue: Multiliteracies).

Tan, J. P-L., & McWilliam, E. (2008). Cognitive playfulness, creative capacity and

Generation ‘C’ learners. Cultural Science, 1(2). Available at http://www.cultural-

science.org/journal/index.php/culturalscience/article /view/13/51

McWilliam, E., Dawson, S., & Tan, J. P-L. (2009). From Vaporousness to Visibility:

What might evidence of creative capacity building actually look like? Invited

paper for The UNESCO Observatory, 1(2), Special issue: Creativity, policy and

practice discourses: projective tensions in the new millennium.

CONFERENCE PAPERS (REFEREED)

Tan, J P-L., & McWilliam, E. (2008). Digital or Diligent? Web 2.0’s challenge to

formal schooling. Proceedings of the 2008 Australian Association for Research in

Education (AARE) Conference. Brisbane, Australia, November 29―Dececember 4.

Available at http://eprints.qut.edu.au/14985/

Tan, J P-L., &McWilliam, E. (2008). Cognitive playfulness, creative capacity and

generation ‘C’ learners. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation

(CCi) 2008 Conference ― Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons. Brisbane,

Australia, June 25―27. Available at http://eprints.qut.edu.au/14986/

Dawson, S., McWilliam, E., & Tan, J. P-L. (2008) Teaching Smarter: How mining ICT

data can inform and improve learning and teaching practice. ASCILITE ,

Australia, November 30 – December 3.

xii

Tan, J. P-L. (2007). Trends in the adoption and diffusion of digital innovations in

mainstream schooling: Implications for the development of creative human

capital in the conceptual age. EIDOS Emerge Conference, Brisbane, Australia,

September 10.

THEORETICAL/CONCEPTUAL PIECES PRODUCED DURING THE CANDIDATURE

BOOK CHAPTERS

Tan, J. P-L. (2008). Closing the gap: A multiliteracies approach to English language

teaching for ‘at-risk’ students in Singapore. In A. Healy (Ed), Multiliteracies and

Diversity in Education: New Pedagogies for Expanding Landscapes. Melbourne: Oxford

University Press.

McWilliam, E., & Tan, J. P-L (2009, forthcoming). When quantitative meets

qualitative: Conversations about the nature of knowledge. In Melanie W. & Pat, T.

(Eds.), The Routledge Doctoral Companion. London: Routledge.

McWilliam, E., Dooley, K., McArdle, F., & Tan, J. P-L. (2008). Voicing Objections. In

A. Jackson and L. Mazzei (Eds). Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging

Conventional, Interpretive and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research.

London: Routledge.

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It gives me great pleasure to publicly acknowledge the people who have contributed significantly to the completion of this dissertation. My supervisory team First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Erica McWilliam, who has been the principal supervisor for the majority of my doctoral candidature. In the last six months of my candidature, Erica accepted a prestigious research professorial position in the Singapore National Institute of Education and therefore could not continue in her role as my formal principal supervisor at QUT. Despite the demands of settling into a new country and a new position, Erica maintained a high level of commitment to my doctoral study and ensured that I continued to receive supervision of the highest quality. Without fail, Erica provided me with in-depth reviews and feedback on my draft chapters, usually within 48 hours, if not less. Thank you, Erica, for your insights that lifted this study from a mere project to a scholarly thesis. Over the past three years, your generosity of spirit has inspired me. You have taught me a great deal by modelling ‘useful ignorance’, mentoring me to ‘think about thinking about the research’, and meddling with my ‘linear structural equation modelling brain’ so I could grow in epistemological agility. I am indebted to you for showing me the ‘pleasure of the rigour of the work’. You have been the best teacher—model, mentor, and meddler—that any doctoral student could ask for. When Erica left for Singapore, Professor Kar-Tin Lee kindly stepped into the official role of principal supervisor and ensured that I received the institutional support and continuity that was absolutely essential to the timely completion of this thesis. Kar-Tin, I am grateful for your generosity, commitment to and confidence in my work, all of which have encouraged me greatly. In order to receive the completion scholarship in the last year of my program, I needed a cross-faculty supervisory team. Without a moment’s hesitation, Professor Greg Hearn from the Creative Industries Faculty came onboard as a second associate supervisor. Prior to this official supervisory role, he had been a critical advisor, mentor and friend since this research study kicked into gear. Greg, your intellectual verve, exuberant wit, and dependable accessibility have been key markers throughout my doctoral marathon. You were an excellent ‘trainer’—tweaking the training programs to suit my mental/physical/emotional fitness levels and needs—so that I could finish the PhD race with a more durable and deeper passion for future intellectual pursuits than when I started. For the many pearls of wisdom on-demand, Rabbito bows to the Sage. The participants This research inquiry could not have materialised without the participation of the school. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Head of Senior School and the Lead Teacher of the Gifted & Talented program. Your commitment to pedagogical excellence and dedication to the education of young people have instilled a deep sense of purpose and enthusiasm in my work as an educational researcher. It has been a privilege to work with and learn from you. I also extend my sincere gratitude to all the senior school students who participated in this study, and more specifically, to the student leaders and core members responsible for the Web 2.0 learning innovation. Despite your heavy academic workloads and school commitments, you took the time to share your frank opinions and authentic experiences with me, and allowed me the privilege of documenting these accounts and explanations of ‘what is school’ and ‘how it is done’. Thank you for contributing so generously to my research endeavour and learning.

xiv

Institutional sponsors Commencing this degree as an international student and being an ‘Australian non-resident’ for most part of the degree involved significant monetary costs. Without the generous financial support from the university and various research institutes, completing this thesis would have been a significantly more arduous undertaking. For this, I sincerely thank the following parties who eased the financial/administrative burden so that I could learn, train and contribute as a researcher and scholar: 1) QUT Office of Postgraduate Studies under the leadership of Professor Rod Wissler,

for a two-year international student fee waiver;

2) The Institute of Creative Industries (ICI) under the leadership of Professor Philip Graham, for a one-year completion scholarship;

3) The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation under the leadership of Professor Stuart Cunningham, for a stipend top-up to the ICI completion

scholarship; and

4) The Centre for Learning Innovation under the leadership of Professor Carmel

Diezman for the administrative support received throughout my candidature. I

particularly thank the HDR Administrative Officer Ms Mary Clowes, and the Centre’s

excellent team of administrative staff, Ms Jeannean Botha, Ms Jennifer Yared, Ms Julie

Carroll and Ms Carol Partridge, for their help and assistance.

Critical advisors and friends

To Dr Ruth Bridgstock—thank you for your close friendship and support throughout this journey, which spanned the gamut from intellectual, methodological, analytical and detailed statistical input to emotional encouragement and invigoration. I could not have survived without the many deeply restorative ‘psych-sessions’ we shared.

To Dr Felicity McArdle—thank you for the many cups of English tea and conversations that not only got me over the ‘qualitative hump’ but developed in me a deep appreciation for qualitative rigour and the power of irony.

To my other flockmates—Dr Shane Dawson and Dr Sandra Haukka—thank you for your unwavering faith that I could complete this thesis and your gems of pep-talks that nudged me along the way. I could always count on you for the occasional brusque, albeit loving, reproof that whipped me into shape when needed.

To Mr Ray Duplock—thank you for sharing your statistical wizardry with me! That boiled fruit cake and bag of liquorice is coming your way.

To Dr Carly Butler—thank you for sharing your expertise on membership categorisation analysis, taking the time to review my draft qualitative chapter and encouraging an ‘MCA rookie’ along her way.

To Mr Andrew White, Ms Rowena McGregor and Ms Maria Spiranovic, for your friendship, enthusiasm and high quality research support in various phases of the project.

To my dependable neighbour and friend Ms Carol Adair—thank you for the many hot delicious meals and delectable snacks that filled my stomach, warmed my heart and uplifted my spirits throughout this challenging three-year endeavour.

To my best friend Lindsay, and my faithful cheering squad, Seng Lee, Winnie, Sonia and Ross, Tony and Cassy, Ann and Judy—thank you for your prayers, love and support.

Family I am very fortunate to have one of the most well-respected literacy educators of our time, particularly in Australia, Professor Peter Freebody, as my father-in-law. I am deeply thankful for his love, guidance and counsel over the past three years, for taking the time to

xv

review my final thesis draft, but most of all, for sharing his deep passion and profound knowledge on education and research with me. Papa, you have taught and inspired me to ‘never rush but never rest’ in my intellectual pursuits. For this, I am eternally grateful. To my mother-in-law Mrs Virginia Freebody, aunts Da Gu and Jessie, uncles Roland, Ronald and Robin (and the rest of the 105-strong Tan-Tay clan), brothers Jimmy and Jason, sisters-in-law Iris, Kelly and Georgia, and brother-in-law Nathan—thank you for your many practical acts of love, affirmation and support that have strengthened and encouraged me throughout the years. To my wonderful parents Ronnie Tan Swee Cher and Julie Tay Su Keng—you have dedicated a lifetime to my education and growth as a productive citizen of value to the society. Since young, I have observed your steadfast determination and indefatigable spirit in fulfilling your parental responsibilities to the best of your ability, whether it be working tirelessly to provide for my material needs, ferrying me to/fro long distances to attend school and piano lessons, or giving me the space to discover my interests and pursue my dreams even though they may be different from what you had planned or hoped. From you, I have learnt to appreciate the value of hard work, integrity, learning and giving back.

You have taught me from young that “学如逆水行舟，不进则退” (‘learning is like

rowing a boat upstream, if one does not move forward, then one regresses’), and that “一

字千金” (‘a written word is worth a thousand pieces of gold’). This thesis contains

approximately 90,000 words. I dedicate each and every one of them to you. 我永生感谢。 Last but not least, to my loving husband Simon Freebody—the countless intellectual-sparring matches about techno-economic paradigms, statistics, education and philosophy (among others), though often frustrating, have been particularly stimulating and rewarding as I was continually challenged to refine my ideas, concepts and arguments. You have, however, given me so much more than intellectual inspiration. When I was hungry, you cooked me mouth-watering beef fillets; when I felt overwhelmed, you showed me Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares; when I missed home, you took me to our favourite Singaporean restaurant at Sunnybank, and many more. These instances may seem trivial but it is in these little things that you demonstrated your enduring patience, perseverance, humour, dependability, commitment, love and dedication to me, without which this achievement could not have been possible. Thank you darling. Our adventure has only just begun.

Cha p te r O ne : I nt ro duc t io n Pag e | 1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

“The future of learning is digital… What constitutes learning in the 21st century will be

contested terrain as our society strives towards post-industrial forms of knowledge

acquisition and production without having yet overcome the educational contradictions and

failings of the industrial age.”

― Mark Warschauer (2007, p. 41)

The research inquiry documented in this thesis is located at the nexus of

technological innovation and traditional schooling. It aims to document, explain and

theorise how students experience and account for the complexities of engaging with

contemporary learning technologies as part of their conventional schooling

experiences. To address this aim, the inquiry draws on theoretical and empirical

advances on the nature of schooling, social practice and technology, in a multi-

disciplinary field of education, social psychology and innovation diffusion. It also

brings together two rigorous quantitative and qualitative analytic tools afforded by

predictive statistical modelling and ethnomethodology to provide an empirical base

for augmenting existing understandings of technological and pedagogical innovation

in mainstream schooling.

The following sections of this introductory chapter outline the background to the

study and its rationale, the research questions guiding the inquiry, as well as the

research setting and design. Next, the chapter highlights the potential significance

and contributions of this study to theory, methodology, policy and practice. The


chapter concludes with an overview and synopsis of the subsequent chapters in this

thesis.

1.1 Postmillennial schooling: More important but less relevant?

This thesis takes as its starting point the paradox that in the current Conceptual Age

(Pink, 2005), schools are becoming more important but less relevant than ever

(McWilliam, 2008). New technologies are bringing about significant shifts in the

nature of knowledge, work and many aspects of everyday life, including the ways

that young people learn to access, store, share, create and apply knowledge. Put

simply, the young people now entering and leaving our schools are ‘digital kids’

(Prensky, 2001, 2006; Tapscott, 2009).

Meanwhile, the move from manufacturing to knowledge-based industries driven by

information & communications technologies (ICTs) has seen the replacement of

manual and routine mental labour with ideas, intellect and innovation as the key

commodities that drive economic growth (Freeman, 2004; Perez, 2004).

Correspondingly, the demand for educational qualifications has also escalated in an

environment characterised by credential inflation and competition. These trends are

reflected in the trade and industry figures, where education and training has been

reported to be amongst the world’s largest and fastest-growing businesses,

constituting at least six percent of the world’s GDP (Robinson, 2001). As

Warschauer (2007) pointed out, “[while] new opportunities increase for powerful

out-of-school learning, formal education is actually rising rather than falling in its

impact on people’s lives” (p. 46). What this means is that performance on

conventional high-stakes paper-and-pencil assessments of received, formal,


academic knowledge appears more important than ever, and particularly so in the

current times of recession when formal education credentials count for

workforce renewal as well as for initial employability. What is evident therefore,

at this historical time is a pressure on young people to be both ‘digital kids’ and

‘analogue students’. It is this point of tension―created by the importance of

being both a digital kid and an analogue student―that is the focus of this thesis.

Relating to this tension, there is growing evidence that the social and cultural norms

of professional and personal life have changed significantly even though formal

qualifications remain highly relevant to employability (e.g., Cunningham, 2005;

Florida, 2002; Leadbeater, 1999; National Centre on Education and the Economy,

2007). As futurist Welsman (2006) explained, formal educational qualifications

cannot be ignored, but neither should they be seen of themselves as sufficient to the

“edu-ventures” (p. 50) that young people will undertake in future professional life.

In a similar vein, McWilliam (in press) argued that the emergence of creativity as an

economic driver is having a profound effect on the identity and expectations of a

creative workforce. A creative workforce is more likely to be working in digitally-

enhanced environments, on short-term contracts and with few templates for

products and deliverables. McWilliam (in press) stated:

Creative workers engage in work that is less focused on routine problem-

solving and more focused on interactivity, navigation capacity, forging

relationships, tackling novel challenges and synthesising ‘big picture’

scenarios for the purposes of adding a competitive commercial edge to an

organisation or business. They are more likely than other workers to be

located in digitally-enhanced environments (including ‘home’ or ‘garage’


environments). With few transportable templates for project design, they

need to unlearn ‘solutions’ to higher order problems as quickly as they learn

them… They can quickly jettison ideas and formulae that do not ‘add value’.

There is burgeoning evidence that the skills McWilliam identified are being

developed and utilised in the main outside formal schooling. As reported by Lunn

(2007), the engagement of young people with new media had reached

unprecedented levels by mid-2007, and continues to show exponential growth.

MySpace International, for example, announced the creation of its 100 millionth

profile in August 2006, and has since reported a growth of approximately 200,000

accounts per day. In mid-2007, MySpace Australia reportedly reached the level of

3.8 million profiles, while Facebook reportedly grew by 270% in three months to

about 150,000 profiles (Lunn, 2007). The current statistics reported on Facebook

(2009) indicate that there are more than 200 million active users on the social

networking site, of which more than 100 million log on at least once a day. It is not

just that these sites are “worth billions” (Lunn, 2007, p. 2), but that they are spaces

where young people are practising the forms of navigation, networking and

communication skills necessary to the ‘creative worker’ identity. Lunn went on to

highlight the fact that these are not ‘command and control’ environments

(McWilliam & Dawson, 2008). Rather, the young people who are active users “tend

to avoid dealing with anyone who could hold power over them on these sites, such

as parents, teachers, bosses… [and] …those that want to prey on them” (Lunn,

2007, p. 2).


All this has profound implications for the nature of teaching and learning in schools.

High-aspiring students have to acquire formal academic skills, canonical disciplinary

knowledge and high levels of print literacy, as well as skill sets relevant to a digital

and conceptual age (Castells, 2000; Pink, 2005). At the same time, school leaders

and teachers are facing immense pressure to be relevant to digital times in their

institutional and classroom pedagogy, while ensuring that their students perform

well in traditional academic tasks and high-stakes assessments. Against this

background, understanding the cultural and pedagogical tensions at the nexus of

digital learning and traditional schooling is imperative, if researchers wish to inform

schools that are aiming to equip students with the essential skills, literacies and

dispositions required to succeed in an environment increasingly characterised by

online communication, learning and work.

1.2 Digital engagement and innovation diffusion in schools

As we enter the second decade of a new century, few would argue against the

proposition that young people need to engage early and often with digital

technologies as part of their educational experience. Nevertheless, the capacity of

schools to deliver close and meaningful digital engagement is being questioned.

Recent research distilled a number of concerns about the digital/traditional

schooling nexus. These include (i) a lack of clarity about the cost and benefits of

expensive technology, (ii) the underutilisation of technologies in classrooms and (iii)

confusion over whether the main goal of education is improved performance in

formal assessment or greater human capacity more broadly understood (e.g.,

Cummins, Ardeshiri & Cohen, 2008; Ware, 2008; Warschauer & Grimes, 2008).


This leaves educational practitioners and policy makers with a conundrum about

whether and how to invest in digital technologies in schools.

On the one hand, many social and educational commentators share Warschauer’s

(2007) concern that mainstream schooling ― designed and organised as it was for an

Industrial Age ― is struggling to keep pace with the social and learning needs of

young people in the ICT/Conceptual Age (Perez, 2004; Pink, 2005). As new and

emergent technologies continue to change the global landscape of work and the

economy, governments and businesses worldwide are looking to education as the

key to developing a workforce with “high levels of specialist knowledge…[in]

creativity and innovation particularly in the uses of new technologies” (Robinson,

2001, p. 5). At the same time, despite substantial investments from governments

and businesses, adoption and diffusion of innovative technologies in schools remain

sluggish (e.g., Ofsted, 2004; Russell, Bebell & O’Dwyer, 2005; Vrasidas & Glass,

2005). Optimal utilisation of contemporary digital tools and their attendant modes

of social engagement remain marginal to the daily life of formal schooling.

The adoption and diffusion of innovative learning technologies and pedagogies in

formal education is a complex issue. A comprehensive literature search of major

academic databases (e.g., EBSCOhost, ERIC, Proquest) showed that researchers in

the field tend to approach the phenomenon of slow uptake from a deficit

perspective, focusing on the barriers encountered by schools as institutions and

teachers as individuals 1 . The general conservatism of the schooling sector’s

institutional structures, as well as teachers’ anxieties and resistance to new

technologies and pedagogies, have been commonly cited as key contributors to a

1 This comprehensive literature search is detailed in Chapter Two, Section 2.4.2.


slow rate of change in classrooms (e.g., Becta, 2003, 2007; M. Cox, Preston & K.

Cox, 1999; Preston, M. Cox & K. Cox., 2000). While these studies contribute

valuable knowledge to the field, deficit models of schools and teachers of

themselves offer inadequate explanations of this phenomenon. Researchers are

increasingly acknowledging the need to approach the issue from a less judgemental

perspective by going beyond the concerns and constraints experienced by teachers

and schools. There is a need to move toward an understanding of the cultural and

pedagogical complexities of innovation adoption and diffusion within long-

established conventions of formal schooling, particularly from the standpoint of a

neglected yet critical group of stakeholders ― the students.

This thesis seeks to extend knowledge in the field of innovation adoption and

diffusion in education by critically examining the relationship between student-led

learning using new digital media tools and formal schooling, as it is experienced by

students in a long-established, well-resourced and high-performing senior schooling

environment. The study aims to investigate the ways in which students evaluate and

engage with a non-mandatory, peer-to-peer (P2P), Web 2.0 learning initiative in the

school, and how their engagement relates to the differential value, legitimacy and

priority they give to particular modes of learning and literacy practices, socio-

institutional conventions and schooling achievement. In conducting such an

investigation, the study enables consideration of the broader implications of the

technology/schooling nexus for pedagogical reform in the 21st century.


1.3 Research Purpose and Questions

In the context of the complex nature of schooling described above, this thesis aims

to move beyond deficit discourses of schools and teachers to examine the

educational complexities of innovation adoption and diffusion within established

conventions of formal schooling, as experienced by students as an under-researched

group of stakeholders. Specifically, the thesis inquires into the central question of

how students evaluate and account for the constraints and affordances of contemporary digital tools

when they engage with them as part of their conventional schooling. To address this central

research question, the inquiry focuses on a ‘case’ of innovative practice in the form

of a student-led digital learning initiative known as the Student Media Centre (SMC).

It documents the attempted integration of the SMC learning innovation into the

mainstream learning and teaching practices of a long-established, well-resourced and

high-performing independent secondary school in urban Queensland, Australia.

The SMC is a staff-endorsed, student-driven, P2P digital learning innovation set up

in the school with the specific purpose of engaging the whole senior school student

population in flexible networked digital learning. A detailed description of the SMC

is explicated in Chapter 3, Section 3.2.2. Both teachers and students intended for

the SMC to extend learning opportunities beyond conventional classroom

pedagogies and traditional literacies, and so develop in the senior student cohort

certain autonomous and leaderly dispositions, as well as greater creative capability.

The adoption and diffusion process that followed the establishment of this non-

mandatory Web 2.0 learning innovation therefore, served as the point of entry for

analysing the educational tensions and affordances around traditional and digital

forms of learning, particularly in high-performing academic schooling contexts. It


provided a starting point for understanding how these complexities play out within

one formal senior school environment, in which the under-utilisation of technology

for pedagogical purposes cannot be readily attributed to resource constraints,

institutional inertia and/or teacher resistance.

Following this logic, this thesis sets up and tests the following central proposition: If

progressive school leaders and teachers in a well-resourced school endorse the implementation of a

student-led digital learning innovation built on cutting-edge Web 2.0 technologies that are embraced

by ‘digital kids’ in their personal sphere, then surely widespread uptake among these same ‘Net

Gen’ students in school will be assured.

This proposition is tested through the investigation of four specific research

questions (SRQ), namely:

(i) SRQ-1) What are the SMC engagement trends and patterns among the

senior school student community?

(ii) SRQ-2) What factors―individual, social and technological―predict the

extent to which students engage with the learning innovation?

(iii) SRQ-3) How do students describe, explain and account for the Web 2.0

learning initiative, its prospects and consequences for their schooling

experience?

(iv) SRQ-4) What are the implications of the nature and outcomes of this

study for innovation adoption and diffusion in postmillennial schooling?


These four research questions can be further broken down into a series of related

sub-questions that together serve as a precise framework for the collection, analysis,

and theorising of data pertinent to the phenomena under scrutiny. These are further

explicated in Chapter Three: Methods of this dissertation. The outcomes of the study

outlined in this thesis include, but are not limited to, the following:

(i) better understandings of the complexities associated with the adoption

and diffusion of innovative technologies and pedagogies within formal

schooling environments;

(ii) theoretical and methodological contributions to the study of innovation

diffusion in educational contexts, particularly in terms of (a) extending

existing models of technology adoption and diffusion to reflect

individual learning dispositions and achievement goal orientations, as

well as (b) shared cultural understandings and socio-institutional norms

and identities that bear on students’ digital engagement in school; and

(iii) scholarly recommendations that assist policymakers and practitioners

move towards more effective and sustainable integration of online

learning technologies in formal teaching and learning contexts.

1.4 Research Setting

The research setting for this study is a long-established, well-resourced and high-

performing independent boys’ school in urban Queensland, Australia 2 . The

2 The student participants in this study consisted of senior school boys in Years 10, 11 and 12. This study does not engage in depth with gender roles and identities, but acknowledges that the scope, findings and implications of this study are constrained by this limited demographic feature, and should be interpreted


students, teachers and parents in this setting have high aspirations for the

professional future of the school’s graduates. They place a high value on the formal

qualifications that the school awards, as well as the development of skills and

dispositions that provide for future professional success in the workplace3.

This study focuses on the attempted integration of the SMC, a student-led digital

learning initiative built on contemporary ‘new media’ technologies, into the daily

learning and teaching practices of the school. The SMC is a multimodal P2P virtual

learning environment that (i) can be accessed by the whole student and teacher

community, and (ii) is designed to engage the whole student and teacher community

in flexible networked digital learning. The SMC is developed and managed by a core

group of approximately 30 senior school students from Years 10, 11 and 12. These

senior school students have been identified by the school leadership to be gifted,

creative and highly ‘aspirational’. As Warschauer (2007) and Albright, Walsh and

Purohit (2006) pointed out, there is a temptation for high-achieving academic

students to desert schooling activities that appear extraneous to performing well in

standardised tests. It is in this academically competitive schooling context,

therefore, that the tensions and affordances of innovation diffusion are most likely

to be acute, because the high levels of intellectual and technological resourcing that

are possible in this research setting bring with them an equally high level of

expectation to excel in traditional academic tasks and high-stakes assessments.

accordingly. This is discussed further in the concluding chapter on the limitations associated with this study and recommendations for future research.

3 This is clearly expressed in the school’s 2007 mission statement, which emphasises that their graduates should be “21st century learners replete with the skills to adapt to learning, delivered by modes not even invented yet in careers not yet thought of.”


Educational distinctions have been made about the way aspirational or middle-class

students view their schooling and are viewed in terms of their schooling. Bernstein

(1973, 2000), for example, has argued that expressiveness―through personal

fulfilment, cultivation, flexibility and creativity―is very much the province of middle

class students, while less advantaged others have been relegated to instrumentalist

activities for narrow economic ends. Much also has been made of the ‘digital divide’

as a class issue that privileges an already advantaged elite (Sassen, 2004). While it is

beyond the scope of this study to enlarge upon aspects of this topic related to social

class, it can however, be observed that such distinctions appear to have shifted in

contemporary schooling in that the values embodied in the expressive orientation

(personal fulfilment, cultivation, flexibility, and creativity) are themselves attracting

high instrumental value in 21st century cultures and economies. Using this class-

based distinction as a way of framing the interests of stakeholders, we can

hypothesise a variety of journeys that student-led digital innovations in a school

with high social, cultural and academic capital might take.

Furthermore, the fact that this inquiry focuses on a high-performing school as the

site for the case study is significant in terms of the push-and-pull of supply and

demand thinking about education (Brown, 2006; Bruns, Cobcroft, Smith & Towers,

2007; OECD, 2006). Queensland educators, in line with progressive educators

elsewhere, have advocated a more student-centred pedagogy for several decades. It

is therefore reasonable to presume that Queensland students in general, and high-

performing senior school students in particular, might anticipate student-centred

preferences as being an important mode of pedagogical engagement. We might even

imagine that, in a privileged and ‘progressive’ school, students would expect it. In


other words, a student-led digital learning initiative ought to be entirely compatible

with mainstream schooling practice in the 21st century.

Moreover, for students with high social and cultural capital attending a long-

established and well-resourced school, deep and sustained learning is presumed to

take place in a wide variety of settings beyond the school gates. Many such students

have access to social, material and technological networks during their school years

and presumably, they will have even more of such access after graduating from high

school. Many of these students will become future civil, political and professional

leaders. In this regard, there are long-term implications emerging from the ways in

which a well-established mainstream institution incorporates emerging demand-

based professional skills and dispositions. If it struggles to perform this task

successfully given the resources available, then the implications are serious indeed

for all other educational institutions, particularly those experiencing more standard

material, cultural and professional conditions. One general condition that may

militate against the imperative to develop 21st century skills and capacities is that

schools may value traditional academic literacies at the expense of a wide range of

new literacies (Albright et al., 2006; Sawchuk, 2009). Consequently, it is hardly

surprising if aspirational students in high-performing environments evaluate a

potential learning innovation in the school overwhelmingly in terms of its perceived

benefit for academic grades. The research questions addressed in this thesis examine

these various possibilities and their implications for systemic institutional transitions

and change within the schooling economy.

A premise that receives support from extant research literature and is further

explicated in Chapter Two: Literature Review is that simply introducing digital


technologies into schools is relatively easy. The challenge is to introduce the

practices, dispositions, and values that are able to be sustained within the local

context in ways that will ensure their relevance to the future of the students and the

culture of the school. It is acknowledged that these emerging practices, dispositions,

and values are in the process of being shaped by the rapid diffusion of existing and

emerging digital technologies. The increasingly widespread use of these technologies

of itself will not deliver these practices, dispositions, and values (Sassen, 2004). It is

the change of students’ school experiences in terms of emerging practices,

dispositions, and values that is most likely to make a difference, and it is therefore

the student experience that is of central interest to this thesis.

1.5 Research Design

The design of this study is informed by an empirical case study approach (Yin,

2003), using a combination of mixed methods to provide insights into the research

problem. The empirical case study approach is particularly appropriate for this study

because (i) local contextual conditions (i.e., the conventions of a well-resourced,

high-performing, and academically-competitive mainstream senior school) are

expected to be highly pertinent to the phenomena under scrutiny (i.e., the tensions

and accommodations experienced by students in their engagement with the

innovation), and (ii) a holistic and in-depth investigation of both the context and

phenomena is desired (Feagin, Orum & Sjoberg, 1991; Yin, 2003).

In addition, the multiple methodologies offered by the empirical case study

approach are invaluable in an inquiry of this nature, which seeks both richness and

range in explaining and theorising a complex and dynamic phenomena involving


multiple perspectives, variables and levels of analysis. This study employs an

‘explanatory’ two-phase research design, more recently known as the ‘New Political

Arithmetic’ (NPA) model (Creswell, 2003, 2005; Gorard & Taylor, 2004). This

design normally begins with a descriptive phase using a large-scale numeric dataset

designed to provide a general picture of the research problem in context, as

reflected in trends and patterns. This is followed by an explanatory phase in which

rigorous qualitative data collection and analysis are conducted with a subset of cases

selected from the preceding phase with a view to examining the identified trends

and patterns in greater depth.

For the purpose of this study, Creswell’s design has been augmented in a number of

ways. These are detailed in Chapter Three: Methods. In brief, data collection and

analyses in this study were carried out in three phases. In the first quantitative phase,

a self-report questionnaire was administered to the senior school student population

(N=600). Numeric data emerging from the questionnaire were analysed using

appropriate descriptive statistical techniques and Classification and Regression Tree

modelling (Breiman, Friedman, Olshen & Stone, 1984) to (i) identify trends and

patterns associated with the students’ evaluation of and engagement with the SMC,

as well as to (ii) determine the degree to which measured individual, social and

technological factors predict students’ SMC usage. This was followed by a

qualitative phase, in which six in-depth focus group interviews were carried out with

a selected sample of 60 students. Textual data emerging from the focus groups were

analysed using an ethnomethodological membership categorisation approach (e.g.,

Eglin & Hester, 2003; Freebody, 2003; Sacks, 1992) to obtain rich insights into

students’ shared cultural understandings, logic and reasoning practices that bear on


their evaluation of and engagement with the SMC innovation. The results and

findings from the quantitative and qualitative phases then were critically re-

examined and synthesised in the third and final phase of this study to develop

empirically grounded theoretical propositions related to the educational

complexities of innovation diffusion within established conventions of

contemporary formal schooling. As indicated earlier, the research methodology and

design of the study are further explicated in Chapter Three.

1.6 Significance of the Study

1.6.1 Implications for Theory

The study is significant in that it allows for the development of a theoretical

‘borderland’, in which business/organisational literature about technology adoption

and mainstream educational literature about the culture of schooling can be

mutually informative. While schools are organisations in a number of key respects,

the organisational literature that emanates from commercial enterprise (e.g.,

adoption and diffusion literature in the fields information systems and applied

economics) does not map neatly onto the learning and teaching practices in which

schools engage. It does, however, assist in opening up a parochial educational

literature by challenging some of the central tenets and assumptions of the

educational disciplines. This productive recruitment of conceptual, methodological

and empirical advances in multiple fields therefore, affords this study a ‘third way’

of theorising about technological and pedagogical innovation in schools: one that

moves beyond the more familiar identification of teacher skill deficits and resource

limitations by focusing on the attitudes, behaviours and reasoning practices of the

students themselves as a critical group of stakeholders.


1.6.2 Implications for Method

This study is significant in terms of method because it is strategically located at the

intersection of quantitative and qualitative approaches. This study is

methodologically innovative in that it combines (i) predictive statistical modelling that

focuses on individual dispositions, attitudes and behaviours with (ii) an

ethnomethodological membership categorisation analytic approach that foregrounds the

shared cultural understandings and socio-institutional ‘commonsense’ underpinning

students’ reasoning practices and social action in context. Taken together, this

methodological latitude has the potential to overcome the limitations of both

approaches, by providing both numeric and textual narratives―both broad empirical

trends and in-depth understandings―of how the realities of techno-pedagogical

innovation and deep institutional changes are experienced by members living out

the social order of schooling.

1.6.3 Implications for Policy

The fact that the study considers both numeric and textual forms of data expands

its relevance and validity for policy formulation and development. Educational

policymakers have been suspicious of ‘one-off’ studies, including case studies, which

rely heavily on qualitative data about human experience, and with good reason,

since these cannot be extrapolated to larger populations. On the other hand,

quantitative measures alone can probe issues amenable to measurement, but are less

well-suited to documenting and exploring deep socio-institutional and cultural

change. As indicated in Chapter Three, the approach taken in this study seeks to

produce results that are both plausible and rich in terms of their explanatory power

at the level of a school’s culture.


1.6.4 Implications for Practice

There is an increasing urgency to integrate digital and technological literacies and

skills with traditional academic knowledge and skills (Prensky, 2001, 2006; Tapscott,

2009). As indicated at the beginning of this thesis, simply introducing new

technologies into schools is necessary but insufficient, in terms of the ‘rubber’ of

digital tools hitting the ‘road’ of pedagogical practice in schools. The fact that the

focus of this inquiry is the student perspective is important in terms of daily

pedagogical practice. As indicated earlier, the intent is to extend current knowledge

in the field of ICT integration in schools, by moving beyond the tendency to focus

on barriers and deficits at the institutional and individual teacher levels. Implications

and recommendations emerging from the findings of this study include allowing

school leaders and teachers to engage with authentic data in their attempt to deliver

on their promise of a relevant education for postmillennial times. Findings from this

study have been and will continue to be shared with the community of learners and

teachers in the research setting, in the spirit of working with them, rather than on

them, to consider implications for pedagogical practice in this particular context.

1.7 Overview of the Thesis

The rest of this dissertation is organised in the following ways. The next chapter,

Chapter Two: Literature Review, provides a critical review and synthesis of extant

literature in the fields of knowledge relevant to this study. Literature in the fields of

learning and teaching in digital times, as well as the adoption and diffusion of

innovations in educational contexts, are presented and discussed. Research and

knowledge gaps in the relevant areas of study are identified and an argument is

presented for the conduct, significance and contributions of this thesis.


Chapter Three: Methods provides an overview of the research aims and restates the

generic and specific research questions guiding this study. It describes in detail the

research setting, which includes the school and the student-led digital learning

initiative. The chapter proceeds to outline the research strategy and design of the

study, and contains a detailed explanation of the proposed research phases, methods

of data collection, instrumentation and data analysis techniques. The validity and

reliability of the study, as well as ethical issues, are then discussed.

Chapter Four: Quantitative Phase―Describing and Predicting SMC Adoption Behaviour

reports on the results and findings of the initial quantitative phase of the study. The

chapter addresses two specific research questions, namely:

(i) What are the trends and patterns of students’ engagement with the

digital learning initiative?

(ii) To what extent do the selected individual, social and technological

factors predict students’ engagement with the digital learning initiative?

It does so by (a) reviewing and validating the research constructs and measurement

scales, (b) presenting and discussing appropriate descriptive statistical results on

usage trends and patterns, as well as (c) predictive modelling results emerging from

incremental Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analyses.

The discussion of the quantitative findings leads on to the qualitative phase of the

study, which is reported in Chapter Five: Qualitative Phase―Students’ Accounts of SMC

Adoption Behaviour. This chapter augments the descriptive and predictive work in the

preceding quantitative phase by addressing the specific research question of how


students describe, explain and evaluate the Web 2.0 learning initiative, including its

prospects and consequences for their schooling experience. Specifically, the chapter

provides in-depth and rich explanations of ‘why’ and ‘how’ the abstract numeric

narratives (i.e., the SMC usage patterns, trends and predictors) identified in the

quantitative phase are experienced, accounted for and made sense of by students in

the lived reality of their daily social and institutional interactions at school.

Finally, Chapter Six: Conclusion considers the broader implications of the nature and

outcomes of the quantitative and qualitative phases for innovation adoption and

diffusion in postmillennial schooling. It re-examines and synthesises the various

data corpuses and findings using theoretical lenses highlighted in the literature

review to develop scholarly propositions that aim to assist policymakers and

practitioners in moving towards more effective and sustainable integration of online

learning technologies in contemporary schooling contexts. The thesis concludes by

drawing attention to a number of limitations associated with the study and

proposing some possible directions for future research.

Cha p te r T wo : L i t er at ur e R ev i ew Pag e | 21

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a critical review and synthesis of theoretical and empirical

literature in the fields of (i) schooling and learning in digital times, and (ii) the

adoption and diffusion of new and emergent technologies into mainstream

schooling practices. In so doing, it provides a scholarly context for this thesis,

pointing to knowledge gaps and areas where research is limited. In this way, it

makes an argument for the significance of this study.

2.1 Schooling for a Digital World

“The school in its present form will disappear over the next 30 to 40 years.”

― Gunther Kress (1999, p. 7)

2.1.1 Supply-Push and Demand-Pull Schooling

Schooling remains one of the most contested of our social institutions.

Propositions such as that reflected in the quote above are becoming increasingly

common. These prognoses come from a myriad of sources, from internationally

recognised educational scholars such as Kress, to social commentators, futurists

and economists alike (e.g., Brown, 2006; Plank, 2007; Robinson, 2001; Welsman,

2006). In historical terms, schools have been subjected to contested expectations

and pressures as society evolves and needs change, but they have proven highly

change-resistant in terms of overall structure and governance (Vollmer, 2003). A

decade on from Kress’s assertion about their disappearance, it may be possible


to echo Oscar Wilde by countering that rumours of their death have been greatly

exaggerated. Whether or not schools as they are currently understood will have a

long or short shelf-life, it is certain they are becoming increasingly problematic

in terms of the learning they offer young people, and therefore, increasingly

compromised as the potential solution to social and economic ills.

One way of understanding the challenges of contemporary schooling is to

characterise them in terms of the logic of economics, that is, as a struggle

between ‘supply-push’ and ‘demand-pull’. This struggle gets played out both at

the meta-level of educational theory, policy and practice (e.g., debates around

curriculum reform) as well as at the micro level on issues such as banning mobile

phone use in schools. Supply-push thinking is a dominant characteristic of

‘Industrial Age’ and ‘Information Age’ schooling. While it will continue to be a

feature of schooling for some time yet, there is increasing consensus that it

results in national education systems that are outmoded and inadequate

(Robinson, 2001) for the current Conceptual Age, in which creativity, innovation

and design skills are essential for economic competitiveness at individual,

national and global levels (Friedman, 2005; Greenspan, 2004; Pink, 2005). Put

simply, supply-push thinking reflects long-term mainstream attitudes and

practices that are aligned with schools as powerfully bureaucratic systems, with

strong top-down pressures towards uniformity and resistant of radical change

(OECD, 2007).

In this supply-push model of schooling, policy focuses on curriculum and

qualifications, accountability is driven by student assessments (though questions


persist over how far these develop capacities to learn), and predominant

pedagogical practice centres around individual classroom and teacher models

(OECD, 2007; Robinson, 2001). Schooling is valued, in broad terms, as a

credentialing and sorting process, as well as a means of preserving key social

traditions. Descriptions, improvements, and evaluations of educational practices

are supplied as the means by which young people can be connected to their past,

live in the present and be prepared for their future. Ideally, students emerge

from school with various combinations of foundational skills and dispositions,

such as basic literacy and numeracy, which can be further developed within

specialised, traditional discipline-based categories of knowledge and work-

relevant practice. The cultural and economic formations of the society then

make what they can of these combinations. In this sense, the educated child is a

product that schools supply to society, just as schools supply information and skill

building practices to the child. According to Plank (2007), these ‘supply-driven’

dynamics continue to drive educational policy and planning in most countries

around the world. In Egan’s (2008) negative framing, supply-push means that

schooling continues to render children “captives within specially designed

buildings, sitting more or less docilely in age sets, available for whatever the state

or influential interest groups want to try” (pp. 6-7).

Demand-pull thinking positions education as responsive, rather than simply

reactive (and often negatively), to new social and cultural formations and

demands. In this logic, schooling is valued in terms of its service to community

and direct relevance to the future growth of local and global economies, as

perceived by ‘stakeholders’, which include students, parents and future


employers (Brown, 2006; Lincoln, 1995; Sliwka & Istance, 2006). In other words,

students, parents and employers, as clients, demand skills and dispositions that

vary in terms of their potential for contributing to cultural and economic

development. Continuous assessment of that potential and how it is best

developed form the rationale for ongoing alterations to the content and

processes of schooling.

This approach stands in contrast to supply-push education by calling for a shift

from ‘learning about’ and building stocks of knowledge through ‘command-and-

control’ teaching methods (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008) to enabling students to

participate in flows of action and ‘learning to be’ through a process of

enculturation and collateral learning within niche communities of practice

(Brown, 2006). In recent years, the demand-pull approach to education has

gained an increasing number of advocates (e.g., Brown, 2006; OECD, 2007;

Plank, 2007; Robinson, 2001), as new and emergent technologies continue to

revolutionise the way people (especially young people) communicate and engage

in their personal and professional spaces.

In its most extreme form, a demand-pull approach to education is exemplified

by the two ‘de-schooling’ future scenarios posited by OECD (2007): (i) Learning

Networks and the Network Society, and (ii) Extending the Market Model. The

former scenario is characterised by the de-institutionalisation, even dismantling,

of school systems as part of an emerging Network Society (Castells, 2000),

where the dissatisfaction with institutionalised provision and expression given to

diversified demand leads to the abandonment of schools in favour of a multitude


of learning networks, quickened by the extensive possibilities of powerful,

inexpensive information and communication technologies (ICTs). In this

scenario, teachers as professionals are defunct, the boundaries between teachers,

students, parents, education and community blur and collapse, and new learning

professionals emerge in the form of consultants or locally employed tutors.

The latter scenario is responsive to the dissatisfaction of strategic consumers in

cultures where schooling is commonly viewed as a private as well as public good.

Governments reform funding structures, incentives and regulation, such that

public education authorities play a substantially reduced role. Many new

entrepreneurial providers enter the learning market, where the most valued

learning is determined by choices and demands, resulting in different learning

pathways. New and novel indicators, measures, and accreditation arrangements

begin to emerge, with a stronger focus on non-cognitive outcomes and values,

and these may displace direct public monitoring and curriculum regulation. The

high level of innovation brings with it painful transitions and inequities (OECD,

2007), as it moves towards the provision of different means by which young

people can be socialised, introduced to disciplinary knowledge, and developed as

individuals and citizens.

2.1.2 Beyond Supply or Demand

This thesis recognises both supply-push and demand-pull imperatives as having

strengths and limitations. The aim is to move beyond supply-push and demand-

pull as merely a contestation, by engaging with both perspectives to better

understand and inform 21st century schooling. Both supply-push and demand-


pull thinking are necessary to schooling as an educational project. However, their

contestation can produce a sort of paralysis in terms of educational reform, as

both forms of cultural logic wrestle for dominance. In the meantime,

unprecedented changes are occurring in terms of learning in and for a digital age

(Warschauer, 2007), changes that are confounding the logic of both supply-push

and demand-pull. The profound nature of the challenge to schooling and to

other traditional social institutions is well captured by Scott’s (2007) comments

on the future of media:

Watching my 15-year-old move across YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, I

can see that her media experiences are about creating and sharing content,

rather than mine at the same age, which was listening to the radio and

watching TV. How will the [media]… engage her and her friends when …

they are turning 40? How do we stop [our institutions]… fading away? (p. 1)

Rather than mirror Scott’s concerns that our key social institutions such as

schools and traditional media organisations are in danger of being totally

irrelevant, this thesis seeks to inquire about whether and how young people’s

engagements in online content creation and sharing activities can complement

‘learner-centred’ schooling (Fullan, 1995; Rallis, 1995). In so doing, this thesis

recognises that significant changes, primarily brought on by the revolution

occurring in ICTs, are raising serious questions about the appropriateness of the

ways in which schools and schooling are currently conceived, organised and

judged (MacGilchrist, Myers & Reed, 2004). At the same time, it acknowledges

that change and progress need order rather than chaos, and should thus be


pursued in a measured and considered fashion, with an appreciation for the

essential custodial and credentialing roles that schools perform, and are expected

to perform, in contemporary societies. A focal point of this thesis is to enrich

current understandings of the educational complexities that arise from

introducing innovative learning initiatives framed by a demand-pull approach to

education within well-established conventions of schooling, where supply-push

thinking remains prevalent. How both can be simultaneously attended to is a

broad challenge that is of interest in framing this thesis.

2.2 The Technology Revolution

“We have in our time released a totally new social force – a stream of change so accelerated

that it influences our sense of time, revolutionises the tempo of daily life, and affects the very

way we feel the world around us… For this acceleration lies behind the impermanence, the

transience, that penetrates and tinctures our consciousness, radically affecting the way we

relate to other people, to things, to the entire universe of ideas, art and values.”

― Alvin Toffler (1970, p. 7)

2.2.1 Technology, Speed and Change

The major work by sociologist and futurologist Toffler, Future Shock (1970), was

one of the first to call attention to the global phenomenon of rapid social change

promoted by extraordinary and exponential advancements in technology. Toffler

argued that the accelerating rate of technological and social change would

overwhelm people and leave them disconnected, suffering from "shattering

stress and disorientation" (Toffler, 1970, p. 290). While the claims in his book

have since been subjected to much critical scrutiny from other thinkers and

scholars in a wide variety fields, including physics, economics, business and


technology (e.g., Huebner, 2005; Modis, 2002; Seidensticker, 2006), one fact

remains irrefutable: The pace of developments in computer technology,

particularly ICTs, over the past 50 years has been breathtaking (Robinson, 2001).

Moreover, the rate of change continues exponentially with each passing year.

Much has been made of the unprecedented pace of change in ICTs and its

impact on our collective professional and social lives (e.g., Brown & Adler, 2008;

Castells, 2000; Davies, 2003, Downes, 2004; Perez, 2002; 2004; van Dijk, 2006).

For instance, in his book Out of Our Minds, Robinson (2001) illustrated that the

length of time taken for major innovations in communications to be introduced

into our public lives has shortened dramatically over the last 200 years: Since the

invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1450, it took another 400 years

before the Morse code was introduced. Subsequently, it took approximately 25

years each to introduce the telephone, radio and television, while the personal

computer, internet and mobile phone were invented and introduced to the

public within 15, 10 and 5 years respectively (Robinson, 2001). The same

phenomenon is evident when analysed in terms of the number of years it took

different forms of media to secure an audience of fifty million: Radio took 40

years, television took 13 years, while the internet took only 4 years (Davies,

2003).

Furthermore, businesses and workplaces have become heavily and increasingly

reliant on ICTs. This trend is not confined to new high technology industries but

is also evident in traditional industries such as mining, farming, manufacturing

and construction. In her book on the relationships between techno-economic


and socio-institutional change, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The

Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (2002), well-regarded social scientist and

applied economist Perez demonstrated that economic growth from the 1700s to

2000s have experienced five successive technological revolutions that can be

categorised as five distinct stages. These are: (i) the Industrial Revolution in the

1770s driven by the emergence of mechanised industry, wrought iron and

machinery in Britain, (ii) the Age of Steam and Railways in the 1820s driven by

steam engines, iron and coal mining, (iii) the Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy

Engineering in the 1880s when steel replaced iron, and the sciences such as

chemistry and civil engineering transformed industry, (iv) the Age of Oil,

Automobile and Mass Production in the 1900s driven by cheap oil and oil fuels,

petrochemicals and the invention of the internal combustion engine leading to

mass-produced automobiles, and (v) the Age of Information and

Telecommunications from the 1970s onwards to date, driven by the information

revolution of cheap microelectronics, personal computers, telecommunications

hardware and software, as well as computer-aided biotechnology and new

materials.

Perez (2002, 2004) goes on to argue that each of these distinct stages comprised

a new techno-economic paradigm, governed by a set of pervasive generic

technological and organisational principles, which in turn bring about significant

changes in the socio-institutional spheres of society at large. These techno-

economic paradigms and their associated core technologies and socio-

institutional ‘commonsense’ principles are summarised in Table 2.1.


Table 2.1 Techno-economic paradigms and governing ‘commonsense’ principles

Technological Revolution/Country of initial development

New technologies, new/redefined industries and infrastructures

Governing ‘commonsense’ technological/organisational principles

FIRST

Industrial Revolution

Britain

Mechanised cotton industry

Wrought iron, Machinery

Water power, canals, turnpike roads

Factory production, mechanisation, productivity (time-keeping, time-saving), local networks

SECOND

Age of Steam & Railways

Britain spreading to Continent & USA

Steam engines & machinery (made in iron, fuelled by coal)

Railway construction, Steam power

Railways, telegraph, city gas

Great ports, worldwide sailing ships

Economies of agglomeration

Power centres with national networks

Standard parts/machine-made machines

Interdependent movement of machines & means of transport

THIRD

Age of Steel, Electricity & Heavy Engineering

USA & Germany overtaking Britain

Cheap steel, Steel ships (full development of steam engines)

Heavy chemistry & civil engineering

Paper & packaging, canned food

Copper and cables, telephone

Worldwide shipping, railways, tunnels

Giant structures (steel), empires, cartels

Economies of scale/vertical integration

Science as productive force

Universal standardisation

Cost accounting for control, efficiency

FOURTH

Age of Oil, Automobile & Mass Production

USA spreading to Europe

Mass-produced automobiles

Cheap oil and oil fuels

Petrochemicals & synthetics

Internal combustion engine for automobiles, airplanes, tanks

Electricity & home appliances

Refrigerated & frozen foods

Networks of roads, highways, ports, airports, oil ducts, worldwide analogue telecommunications

Mass production/mass markets

Economies of scale/horizontal integration

Hierarchical pyramids/Centralisation (metropolitan centres-suburbanisation)

Energy intensity (oil-based)

Standardisation of products

Synthetic materials

National powers, world agreements & confrontations

FIFTH

Age of Information & Telecommunications

USA spreading to Europe & Asia

Cheap microelectronics, computers, telecommunications, computer-aided biotechnology

World digital telecommunications (cable, fibre optics, radio & satellite)

Internet, email, e-services, high-speed global transport (land, air, water)

Information intensity (microelectronics-based ICT)

Economies of scope (specialisation combined with scale)

Network structures/Decentralisation

Heterogeneity, diversity, adaptability

Customisation/segmentation of markets

Globalisation/ Global-Local networks

Instant contact/action, synchronous global communications

(Adapted from: Perez, 2002, pp. 11-18)


As shown in Table 2.1, the move from the Industrial Revolution to the current

Information and Telecommunications Age has seen significant shifts from factory

production models that rely on routine mechanisation and local networks, toward

decentralised and globalised markets and production models that rely primarily on

ICT-enhanced knowledge as capital and value-add. Correspondingly, there is an

increasing demand for ‘knowledge workers’ (Drucker, 1995; Zuboff, 1988) with

high levels of proficiency in digital literacies (Robinson, 2001). The profound impact

of these trends on our political, economic and social realms more than a decade ago

is demonstrated in Castells’ influential book, The Rise of the Network Society (1996,

2000), which involved an in-depth analysis of the US and world political economy

in light of the technological and information revolution taking place. In this

landmark work, Castells pointed out that the ability to transform information into

knowledge using new technologies can be considered the critical factor contributing

to wealth and power in today’s world at both the individual and national level. In

light of the fact that education systems and schools are key social institutions

responsible to a large extent for the development of future knowledge workers

essential to maintaining a healthy economy, the extent to which they are able to

optimise the use of new technologies for this purpose is a pertinent research

problem.

2.2.2 Web 2.0 and Generation ‘C’ Learners

More recently, developments in ICTs have constituted a new era of advancement

known as Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005). The effects of Web 2.0 are already pervasive in

social, economic, and intellectual life (Bruns, Cobcroft, Smith & Towers, 2007)

within the exceptionally short period of approximately three years. Although the


phrase ‘Web 2.0’ is at times contested (Arola, 2006), it is most commonly

understood as a set of second-generation web-based communities and hosted

services and applications, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs and

folksonomies, which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing among users

(Downes, 2004; O’Reilly, 2005; Wikipedia, 2007). In the terms of the title of this

thesis, there has been a shift in the way information is encoded from an analogue

system to a digital system, with the latter reducing the cost of information sharing

techniques and making them more feasible and cost-effective. This shift has

brought unprecedented opportunities for learning outside the formal structures of

traditional classrooms.

Familiar examples of websites and e-communities that fall within the category of

Web 2.0 include the blogosphere (e.g., Blogger), MySpace, YouTube, Facebook,

Flickr, and Wikipedia, among others (see Korica, Maurer, & Schinagl, 2006 for

comprehensive descriptions). The Web 2.0 movement is gaining such

prominence that an April 2006 cover story of Newsweek by Levy and Stone

proclaimed it as “a new wave of start-ups [that are] cashing in on the next stage

of the internet… [and] empowering citizens to make themselves heard and seen

in online space” (Levy & Stone, 2006, p. 1). In similar vein, international public

relations watchdog Trendwatching.com (2004) identified the emergence of a new

‘generation’ of online citizens―‘Generation C’ (for ‘creative’, ‘content-driven’

and ‘community-oriented’)―who exhibit a strong preference for knowledge

commons (e.g., music-file sharing and Creative Commons) and open-source

software developments, which are characteristic of Web 2.0 applications

(Kaplan-Leiserson, 2005). ‘Generation C’ shares many similarities with previous


generational groupings such as the ‘Net-Gen’ or ‘digital natives’ (e.g., Prensky,

2001, 2006; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005), in terms of their levels of familiarity

and engagement with online technologies in daily life. Moreover, they move

beyond individually-based interests and pursuits of advancements and

entertainment “with scant regard for the common good or an equitable

distribution of knowledge and resources” (Bruns et al., 2007, p. 1) to become a

more collectivistic e-community of participants, active in global knowledge

creation and sharing.

While naming global participants in knowledge creation as an entirely new

generation risks over-generalisation (e.g., Bennett, Maton & Kervin, 2008; Oliver

& Goerke, 2007; Kennedy et al., 2006), ‘Generation C’ nonetheless comprises a

diverse but significant grouping of people who share some common

characteristics and aims. A synthesis of relevant literature (e.g., Bennett et al.,

2008; Brown, 2006; Bruns et al., 2007; Downes, 2004; Howe & Strauss, 2000;

Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001, 2006) pointed to three key features

of this group of young people in terms of their associations with technology and

each other. These are (i) prolific and extensive engagements with digital

technologies in everyday life for socialising, learning and working, (ii) multiple

modalities and mental pathways for accessing, processing and generating

information and knowledge, and (iii) a strong preference for social

connectedness and experiential learning, where they not only use, but are also

active producers of content, information and knowledge.


Specifically, the young people comprising ‘Generation C’ have been found to be

more digitally and visually literate than previous generations. Having grown up

in a world that is well-connected by new networked media, they “crave

interactivity… [and are] constantly connected and always on” (Oblinger &

Oblinger, 2005, p. 26). They are sometimes referred to as ‘natural born cyborgs’

(Clark, 2003; Gee, 2003, 2007a, 2007b) who are oriented towards inductive

discovery, enjoy figuring out the rules by ‘trial and error’, and are motivated by

‘learning to be’ (Brown, 2006) rather than by being told what to do. Importantly,

the ways in which they access, share and create knowledge (online and offline)

appear to challenge traditional production/consumption models characteristic of

late capitalism, in that they occupy a hybrid space where user and producer

identities become indistinct, a position referred to as that of a ‘prod-user’ (Bruns

et al., 2007; McWilliam & Dawson, 2008).

2.2.3 Implications for Schooling and Learning

The emergence of ‘Generation C’ learners as a distinct social formation

underpinned by Web 2.0 networking technologies brings with it considerable

and fundamental implications for the creation and provision of learning

environments (Tan and McWilliam, 2008). Few would disagree with the view

that schools have a crucial role to play in the lives and learning of their students,

in terms of preparing them for the present and future (e.g., Gee, 2007a; Kennedy

et al., 2009; MacGilchrist et al., 2004; The New London Group, 2000; Kress,

2000). Put another way, there is general consensus that formal schooling should

be relevant and appropriate to the needs of their learners and help them reach

their full potential by developing essential literacies and capacities that will allow


them to become active “everyday participant[s] in literate societies” (Freebody &

Luke, 2003, p. 53). Following from this central purpose of schooling and the

significant shifts in the nature of learners, nature of knowledge and the labour

market as a result of rapid technological advancements and economic re-

formations discussed in the previous sections, it is incumbent on schools and

educators to engage with and address these shifts in terms of what students learn

and how they learn (Warschauer, 2007) in their daily schooling practices.

The ‘what’ of learning refers to the encoded knowledge, literacies, skills and

capacities that schools need to help students develop in order to successfully

participate in this digital, conceptual age. The ‘how’ of learning relates to the

pedagogical frameworks and ensuing learning environments that best allow

students to develop those literacies and capacities. The following section

discusses in greater detail what these essential 21st century literacies and skills are,

as well as how to develop these capacities in particular learning environments

underpinned by appropriate pedagogical frameworks. The affordances of new

and emergent learning technologies for establishing such learning environments

are discussed in this context.

2.3 What to Learn? How to Learn?

“The driving force for the 21st century is the intellectual capital of citizens. Political, social

and economic advances… during this millennium will be possible only if the intellectual

potential of [our] youth is developed now. It should be no surprise that what students learn

―as well as how they learn it and how often they must refresh these skills sets―is

changing.”

― NCREL (2003, p. 9)


2.3.1 What to Learn: Literacies and Skills for the Conceptual Age

While the specifics of school curriculum remain contested, there appears to be

convergence among scholars, policymakers and practitioners in various fields

around a number of essential 21st century skills and literacies that schools need

to develop in their twenty-first century students. A comprehensive framework

describing essential digital-age skills and literacies recently published is the

enGauge 21st Century Skills: Digital Literacies for a Digital Age by the North Central

Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) (2003), a federally-funded research

and learning laboratory based in the United States. The framework was

developed on the basis of (i) extensive and in-depth literature reviews, (ii)

analysis of nationally-recognised skill sets, (iii) conceptual and empirical input

from recognised scholars and practitioners in the fields of education, economics

and labour market, business and technology, and (iv) responses from constituent

groups and stakeholders (NCREL, 2003).

The framework has since been widely referred to in scholarly publications, as

well as policy papers and frameworks (e.g., Cunningham, 2004; McWilliam &

Dawson, 2008; Warschauer, 2007). Several key elements proposed in the

framework have also been espoused by literacy educators, educational

psychologists and learning scientists. The following section describes a range of

essential skills and literacies identified from a synthesis of work by NCREL and

some educators of note, which schools are called to embed in their daily work of

developing and preparing students for successful participation in the 21st century

conceptual age. The skills and literacies are grouped into three major categories

and discussed below.


2.3.1.1 Digital-Age Literacies

NCREL (2003) defines digital-age literacies as comprising (i) basic functional

literacy in reading, writing, mathematics and science (Bransford, Brown &

Cocking, 1999; Nelson, 1999), (ii) visual literacy, (iii) technological literacy, (iv)

information literacy, and (v) cultural literacy, including global awareness. Visual

literacy refers to the ability to decode, interpret and communicate using a

combination of traditional print and digital imagery, graphics, charts, and videos;

Technological literacy refers to competence in the use of computers, networks and

applications; Information literacy refers to the competency to find, evaluate and use

off-line and online information appropriately within legal, ethical and social

guidelines.

Visual, technological and information literacies are not skills that can be

developed in isolation. Warschauer (2007) stressed the importance of

information literacy in conjunction with functional, visual and technological

literacies – what he terms ‘multimedia literacy’ – which he refers to as the ability

to interpret, understand, design and create content that uses (traditional and

digital) images, photographs, video, animation, music, sounds, texts and

typography. This extended concept of literacy that moves beyond basic

functional reading and writing using traditional print medium to incorporate

fluency in multiple modalities is strongly advocated by several other literacy

educators (e.g., Daley, 2003; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005; Kress, 2003) or groups of

educators (e.g., The New London Group, 2000). For instance, the transnational

New London Group (1996, 2000) built extensively on prior work in literacy

education that argued for the importance of multimodalities to promote the


concept of Multiliteracies―a new literacy framework that has been adopted

relatively extensively by educators and policy makers worldwide, including the

Education Department of Queensland. Essentially, the multiliteracies framework

stresses the equal importance of visual and verbal literacy, and calls for a focus

on developing learners’ ability to decode and engage with multiple modes of

literacy, including linguistic, gestural, spatial, visual and audio forms of

communication.

In summary, digital-age literacies underscore two important competencies: (i) the

ability to engage with content in multiple modalities in a critical manner using

current technologies, and (ii) the ability to access, search, evaluate and create

content in an efficient and appropriate manner using current technologies. The

latter stresses the importance of knowing ‘how to search’, rather than simple

‘mastery of facts’ (Warschauer, 2007). As Kress (2003) pointed out, the

predominant position of multimedia in today’s world of digital communications

has placed the abovementioned skills in high demand. It is for this reason that

the integration of digital tools into the mainstream pedagogical practices of

schooling is a priority issue for the educational sector.

2.3.1.2 Powers of Adaptability, Creativity and Communication

Another category of skills and competencies frequently mentioned in existing

relevant literature as pivotal in this conceptual age are dispositions of (i)

flexibility and adaptability, (ii) creativity, innovativeness and risk-taking, and (iii)

collaboration and effective communication. Robinson (2001) drew attention to

the existing skills gap that is causing employers to raise concerns about academic


programs (in schools and universities) being inadequate in the preparation of

young people for the workplaces. The main criticism is that traditional academic

curriculum is not designed to produce people who are flexible, adaptable,

imaginative, innovative, and most importantly, able to deal with failure

(Robinson, 2001). These dispositions and aptitudes are becoming increasingly

vital in a knowledge-centred economy characterised by complexity and rapid

change, in turn driven by the communications revolution, increasing bandwidth,

multiplying outlets and increasing global consumer demand.

Flexibility or adaptability can be defined as the ability to prioritise, plan, design,

and manage complexity, through anticipating changes, considering contingencies,

and understanding interdependencies within systems (NCREL, 2003; Rychen &

Salganik, 2003). It also involves being able to effectively use real-world tools to

achieve productivity and desired results despite complexities and challenges

(NCREL, 2003; Rychen & Salganik, 2003; Warschauer, 2007).

Creativity or innovativeness is defined here as the propensity to use imagination to

develop new, original and valuable inventions or solutions, as an individual and

as part of a team (Craft, 2005; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Kaufman & Sternberg,

2006; Sternberg, 1999). The importance of being able to create knowledge in this

digital age is emphasised in Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) revised Bloom’s

taxonomy of knowledge in the cognitive domain. Their knowledge taxonomy

augmented Bloom’s (1956) landmark work by extending the conventional

taxonomy of remembering, understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating, to

include creating knowledge.


The propensity to create and innovate, individually and collectively, is in turn

closely related to effective collaboration and communication, or the ability to interact

well with others and work together towards common objectives, and to convey,

exchange, and understand information using current technologies (NCREL,

2003). Effective collaboration and communication does not refer solely to

technical skills but also to an understanding of communicative etiquette in the

relevant environments including cross-cultural settings, and an appreciation of

what counts as socially and personally responsible information in those

environments. Again, these are skills and capacities that are more likely to be

fostered by a digital rather than analogue electronic environment.

2.3.1.3 Risk-taking, Learning and Performance

A common denominator underlying these dispositions is the ability to take risks

and accept failure or welcome error (McWilliam, 2008). As Lemke (2002, p. 19)

aptly pointed out, “the very nature of learning requires risk taking ... [and we]

will never be able to learn new things if [we] are not ready to experience both

success and failure”. Dweck (2000) elaborated further on this point using

extensive empirical research in the field of self-theories to identify two sets of

qualities in learners: Mastery-oriented or helpless. Mastery-oriented qualities are

associated with adaptive responses to challenges and problems, self-confidence

which in turn brings about a form of optimistic persistence, and the ability to

take risks in learning, primarily because failure is not viewed as a measure of

personal inadequacy (Crocker & Park, 2004; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). By

contrast, learners who predominantly exhibit helpless responses are likely to

experience intellectual paralysis when faced with challenging problems and find


themselves in a position where they are unable to draw on their existing

knowledge to creatively think about potential solutions, being overwhelmed by

their inability to ‘get the right answer’ (Dweck, 2000).

These dispositions are in turn influenced by the learners’ achievement goal

orientations, which can be predominantly learning-oriented or performance-oriented.

The former is associated with mastery-oriented qualities, where the learner is

focused on increasing competence, learning new skills, understanding new

concepts and essentially “to get smarter” (Dweck, 2000, p. 15). As Dweck (2000)

went on to explain, students who are performance-oriented have a higher

tendency to exhibit helpless responses in the face of difficult challenges, as a

result of being primarily concerned with winning positive judgements about their

competence (“to look smart”, p. 15) and avoiding negative ones (“to avoid

looking dumb”, p. 15).

While both goals are universal and can lead to high achievement (ideally, Dweck

concludes, in a 50/50 ratio), the general consensus is that school systems, with

the numerous high-stakes standardised testing, tend to develop students who are

primarily performance-oriented. While these students may achieve the academic

grades and educational qualifications they desire, their inability to cope with

complexity and difficult challenges render them ineffective 21st century

intellectual knowledge workers who need to “know what to do when they [don’t]

know what to do” (Claxton, 2004, p. 1). If, as Dweck sees it, a 50/50

performance/learning orientation is ideal, then schools are challenged to develop

students who are oriented towards both learning and performance, rather than


performance alone. As Lemke (2002) argued, “students must be in

environments they perceive to be safe places in which to share ideas, reflect on

and discuss perspectives, and learn new things. Schools have an obligation to

ensure that all students are placed in such environments.” (p. 19). In simple

terms, ‘low threat, high challenge environments’ (McWilliam, 2010 forthcoming)

are likely to be most efficacious in getting this balance right.

The above discussion raises the question: What types of learning environments

are best suited to the task of achieving this balance of learning and performing

to develop the sets of 21st century skills and literacies discussed above? The next

section draws on existing literature and prior studies to address this question and

the issue of how students learn.

2.3.2 How to Learn: Learning Environments for the Conceptual Age

“The challenge, and thereby opportunity, for educators and business leaders, is the

redesign of the spaces and structures of knowledge and learning. Where classrooms and

courses fail, ecologies and networks succeed – due to greater alignment with societal

changes and needs of learners and organisations.”

― George Siemens (2006, p. 9)

2.3.2.1 From Cartesian to ecological paradigms of learning

The last four decades of educational scholarship has seen a strong movement

away from a Cartesian paradigm towards an ecological paradigm of learning and

pedagogy (Barab & Plucker, 2002; Brown, 2006; Frielick, 2004). As summarised

by Barab and Plucker (2002), the Cartesian model of learning, based on the

scholarship of prominent 17th century philosopher René Descartes, separates the


individual (knower) from the environment (known), which in turn promotes the

belief that knowledge is a self-sufficient substance that can be understood

independently from the environmental context in which it is learnt. The

Cartesian paradigm lies at the root of conventional transmissionist-oriented

approaches to teaching and learning, which leads to the production of passive or

inert knowledge (Barab & Plucker, 2002; Bransford et al., 1999; Freire, 1970; von

Glasersfeld, 1995).

An ecological paradigm of learning stands in sharp contrast with the traditional

Cartesian paradigm, by situating the learner within the learning context, which is

community-based rather than individual-based (Barab & Plucker 2002; Brown,

2006). As a study of knowledge, it shifts from focusing on individual forms of

cognition and rationality to multiple social forms of knowing, being and doing.

In so doing, it transcends the binary formulation of the individual or society by

shifting the object of analysis to the ‘socially-produced individual’ (Henriques,

Holloway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine, 1984). It is this shift of focus to the

social production of a learner identity that lies at the heart of social-

constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, where situated cognition and

learning takes place within a community of learners (Brown, Collins & Duguid,

1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Swan & Shea, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978), through what

Vygotsky (1978) termed the “zone of proximal development” (p. 86). Social

constructivism emphasises how meanings and understandings grow out of social

interactions and encounters. It has been a powerful idea in shaping models of

learning and pedagogy in the past decade (Issroff & Scanlon, 2002).


2.3.2.2 Beyond social constructivism toward connectivism

More recently, with the growth of ecological perspectives in learning and

teaching, coupled with the rapid advent of networked communication

technologies in social and professional spaces, there has been a push for learning

theories and pedagogical practices to move beyond social constructivism

towards what has been termed as ‘connectivism’ (Siemens, 2005, 2006). This

model of learning was first articulated by George Siemens, a well-known theorist

on the changing nature of learning in a digitally-based society, in his compelling

paper Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age (2005). It is a model of

learning based on his analysis of the limitations of behaviourism, cognitivism

and constructivism to explain the effect technology has had on how we live, how

we communicate and how we learn. As Perrin (2005), editor of the International

Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning defined it, “connectivism

combines relevant elements of many learning theories, social structures, and

technology to create a powerful theoretical construct for learning in the digital

age” (p. 1). In other words, connectivism is to digital what behaviourism is to

analogue.

The connectivist approach to learning and teaching has its roots in the notion

that “the learning process must create interconnections for knowledge that is

distributed over many actual and virtual locations” so that “maintaining these

connections…becomes a learning skill essential for successful participation in a

technological information society” (Verhagen, 2006, p. 1). In so doing,

connectivism extends the social constructivist approach in two key aspects. First,

while social constructivism holds that learning is a socially enacted process, it


still promotes the principality of the individual in learning, that is, learning takes

place within the individual (Siemens, 2005, 2006). On the other hand, a premise

underlying connectivism is that learning not only takes place within the

individual, but also importantly occurs in a constantly changing or evolving

learning environment comprising networked individuals (Brown, 2006; Siemens,

2005, 2006). This premise is summed up clearly by Siemens (2006, p. 1) in his

insistence that “much of knowledge today is distributed across networks of

individuals, not held only in the mind of one”. Second, while the social

constructivist approach to learning merely advocates the use of modern

technologies to facilitate telecommunications and the social construction of

knowledge through engaging with multiple modes of representation (Hirumi,

2002; Wilson, 1996), a connectivist approach sees new and emergent forms of

networked technologies as not only an enabler, but more importantly,

paramount and intrinsically linked to powerful learning processes and

experiences (Weatherley, 2006).

2.4 Responses from the Schooling Sector: Policy, Practice and Research

The above discussion has briefly canvassed the means by which rapid

technological developments are impacting on what students learn, and how

learning environments might be structured to facilitate the development of the

identified 21st century essential skills and literacies. In the sections that follow,

the discussion moves to comment on how the schooling sector in general is

responding to such shifts.


2.4.1 Policy and Practice

Castells (1996, 2000) was emphatic that we can no longer speak of the ‘social’

without speaking of the ‘technological’. This works as a powerful imperative in

educational policymaking and leadership as educators in the schooling sector

worldwide come to recognise the need for reform in the education system in

order to prepare their young people to cope more effectively with the challenges

in this new digital era (Cheng, 2006; Cheng & Townsend, 2000). A general aim

of these reforms is to move towards curriculum, pedagogy and assessment that (i)

better reflect the types of skills and literacies relevant to a conceptual age as

those described earlier, and (ii) capitalise on the affordances of new and

emergent networked and media technologies to facilitate more learner-centred,

ecological configurations of learning in which ‘Generation C’ students are able

to co-design and co-create value in their learning pathways as ‘prod-users’ (i.e.,

producers and users, rather than mere consumers, of knowledge).

To this end, numerous countries (e.g., Chile, Finland, Singapore, United States)

have set national goals and policies that identify a significant role for new and

emergent information and communication technologies in improving education

systems and reforming their curricula and pedagogical practices (Kozma &

Anderson, 2002; Pearson & Naylor, 2006). Major investments have been made

by many OECD countries in recent years to increase the numbers of computers

in schools and to enhance the networking of learners in and beyond site-

bounded learning in classrooms (Becta, 2007; Cheng, 2006). Among these,

several innovative forms of ICTs are being recognised as having significant

affordances for reconfiguring and enhancing teaching and learning in digital


times. These include, in particular, virtual learning environments, digital

curriculum, multiplayer virtual games and mobile learning applications (see Becta,

2007; Korica et al., 2006).

Despite these trends and substantial fiscal investments in ICTs for schooling,

there is an increasing corpus of research indicating that the process of change in

schools, in terms of the adoption and diffusion of these innovative learning

technologies into mainstream teaching and learning practices, remains slow-

moving (e.g., Ofsted, 2004; Russell et al., 2005; Vrasidas & Glass, 2005).

Correspondingly, digital tools and their attendant modes of social engagement

remain marginal to the daily life of students and teachers in formal schooling.

This gap between policy and practice draws attention to the fact that the

adoption and diffusion of innovative learning technologies and pedagogical

practices in formal education is a complex issue, constituting a problem that

demands increasing attention from both educational practitioners and

researchers in the field.

2.4.2 Research and Knowledge Gaps in the Field

While many studies have examined the adoption and diffusion 4 of ICTs in

schools and tertiary institutions, a comprehensive literature search of major

academic databases (e.g., EBSCOhost, ERIC and Proquest) showed that the bulk

of existing research tends to approach the phenomenon from a deficit

perspective, focusing on the barriers encountered by schools as institutions, and

4 Other terms used in conjuction with ‘adoption and diffusion’ often include ‘uptake’, ‘use’, or ‘integration’. Detailed definitions of the terms ‘adoption’ and ‘diffusion’ are provided in the sub-section 2.5.1 Adoption and Diffusion Defined on page 57.


teachers as skill-deficient individuals. Findings often point to the lack of

institutional support or resourcing at the local or school administrative level, as

well as teachers’ anxieties and resistance to new technologies and pedagogies as

key contributors to the slow rate of change taking place in mainstream schooling

practices (e.g., Becta, 2005; Cox et al., 1999; Pelgrum, 2001; Preston et al., 2000;

Yuen & Ma, 2002). While these studies contribute valuable knowledge to the

field, deficit models of schools and teachers in and of themselves offer limited

explanations of this important and complex phenomenon, given that

corresponding interventions, which focus on increasing funding and upskilling

teachers, have made little difference to adoption trends in the last decade.

In 2005, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency

(Becta) conducted a comprehensive examination of existing research literature in

the field of ICTs adoption and diffusion in schools, and in the process

highlighted several gaps in the literature informing future research. First, Becta

(2005) pointed out that, although there is a significant body of studies

investigating the uptake and use of ICTs by the schooling sector in general, there

is little evidence about its utilisation in specific phases of education; in other

words, research into specific primary or secondary schooling contexts would

contribute significantly to the field. In similar vein, other researchers have

highlighted the fact that there is a paucity of research into online learning in

secondary schools, despite the increasing use of online technologies in these

contexts, with the majority of available research being carried out in tertiary

education contexts (Chang & Tung, 2008; Chen, Wu & Yang, 2008; Clark, 2003;

Day, 2005; Ngai, Poon & Chan, 2007).


Second, Becta (2005) stated that almost all of the available literature explores

barriers associated with general uses of ICT, with the predominant focus on the

use of computers and the Internet in general. However, research that focuses on

specific technologies, particularly new networked technologies, is scarce despite

its importance for enabling targeted and informed policy making and practice in

the field going forward.

Third, Becta (2005, p. 9) stressed the need for research to go beyond focusing on

barriers and impediments to examine examples of “innovative practice” and

“effective use” of ICTs. Studies focusing on barriers tend to concentrate on

non-adopters and/or potential adopters of the technological or practice-related

innovation as the primary participant group. While it is useful for research on

innovation adoption and diffusion in schools to consider the perceptions and

attitudes of non-adopters and/or potential adopters at the institutional and

individual levels, it is also critical to expand the research focus to include

adopters (schools or individuals) and their experience of the use and diffusion

of the relevant innovation (NSBF, 2007). Currently, there are few empirical

studies examining the adoption and diffusion process from the perspective of

adopters and what enables them to engage with the innovation in their daily

practice (Becta, 2005). Research that can extend knowledge in this area is now

overdue. This is one knowledge gap that this study attends to.

Another area where research is needed is compelling empirical evidence on the

perspectives and experiences of students as a critical group of stakeholders in

schools’ adoption and use of ICTs. A literature search and review of relevant


studies over the past six years (2003-2008), using four major academic databases

(Proquest Dissertations, Proquest Education, ERIC via EBSCOhost,

ScienceDirect), showed that only 21% or 43 out of 197 studies took into

consideration the point of view of students5. The remaining 154 studies focused

primarily on teachers’ and school leaders’ perspectives and experiences.

Furthermore, of the small number of 43 studies that examined the process of

innovation (technological and practice-related) adoption and use from the

student’s standpoint, the majority (65%), that is, 28 studies were carried out in

tertiary settings. Only a small minority of 16% or 7 studies were conducted in

secondary schooling contexts. When this is coupled with the earlier matter of the

paucity of relevant research into secondary schools, it is evident that secondary

school students continue to comprise a strikingly under-researched and under-

represented group of critical stakeholders involved in the process of adoption

and use of innovative technologies and pedagogical practices in schools. While

the study embedded in this thesis is limited to a few hundred adolescent male

students in one school, it nevertheless makes a contribution to addressing this

problem of the lack of student perspective.

5 Key terms used in the search include numerous combinations of the following: technology, ICT, computers, adoption, diffusion, use, acceptance, uptake, integration, education, school, teaching, learning, student, teacher. A total of 197 relevant studies were found in the search. These were reviewed and classified into two major groups: (i) studies that focus on teachers and school leaders as research participants (N=154), and (ii) studies that focus on students as research participants (N=43). The studies in each group were further categorised into educational contexts of primary, middle, secondary, and tertiary settings. Of the 154 studies that focused on teachers and school personnel – 17 (11%), 10 (6%), 23 (15%) and 104 (68%) studies were conducted in primary, middle, secondary and tertiary settings respectively. Of the 43 studies that focused on students – 2 (5%), 6 (14%), 7 (16%) and 28 (65%) studies were conducted in primary, middle, secondary and tertiary settings.


2.4.3 Potential Contributions of this Thesis

In light of the knowledge gaps discussed above, researchers increasingly

acknowledge the need to approach the issue of innovation adoption and

diffusion from a wider systemic perspective, going beyond the concerns and

constraints experienced by teachers and schools toward an understanding of the

cultural and pedagogical complexities of innovation diffusion within long-

established conventions of formal schooling, particularly from the standpoint of

a critical group of stakeholders―the students. There is also a need to focus

research on specific technologies, especially new networked technologies, rather

than a general group of technologies such as ‘computers’ or ‘the Internet’.

Further, more empirical work in the area of specific schooling or learning

contexts, particularly secondary school settings is clearly needed.

This thesis seeks to contribute to the abovementioned body of knowledge and

theory in the field by critically examining the interactions and negotiations that

occur in the process of introducing student-led learning using new digital media tools

into the mainstream formal schooling, as it is experienced by students and teachers in

a long-established, well-resourced and high-performing senior schooling

environment. The inquiry focuses on a ‘case’ of innovative practice―a student-

led digital learning initiative using new networked technologies in the form of a

multimodal virtual learning environment. Of central interest to the inquiry are

the cultural and pedagogical complexities involved in the attempted integration

of its activities into the mainstream learning and teaching practices of the case

study senior school context. The study aims to document, explain and theorise

how students experience and account for the complexities of engaging with


contemporary learning technologies as part of their conventional schooling

experiences. It seeks to determine the extent to which pertinent

social/contextual, technological and individual factors that impact on students’

perceptions and experiences with the innovation, as well as examine students’

accounts and reasoning practices of engaging with the specific Web 2.0 learning

innovation in their everyday schooling practices.

In so doing, this thesis has the potential to address the aforementioned

knowledge gaps in four major aspects. First, the inquiry focuses on a specific

educational context, that is, the senior school context, which is an area identified

as significantly lacking in relevant literature. Second, the study focuses on a

specific technological innovation and its corresponding progressive pedagogical

elements, as called for by Becta (2005) and other researchers in the field.

Following Rogers’ (1995) widely-used innovation diffusion theory and Kozma

and Anderson’s (2002) cross-cultural study of innovative pedagogical practices

using ICT, ‘innovation’ is defined here as a technology or practice that is new in

the specific learning context, and one that:

(i) promotes active and independent learning, where students take

responsibility and create their own learning goals and activities;

(ii) provides students with competencies and technological skills, including

information literacy and multimedia literacy (as defined earlier);

(iii) engages students in collaborative and socially-enacted learning within a

network of learners to address complex extended and real-world-like

problems and projects;


(iv) ‘breaks down the walls’ of the classroom, taking learning beyond site-

bounded physical locations to multiple networked local and virtual

environments.

The specific technology being investigated in this study, a multimodal virtual

platform underpinned by Web 2.0 open-source networked applications

(including blogs, polls, interactive forums, digital videos and podcasts), meets

the abovestated criteria of what constitutes an innovation. More importantly, it

is one of several new and emergent learning technologies that is increasingly

acknowledged by educators and researchers as having significant affordances for

reconfiguring and enhancing teaching and learning in digital times (see Becta

2007; Korica et al., 2006).

Third, this study aims to go beyond examining barriers and impediments from

the perspective of non-adopters and potential adopters, to consider the

complexities of the adoption and diffusion process as experienced and described

by multiple groups of student stakeholders, including those who are engaged

with the innovation, those who reject the innovation, and those who are yet

undecided. In the case of this study, these stakeholders comprised the senior

school student community. The Web 2.0 learning innovation under scrutiny is

led and managed by a core group of approximately 30 senior school students in

Years 10, 11 and 12. It is a multimodal virtual learning environment that was

designed to engage the whole senior school community in flexible networked

digital learning, and can be accessed by all the students (and their teachers)

within the senior school. By focusing on multiple groups of student stakeholders


with diverse responses to and engagement with the innovation, the study is

designed as a comprehensive, multi-dimensional investigation of the factors that

act as both inhibitors and enablers of students’ utilisation of particular

technologies, the interactions of these variables, as well as the ways in which

students make sense of these interactions in the inherently complex nature of the

secondary schooling context (Pearson & Naylor, 2006).

It is important here that 21st century schools are not just sites of potential

technological engagement, but also powerful sites for the formation of social

identities outside the home. This is evidenced in two decades of sociological

analyses by McWilliam (McWilliam, 1989, 1997, 1998, 2006; McWilliam & Vick,

1995; McWilliam & Brannock, 2001) that demonstrated the work schooling does

in constituting young people as social subjects through the relations of power

that exist in schools, made available through the ways in which schooling is

discursively and materially organised. Naming practices such as the ‘non-

academic’ group, ‘manual’ group, ‘seniors’, ‘juniors’, ‘remedial’ group and so on

all do a particular kind of work in this regard. So a study of in-school practices is

necessarily a study also of social formations. It is for this reason that the design

of the study that follows is a study of social formation at the same time that it is

a study of technology adoption and diffusion. In this way, more than simply

addressing the gap in literature where students, and particularly secondary school

students, appear to be an under-represented group of critical stakeholders within

which active social learning is taking place, this thesis moves contemporary

schooling research beyond the tendency to remain in the rhetoric of student-


centeredness towards more authentic practice of privileging the student

perspective in their learning.

In the preceding sections, a critical review and synthesis of extant literature in

the area of schooling and learning in digital times has provided a scholarly

context for this study, particularly in terms of how rapid technological

advancements have brought significant changes to the nature of knowledge, the

nature of learners and the nature of learning, and the profound implications for

‘what’ students learn and ‘how’ they learn in the 21st century conceptual age.

Additionally, the discussion has shown that the rate of change in schools and

classrooms continues to be slow-moving despite the general consensus among

governments, scholars, policy makers and practitioners alike for the need to

reform mainstream schooling practices to reflect the significant shifts discussed

above and to prepare young people more effectively for their future professional

and personal pursuits. Correspondingly, richer understandings of this process of

change, in terms of innovation adoption and diffusion, were advocated. Several

literature gaps in the field were then highlighted as a rationale for this study, in

order to flesh out the ways in which the study can potentially contribute to

knowledge in the field.

As stated earlier, this thesis aims to document, explain and theorise how students

in a high-performing independent senior school setting experience, negotiate and

account for the complexities of engaging with a Web 2.0 student-led digital

learning initiative in their mainstream schooling practices. To address this

research aim, the study seeks to determine the extent to which pertinent


social/contextual, technological and individual factors impact on their

perceptions and experiences associated with the innovation, and the ways in

which students account for the affordances and constraints of integrating this

learning innovation within their conventional schooling practices. In this regard,

the adoption and diffusion process of the Web 2.0 learning innovation serves as

the point of entry for analysing the educational complexities around traditional

and digital forms of learning, and for understanding the ways in which these

complexities are played out in an academically-competitive senior schooling

context that is rich in both tradition and resourcing. Against this background,

the review and synthesis of literature that follows focuses more specifically on

existing research in the field of innovation adoption and diffusion, so as to

provide a conceptual framework for the conduct of this study.

2.5 Innovation Adoption and Diffusion in Schools

The adoption and diffusion of innovation, particularly technology-related

innovations, have been approached from macro and micro perspectives. Macro

theorists focus on reforming and restructuring educational institutions and

making systemic policy-level changes. On the other hand, micro theorists

approach the adoption and use of specific technologies, including instructional

and learning technologies, through understanding the perspectives and

experiences of relevant groups of adopters or potential adopters (Farquhar &

Surry, 1994; Leonard-Barton & Deschamps, 1988; Surry, 1997). As discussed

earlier, there is strong indication in the literature that significant investments and

changes are underway at a systemic policy level in OECD countries, including

Australia, to support the use and integration of new and emergent technologies


into education, but a more urgent and complex issue lies in the acceptance and

meaningful, sustained use of these technologies at the micro levels of schools

and classrooms. For this study therefore, it is the micro perspective that is most

relevant to understanding the adoption and diffusion process of the student-led

digital learning initiative within the school’s mainstream practices.

Surry (1997) explained that within the micro perspective to innovation adoption

and diffusion, there are two underlying views of technology. Technology determinists

view technology as the primary cause of social change and consequently,

diffusion can be achieved solely through the efficiency and effectiveness of the

relevant technology (Dunn, 2004). Put another way, this view is developer-based

and posits that technological superiority alone is sufficient in effecting change to

existing behaviours and practices. On the other hand, technology instrumentalists

view technology as a tool and emphasises social conditions and human

aspirations as the primary cause of change in behaviours and practice. A

fundamental premise of this view is that the needs, opinions, and perceptions of

the user or potential user are of primary importance to the acceptance and

diffusion of an innovation (Bijker, 2006; Dunn, 2004; Pinch, 1996).

Feenberg in his book Critical Theory of Technology (1991) suggested a third critical

perspective to understanding technology enacted in practice. Warschauer (2007)

summarised this approach as one that “situates technology use within real-world

power structures and inequities, and correspondingly views technology as neither

a neutral tool nor a determined outcome, but rather as a scene of struggle

between different social forces” (p. 47). In a similar vein, Perez (2004) argued


that there are inherent mechanisms in the way technologies diffuse that lead to

transitions in techno-economic paradigms every fifty or sixty years. These

paradigm shifts in turn bring patterns of stability and disruptions in the techno-

economic sphere, which require matching transformations at the socio-

institutional level. However, socio-institutional practices organised along the

entrenched ‘commonsense’ principles of the previous paradigm act as inertial

forces that make the socio-institutional framework more resistant to change and

slower to adapt to new conditions. This leads to a decoupling between the

techno-economic sphere and the socio-institutional sphere, which results in a

difficult period of irregular economic growth and deep, often painful,

institutional change. This struggle or push-and-pull of misalignment between the

techno-economic and socio-institutional spheres tends to last several decades

before the coherence of the total system is re-established, at which time the

wealth-creating potential of the new technology is optimised and a period of

prosperity ensues. The ‘core’ technologies of each successive techno-economic

paradigm therefore, were neither neutral tools nor determined outcomes, but

actively shape and were shaped by the dynamic, sometimes unpredictable, forces

of technical, economic and socio-institutional change.

Following Feenberg and Perez, this thesis works from the critical perspective of

technology adoption and diffusion. It acknowledges that technological,

social/contextual and individual factors are important in determining whether an

innovation is accepted and used in the relevant context, but holds that these

factors do not predict users’ decision processes in a linear fashion. Rather, an

appreciation of the tensions and accommodations involved in the introduction


and sustained use of such an innovation within the entrenched conventions of

mainstream schooling practices will provide more nuanced understandings about

why and how change takes place. In this regard, the study aims to investigate the

technological, social/contextual and individual factors, as well as their

interactions, contradictions and complementarities, in order to enrich

understandings of the underlying reasons and ways in which students resist or

engage with the student-led digital learning initiative to varying degrees in their

everyday schooling practices.

The next section clarifies the terms ‘adoption’ and ‘diffusion’ as they are used in

this study, and concludes with a discussion of the technological, contextual and

individual factors that may impact on the adoption and diffusion of a particular

innovation such as that which prompted this study.

2.5.1 Adoption and Diffusion Defined

A set of fundamental concepts appropriate for understanding innovation

adoption and diffusion are the Schumpeterian distinctions among invention,

innovation and diffusion (Schumpeter, 1939). According to Schumpeter, an

invention (of a new product or process) occurs within and can remain

perpetually in the technoscientific sphere. By contrast, an innovation is an

economic fact, in that the first commercial introduction transfers it to the

techno-economic sphere, albeit as an isolated occurrence until market forces

determine its viability. In the case of failure, it can disappear forever. In the case

of success, it can remain an isolated fact with minimal market impact or become

economically significant. In the event that an innovation experiences the process


of massive adoption, or diffusion, it is then transformed into a socio-economic

phenomenon with far-reaching social consequences. In sum, technical feasibility

is much more probable than economic profitability, which is in turn, much

higher in likelihood than widespread social acceptability. As Perez (2004, p. 219)

aptly pointed out, “not all inventions become innovations and not all

innovations diffuse widely”.

The basic Schumpeterian concepts such as those described above have informed

the field of innovation diffusion research in organisations to a significant extent.

Drawing on these concepts, a widely-recognised scholar in this field, Rogers

(1995), argued and demonstrated that the adoption of a technological innovation

is a decision process that evolves through different stages across time, usually

from (i) obtaining initial knowledge of an innovation, to (ii) forming a favourable

or unfavourable attitude toward it, to (iii) a decision to adopt or reject it, to (iv)

putting the innovation to use, and finally (v) seeking reinforcement of the

adoption decision made. This process is in part attributable to the nature of the

innovation. Key distinctions have been made between two major types of

innovation: incremental innovation and radical or disruptive innovation 6

(Christensen, 2003; Christensen, Horn & Johnson, 2008; Dosi, 1982; Freeman,

1984, 2004; f & Chang, 2007). Incremental innovations comprise primarily

improvements to products and processes within existing technological regimes,

6 The term ‘disruptive’ innovation was coined by Christensen (2003) in his book The Innovators Dilemma. While radical and disruptive innovations are generally taken as analogous concepts, some scholars have attempted to distinguish between the two, suggesting that the latter category can be developed in an attempt to improve existing products and process albeit in ways that the market does not expect, whereas the former category entail such fundamental technological changes that makes it impossible to result from efforts to improve an existing technology (Freeman, 2004; Perez, 2004; Smith, 2008). This ongoing conceptual debate is beyond the scope of this study, which follows the general conception of radical and disruptive innovations as akin to one another, in that, they both entail significant changes to existing mainstream products and practices.


such as enhanced speed and capabilities of microprocessors. By contrast, radical

and/or disruptive innovations tend to involve the introduction of a

fundamentally new product or process, rather than merely augmenting existing

ones, and tend to produce new practices, industries and structural changes in the

economy. For instance, the Television established a vibrant manufacturing

industry, as well as introduced programming and broadcasting services that

stimulated the growth of a systemic advertising industry. Predictably,

incremental innovations tend to experience higher levels of adoption and

diffusion than radical/disruptive innovations, given its higher degree of

compatibility with established trajectories of mainstream socio-institutional

practices. However, when these established trajectories approach exhaustion,

that is, when the returns derived from existing products and services reaches

maturity and plateaus, then there is a higher likelihood for radical/disruptive

innovations to be willingly adopted (Perez, 2004; Smith, 2008).

The type of innovation notwithstanding, ‘diffusion’ can be defined, following

Rogers, as the process by which an innovation is adopted and gains acceptance

by members of a certain community. In like manner, the Theory of Reasoned

Action (TRA), developed by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) purports that technology

adoption is a decision process that occurs over time. The TRA is one of the first

intention models to gain widespread acceptance as a possible means of

predicting and explaining user acceptance of technology. According to the TRA,

an individual’s decision to behave in a given manner is influenced by the

person’s behavioural intention, in turn affected by the individual’s attitude (positive

or negative feelings about the target behaviour) and subjective norm (individual’s


perception that the target behaviour is desired by people important to the

individual). Given their dynamic and evolutionary nature, it is not uncommon

therefore to find different researchers using the terms ‘adoption’ and ‘diffusion’

to imply a variety of behaviours, ranging from the intention to adopt (Chwelos,

Benbasat & Dexter, 2001; Karahanna, Straub & Chervany 1999), the decision to

adopt (Bouchard, 1993; Grover, 1993; Iacovou & Benbasat, 1995), the likelihood

or propensity to adopt (Kendall, Tung, Chua, Ng & Tan, 2001; Tan & Fichman,

2002), to actual usage of the innovation (Grover, 1993; Premkumar &

Ramamurthy, 1994, 1995, 1997; Tan, 2003).

While researchers have stressed the importance of understanding actual usage

behaviours for successful innovation adoption and implementation (e.g.,

Limayem & Hirt, 2003; Premkumar & Bhattacherjee 2008), a large majority of

adoption studies to date, however, have focused more on behavioural intention

as a proxy of actual usage, rather than examining usage behaviour itself. This is

most commonly attributable to the fact that (i) behavioural intentions have been

shown in reviews of observational and experimental studies to account for a

significant proportion of the variance in actual behaviour, and (ii) the

practicalities of measuring behavioural intention is usually less challenging than

measuring actual behaviour (e.g., Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1996; Chwelos et al.,

2001; Zhu, Kraemer & Xu, 2003). For these reasons, the majority of adoption

studies conclude on behavioural intention despite concerns about potential

disparities in the intention-behaviour relationship, sometimes referred to as the

‘intention-behaviour gap’ (e.g., Eccles et al., 2006; Sheeran, 2002; Sniehotta,

Scholz & Schwarzer, 2005; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). Similarly, in the context of


ICTs in educational contexts, studies that examine determinants of actual usage

behaviour are few and far between. This thesis therefore, aims to contribute to

this empirical knowledge gap by going beyond behavioural intention to

investigate factors that predict students’ varying degrees of actual usage or

engagement with the implemented Web 2.0 digital learning innovation.

In other words, of the aforementioned adoption behaviours, this study is

primarily interested in actual usage, which can be further classified into (i) actual

usage sometimes known as current usage, and (ii) continued usage; in turn often

measured by the “extent or degree of use” in terms of volume and frequency of

usage (e.g., Hart & Saunders, 1998; Premkumar & Ramamurthy, 1994;

Karahanna et al., 1999; Thong, 1999). By considering actual usage and continued

usage behaviours, this study acknowledges that, while initial adoption is

important, it may not result in sustained and meaningful use or integration of the

innovation over a period of time to improve existing practices and dispositions

(Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck, 2001; Weston, 2005). Thus, it is the negotiations

and accommodations of engaging (or not engaging) with the innovation and the

resultant changes to practices, skills and dispositions embedded within

entrenched conventions of traditional mainstream schooling practices that is of

central interest to this study.

As discussed earlier, this study considers innovation adoption and diffusion to

be a complex process that is influenced by technological, social/contextual and

individual variables. These are discussed more fully in the following sections.


2.5.2 Technological Factors

To interrogate technological factors, Davis (1989) developed a simple yet

powerful empirical model of technology adoption and usage, known as the

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), based on Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of

Reasoned Action (1980) discussed earlier. This model, illustrated in Figure 2.1,

posits that innovation adoption and use is influenced by two major technological

factors: perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.

Figure 2.1: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

(Source: Davis, 1989)

Perceived ease of use is defined as the degree to which the user believes that using

the innovation is free of effort (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000).

Following this reasoning, Rogers (1995) stated that potential adopters evaluate

an innovation in terms of its complexity and the rate of diffusion increases when

the innovation is considered not overly complex and easy to use. Perceived

usefulness is defined as the degree to which the user believes that using the

innovation enhances his/her work or learning performance (Davis, 1989, Ngai et

al., 2007; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000). In similar vein, Rogers (1995) and other

researchers have shown that the rate of diffusion of an innovation increases

Perceived

usefulness

Perceived

Ease of use

Attitude

toward using

Behavioral

intention to

use

Actual system

use


when it is perceived to provide users with relative advantage over existing

technology or modes of practice.

The TAM model has consolidated substantial theoretical and empirical support

since its conception, and is one of the most widely-used and accepted conceptual

frameworks to examine technological factors influencing users’ adoption of a

technology-related innovation. In recent years with the growth of the internet,

researchers have used TAM to investigate various web-related technologies,

including web browsers (Morris & Dillon, 1997), online course websites (Chang

& Tung, 2008; Selim, 2003) and web-based learning systems (Lou, Luo & Strong,

2000; Ngai et al., 2007).

A recent study, for example, conducted by Chang and Tung (2008) in Taiwan,

built on the TAM model and Rogers’ innovation diffusion theory discussed

above to determine the extent to which perceived usefulness and perceived ease

of use (and their related constructs of compatibility and perceived system quality

respectively), as well as an individual’s computer self-efficacy, influenced

undergraduate students’ behavioural intention to use online learning course

websites. A self-report questionnaire using items drawn from previously

validated studies (e.g., Chiu, Hsu, S. Sun, Lin & P. Sun, 2005; Venkatesh &

Davis, 2000; Vijayasarathy, 2004) was completed by over 200 undergraduates

(response rate of 29%). Results of structural equation modelling analyses showed

that all the measured exogenous variables (i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived

ease of use, computer self-efficacy) were significant determinants of the

endogenous variable, behavioural intention to use. Of the independent variables,


perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use demonstrated the strongest

positive and direct effects on students’ intention to use the online course

websites (Chang & Tung, 2008).

Although perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have been consistently

shown to predict technology usage behaviours, there is room for augmenting the

measurement of these technological factors – perceived usefulness in particular –

to reflect better the context of 21st century learning and schooling. Given that

the TAM has its roots in organisational behaviour and business information

systems fields, previous studies have tended to conceptualise the ‘work

performance’ aspect of ‘perceived usefulness’ as productivity, efficiency and

effectiveness. As a result, studies that utilised TAM in educational contexts

(including Chang and Tung’s (2008) study described above) have tended to

conceptualise ‘learning performance’ in an instrumental or functional manner, in

terms of increasing ‘learning productivity’, ‘learning efficiency’, and ‘learning

effectiveness’. As we move from the Industrial Age into the more recent

ICT/Conceptual Age, however, the notion of ‘usefulness’ is expanding and users

evaluate an innovation or practice for its aesthetic value, in addition to its

functional value (Pink, 2005). Education and schooling are being challenged to

move away from focusing primarily on academicism to include 21st century

skills of collaboration, creativity and networking for emerging ‘Generation C’

learners who ‘crave interactivity’ and enjoy experiential and inductive discovery

(Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005, p. 26; Gee, 2003). Thus there is a need to expand

the notion of ‘usefulness’ to include the more aesthetic aspects of schooling and

learning. These include (i) socialisation, (ii) identity and self-fashioning


(developing and expressing one’s personal and group identity), and (iii) exploring

new ways of learning, acquiring and creating knowledge beyond traditional

academic disciplines (Turvey, 2006; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). Brook and

Oliver (2006), in their study of online learning communities in K-12 classrooms,

also noted that users evaluate the usefulness of a learning community in terms of

their sense of belonging (identity), their influence and shared emotional

connections with other members (socialisation), and the degree to which they

perceive the environment to be ‘safe’, free from shame to experiment and

construct knowledge freely (exploration and creativity).

In light of these issues, this study will consider how the students’ decisions to

adopt and use the student-led digital learning initiative (SMC) are associated with

the ways in which they evaluate the SMC in terms of its ease of use and

usefulness to their learning and schooling. These include opinions about how

easy it is to access and use the SMC, as well as opinions about how useful the

SMC is for their (i) academic learning, (ii) socialisation, (iii) exploration and

expression of their identity and opinions, and (iv) development of creativity and

other 21st century skills and literacies beyond those taught in the classroom.

Given that this study is interested in the views of both adopters, potential and

non-adopters, the term ‘evaluate’ is used broadly here to account for both

perceptions (of non-adopters or potential adopters) and opinions developed

from actual use or engagement with the SMC (by adopters).


2.5.3 Social /Contextual Factors

In addition to the technological factors discussed above, this study holds that

technology use occurs in context, and is part of a system (social, personal and

educational) in which it acts and is acted upon in a multitude of planned,

unplanned, foreseen and unforeseen ways (Sclove, 1995). Specifically, Rogers

(1995), in his theory of perceived attributes, asserted that an innovation which is

perceived by users and potential users to be compatible with existing practices

and values will enjoy (i) a higher chance of being adopted, and (ii) a faster rate of

diffusion. In similar vein, researchers who use TAM have more recently moved

beyond technological factors alone, to consider social influences on users’

adoption and continued use of innovations (Chang & Tung, 2008; Chen et al.,

2008; Malhotra & Galletta, 2005; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh, Morris,

G. Davis & F. Davis, 2003).

For example, a recent study by Chen, Wu and Yang (2008) extended the

traditional TAM model to investigate the impact of social influence on 164

tertiary students’ intention to adopt Weblog technology in their second-year

introductory Management of Information Systems (MIS) unit in a private

university in Taiwan. Social influence was defined, following Venkatesh and

others (2003, p. 451) as “the degree to which an individual perceives that

important others believe he or she should use the new system”. The construct

consisted of six items: (i) five items that measured the levels to which

respondents perceived significant others in general (‘people’) and teachers to be

supportive of them using the technology, and (ii) one item measured their

perceptions of peer support from their fellow students associated with the use of


the technology. Results of a linear regression analysis showed that in addition to

technological constructs such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use,

social influence emerged as a significant predictor of students’ intention to use

the Weblog technology under study. Together the three constructs explained

47.2% of the variance in the ‘behavioural intention’ dependent variable (Chen et

al., 2008).

While Chen and colleagues’ (2008) study underscored the importance of social

influence, it is important to note that the Weblog technology examined was a

mandatory assessment-related activity within the unit. In this regard, the course

structure and teachers were likely to have played a significant role in influencing

students’ behavioural intentions. The importance of social influence and in

particular, peer-related social influence, have yet to be operationalised as a

distinct construct, and its impact on students’ actual usage of non-mandatory,

student-led, peer-to-peer new media learning innovations, such as the one under

scrutiny in this study, remains unclear. For this reason, peer social influence and

the ways in which it contests and/or complements students’ actual usage or

engagement with the Web 2.0 learning innovation becomes particularly relevant

in this thesis, and is therefore included as a measured predictor variable in the

quantitative phase of this study. The operationalisation of peer social influence

in this study is further discussed in Chapter Three, sub-section 3.4.5.1 and

Chapter Four, sub-section 4.2.1.

Contextual or socio-institutional practices and values range from those that are

readily observable to those that are less observable, or more abstract or implicit.


Readily observable aspects of the context include time, academic workloads and

administrative and technological resourcing (e.g., Betts, 1998; Covington,

Peterbridge & Warren, 2005; Waddoups & Howell, 2002). Less observable are

the socio-institutional culture and the vision, mission and ethos of the institution

(Berge, 1998; Birch, 2006; Spodark, 2003). Specific examples of these include the

extent of staff-determined regulatory practices and behavioural codes of conduct

within the school, and the levels of academic pressure and performativity

experienced by students (e.g., Faulkner & Cook, 2006; Goertz & Duffy, 2003;

Raby & Domitrek, 2007; Sloane & Kelly, 2003). These latter aspects often

remain tacit but nevertheless are significant for our understanding of the

institutional community. They lend themselves less readily to direct

measurement and may vary more idiosyncratically from institution to institution;

they call for more in-depth exploration and appropriately flexible forms of

analysis, as reflected in the qualitative phase of this study reported in Chapter

Five. Given that the context of this study is an independent well-resourced

school, both in terms of technology and technical human expertise, resourcing is

not anticipated to be a significant differentiating factor impacting on students’

decision to adopt and engage with the student-led digital learning initiative. On

the other hand, time and academic workloads have the potential to impact

significantly on the innovation adoption and diffusion process, particularly in

light of the academically competitive, high-performing culture and ethos of the

school.

As Warschauer (2007) pointed out, the move from the industrial age to a digital

knowledge economy sees education systems and schools currently experiencing


an awkward transition between what Bolter (1991) called the late age of print

and others such as Attewell and Winston (2003) have called a post-typographic

society. Viewed through the lens of supply-push and demand-pull approaches to

education and schooling discussed earlier, this transition is indeed a complex

process. In this late age of print, mainstream schooling practices generally

remain entrenched within the supply-push approach to education as explained

earlier, where credentialing through standardised testing and strong academic

performance remains imperative. Progressive school leaders who advocate the

need to expand learning opportunities for their students to acquire 21st century

digital-age literacies and skills in new and innovative ways that capitalise on

emergent networked technologies nonetheless have to negotiate immense

pressure from parents and other stakeholders to maintain high levels of print

literacy, in turn identified through high academic achievement and qualifications

amongst their students. In the same way, students are acculturated and socialised

to value the types of literacy practices that they, their families, and their

community believe will contribute to academic success and thereby enhancing

their life opportunities, while resisting others that are not perceived as directly

related to academic success, such as non-academic online activity (Albright et al.,

2006; Warschauer, 2007). Using this contextual paradox as a way of framing the

interests of this thesis, it is possible to hypothesise a variety of scenarios for

student-led digital innovations in a traditional high-performing senior school, in

terms of the ways in which a well-established mainstream institution can

incorporate emerging demand-based skills and disposition sets. This thesis seeks

to document these various possibilities and explore the implications for

Cha p te r T wo : L i t er at ur e R ev i ew

technological and pedagogical innovation in 21

students’ cultural and economic futures.

2.5.4 Individual Factors

In light of the contextual factors discussed above, several individual level factors

emerge as potentially significant to this study. These are (i) individual

innovativeness and cognitive playfulness, and (ii) achievement goal orientations.

The Individual Innovativeness Theory

individuals differ in terms of their propensity to accept a new idea or technology,

and for any given behaviour, the target audience comprises the five categories

shown in Figure 2.2 below. In

tend to adopt a new technology, idea or product earlier than most others.

Figure 2.2: Categories of individual innovativeness and percentages within each category

(Source: Surry, 1997)

Individual innovativeness is commonly defined as one’s willingness to change,

openness to new experiences and the propensity to go out of one’s way to

experience different and novel stimuli particularly of the meaningful sort (Hurt

L i t er at ur e R ev i ew

cal innovation in 21st century schooling for enhancing

students’ cultural and economic futures.




Innovativeness Theory developed by Rogers (1995) purports that



below. Individuals who are predisposed to being innovative


Categories of individual innovativeness and percentages within each category

novativeness is commonly defined as one’s willingness to change,


experience different and novel stimuli particularly of the meaningful sort (Hurt

Pag e | 72

century schooling for enhancing




1995) purports that



dividuals who are predisposed to being innovative


Categories of individual innovativeness and percentages within each category

novativeness is commonly defined as one’s willingness to change,


experience different and novel stimuli particularly of the meaningful sort (Hurt,


Joseph & Cook, 1977; Leavitt & Walton, 1975; Rogers, 1995). These behaviours

are the hallmarks of a learning disposition, in turn closely related to the concept

of cognitive playfulness (Glynn & Webster, 1993; Dunn, 2004, Tan &

McWilliam, 2008). Following Dunn (2004), cognitive playfulness is defined as a

characteristic within an individual that causes them to explore and ‘play’ with a

problem until it is solved. It follows that cognitively playful individuals have a

predisposition to curiosity, inventiveness and the need to play with novel ideas

and innovations, and this can result in increased individual learning

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Dunn, 2004). Studies have shown individual

innovativeness and cognitive playfulness to be closely related, and both have

been determined as highly and positively correlated with technology-related

innovation adoption behaviours, primarily in personal and organisation contexts,

as well as a small number in educational settings (e.g., Dunn, 2004; Glynn &

Webster, 1993; Kishore, Lee & McLean, 2001; Marcinkiewicz, 1993; Parveen &

Sulaiman, 2008; Webster, Tervino & Ryan, 1993; Yi, Tung & Wu, 2003). A

common explanation for their salience in predicting innovation adoption and use

is the fact that individuals who exhibit these characteristics have a higher

propensity to taking risks, as well as a higher tolerance for perceived failure

(Agarwal & Prasad, 1998; Dunn, 2004; Kishore et al., 2001; Myers, D.

Hendersen-King & E. Hendersen-King, 1997). Dunn (2004), for instance,

examined the relationships among personal innovativeness, cognitive playfulness

and generic information technology use by teachers in classrooms. The

participant sample comprised approximately 1000 P-12 teachers from 33 school

districts and one private school in north central Texas who were involved in a 3-

year Intel® Teach to the Future grant program. Although there were some


methodological setbacks associated with the low response rate (19%, N=206),

the findings of her correlational study indicated that (i) cognitive playfulness and

personal innovativeness were significantly and positively correlated, and (ii)

cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness were significantly and

positively correlated with teachers’ sustained high levels of generic technology

use in the classroom. Other than Dunn’s study, there is limited empirical

research on the impact of personal innovativeness and cognitive playfulness on

technology adoption in P-12 schooling contexts. By determining the extent to

which cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness predict senior school

students’ technology use at school, this thesis extends Dunn’s correlational study

in terms of statistical rigor (predictive modeling), unit of analysis (senior school

students), as well as technological specificity (a student-led Web 2.0 peer-to-peer

learning platform).

As discussed earlier, in addition to personal innovativeness and cognitive

playfulness, the nature of learning requires risk-taking. Learning cannot occur if

learners are not ready to experience both success and failure (Lemke, 2002). The

ability to take risks and tolerate error or failure thus becomes a critical issue

impacting on students’ (and their teachers’) decisions to engage with an

innovative student-led digital learning initiative, such as the SMC, particularly

when the ‘cost of failure’ is significant in a schooling context that highly values

traditional academic achievement. This ability to take risks and welcome error

(McWilliam, 2008) is in turn influenced by one’s achievement goal orientations.

As discussed earlier in Section 2.3.1.2, there are two distinct achievement goal

orientations: Learning goals and performance goals (Dweck, 2000). Again, in a


school and broader education context that continues to place high explicit value

on traditional academic literacies through standardised high stakes testing,

whether an individual student or teacher is predisposed to learning or

performance oriented achievement goals have the potential to significantly

impact on their decision to participate or reject the innovation of study. This

study makes a novel contribution by being the first to empirically examine the

relationship between individual learners’ achievement goal orientations and their

levels of innovation adoption/use. As Warschauer (2007) pointed out, there is a

great temptation for high-achieving academic students to desert anything that

appears extraneous to performing well in standardised tests. Where digital is

marginal, it is unlikely that ‘playfulness’ or learning (for the sake of learning) will

win out over mainstream schoolwork. Thus, the study focuses on the nexus of

digital learning and mainstream schooling as experienced by students in the

research setting, and the encompassing tensions and affordances of innovation

diffusion as a result of the differential value they place on particular modes of

learning, literacy practices and achievement goal orientations.

2.6 Summary

This chapter has provided a critical review and synthesis of extant literature in

the fields of (a) schooling and learning in digital times, and (b) the adoption and

diffusion of new and emergent technologies into mainstream schooling practices.

To this end, the chapter has:


(i) established the critical importance for mainstream schooling practices

to be relevant to digital times and respond accordingly to significant

shifts in the nature of knowledge, work and learners;

(ii) demonstrated how new technologies and new pedagogies are critical

aspects of change that need to take place in mainstream schooling;

(iii) identified a critical research problem facing educators and researchers

today, that is, the slow rate of change and uptake of innovation in

mainstream schooling, in terms of both technological and pedagogical

innovation;

(iv) highlighted literature and knowledge gaps in the field of innovation

adoption and diffusion in mainstream schooling contexts; and

(v) synthesised prominent theory and empirical studies in the field of

innovation adoption and diffusion, in order to provide a theoretical

frame for the conduct of this study.

Against this literature review and theoretical background, the next chapter sets

out the specific research questions of this thesis, and discusses the methodology

and design chosen to operationalise and address the key questions guiding this

research inquiry.

Cha p te r T hr ee : Me tho d s Pag e | 77

CHAPTER THREE

METHODS

This chapter provides an overview of the research purpose, the questions and

context for the study, as well as the methodological approach used. It then describes

the research design of the study and the methods of data collection and analysis that

will be used to pursue the research objectives and address the research questions.

3.1 Overview of Research Purpose and Questions

As set out in Chapter One, the general aim of this thesis is to move beyond deficit

discourses of schools and teachers to investigate the educational complexities of

innovation adoption and diffusion within established conventions of formal

schooling, as experienced by students—a critical yet under-researched group of

stakeholders. To accomplish this aim, the thesis addresses the central research

question of how students evaluate and account for the constraints and affordances of

contemporary digital tools when they engage with them as part of their conventional schooling. This

central research question is in turn addressed by focusing the inquiry on an

innovative ‘case’ of a student-led, peer-to-peer Web 2.0 learning initiative known as

the Student Media Centre (SMC), and the attempts to integrate its activities into the

mainstream schooling practices of a long-established, well-resourced, and high-

performing independent senior school in urban Queensland.

In so doing, this thesis sets up and tests the proposition: If progressive school leaders

and teachers in a well-resourced school endorse the implementation of a student-led digital learning

innovation built on cutting-edge Web 2.0 technologies that are embraced by ‘digital kids’ in their


personal sphere, then surely widespread uptake among these same ‘Net Gen’ students in school will

be assured.

This proposition is tested through the investigation of four specific research

questions (SRQ), namely:

(i) SRQ-1) What are the SMC engagement trends and patterns among

the senior school student community?

(ii) SRQ-2) What factors―individual, social and technological―predict

the extent to which the students engage with the learning innovation?

(iii) SRQ-3) How do the students describe, explain and account for the

Web 2.0 learning initiative, its prospects and consequences for their

schooling experience?

(iv) SRQ-4) What are the implications of the nature and outcomes of

this study for innovation adoption and diffusion in postmillennial

schooling?

The first two specific research questions pertain to the initial quantitative phase

of the study, the results of which are reported in Chapter Four. The third

specific research question guides the subsequent qualitative phase of the study,

the results of which are reported in Chapter Five. Specific research question four

is addressed in the concluding re-descriptive/theorising phase of the study

reported in Chapter Six. Of the four specific research questions listed above, the

first two consist of a series of corollary sub-questions that together serve as a


precise guide for the collection, analysis, and theorising of data pertinent to the

phenomena under scrutiny. These sub-questions are listed below.

Specific research question one (SRQ-1) consists of three sub-questions that are

addressed in the initial quantitative phase of the study via the self-report student

questionnaire.

SRQ 1.1 What are the statistical characteristics of the measurement scales used

in the questionnaire? Specifically, do the scales display satisfactory

reliability and validity?

SRQ 1.2 What are the adoption and diffusion patterns of the SMC within the

senior school student community? Specifically, to what extent do

students engage with the SMC in terms of usage volume and frequency,

generally and with regard to specific features?

SRQ 1.3 How do the student respondents describe and evaluate the SMC in terms

of its social and technological affordances for their learning and

schooling practice? Specifically, to what extent do students report (i) peer

support in engaging with the SMC, (ii) finding the SMC easy to use, and

(iii) valuing the SMC as a useful component of their learning and

schooling practice?

Specific research question two (SRQ-2) is addressed through a series of

incremental predictive modelling procedures carried out on the numeric

questionnaire data, as guided by the following sub-questions:


SRQ 2.1 How and to what extent do the students’ individual learning dispositions

(comprising Achievement Goal Orientations, Cognitive Playfulness and Personal

Innovativeness) predict their evaluation and use of the SMC?

SRQ 2.2 How and to what extent does the combination of individual and social

variables (comprising Achievement Goal Orientations, Cognitive Playfulness,

Personal Innovativeness and Peer Support) predict students’ evaluation and

use of the SMC?

SRQ 2.3 How and to what extent does the combination of individual, social and

technological variables (comprising Achievement Goal Orientations, Cognitive

Playfulness, Personal Innovativeness, Peer Support, Perceived Ease Of Use, and

Perceived Usefulness) predict students’ evaluation and use of the SMC?

The subsequent sections of this chapter are organised in the following manner.

First, the research setting, including the selected site of inquiry (the school and

students) and the SMC learning initiative, is described. Next, the research

methodology guiding this inquiry is discussed. A detailed explanation of the

research design and its operationalisation is then provided, with a view to explaining

how the specific and sub-research questions enumerated above are addressed.

Specifically, an overview of the research design is provided, followed by a

description of the research phases, participants, data collection procedures and

methods of analysis. Lastly, considerations concerning validity and reliability, as well

as ethical issues are discussed.


3.2 Research Setting

3.2.1 The School and Students

The site of inquiry for this study is a long-established, well-resourced and high-

performing independent school in urban Queensland. The students, teachers and

parents in this setting have high aspirations for the professional future of the

school’s graduates. They place a high value on the formal qualifications that the

school awards, as well as the development of skills and dispositions that provide for

future professional success in the workplace.

This study focuses on the attempted integration of the Student Media Centre

(SMC), a student-led online learning initiative, into the school’s mainstream learning

and teaching practices. This online learning initiative is described in further detail in

the section that follows. In brief, the SMC is a multimodal virtual learning

environment that (i) can be accessed by the whole student and teacher community,

and (ii) is designed to engage the whole student and teacher community in flexible

networked digital learning. The SMC was designed and managed by a core group of

approximately 30 senior school students from Years 10, 11 and 12. This subset of

senior school students had been identified by the school leadership to be gifted,

creative, and highly aspirational. As previously mentioned in Chapter One (Section

1.4), this is where the tensions and affordances of innovation diffusion are most

likely to be acute, because the high levels of intellectual and technological resourcing

that are possible in this research setting bring with them an equally high level of

expectations to excel in traditional academic tasks and high-stakes assessments. Put


simply, there is a push to creativity and a pull to traditional academic performance

that invites research scrutiny.

3.2.2 The Student-Led Digital Learning Initiative

In late 2006, the Head of the Senior School expressed keen interest in introducing a

student-centred, student-led online learning initiative within the school. Field notes

of discussions7 between the researcher and the Head of Senior School over the

formative period January 2007 to May 2007 indicated that the SMC was set up to

achieve several key educational objectives: These include:

(i) enhancing opportunities for students to engage with learning through

the use of digital media and new technologies, thereby developing

their media and digital literacies;

(ii) creating a digital platform for students to be creative, innovative and

publish works that are relevant and useful for enhancing the learning

experience of the senior school’s student community at large;

(iii) increasing the level of student leadership, in the form of student

governance, control and mentoring;

(iv) increasing pedagogical flexibility through which students learn

differently and do new things in different ways using new digital

media; and

(v) achieving sustainability of the SMC over the medium and long term

through its integration with mainstream learning and teaching

practices in the school.

7 These discussions took place as part of the collaborative research project between the Creative Workforce 2.0 Program in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creativity and Innovation at QUT and the case study school. The researcher engaged in these conversations in the role of Research Fellow documenting the development of the SMC.


Consequently, the Head of Senior School, in consultation with the lead teacher of

the school’s Gifted and Talented Program selected a core group of 30 students to

set up, develop, implement and lead the SMC. This core group comprised Year 12

students with leadership roles in the school (e.g., the student leading the SMC is one

of the vice-captains of the school), and approximately 25 students from Year 10 and

11, who were identified as either gifted and talented students, or exhibited some

form of creative inclinations, such as creative writing (print literacy), digital media,

graphics and design, and the like. The SMC was set up in Term One (January to

March) of 2007, and officially launched in the wider senior school student

community at the commencement of Term Two (April) in 2007. The following sub-

sections describe the operationalisation of the SMC in terms of its technological,

organisational and pedagogical design aspects.

3.2.2.1 Technological design

The technological design of the SMC is that of a multimodal, interactive online

community platform based on a popular Web 2.0 open-source content management

system (CMS) known as Joomla. The Joomla CMS allows an individual or group of

content managers or creators to “manage the creation, modification, and removal of

content from their web site without the expertise of a professional Webmaster”

(Joomla, 2009). Features that Joomla users can access or incorporate into their

interactive web site include the following:

(i) creating menu items and page content using text and images;

(ii) creating secure site areas where only registered users may enter;


(iii) adding and editing content sections that include digital print media,

audio and image files such as podcasts and digital photos, video files

and streaming media;

(iv) creating user forums;

(v) conducting user polls; and

(vi) creating pop-ups, automatic latest news updates and adding

newsfeeds.

Open-source refers to a set of principles and practices that promote access to the

design and production of goods and knowledge, with the term most commonly

applied to the source code of software that is available to the general public with

relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions (Wikipedia, 2007). The

open-source nature of the Joomla CMS therefore, allowed the group of students

responsible for the development and implementation of SMC to access and use a

comprehensive content management system at minimal cost. Given that Joomla

allows users to create software content through incremental individual effort or

through collaboration, its technological capabilities provided the students with the

flexibility to customise the content management system to the needs of the student

community, as well as to modify and improve the SMC as necessary over a period

of time.

Specifically, the online SMC was hosted on the school intranet server and

comprised the following learning features (or sections) that users could access and

engage with:


(i) a user log-in menu where all students and teachers in the school with a

valid school intranet username and password could access and use

specific features of the site. The different types of users and their

respective access levels and responsibilities are described in Section

3.2.2.2, which details the organisational design aspects of the SMC;

(ii) multimodal content organised and presented online in various sections

(tabs or web pages) as follows:

� News – designed to publish articles on news and events within

the school community;

� Your Work – designed to publish critical social commentaries on

issues relevant to students within and beyond the school

community, as well as exemplary student academic work from

various disciplines;

� Podcasts – designed to publish audio recordings of school events,

such as sports games and debates, as well as music performances

by bands or vocal groups within and beyond the school;

� Videos – designed to publish streaming media of videos created

by senior school students including documentaries and music

videos, either as part of their curriculum (e.g., Film and Media,

Religious Education) or out of personal interest in their own

time; and

� Images – designed to publish digital photos covering a range of

events at school, such as debating teams, competitions, sports

days, and the like.


(iii) an interactive forum that allowed students to create and contribute to

forum discussions on a variety of topics that interested them;

(iv) online polls created by students to collect and tabulate public opinion

from the wider student community on issues of interest to them;

(v) a backend content management system that students assigned as SMC

online moderators and SMC technical team members can access in

order to manage and moderate content. This includes being able to

organise, add and edit relevant content, as well as remove

inappropriate content where necessary.

Visual representations of these online learning features are provided in Appendix D

to illustrate the design and functionalities of the SMC.

3.2.2.2 Organisational design

The organisational structure of the SMC is presented in Figure 3.1. The SMC was

implemented, set up, and run by a group of 30 senior school students. This group

was in turn managed by a student leader in the role of SMC chief editor. This

student liaised directly with the staff members who were overseeing this SMC

initiative, namely, the Head of Senior School and the Lead Teacher of the Gifted

and Talented program. These two staff members were primarily responsible for

providing the pedagogical framework within which the SMC initiative operates.

While the Head of Senior School served as the authority that approved any financial

expenses related to the SMC, and played a key role in the nomination of student

leaders for the SMC, the SMC was predominantly a student-centred and student-led


learning initiative. Staff members had to abide by the boundaries set by students in

terms of their participation and involvement in the SMC. For instance, although

teachers, including the principal, could view all content on the SMC site, as well as

contribute if they so desired, in terms of staff censorship and the levels of freedom

for students to voice their opinions, only the SMC Chief Editor and designated

SMC team leaders and moderators had administrative access on the site to censor

content and edit or remove inappropriate comments. These boundaries were mainly

negotiated between the Head of Senior School and the SMC Chief Editor, who

represented the views of other SMC student leaders and members.

Figure 3.1: SMC Organisational Structure

The SMC Chief Editor, who had a student leadership role in the school, together

with the core group of SMC team leaders and members, were responsible for all

aspects of the design, implementation, sustainable development and diffusion of the

Journalist Team Leader

Podcast Team Leader

Vodcast Team Leader

Photography Team Leader

Technical Team

Members

SMC Chief Editor

Technical Team Leader

Journalist Team

Members

Podcast Team

Members

Vodcast Team

Members

Photography Team

Members


learning initiative, including operational, financial and technical aspects. As

illustrated in Figure 3.1, the SMC comprised the Chief Editor and five teams: the

technical, journalist, podcast, vodcast, and photography teams. Each team was led

by a team leader and comprised approximately five members. The Chief Editor, all

team leaders and technical team members had administrative rights to the SMC site

and were able to moderate content. All other team members had ‘user level’ access

rights and were able to contribute content but were not able to access the backend

content management system to organise or moderate content.

Two extension study periods a week were allocated to SMC activities. In line with

the pedagogical design of student-centredness and leadership underpinning the

SMC initiative, students could negotiate the amount of time (in and out of school)

they spent on SMC activities. Mostly importantly, while the SMC was set up and

managed by this core group of students and started off as being primarily student-

oriented and co-curricular, the goal was to engage the whole school community in

using the online SMC site to (i) promote a well-rounded schooling experience, (ii)

develop critical and digital media literacies, as well as individual and collaborative

creative processes and relevant real-world skills, and (iii) encourage a stronger

student voice within the school community.

3.2.2.3 Pedagogical design

The pedagogical design underpinning the SMC is framed by an ecological paradigm

of learning and pedagogy (Barab & Plucker, 2002; Brown, 2006; Frielick, 2004), and

has its roots in social constructivism and situated learning (Brown et al., 1989; Lave

& Wenger, 1991; Swan & Shea, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978) as well as connectivism


(Frielick, 2004; Siemens, 2006, 2006). These learning and pedagogical approaches

were discussed and summarised in Chapter Two.

According to the field notes taken by the researcher in the formative period of

January to April 2007 during discussions with the Head of Senior School and the

lead teacher of the Gifted and Talented program overseeing the SMC initiative,

there are four key aspects to the pedagogical design of the SMC. These include:

(i) facilitating the development of students’ individual and collaborative

interests and abilities through the use of new digital media, which is

highly-engaging and relevant to the students’ lifeworlds;

(ii) providing students with the opportunity to learn in an environment

that is more flexible and less prescriptive than a structured traditional

classroom, in turn allowing students to explore their passions and

make competent choices regarding their learning;

(iii) creating opportunities for students to develop knowledge and skill

sets relevant to the 21st century, including digital literacies,

communicative competencies and abilities to lead and work in teams,

to enhance the students’ future career and professional opportunities;

(iv) allowing students to take ownership of their own learning process

and outcomes through self-directed learning and, at the same time,

engage in this process of knowledge construction with a broader

community of peer learners.


3.3 Case Study Research Approach

The research strategy deemed most appropriate and therefore selected to guide this

inquiry is that of an empirical case study approach. According to Yin (2003), a case

study is an empirical inquiry that “investigates a contemporary phenomenon within

its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and

context are not clearly evident” (p. 13). It is a particularly useful research strategy

when how or why questions are being asked about a set of events or situations in

which the researcher has minimal or no control. Yin argued that a case study

strategy is distinct from qualitative research (e.g., Denzin & Lincoln, 1994) and can

be based on any combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and empirical

evidence. This methodological openness is also advocated by other well-recognised

case study researchers such as Stake and Lamnek. Stake (1995) explained that a case

study is defined by interest in a particular phenomenon or relationship, and not by

the methods of inquiry used. Lamnek (2005), on the other hand, argued that the

case study must be acknowledged as a research approach, situated between concrete

data collection techniques and methodological paradigms.

The case study is an ideal methodology when the researcher expects contextual

conditions to be highly pertinent to the phenomenon of study (Yin, 2003), and

when a holistic and in-depth investigation (Feagin et al., 1991) of both the

phenomenon and context is desired. In addition, the case study is a useful form of

empirical inquiry when examining contemporary events and behaviours that take

place in a naturalistic environment (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003), where limited

manipulation from an external party, such as the researcher, can occur.


Based on the above discussion, the case study approach is highly appropriate for

guiding this study for three reasons. First, the inquiry focuses on an authentic or

naturally-occurring ‘experiment’ by the school to engage students and their teachers

in a case of innovative practice underpinned by progressive pedagogical principles

and involving new media technologies. Second, the research questions central to

this study are designed to guide a holistic, in-depth investigation into the tensions

and accommodations experienced by the students in their evaluation and use of the

innovation within the conventions of a mainstream senior school that insists on

both academic achievement and digital competencies. Both the phenomenon and

context of study are intertwined and essential to this thesis, and as Yin (2005)

pointed out, the case study approach is highly appropriate for an inquiry of this

nature. Lastly, the empirical case study approach offers methodological breadth

informed by theoretical rigour, a combination that is invaluable to an inquiry such as

this, which seeks both richness and range in explaining and theorising a dynamic

phenomenon involving multiple perspectives, variables and levels of analysis.

Yin (2005, p. 21) pointed out five essential components of a case study research

strategy. These are (i) a study’s questions, (ii) its propositions, (iii) the units of

analysis, (iv) the logic linking the data to the propositions, and (v) the criteria for

interpreting the findings. These components and their interactions are illustrated in

Figure 3.2.


Figure 3.2: Case study components (Lee, 2003)

The research proposition, questions and sub-questions (Components 1 and 2)

pertinent to this study have been stated in Chapter One and were reiterated at the

beginning of this chapter. The unit/s of analysis (Component 3) is the case of

innovative practice in the form of the SMC and attempts to integrate its activities

into the mainstream practices and lives of the selected school and student

participants. This is further explained in the description of the research setting and

research participants. The logic linking the data to the propositions (Component 4)

and criteria for interpreting the findings (Component 5) are addressed in the following

sections that detail the design of the study, the methods of data collection and types

of data analyses performed.

3.4 Design of the Study

3.4.1 From Methodology to Design

Drawing on the methodological arguments outlined above, this study employs an

‘explanatory’ two-phase research design (Creswell, 2003), which emerges from an


integrated mixed methods research approach that is characteristic of an empirical

case study. This design combines complementary quantitative and qualitative

techniques to address the research questions of interest to the study. A variety of

authorities have identified mixed methods research and the combination of data

derived through the use of different methods as key elements in the improvement

of social science, including educational research (Gorard & Taylor, 2004). This view

is justified, according to the National Research Council (2002), because research

claims are stronger when based on a variety of methods.

An ‘explanatory’ two-phase research design (Creswell, 2003, 2005), more recently

known as the New Political Arithmetic (NPA) model (Gorard & Taylor, 2004),

typically starts with a large-scale numeric dataset, and then focuses on in-depth data

using a subset of cases selected from the first phase. It normally proceeds from the

definition and description of the research area through a relatively extensive

collection and analysis of relevant numeric (or quantitative) data, and is primarily

concerned with the importance of pattern rather than probability in terms of its

statistical approach (Gorard & Taylor, 2004; Mortimore, 2000). The first phase,

often referred to as the descriptive phase, is designed to provide a general picture of

the research problem, as reflected in trends, patterns or situations. In a subsequent

phase, often referred to as the explanatory phase, recognised techniques of textual (or

qualitative) data collection and analysis is conducted with a subset of cases selected

from the first phase, with a view to examining the identified trends and patterns in

more depth. This second explanatory phase is designed to collect new in-depth data

in a focused attempt to elucidate the more general findings from the initial

descriptive phase (Creswell, 2005; Gorard & Taylor, 2004). When employed


effectively and appropriately, this method tends to avoid the ‘Bartlett’ effect

(Brown, 1992) of producing plausible but false results when basing an analysis solely

on qualitative data, and also avoids the valid and reliable but often surface answers

gained from numeric analysis alone.

For the purposes of this thesis, Creswell’s (2003, 2005) framework has been

augmented in two ways. First, the quantitative descriptive phase was extended to

include predictive modelling that examined the degree to which selected individual,

social and technological factors explained SMC usage among students. Second, the

study design was augmented to include a third re-descriptive and theorising phase. This

third and final phase involved the re-examination and synthesis of the various data

corpuses and findings using appropriate theoretical lenses, in order to develop novel

and relevant theoretical propositions through “analytic generalisation” procedures

(Yin, 2003, p. 10). The specific research phases implemented in this study and their

corresponding research methods, tasks and expected outcomes are described in

more detail below.

3.4.2 Research Phases, Methods, Tasks and Outcomes

In order to address the research aims and questions for this study, complementary

quantitative and qualitative methods were carried out in three sequential phases to

both measure and characterise the students’ responses to the SMC. The aim was

that, taken together, the quantitative, qualitative and re-descriptive/theorising

phases would provide rich insights into the ways that students’ perceptions,

behaviours and accounts of their socio-institutional world at school are constituted

and organised.


In the Quantitative Phase One of the study, a self-report questionnaire was

administered to the senior school student population (N=600) in order to (i)

identify trends and patterns related to students’ evaluation of and engagement with

the SMC, and (ii) determine the extent to which selected individual, social and

technological factors predict SMC usage among students. The numeric data

collected from the questionnaire included items that measured (i) students’ learning

dispositions (including their achievement goal orientations, levels of personal

innovativeness and cognitive playfulness), (ii) students’ evaluation of the SMC in

terms of its perceived ease of use and usefulness for their learning, as well as the

perceived level of peer support for engaging with the SMC, and (iii) students’ usage

behaviours related to the SMC, in terms of their frequency and volume of use.

These were analysed using descriptive and predictive statistical procedures and

techniques. The statistical techniques used, along with the results of this quantitative

descriptive and predictive phase are reported and discussed in Chapter Four. In

addition to identifying the ‘what’ of in-school innovation adoption in terms of the

key trends and predictors of SMC uptake among students, the results of this initial

quantitative phase called attention to a number of tensions experienced by students

around digital learning and traditional schooling that warranted further

investigation.

The following Qualitative Phase Two aimed to provide deeper insights into these

tensions by shifting the analytics from individual attitudes and behaviours to shared

social and cultural reasoning practices that explained students’ engagement with the

innovation. Six in-depth focus groups comprising 60 students with different levels

of SMC usage were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Textual data from


the focus group interviews were analysed using Membership Categorisation Analysis

(MCA), an analytic framework particularly suited to the explication of shared

cultural understandings and logic that underlie the students’ responses to and

engagement with the SMC as part of their daily schooling practice. In this way, the

qualitative phase augmented the quantitative phase by revealing ‘why’ and ‘how’ the

abstract numeric narratives obtained from the descriptive and predictive

investigation were enacted in the experienced realities of these students’ daily social

and institutional practices. The MCA analytic framework, along with the results and

findings from this qualitative phase are reported and discussed in Chapter Five.

The third and final Re-description/Theorising Phase reviewed and synthesised the

empirical findings emerging from both the quantitative and qualitative phases in

light of the broad issues and theoretical underpinnings that motivated the study.

This allowed for the development of empirically grounded theoretical propositions

related to the educational complexities of Web 2.0 innovation diffusion within

established conventions of contemporary formal schooling. These in turn bear

implications for educational policymakers and practitioners in their move towards

more effective and sustainable integration of contemporary technologies in formal

learning contexts. This integrative synthesis and analytic generalisation work is

accomplished and explicated in Chapter Six, the concluding chapter of this thesis.

The research phases of this study and their corresponding research tasks and

outcomes are graphically represented in Figure 3.3.


Figure 3.3 Research phases, tasks and outcomes

Tasks Outcomes Phases

Phase Two Explanatory phase

Conduct focus group interviews with sample of students selected from archetypal user categories identified in Phase One (N=60).

Perform Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) on textual data to explicate shared cultural understandings and reasoning practices related to SMC usage. Triangulate data from questionnaires, interviews and online data to accentuate areas of compatibility, resonance and/or divergence.

In-depth and rich explanations of ‘why’ and ‘how’ the abstract numeric narratives (SMC usage patterns, trends & predictors) identified in Phase One are experienced, accounted for and made sense of by students in the enacted realities of their daily social and institutional practices at school. Fresh insights into the educational tensions and affordances experienced by students in engaging with a Web 2.0 learning innovation as part of their mainstream schooling practice.

Phase Three Theorising/Re-descriptive phase

Re-examination of various data corpuses and findings using appropriate theoretical lenses

Develop theoretical propositions through ‘analytic generalisation’ procedures

Develop empirically grounded generalisations of theoretical propositions related to the educational complexities of innovation diffusion within established conventions of contemporary formal schooling Scholarly recommendations that assist policymakers and practitioners move towards more effective and sustainable integration of online learning technologies in formal learning contexts

Phase One Descriptive phase

Administer self-report questionnaire to senior school student population (N=600) Perform appropriate descriptive and predictive statistical analyses on numeric questionnaire data

Identify key patterns and trends related to students’ of and engagement with the SMC Determine the extent to which measured individual, social and technological factors predict students’ engagement with the SMC Identify archetypal student user categories and select sample for further qualitative inquiry


3.4.3 Validity and Reliability

The study will consider numeric and textual forms of data as equally valid and

important in the theoretical and analytic work to be undertaken in the service of this

inquiry. Due consideration also has been given to ensuring that both forms of data

converse with each other to achieve structure and coherence, so that the study does

not becomes a collection of two or more segregated pieces of work in the face of

greater theoretical and methodological diversity offered by a mixed methods

approach.

Despite the strengths of generalisability, repeatability and deductivity associated

with comprehensive survey methodology and regression statistical techniques (Chin

& Newsted, 1999) carried out in Phase One of this study, the cross-sectional nature

of this approach and the reliance on self-report data have some limitations. Such an

approach can provide only a ‘snapshot’ of the situation that is limited to a certain

time frame and the self-report data may be subject to the risk of participant

response bias or common method bias (P. Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & N.

Podsakoff, 2003). On their own, they offer limited opportunities for understanding

the reasoning practices underlying the questionnaire responses of the students as

social members of their schooling community. To attend to these limitations, the

qualitative methods of focus group interviews and membership categorisation

analysis are employed in this study “after [the] extensive survey to dig into the why

of the results obtained” (Davis, 2000, p. 313), thus creating greater potential for

unpredicted perspectives and insights into the phenomena of interest to the study.

When integrated appropriately, these complementary approaches can result in a


sophisticated study with research outcomes characterised by strong explanatory

power, rigour and validity.

The study is thus designed to achieve the five major purposes (Greene, 2008;

Greene, Caracelli & Graham, 1989) of a mixed methods research approach,

generally acknowledged to enhance validity and reliability of findings. These include

triangulation, complementarity, development, initiation and expansion.

Triangulation tests the consistency of findings obtained through different

instruments. In this study, various corpuses of data will be collected to shed light on

the phenomenon of interest. These include (i) comprehensive numeric data from

self-report questionnaires to be administered to the school’s population of senior

school students (N=600), and (ii) in-depth textual data from focus group interviews

with selected students (N=60), whose questionnaire responses reflect a range of

characteristics emerging from archetypal categories of student respondents. Data

collected from these sources will be triangulated to accentuate the areas of

compatibility, resonance, and/or divergence.

Complementarity clarifies and illustrates results from one method with the use of

another method. In this case, while the self-report questionnaires may provide a

comprehensive picture of the patterns and trends associated with students’

evaluation of and engagement with the SMC, these patterns and trends can be

further explained and exemplified by the student focus group interview data, which

have been designed to address the same central research question but in a qualitative

way. Focus group interviews can elicit responses that are personal and

contextualised (Barbour, 2007), thereby offering insights into the why students


value, use or resist the integration of the SMC into their mainstream learning and

teaching practice.

Development refers to the process by which results from one method shape

subsequent methods or steps in the research phases. Importantly, development

needs to be considered as theoretical, even epistemological, not simply

methodological. This study starts with the extensive self-report student

questionnaire to understand broad patterns and trends associated with the

integration of SMC into mainstream schooling practice as experienced by the senior

school students. Appropriate analyses are carried out to understand the

questionnaire data in order to identify and select archetypal categories of student

respondents, whose experiences and engagement with the SMC are explored in

greater depth through the focus group interviews in the subsequent research phase.

The flexibility of this developmental design means that new findings can be

explored as the study progresses.

Expansion provides richness and detail to the study by exploring specific features of

each method. This richness and detail is more likely to emerge when the work is

under theoretical development rather than simply adding on new information. A

common critique of the use of questionnaires and numeric analysis on their own, is

the lack of depth in understanding the research phenomenon, resulting in simplistic

conclusions (Creswell, 2005; Gorard & Taylor, 2004). On the other hand, focusing

on a small subset of qualitative data brings with it the risk of producing plausible

but misleading results (Brown, 1992). Taken together, data from the questionnaires

and focus group interviews extend the flexibility, depth and breadth of this study.


Initiation stimulates new research questions or challenges results obtained from one

method and the ways in which the combination of methods build new conceptual

logics. In this study, the focus group interviews are aimed at providing new insights

on (i) the patterns and trends identified from the students’ questionnaire responses,

and (ii) the relationships amongst variables of interest measured in the

questionnaires. More importantly, information gleaned from these focus group

interviews may highlight new issues, interactions or complexities associated with the

ways students approach a new innovation in their schooling practice, questions

beyond the scope of the self-report questionnaire. The combination of these

methods therefore, allows for a more comprehensive analysis and theorising of the

research problem and fields of interest to this thesis.

3.4.4 Research Participants

Research participants for Phase One of the study comprise the population of senior

school students enrolled in the case study school for the 2007 school year. The total

number of senior school students enrolled in the school year 2007 is approximately

600 students. All these students were invited to respond to the self-report student

questionnaire conducted in July 2007 as part of Phase One of the study. The

population of senior school students was selected to participate in the student to

achieve the objectives of a descriptive Phase One, which is to generate an extensive

picture of the patterns and trends of students’ learning dispositions and

achievement goal orientations, and their evaluation of and engagement with the

SMC initiative.


In Phase Two, a smaller group of 60 students was selected to participate in six in-

depth focus group interviews. This subset of student participants were purposively

selected with the intention of allowing for some level of diversity and potential

differences of opinion and experience associated with the evaluation and use of the

SMC in school. Drawing on the findings from the quantitative phase of the study,

focus group participants were chosen collaboratively by the researcher and the lead

teacher in a manner that sought to incorporate students with differing levels of

SMC usage (e.g., non-users, moderate users, high-users) and potentially diverse

range of learning dispositions, interests, academic and schooling achievement

orientations. The number of participants in Phase Two constituted approximately

12% of the student population, a proportion that is higher than that generally

reported by prior empirical studies (5% of the population) which employ a similar

explanatory two-phase or NPA research design (e.g., Fitz, Gorard & Taylor, 2002;

White, Gorard, Fitz & Taylor, 2001).

3.4.5 Data Collection Procedures and Analysis

Following the mixed methods approach discussed above, data were collected using

a combination of a student self-report questionnaire and focus group interviews.

Each of these numeric and textual data collection procedures and corresponding

analyses are explicated in the sub-sections that follow.

3.4.5.1 Numeric data: Self-report questionnaire

The self-report questionnaire for students was developed to measure constructs of

interest to the study, by building on an extensive multidisciplinary literature review

that identified particular individual, social and technological factors which are likely


to predict the adoption and use of technology in schools and organisations.

Relevant validated measurement items were drawn from existing literature and

adapted for the purposes of the study. Where necessary or appropriate, new

measurement items were constructed. The section below describes the development

and instrumentation of the student self-report questionnaire in greater detail. This

student questionnaire was submitted and approved for use by the appropriate ethics

authorities (QUT University Human Ethics Research Committee and the Principal

of the independent case study school), and was implemented shortly after

modifications were taken into consideration. The questionnaire was developed in

three stages:

(i) relevant measurement items from existing validated scales were adapted

for the purposes of this study. Where necessary and appropriate, new

measurement items were constructed by the researcher;

(ii) four researchers with expertise in the area of questionnaire design,

student learning (including online learning) and innovation adoption

and diffusion were invited to review the draft questionnaire for face and

content validity; and

(iii) the draft questionnaire was trialled with 20 students from the SMC core

team, their comments and feedback were taken into consideration, and

final changes were made to the questionnaire.

The involvement of the student stakeholders in the design of the questionnaire

assists in ensuring that threats to construct validity (such as construct-irrelevant

variances and construct under-representation) are minimised, so that the


investigation is based on valid needs and the questions being asked represent, as

accurately as possible, the implementation, context and outcomes (Brandon, 1998)

of the student-led digital learning initiative under study.

The final version of the student self-report questionnaire that was administered to

student respondents is provided in Appendix E. The questionnaire consisted of 18

questions and 92 measurement items in total. These questions and measurement

items reflect the conceptual framework and constructs of interest discussed in

Chapter Two, and are grouped into three major sections in the presentation of the

questionnaire, as described in the following section.

Section One: About You

This section comprised five questions and was designed to obtain a general

demographic profile of the student respondents. Questions included their names,

student ID, year level, and interests, as well as two questions related to their

knowledge and ability to access the school’s student portal and the SMC website.

Students were invited to state their names and student ID to facilitate the selection

of student participants exhibiting archetypal respondent characteristics for the

conduct of focus group interviews in Phase Two of the study. It was, however,

made clear to students at the implementation of the questionnaire that these fields

were optional.

Section Two: About Your Learning

This section comprised three questions (42 measurement items) and was designed

to obtain a profile of the student respondents’ learning dispositions, particularly in


the area of achievement goal orientations, individual innovativeness and cognitive

playfulness. Achievement Goal Orientations consists of two distinct dimensions: Learning

Goal Orientation and Performance Goal Orientation. These were measured using two 8-

items scales first developed by Button and others (1996) that have exhibited

evidence of strong construct validity and internal reliability across several studies

(e.g., Button, Mathieu & Zajac, 1996; Dai, 2006). Examples of Learning Goal

Orientation items include “The opportunity to learn new things is important to me”

and “The opportunity to extend the range of my abilities is important to me”.

Examples of Performance Goal Orientation items include “The opinions others have

about how well I can do certain things are important to me” and “I feel smart when

I can do something better than most other people”. The items were rated on a five-

point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Individual Innovativeness was measured using the abridged 10-item innovativeness scale

developed by Marcinkiewicz (1993) that have demonstrated strong reliability and

validity across a number of studies (e.g., see Dai, 2006). All items were scored on a

five-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and

summed up to calculate a single Innovativeness score.

Cognitive Playfulness consists of two distinct dimensions: Cognitive Curiosity and Cognitive

Creativity. 16 items were adapted from a 21-item playfulness scale developed by

Glynn and Webster (1993) and used in this questionnaire to measure (i) intellectual

curiosity and inquisitiveness (8 items) and (ii) cognitive creativity, spontaneity and

imagination (8 items). Items were summed up to calculate a single Playfulness score.


All three measurement scales and items described above were re-validated for the

purpose of this study. A complete list of the measurement items pertaining to each

construct is reported along with the validation procedures and results in Chapter

Four, Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2.

Section Three: About Your Attitudes & Experiences with SMC

This section comprised ten questions (42 measurement items and 3 open-ended

questions) and was designed to obtain a general profile of the students’ opinions

about the SMC in terms of its ease of use and usefulness for their learning, as well

as their level of current usage and intention to use the SMC in future. The group of

student stakeholders who were invited to participate in the review and development

of the student questionnaire provided critical and valuable input in the construction

of items and questions in this section.

Current Use and Intention to Use were measured by two items each, reflecting the

frequency and volume of use (e.g., Karahanna et al., 1999; Thong, 1999). Frequency

of use/intention to use was rated on a scale of 1 to 6 (never, about once a term,

about once a month, about once a fortnight, about once a week, more than once a

week). Volume of use/intention to use was measured by the extensiveness of SMC

learning features (news, forum, your works, videos, podcasts, images, poll) accessed

and used by the student respondents. Three open-ended questions related to current

usage and intention to use were included to provide student respondents with the

opportunity to discuss reasons for their adoption and/or resistance of the SMC.

These questions included “List the top 3 reasons why you use the SMC”, “List the


top 3 reasons why you do not use the SMC”, and “List the top 3 incentives that

would make you use the SMC”.

Student opinions about the SMC’s Ease of Use were obtained using 5 items adapted

(to the SMC context) from previously validated and frequently used ‘perceived ease

of use’ scale in TAM studies (e.g., Ngai et al., 2007; Yi et al., 2003). Examples of

these items, rated on a 5-point likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly

agree), include “I find the SMC user-friendly” and “I find the SMC sections8 easy to

navigate”. Student perceptions about the SMC’s Usefulness for their learning and

schooling were obtained using a total of 20 items that reflect different aspects of

learning and schooling, such as (i) academic learning, (ii) socialisation, (iii)

exploration and expression of their identity and opinions, and (iv) development of

creativity and other 21st century digital-age skills and literacies beyond those taught

in the classroom. Other items included more general questions of how interesting

students found the SMC learning features and whether having the SMC in school

was a good idea (9 questions). Students were also asked to indicate the level of peer

support they experienced in using the SMC (4 items). All items were measured on a

5-point likert scale, and depending on the phrasing of the questions, ranged from 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), 1 (boring) to 5 (very interesting), or 1 (not

beneficial at all) to 5 (very beneficial). Examples of a broad range of items

measuring different aspects of learning and schooling include “Using the SMC can

help improve my academic performance” (academic), “Using the SMC can expand

my social network of friends at school” (social), “Using the SMC can increase my

opportunities for self-expression” (identity expression), “Using the SMC can help

8 Students in the school referred to the SMC learning features (e.g., videos, forums, polls) as ‘sections’. This term was therefore used in the questionnaire.


me get inspiration for new ideas” (exploration), “Using the SMC can help me learn

new skills beyond those learnt in the classroom” (digital-age skills and literacies).

Similarly, appropriate validation procedures were carried out on the measurement

scales and items described above. A complete list of the measurement items and

their corresponding measurement construct is reported along with the validation

procedures and results in Chapter Four, Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2.

3.4.5.2 Questionnaire Data analysis

Quantitative data from the self-reported student questionnaire were analysed using

appropriate descriptive statistical procedures and a predictive modelling analytic

technique known as Classification and Regression Tree (CART) or Decision Tree

methodology in short. CART is a relatively modern statistical technique first

developed by Breiman and colleagues about twenty five years ago (Breiman et al.,

1984). In the last decade, this predictive modelling technique has gained increasing

interest and has been widely employed in business administration, agriculture,

medicine, industry and engineering (Chang & Wang, 2006) because of a number of

unique features that can be advantageous to linear regression models, particularly in

research contexts where relationships among predictors are nonlinear and complex.

These features include, among others: (i) the capacity for interactive exploration,

description and prediction, (ii) the ability to use different types of response

variables, (iii) invariance to transformation of explanatory variables, (iv) procedures

for handling missing values, and (v) easy graphical interpretation of complex results

involving interactions (De’ath & Fabricius, 2000). In this regard, CART is

particularly suited to research studies where relationships between variables are


nonlinear and involve high order interactions among predictors (Lemsky, Smith,

Malec & Ivnik, 1996), as is the case in this study. A more detailed description of this

statistical technique is provided in Chapter Four, Section 4.4.2 as a preview to the

discussion of results and findings, in order to enhance the readability and

interpretability of the quantitative phase of this study.

3.4.5.3 Textual data: Focus group interviews

Textual data was collected in Phase Two of this study through the conduct of six in-

depth focus group interviews with approximately 60 students across all three senior

year levels. The focus group interviews lasted approximately 60 to 90 minutes each

and were audio-recorded and transcribed with the permission of the participants.

Focus group discussions are particularly useful for exploring people's knowledge

and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think but how

they think and why they think that way (Barbour, 2007; Kitzinger, 1995). When

conducted well, this strategy has the potential to tap into diverse forms of

communication used in daily interactions, such as jokes, anecdotes, teasing and

arguing, which can reveal dimensions of understanding that might not be

encapsulated or presented in reasoned responses to direct questions. It also allows

the participants to act as ‘check and balances’ on one another, in turn allowing the

identification of extreme views and/or factual errors (Krueger & Casey, 2000).

Importantly, focus groups can move beyond ‘private accounts’ in one-on-one

interviews to provide insights into public discourses (Kitzinger, 1994; Smithson,

2000). In this regard, it is the method of choice for a study such as this, where in-

depth explorations of group norms, group decision-making processes, negotiations


of competing priorities and qualifications of views in light of situational and

circumstantial factors are of import to the inquiry at hand (Barbour, 2007; Bloor,

Frankland, Thomas & Robson, 2001).

A growing number of researchers agree that focus groups can be usefully employed

in mixed-methods research to illuminate or clarify results from previous quantitative

phases (Barbour, 2007; Wilmot & Ratcliffe, 2002), by extending and “transforming

[numeric] results into ‘findings’ by furnishing explanations, particularly with regard

to surprising or anomalous associations identified in the first part of the study”

(Barbour, 2007, p. 45). In similar vein, the focus group interviews conducted in

Phase Two were designed (i) to explore in greater detail the student participants’

reasoning practices underlying their questionnaire responses, as well as (ii) to

uncover any significant issues that have a bearing on students’ evaluation of and

engagement with the SMC innovation, which may not be reflected in the survey

responses. In this regard, data from the focus group interviews were triangulated

with data collected from the self-reported questionnaires to accentuate areas of

compatibility, resonance and/or divergence. Details of size and sampling,

practicalities and protocols in the conduct of the focus groups are further explicated

in Chapter Five, Section 5.2.3.

3.4.5.4 Textual Data analysis

Textual data from the focus group interviews were organised using the textual

analysis software NVivo (QSR, 2000) and systematically analysed using

membership categorisation analysis (MCA). The MCA analytic framework is

particularly well-suited to this qualititative phase of the study because it can


provide rich insights into students’ shared cultural understandings, logic and

reasoning practices that bear on their evaluation of and engagement with the

SMC innovation. Put simply, MCA focuses on the use of categorisations in talk

as a way of gaining analytic insight into how speakers understand, make sense of

and engage as members of their social world (Sacks, 1979, 1992). As an analytic

framework, MCA comprises a set of procedures that collectively provide for the

documentation and analysis of how social identities, relationships and

institutions are produced and organised (Baker, 1997). It takes as a key premise

that members of a culture are “artful, reasoned and sophisticated cultural

practitioners” (Freebody, 2003, p. 169) who have commonsense or vernacular

understandings of social structures and norms relevant to their social world

(Baker, 1997). These comprise shared cultural knowledge that become available

to members as resources for reasoning and interaction. Membership

categorisation is one expression of this shared cultural knowledge and resource

for collective sense-making and interaction in a range of contexts, including

interviews of the sort conducted in this study. Using MCA, the analysis detailed

in Chapter Five examines how student participants articulate their ‘in-school’

social world in relation to the SMC. It does so by making explicit the range and

significance of relevant membership categorisations that are evoked in students’

accounts as they explain their various degrees of engagement with the SMC

innovation in school. A detailed exposition of the MCA analytic framework is

provided in Chapter Five, Section 5.2.1 as a preview to the discussion of the

qualitative analysis, in order to facilitate greater ease of readability and

interpretability of results and findings.


3.5 Ethical Issues

The researcher sought guidance on the ethical conduct of this research from (i) the

ethics officer representing the University Human Research Ethics Committee

(UHREC) of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), (ii) the National

Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NHMRC, 2007), (iii) the

nominated ethics advisors in QUT’s Faculty of Education, and (iv) the Headmaster

and Head of Senior School at the case study school9.

In line with the ethical requirements of QUT UHREC and the independent school,

appropriate ethics application forms were submitted (Human Research Level One),

and ethics approvals from both QUT UHREC and the independent school were

received in May 2007. Both research instruments―the questionnaire and focus

group interview protocol―employed in this study were duly approved for use in

June 2007. According to the requirements stipulated in the QUT Human Research

Ethics Manual, all data collection procedures and instruments were accompanied by

a Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form. The senior school students

selected for and invited to participate in this study were below 18 years of age and

considered minors. Parental consent was therefore required. Given the large

numbers of student participants involved in the student self-report questionnaire

phase of the study, ‘passive’ parental consent was sought. An email detailing the

project, ethics guidelines and participant involvement was sent by the Head of

Senior School to parents in May 2007. They were asked to respond to the researcher

by email should they not consent to their child’s participation in the research project

9 The case study school is a non-government school, and therefore does not fall under the jurisdiction of Education Queensland. The ethics authority of the case study school was the Principal. The Head of Senior School was also consulted in the ethics application and approval process, given his direct involvement with the student-led digital innovation under study.


by a specified date. Twelve parents indicated that they did not consent to their

child’s participation in the study. Correspondingly, due care was taken to ensure that

these students were not involved in any research activities throughout the course of

this study. In addition to parental consent, all student participants were asked to

provide written consent at each phase of the data collection.

In the information sheet to participants, it was made clear that participation was

voluntary and the participants could choose to withdraw from the study at any stage

without penalty or comment. All comments and responses were anonymous and

treated confidentially. Questionnaire data were reported in aggregate such that no

individual was identifiable. Focus group interviews were audio-recorded with the

student participants’ verbal and written consent, and transcribed verbatim.

Participants had the opportunity to review and edit their transcripts before the data

was analysed and reported. The contact details of the researcher, as well as the QUT

Office of Research Ethics Officer, were clearly stated on the Participant

Information Sheet should the participants have any questions, concerns or

complains about the conduct of the research.

Copies of the ethics approval from QUT UHREC for the research study in general

and the use of specific research instruments are provided in Appendix A and B

respectively. While an ethics approval letter from the case study school, duly signed

by the Headmaster, was received, the document is not included as an appendix for

purposes of anonymity and confidentiality. Copies of the participant information

sheets and consent forms provided to the senior school students and their parents

are included in Appendix C.


3.6 Summary

In summary, this chapter has specified the research purpose and questions guiding

this study. It has also outlined the research methodology and methods chosen and

implemented to address the research questions. Ethical considerations and

procedures were then discussed. In so doing, this chapter sets the scene for the

results and discussion chapters that follow. The next chapter describes and

discusses the quantitative results and findings emerging from Phase One of the

study.

Cha p te r Fo u r : Quantitative Phase – Describing & Predicting Adoption Behaviour Pag e | 115

CHAPTER FOUR

QUANTITATIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

DESCRIBING AND PREDICTING ADOPTION BEHAVIOUR

4.1 Overview

The school within which this study is located has a strong focus on high academic

achievement as a key graduate attribute. Thus the extent to which an initiative such

as the SMC is perceived by the senior school students as either valuable to or a

distraction from their schooling success, or some combination of the two, is

noteworthy. In this regard, a range of individual, social and technological factors

that bear on students’ decision-making about engagement or non-engagement with

SMC are central to understanding whether and how new technologies such as the

SMC can be integrated into traditional educational practices. An analysis of these

factors, when taken together, can provide insights into the ways that students

experience and negotiate the educational tensions and complexities associated with

the adoption and diffusion of digital learning within their conventional schooling

practice, an inquiry of central interest to this thesis.

This chapter describes and reports on the quantitative component of the study

designed to (i) identify the SMC engagement trends and patterns among the senior

school student community (SRQ-1), and (ii) determine the extent to which selected

individual, social and technological factors predict students’ levels of engagement

with the non-mandatory, student-led Web 2.0 learning innovation as part of their


conventional schooling practice (SRQ-2). These two specific research questions in

turn consisted of a series of sub-questions, as shown in Table 4.1. Together, these

specific research questions and sub-questions guided the quantitative phase of the

study reported in this chapter.

Table 4.1 Specific research question and sub-questions

Specific research question (SRQ)

Sub-question Addressed in/by:

SRQ 1

What are the SMC

engagement trends

and patterns

among the senior

school student

community?

SRQ 1.1 What are the statistical characteristics

of the measurement scales used in the

questionnaire? Specifically, do the

scales display satisfactory reliability

and validity?

SRQ 1.2 What are the adoption and diffusion

patterns of the SMC within the senior

school student community? Specifically,

to what extent do students engage with

the SMC in terms of usage volume and

frequency, both generally and with

regard to its specific features?

SRQ 1.3 How do the student respondents

describe and evaluate the SMC in terms

of its social and technological

affordances for their learning and

schooling practice? Specifically, to what

extent do students (i) experience peer

support in engaging with the SMC, (ii)

consider the SMC easy to use, and (iii)

value the SMC as a useful component of

their learning and schooling practice?

Section 4.2.2 (p. 124) Section 4.3.1 (p. 133) Section 4.3.2 (p. 140)


Specific research question (SRQ)

Sub-question Addressed in/by:

SRQ 2

What factors –

individual, social

and technological

– predict the

extent to which

students engage

with the non-

mandatory,

student-led Web

2.0 learning

innovation as part

of their

conventional

schooling practice?

Put another way,

To what extent do

the measured

individual learning

dispositions, social

and technological

variables predict

students’

engagement with

the SMC?

SRQ 2 is addressed through a series of incremental

predictive models guided by the following sub-

questions:

SRQ 2.1 How and to what extent do the

students’ individual dispositions

(comprising achievement goal orientations,

cognitive playfulness and personal

innovativeness) predict their evaluation

and use of the SMC?

SRQ 2.2 How and to what extent does the

combination of individual and social

variables (comprising achievement goal

orientations, cognitive playfulness, personal

innovativeness, and peer support) predict

students’ evaluation and use of the

SMC?

SRQ 2.3 How and to what extent does the

combination of individual, social and

technological variables (comprising

achievement goal orientations, cognitive

playfulness, personal innovativeness, peer

support, perceived ease of use, and perceived

usefulness) predict students’ evaluation

and use of the SMC?

Section 4.4 (p. 143) Decision Tree 1 (p. 149) Section 4.5 (p. 155) Decision Tree 2 (p. 157) Decision Tree 3 (p. 159)

The chapter now proceeds to address SRQ 1.1 by providing a review and discussion

of the research constructs and scales, as well as the validation procedures

undertaken to assess the psychometric properties of the measurement scales


operationalised in the research instrument. It then addresses the remaining specific

research questions and sub-questions by describing and discussing the results of

statistical analyses carried out on the numeric data collected from the student self-

report questionnaire.

4.2 Review of the Quantitative Research Instrument

4.2.1 Data Collection Procedures and Research Constructs

The mode of data collection for this phase of the study involved an extensive

quantitative self-report student questionnaire administered to the senior school

student population of approximately 600 students. This student questionnaire was

implemented in June 2007, by which time the SMC had been in operation for

approximately 10 months. As discussed in Chapter Three, Section 3.4.5.1, the

quantitative research instrument (self-report student questionnaire) was designed to

identify trends and patterns of students’ evaluation and engagement with the SMC.

In brief, the numeric data from the questionnaire included items that measure

students’ (i) learning dispositions (including their achievement goal orientations, levels of

personal innovativeness and cognitive playfulness), (ii) evaluation of the SMC in terms of its

ease of use and usefulness for their learning, as well as the perceived level of peer support

for engaging with the SMC, and (iii) usage behaviours related to the SMC, in terms of

frequency and volume of use. Table 4.2 provides a brief review of these research

constructs and their respective measurement items operationalised in the self-report

student questionnaire. A detailed description of these questionnaire items has been

discussed in Chapter Three, and a copy of the full questionnaire is included in

Appendix E.


Table 4.2 Brief Review of Research Constructs and Measurement Scales

Research Constructs

Description Measurement Scales and Items (included in the questionnaire)

Source of Scales

Personal-level Constructs: Individual Learning Dispositions

Learning goals orientation

Learner is focused on increasing competence, learning new skills, understanding new concepts and ‘to get smarter’. Learner tends to exhibit more adaptive responses to complexities and challenges.

(Dweck, 2000)

Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

1. The opportunity to do challenging work is

important to me.

2. When I fail to complete a difficult task I

plan to try harder the next time I work on it.

3. I prefer to work on tasks that force me to

learn new things.

4. The opportunity to learn new things is

important to me.

5. I do my best when working on a fairly

difficult task.

6. I try hard to improve on my past

performance.

7. The opportunity to extend the range of my

abilities is important to me.

8. When I have difficulty solving a problem, I

enjoy trying different approaches to see

which one will work.

Adapted from:

Button et al., 1996

Performance goals orientation

Learner is primarily focused on ‘getting the right answer’, winning positive judgments of their competence and ‘avoid looking dumb’. The learner may have a higher tendency to experience (i) intellectual paralysis in the face of challenging problems and complexities, and (ii) feelings of being overwhelmed by inability to get the right answer.

(Dweck, 2000)

Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

1. I prefer to do things that I can do well rather than things that I do poorly.

2. I am happiest on tasks which I know I won’t

make any errors.

3. The things I enjoy the most are the things

that I do best.

4. The opinions others have about how well I can do certain things are important to me.

5. I feel smart when I do something without

making any mistakes.

6. I like to be fairly confident that I can

successfully perform a task before I try it.

7. I like to work on tasks that I have done well on in the past.

8. I feel smart when I can do something better

than most other people.


Research Constructs

Description Measurement Scales and Items Source of Scales

Personal-level Constructs: Individual Learning Dispositions (cont’d)

Personal Innovativeness

(INV)

Refers to the learner’s propensity to:

(i) accept new ideas, and (ii) use imagination to develop new, original and valuable inventions and/or solutions, as an individual and as part of a team.

(Craft, 2005; Sternberg, 1999)

Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Items marked * were reverse-scored. All items were then summed to calculate a single Innovativeness score.

1. I am generally cautious about accepting

new ideas.*

2. I rarely trust new ideas until I can see whether the vast majority of people

around me accept them.*

3. I am usually one of the last people in my

group to accept something new.*

4. I am reluctant about adopting new ways

of doing things until I see them working

for people around me.*

5. I must see other people using new

innovations before I will consider them.*

6. I often find myself sceptical/wary of new

ideas.*

7. I find it stimulating to be original in my

thinking or behaviour.

8. I tend to feel that the old way of living and doing things is the best way.*

9. I am challenged by ambiguities and

unsolved problems.

10. I am challenged by unanswered questions.

Adapted from:

Marcinkiewicz, 1993

Cognitive Playfulness

(CP)

Focuses on the learner’s dexterity and agility in cognitive domains. This construct have been conceptualised to include two dimensions:

(i) intellectual curiosity

(ii) imagination/ creativity

Learners with higher levels of cognitive playfulness generally exhibit higher tendencies to be intellectually inquisitive and imaginative.

(Dunn, 2004; Glynn & Webster, 1993)

Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Items marked * were reverse-scored. All items were then summed to calculate a single Playfulness score for each sub-dimension. Cognitive Playfulness – Curiosity (CPcu)

Indicate what best describes you in general:

1. Questioning

2. Inquisitive 3. Inquiring

4. Scrutinising/Analytical

5. Investigative 6. Intellectually active

7. Curious

8. Conscientious/Hardworking*

Adapted from

Dunn, 2004

Glynn & Webster, 1993


Research Constructs


Personal-level Constructs: Individual Learning Dispositions (cont’d)

Cognitive Playfulness

(cont’d)

As before Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Items marked * were reverse-scored. All items were then summed to calculate a single Playfulness score for each sub-dimension. Cognitive Playfulness – Creativity (CPcr)

Indicate what best describes you in general:

1. Spontaneous

2. Experimenting

3. Inventive

4. Imaginative

5. Creative

6. Flexible

7. Mechanical*

8. Unoriginal*

As before

Social Variable

Peer support

(PS)

Refers to the level of peer encouragement and social acceptance that the learner perceives in the use of the technology or innovation.

(e.g., Chen et al., 2008; Malhotra & Galletta, 2005;)


1. I am encouraged by my good friends to use

the SMC.

2. Students that I respect/like use the SMC.

3. My good friends use the SMC.

4. Using the SMC is ‘cool’.

Adapted from

Malhotra & Galletta, 2005

Technological Variables

Perceived

ease of use

(PEoU)

Refers to the learner’s perceived level of complexity associated with the access and use of the technology or innovation.

(e.g., Davis, 1989; Ngai et al., 2007; Rogers, 1995; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000)


1. I have no problems logging into and using

the SMC.

2. I find the SMC user-friendly.

3. I find the SMC sections easy to navigate.

4. I find the SMC sections clear and

understandable.

5. I find it easy to add and contribute to

forums.

Adapted from

Davis, 1989; Ngai et al., 2007


Research Constructs


Technological Variables (cont’d)

Perceived usefulness

(PU)

Refers to the learner’s perceived relative advantage and benefits associated with the use of the technology or innovation for their learning and schooling purposes, in terms of

(i) socialisation (ii) exploration and

expression of identity and opinions

(iii) developing 21st century literacies and creativity

(iv)academic learning and performance

(Davis, 1989; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Rogers, 1995; Turvey, 2006; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000)

Likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Using the SMC can:

1. …enhance my personal profile at school.

2. …keep me up-to-date with what is going

on in school.

3. …help me feel more connected to the

student community.

4. …expand my social network of friends at

school.

5. …increase my opportunities for self-

expression.

6. …enhance opportunities to voice my

opinions.

7. …give me a place to share/publish my

works.

8. …help me get inspiration for new ideas.

9. …allow me to engage with visually

captivating content.

10. …help develop my creative skills.

11. …help develop my digital/technology

skills.

12. …help develop my critical/analytical

skills.

13. …help develop my interests and pursuits.

14. …help me learn to approach issues from

different perspectives.

15. …help me learn new skills beyond those

learnt in the classroom.

16. …stimulate me intellectually (provoke

new ideas and conversations).

17. …allow me to engage with content of a

high quality.

18. …expose me to exemplary work from

peers.

19. …expose me to more tips/ideas from

others on how to do well in exams (eg,

QCS).

20. …help improve my academic

performance.

Items are self-developed, to reflect the various dimensions of usefulness associated with learning and schooling, drawn from:

Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005

and

Turvey, 2006


The next section provides an analysis and discussion of the instrumentation, in

terms of the reliability and validity of the measurement scales used in the student

questionnaire. Subsequent sections report the results and findings pertinent to each

specific research question. The chapter concludes with a summary of key findings

emerging from the numeric data that informs the in-depth qualitative inquiry

conducted in the subsequent explanatory phase of the study, the findings of which

are discussed in Chapter Five.

Research Constructs


Dependent Variable

Usage

(USE)

Refers to the extent of SMC adoption and use, measured by the learner’s actual current usage and continued usage, in terms of:

(i) Frequency (how often the student uses and will continue to use the SMC in future).

(ii) Volume (the number of SMC sections the student uses and will continue to use in future).

( e.g., Karahanna et al., 1999; Premkumar & Ramamurthy, 1994; Thong, 1999; Venkatesh et al., 2003; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000)

Likert scale 1 (never), 2 (about once a term), 3 (about once a month), 4 (about once a fortnight), 5 (about once a week), 6 (more than once a week).

1. How often do you login/use the SMC

now?

2. To what extent will you continue to login/use the SMC?

3. Tick the SMC sections that you

access/use now?

• News

• Forum

• Your works

• Videos

• Podcasts

• Images

• Poll

4. Tick the SMC sections that you will

continue to access/use in future?

• News

• Forum

• Your works

• Videos

• Podcasts

• Images

• Poll

Items are self-developed to reflect the specific features of the innovation.

The items were self-developed by adapting from conventional measures of usage employed in technology adoption and diffusion studies in the Information Systems field

(e.g., Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh et al., 2003).


4.2.2 SRQ 1.1 – Reliability and Validity of Measures

The reliability and validity of measurement scales, as indicated by their psychometric

properties, are assessed in terms of their internal consistency and construct validity.

The latter can be further broken down into convergent and discriminant validity.

4.2.2.1 Internal consistency

The most common measure of internal consistency is the reliability coefficient

Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951; Murphy, Reed-Rhoads, Stone, Terry & Allen,

2008). Cronbach's alpha (α) will generally increase when the correlations between

the items increase. For this reason the coefficient is also called the internal

consistency or the internal consistency reliability of the test. The recommended

threshold of α ≥ 0.70 is commonly used in social behavioural sciences to assess the

internal consistency of scales measuring psychological constructs. When the

reliability coefficient is below the acceptable threshold, a common corrective

procedure is to review the improvement in the alpha coefficient when specific items

in the original scale are removed (Cortina, 1993; Streiner, 2003). This is performed

with due consideration given to (i) the theoretical underpinnings in the development

of the scale, as well as (ii) the need to maintain construct validity of the scale. Table

4.3 on the following page reports the internal consistency of all the measurement

scales used in this study.


Table 4.3 Internal Consistency of Measurement Scales

As shown in Table 4.3, with the exception of Personal Innovativeness and Cognitive

Playfulness, the measurement scales of all the constructs pertinent to the study

exhibited strong levels of internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients

exceeding 0.70 without modification to the original scale items.

The original Personal Innovativeness comprised ten items adapted from measures

developed by Marcinkiewicz (1993). The Cognitive Playfulness scale can be further

broken down into two sub-scales, Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity dimension and Cognitive

Playfulness: Creativity dimension, which comprised eight items respectively adapted

from measures developed by Glynn and Webster (1993). When applied to the

context of this study, four items from Personal Innovativeness and three items from

Cognitive Playfulness: Creativity proved to be problematic for the internal consistency of

the scales in terms of Cronbach’s alpha coefficients; whereas one item from Cognitive

Playfulness: Curiosity proved problematic in terms of convergent validity as

preliminary confirmatory factor analysis results conducted on the original scales

showed that this item did not load satisfactorily on the factor. These items were

therefore dropped to improve the reliability and validity of the scales for the

Constructs / Notation Original Scale

(see Table 4.2)

Modified Scale

(used for further data analyses)

Cronbach’s α Modified scale

(original scale)

Performance Goal Orientation PG 8 items 8 items 0.751 Learning Goal Orientation LG 8 items 8 items 0.854 Personal Innovativeness INV 10 items 6 items 0.775 (0.622) Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity CPcu 8 items 7 items 0.817 (0.680) Cognitive Playfulness: Creativity CPcr 8 items 5 items 0.778 (0.637) Peer Support PS 4 items 4 items 0.817 Perceived Usefulness PU 20 items 20 items 0.963 Perceived Ease of Use PEoU 5 items 5 items 0.866 Usage (dependent variable) USE 4 items 4 items 0.885


purpose of further descriptive and predictive data analyses. The modified scales

comprising six items (Personal Innovativeness), seven items (Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity)

and five items (Cognitive Playfulness: Creativity) were used for further data analysis.

These modified scales exhibited strong levels of internal reliability, with Cronbach’s

alpha coefficients well above the recommended 0.70 threshold for social sciences

(Cortina, 1993; Streiner, 2003).

A minimum of two items is required for scales measuring latent variables in the

social sciences. In this respect, all three modified scales consist of an ample number

of items designed to measure the latent variables of Personal Innovativeness and

Cognitive Playfulness, and the corrective procedure of removing the four problematic

items from the original scales did not pose any threat to the validity of the scale;

rather, the corrective procedure has strengthened the convergent validity of the

scales. This is evident from the results of a confirmatory factor analysis procedure

performed on the modified scales, as discussed in the section that follows.

4.2.2.2 Convergent Validity

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) seeks to determine if the number of factors and

the loadings of the measurement items on them, otherwise known as factor loadings,

conform to what is expected on the basis of pre-established theory and empirical

evidence (Gorsuch, 1983; Stevens, 2002). In other words, the CFA procedure seeks

to determine if the measures created to represent a latent variable really belong

together (Kim and Mueller, 1978; 1994). There are two main approaches to CFA: (i)

the traditional method of confirmatory factor analysis can be accomplished using a

number of general-purpose statistical packages such as SPSS with a range of factor


extraction methods such as principal components analysis or common factor

analysis among others, and (ii) the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach

of analysing alternative measurement (factor) models using using SEM statistical

packages such as AMOS or LISREL. The traditional CFA method allows the

researcher to examine factor loadings of indicator variables to determine if they load

on latent variables (factors) as predicted by the researcher's model. This can provide

a more detailed insight into the measurement model than can the use of single-

coefficient ‘goodness of fit’ measures used in the SEM approach, which is more

appropriate when the main purpose of the study is to establish and validate causal

relationships between variables. Given that the primary objective of the quantitative

component of this study is to provide a broad descriptive analysis of the patterns

and trends of students’ engagement with the SMC to facilitate further qualitative

inquiry, rather than establishing causal relationships between the measured

constructs of interest to the study, the traditional CFA approach is arguably the

appropriate choice of analysis, and thus it is the method employed in the study to

assess the validity of the measurement scales.

Within the traditional CFA approach, there are two prominent options for factor

extraction, namely components analysis and common factor analysis, within which

principal components analysis (PCA) and principal axis factoring (PAF) respectively

are among the most widely used factor extraction methods. Extended and

prominent treatments of the similarities and differences across both methods are

available in the works of Gorsuch (1973), Kim and Mueller (1978, 1994), and Hair,

Anderson, Tatham and Black (1998). In brief, both these methods have been shown

to frequently produce the same substantive results, but differences in the solutions


tend to increase along with (i) differences in the communality estimates of the

variables, (ii) smaller sample sizes, and (iii) lower number of variables (Thompson &

Vidal-Brown, 2001). Two major distinctions are worth noting here. First, PAF is a

correlation-focussed approach where the factors reflect the common variance of

variables excluding unique variance, whereas PCA is a variance-focussed approach

where the factors (or components) reflect the common variance shared by the

variables as well as the unique variance. Second, PCA is widely acknowledged to be

the preferred method if the objective of the factor analysis is data reduction, while

PAF is the method of choice for causal modelling or structural equation modelling

research studies (Gorsuch, 1973; Kim & Mueller, 1994; Thompson & Vidal-Brown,

2001).

Given that the main purpose of factor analysis in this study was not to establish

causal relationships and models, but rather to reduce the large number of

measurement items to a smaller number of latent variables for analysis (i.e., data

reduction), PCA with Varimax rotation (Kaiser, 1958) was carried out on all the

measurement items using the SPSS Version 15 statistical package. Rotation serves to

make the output readily interpretable and is usually necessary to facilitate the

interpretation of factors. There are a number of rotation methods, primarily

categorised as orthogonal (factors uncorrelated with one another) and oblique

(factors correlate with one another). The Varimax rotation used in this study is

known to be one of the most popular, if not the most common criteria for

orthogonal rotation, because it maximises the correlations among the variables

within each component and minimises correlations between components and In so

doing, simplifies the model structure and increases interpretability (see Fabio,


Sauber-Schatz, Barbour & Li, 2009; Hair et al., 1998; Kim & Mueller, 1978; 1994;

Kline, 1994; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy for the

confirmatory factor analysis carried out in this study was a strong 0.899 and the

Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (P<0.000). Together, these measures

indicate that the strength of the relationships among the variables is robust and the

factor analysis is appropriate for the dataset. The factor loadings, eigenvalues and

variance explained for the factors/components pertinent to the study are reported

in Tables 4.4 and 4.5 respectively.

The nine principal components (or factors) measured in this study accounted for 58%

of the variance. Following significant work on multivariate data analysis in the social

sciences (e.g., Hair et al., 1998; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001), it is generally

acknowledged that acceptable item loadings (on their respective factors) range from

0.4 (satisfactory) to 0.7 and above (strong). All the measurement items loaded

satisfactorily on their respective constructs, with no significant cross-loadings on

other constructs. In this regard, the measurement scales exhibit an acceptable level

of convergent validity.


Table 4.4 Factor loadings of measurement scales

CONSTRUCTS ITEM LOADINGS

CONSTRUCTS ITEM LOADINGS

INDIVIDUAL LEARNING DISPOSITIONS

TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PREDICTORS

Learning Goal Orientation (LG) Perceived Usefulness (PU) LG1 0.647 PU1 0.486 LG2 0.714 PU2 0.509 LG3 0.754 PU3 0.449 LG4 0.773 PU4 0.697 LG5 0.642 PU5 0.707 LG6 0.675 PU6 0.753 LG7 0.698 PU7 0.759 LG8 0.504 PU8 0.689 Performance Goal Orientation (PG) PU9 0.814 PG1 0.658 PU10 0.768 PG2 0.700 PU11 0.768 PG3 0.702 PU12 0.748 PG4 0.400 PU13 0.850 PG5 0.637 PU14 0.829 PG6 0.483 PU15 0.839 PG7 0.601 PU16 0.861 PG8 0.650 PU17 0.827 Personal Innovativeness (INV) PU18 0.780 INV1 0.605 PU19 0.782 INV2 0.732 PU20 0.835 INV3 0.673 Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) INV4 0.736 PEOU1 0.639 INV5 0.721 PEOU2 0.793 INV6 0.657 PEOU3 0.871 Cognitive Playfulness – Creativity (CPcr) PEOU4 0.848

CPCr1 0.420 PEOU5 0.660 CPCr2 0.826 Peer Support (PS) CPCr3 0.528 PPS1 0.680 CPCr4 0.851 PPS2 0.732 CPCr5 0.591 PPS3 0.770 Cognitive Playfulness – Curiosity (CPcu) PPS4 0.559 CPCu1 0.548 CPCu2 0.554 DEPENDENT VARIABLE CPCu3 0.704 Usage (USE) CPCu4 0.642 USE1 0.790 CPCu5 0.653 USE2 0.768 CPCu6 0.722 USE3 0.766 CPCu7 0.753 USE4 0.742


Table 4.5 Eigenvalues and variance explained

Factors/ Components Eigenvalue

Variance explained, %

Cumulative Variance Explained, %

1 Perceived Usefulness (PU) 15.17 22.31 22.31

2 Learning Goals Orientation (LG) 6.72 9.89 32.19

3 Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity (CPcu) 3.78 5.55 37.75

4 Perceived Ease of Use (PEoU) 3.41 5.01 42.76

5 Performance Goals Orientation (PG) 2.50 3.67 46.43

6 Personal Innovativeness (INV) 2.29 3.36 49.79

7 Usage (USE) 1.87 2.75 52.55

8 Peer Support (PS) 1.80 2.65 55.20

9 Cognitive Playfulness: Creativity (CPcr) 1.74 2.56 57.76

4.2.2.3 Discriminant Validity

In addition to internal consistency and convergent validity, the discriminant validity

of the measurement scales was also assessed using Campbell and Fiske’s (1959)

discriminant validity test formula (with correction for attenuation), where rxy is the

correlation between x and y, rxx is the reliability of x, and ryy is the reliability of y:

. A successful evaluation of discriminant validity shows that the

measurement items of a construct are not highly correlated with other scales

designed to measure theoretically different constructs. When measurement scales

pertinent to a study are demonstrated to have acceptable convergent and

discriminant validity, then by definition, the measurement scales are demonstrated

to have evidence for construct validity (Campbell & Fiske, 1959; John & Benet-

Martinez, 2000). Although there is no standard value for discriminant validity, a

result less than 0.85 demonstrates that discriminant validity likely exists between the

two scales. Conversely, a result greater than 0.85 suggests that the two constructs

overlap greatly and they are likely to be measuring the same thing, and therefore,


one cannot claim discriminant validity between them. The discriminant validity

coefficients computed using the correction for attenuation formula, as reported in

Table 4.6, are well below 0.85 for all the measurement scales, ranging from 0.08 to

0.621. This provides evidence of discriminant validity among all the measurement

items and their respective scales.

Table 4.6 Discriminant validity coefficients of measurement scales

When coupled with the internal consistency and convergent validity results reported

earlier, these discriminant validity test results provide adequate evidence that the

psychometric properties of the measurement scales demonstrate satisfactory levels

of reliability and validity. This serves as the basis for carrying out further statistical

analysis on the numeric questionnaire data to address the relevant research

questions, the results of which are presented and discussed in the following sections.

Constructs LG PG INV CPcr CPcu PS PEoU PU USE Learning Goals Orientation (LG) 1.00 Performance Goals Orientation (PG) 0.29 1.00 Personal Innovativeness (INV) 0.60 0.21 1.00 Cognitive Playfulness — Creativity (CPcr) 0.45 0.28 0.19 1.00 Cognitive Playfulness — Curiosity (CPcu) 0.55 0.24 0.24 0.60 1.00

Peer Support (PS) 0.17 0.11 0.10 0.08 0.14 1.00 Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) 0.33 0.13 0.13 0.09 0.25 0.46 1.00 Perceived Usefulness (PU) 0.21 0.10 0.10 0.23 0.14 0.64 0.51 1.00

Usage (USE) 0.37 0.08 0.08 0.16 0.25 0.54 0.62 0.47 1.00


4.3 Students’ engagement with and evaluation of the SMC

4.3.1 SRQ 1.2 – Trends and patterns of SMC engagement

This section addresses SRQ 1.2: What are the adoption and diffusion trends and patterns of

the SMC within the senior school student community? Specifically, to what extent do students

engage with the SMC in terms of usage volume and frequency, generally and with regard to specific

features? To address this research question, the discussion starts with an analysis of

students’ engagement with the digital learning innovation. A brief demographic

overview of the student respondents is provided at the outset, followed by a

description of the extent to which these senior school students engaged with the

SMC and its various features, as reflected in their measured levels of usage.

The student self-report questionnaire was administered during a senior school

assembly to all the senior school students present. According to the school’s

enrolment records, the total senior school population at the time of administering

the student questionnaire approximated 600 students. Three classes of senior school

students (approximately 75 students) were not present at the senior school assembly

due to co-curricular activities. Of the remaining 525 senior school students present

at the assembly, 488 responded to the student questionnaire, of which a total of 8

were considered to be invalid due to a significant number of missing responses. In

total, 481 valid student questionnaire responses were received, resulting in an

effective response rate of 92.9% (or 81.3% of the total senior school population). A

qualitative evaluation of the three classes of senior school students who were not

present at the senior school assembly emerging from subsequent class-based

discussions with these students and key teaching staff identified that these students


did not exhibit any substantive qualitative differences in terms of their demographic

or engagement profile as compared to the general senior school student population.

Coupled with the high questionnaire response rate and pragmatic considerations of

not causing undue disruption to regular schooling activities, a re-administration of

the student questionnaire to include these 75 students was deemed to be

unnecessary for the purposes of this study.

The demographic profile of the student respondents in terms of year levels and

interest in key learning areas are as follows. On the whole, the 481 student

respondents comprised a comparable percentage of students across all three senior

year levels: Year 10 (N=160, 33%), Year 11 (N=154, 32%), and Year 12 (N=159,

33%); 8 student respondents did not indicate their year levels (missing values N=8,

2%). Figure 4.1 illustrates the students’ level of interest in key learning areas.

Students indicated the highest level of interest in English, Languages, Arts and

Humanities, followed by Maths and Science, and Sports respectively. Students showed a

moderate level of interest in Technology and Multimedia, while Religious Education and

Health demonstrated the lowest levels of student interest.

Figure 4.1 Levels of Student Interest in Key Learning Areas

406 (24%)

319 (19%)

302 (18%)

245 (14%)

182 (11%)

161 (9%)

91 (5%)

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

1Key Learning Areas

Counts of Responses

Health & RE

Music & Drama

Business & Communication

Technology & Multimedia

Sports

Maths & Science

English, Languages, Arts & Humanities

Cha p te r Fo u r : Quantitative Phase

The overall SMC adoption and diffusion patterns within the senior school

community in terms of students’ usage levels are depicted in

discussed in Chapter Three Section 3.4.5.1 and Chapter Fo

usage level of the SMC is a composite measure obtained by aggregating four items

that measure the respondent’s current and continued

1=never to 6=more than once a week

of SMC learning features

sections used). The composite usage level measure

2 (non-user) to 26 (highest

Figure 4.2 Students’ Usage Levels of the SMC

It is clear from the usage trends depicted in Figure 4.

engagement with the SMC is generally low, with a sizeable 24% of the senior school

student community

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2 3 4 5

24%

3%

9%

6%

9%

Counts

Where 2=Non

Quantitative Phase – Describing & Predicting Adoption Behaviour


community in terms of students’ usage levels are depicted in

in Chapter Three Section 3.4.5.1 and Chapter Four Section 4.2.1,

of the SMC is a composite measure obtained by aggregating four items

that measure the respondent’s current and continued usage frequency

6=more than once a week), as well as usage volume tabulated by

learning features used (ranging from 0=no SMC sections used

). The composite usage level measure therefore, has a theoretical range of

user) to 26 (highest/maximum-user).

s’ Usage Levels of the SMC

It is clear from the usage trends depicted in Figure 4.2 that the level of student


student community (N=115) who are non-users. These students

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

9%

6%5%

3%

5%

3%4%

3%4%

3%2%

1%3% 2%

1%

Usage Levels/Scores

2=Non-Usage, 26=Maximum Usage (more than once a week, all 7 learning features)

Describing & Predicting Adoption Behaviour Pag e | 135


community in terms of students’ usage levels are depicted in Figure 4.2. As

ur Section 4.2.1, students’

of the SMC is a composite measure obtained by aggregating four items

usage frequency (ranging from

tabulated by the number

sections used to 7=all SMC

has a theoretical range of

that the level of student


users. These students had neither

20 21 22 23 24 26

1% .6%.6%.6%.2%1%

Usage, 26=Maximum Usage (more than once a week, all 7 learning features)

Cha p te r Fo u r : Quantitative Phase –

accessed nor engaged with the SMC

the school. On the other hand, only a handful of students

the senior school student respondents report

seven of the SMC learning features

7.96 (SD=5.69) indicates that the average student user is likely to

SMC only once a term and on those occasions,

three of the seven learning features on

mid-point reference, the senior school student respondents can be grouped into

four categories of users as depicted in Figure 4.3

emerge correspond to the usage trends analysis

organised as follows: Other than the significant 24% of non

(N=184) can be categorised as

users. Only a minority 15%

students who engaged with at least four SMC learning features about once a

fortnight.

Figure 4.3 SMC User Categories

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

24%

(N=115)

Non-Users

(Usage score = 2) (Usage

Counts

– Describing & Predicting Adoption Behaviour

the SMC in the ten months since its implementation in

On the other hand, only a handful of students, comprising 1%

the senior school student respondents reported that they accessed and used all

learning features more than once a week. The mean usage level

indicates that the average student user is likely to have access

only once a term and on those occasions, only engaged with about

learning features on the SMC. Using the mean usage level as a

point reference, the senior school student respondents can be grouped into

depicted in Figure 4.3. The SMC user categories

age trends analysis reported in Figure 4.2, and can be

organised as follows: Other than the significant 24% of non-users, a majority 38%

=184) can be categorised as low users, 23% (N=111) can be classified as

(N=71) can be categorised as high users. These were

with at least four SMC learning features about once a

SMC User Categories

38%

(N=184)

23%

(N=111)

15%

(N=71)

Low Users

(Usage scores = 3 to 8)

Moderate Users


High Users


Pag e | 136

in the ten months since its implementation in

comprising 1% (N=5) of

accessed and used all

The mean usage level of

accessed the

about two to

the SMC. Using the mean usage level as a

point reference, the senior school student respondents can be grouped into

. The SMC user categories that

reported in Figure 4.2, and can be

majority 38%

=111) can be classified as moderate

. These were

with at least four SMC learning features about once a

=71)

High Users

scores = 15 to 26)


An analysis of student engagement levels10 for each of the seven different learning

features of the SMC, as shown in Figure 4.4, indicates that the senior school student

respondents used the Video feature the most, followed by the Photos and Forum

features. These three top-rated SMC learning features shared some common

characteristics, in that they engaged with multimodalities (both visual and print

literacies) and allowed for a high level of social interaction among the users, such as

the user review/comments functionality available in the Video and Photos features, as

well as the user post/reply/add thread functionality in the Forum feature. Podcast and

Student Works emerged as features that were accessed/used the least by the student

respondents. It is noteworthy that in contrast with the three top-rated features, the

design of both the Podcast and Student Works sections were more didactic in nature,

in that such tools allowed users merely to listen or read content without an

interactive user review/comment functionality embedded, and they engaged

primarily with a single modality (either audio or print).

Figure 4.4 Student Engagement Level with SMC Learning Features

10 Engagement level has a theoretical range from ‘0=No engagement’ to ‘1=Maximum engagement’, and is calculated by aggregating the usage volume measure per feature (0=Non-use; 1=Use) across the whole student sample, then dividing this aggregated usage volume per feature by the total number of cases.

0.26

0.28

0.42

0.48

0.59

0.60

0.84

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Podcasts

Student …

News

Poll

Forum

Photos

Videos

SMC Learning Features

Students' Engagement with SMC Learning Features

(0=Non-engagement, 1=Maximum Engagement)


Students were also asked to rank, on a scale of 1 (boring) to 5 (very interesting), the

various SMC learning features in terms of how interesting they perceived them to

be. Figure 4.5 reports the mean value of aggregated student responses to the

question of how interesting they found each SMC learning feature. Results were

consistent with the student engagement trends reflected in Figure 4.4, in that Videos,

Photos and Forum emerged as the SMC learning features that students found most

interesting. In contrast, students generally found the Student Works and Podcasts

features to be uninspiring. It is worth noting that, despite being rated as the most

interesting feature, the mean student interest level for the Videos feature was only

marginally higher than the mid-point scale of 3 (mediocre), while all other features

were rated as less than mediocre. This suggests that on the whole, students did not

find the various SMC features and their respective content to be particularly

appealing, and while a majority of students engaged to some extent with the Videos,

Photos and Forum features (as indicated in Figure 4.4), the content in these features

garnered low levels of interest from the student users.

Figure 4.5 Student Interest Level in SMC Learning Features

2.13 (SD=1.18)

2.22 (SD=1.21)

2.44 (SD=1.29)

2.57 (SD=1.39)

2.62 (SD=1.37)

2.83 (SD=1.36)

3.27 (SD=1.38)

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0

News

Student …

Podcasts

Forum

Poll

Photos

Videos

SMC Learning Features

Students' Interest Level in SMC Learning Features

(1=Boring, 3=Mediocre, 5=Very Interesting)


Finally, to better understand how the senior school students’ evaluated the

relevance of the SMC in terms of the relative advantage it bore for their school life,

they were asked to indicate, on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree),

if they thought having the SMC in the school was a good idea. Students’ responses

were tabulated by year level and the results are presented in Figure 4.6.

Figure 4.6 SMC in School is a Good Idea? Student Mean Responses by Year Levels (Range of responses: 1=strongly disagree, 3=neutral, 5=strongly agree)

In light of the patterns of low student engagement and interest levels in the SMC,

the low mean values of students’ responses to the question of whether “having the

SMC in school was a good idea” was predictable. This trend was consistent across

all three year levels: Year 10 reported the lowest mean of 2.49 (SD=1.23), followed

: Student mean responses by year levels

9 outliers 5 outliers

: Range : Standard deviation (SD)


closely by Year 11 (mean=2.54, SD=1.19) and Year 12 (mean=2.59, SD=1.15). The

boxplot results shown in Figure 4.6 suggest that among these three year level groups,

Year 11 students appear to be slightly more resistant to the SMC than the other two

year levels, in that the median value of 2.0 is lower than the median values of the

other two groups, and also approximately 50% of the Year 11 respondents either

strongly disagreed or disagreed with the proposition that having the SMC in school

was a good idea. The level of disagreement from student respondents in the other

two groups were relatively, albeit marginally, milder. Results of one-way ANOVA

comparison of means, however, reported no statistically significant differences in

the means across the three groups. The aggregated mean student response for the

total student sample was an unremarkable 2.56 (SD=1.19), suggesting that on the

whole, the senior school student community remain unconvinced that having the

SMC at school was a good idea in terms of any relative advantage it might add to

their school life.

4.3.2 SRQ 1.3 – Students’ evaluation of social and technological affordances

This widespread ambivalence on the part of the senior school student community

towards the SMC is reinforced by students’ responses to the perceived level of peer

support and perceived usefulness aspects of the SMC. Figure 4.7 reports the mean

student responses of the composite Peer Support, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease

of Use measures. The results suggest that while students did not find the SMC

excessively difficult to access or use, they did not rate the SMC as being particularly

useful for their learning and schooling purposes. At the same time, students

reported a low level of encouragement and support from their peers with respect to

using the SMC. In other words, the perceived level of peer encouragement, support


and social acceptance among the senior school community regarding the use of the

SMC was unequivocally low.

Figure 4.7 Student Perceptions of Peer Support, Usefulness and Ease of Use of the SMC

In terms of the perceived usefulness of the SMC for different aspects of learning

and schooling, students indicated that the SMC was most useful for developing their

identity and expressing their opinions, but was least useful for socialisation purposes,

such as raising their profile in school, helping them feel more connected, and

extending their social network of friends within the school student community.

Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that the perceived level of usefulness of the SMC

across all four aspects of learning and schooling were reported to be less than

mediocre by the senior school student community taken as a whole. This finding,

graphically presented in Figure 4.8, corresponds with the low levels of peer support

and social acceptance associated with using the SMC as experienced and reported by

the students.

2.13 (SD=0.91)

2.34 (SD=0.83)

3.21 (SD=1.00)

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0

Peer Support

Perceived Usefulness

Perceived Ease of Use

Students' Mean Responses

(1='Not beneficial at all' or 'Strongly disagree', 5='Very beneficial' or 'Strongly agree')


Figure 4.8 Perceived Usefulness of the SMC for Various Learning and Schooling Aspects

Taken together, the results emerging from the analysis of SMC adoption and

diffusion patterns among the senior school student community discussed above

consistently underscore a general attitude of ambivalence towards the digital

learning innovation, in terms of both attitudes towards the SMC, and actual SMC

usage behaviour. On the whole, students did not seem convinced that having the

SMC in the school was a good idea, and found the various SMC features to be less

than compelling in terms of its appeal and usefulness for their learning and

schooling purposes. Correspondingly, at the point of data collection, that is, ten

months subsequent to the implementation of the SMC in the school, a considerable

24% of the senior school student community reported that they did not access or

use the SMC at all. A significant 38% and 24% can be categorised as sporadic/low

and moderate users respectively. These students’ engagement with the SMC ranged

from once a term to once a month in terms of frequency, and on those occasions of

use, tended to access about only two to four out of seven SMC learning features.

Barely 15% of the senior school students accessed the SMC approximately once a

2.34 (SD=0.95)

2.41 (SD=0.98)

2.46 (SD=0.90)

2.67 (SD=1.09)

1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0

Socialisation

Academic learning and performance

Develop creativity and new literacies

Self-expression and identity development

Students' Mean Responses

(1=Not beneficial at all, 5=Very beneficial)


fortnight or once a week, and on those occasions of use, engaged with about half of

the SMC features. Of these high users, only a negligible 1% engaged with the SMC

more than once a week and used all seven learning features.

From this broad picture of students’ evaluation of and engagement with the SMC,

the chapter proceeds now to consider more closely the individual, social and

technological aspects of the innovation adoption and diffusion process that may

play important roles in predicting the SMC usage behaviour among senior school

students. The next section aims to provide a richer understanding of the individual

attitudes and learning dispositions of the senior school students, and how these

different individual-level factors explain students’ levels of engagement with the

SMC. The analysis then extends to consider the roles that social and technological

factors play in the SMC adoption and diffusion process.

4.4 SRQ 2.1 – Individual Level Predictor Variables

This individual micro-level analysis of the adoption and diffusion of the SMC within

the senior school student community addresses the sub-research question of how and

to what extent the measured individual learning dispositions of the senior school students, namely,

their learning and performance goals orientation, levels of personal innovativeness and cognitive

playfulness (curiosity and creativity), predict engagement with the SMC. The definitions and

operationalisations of these individual learning dispositions have been discussed in

detail in Chapter Three Section 3.4.5.1 and reviewed in Section 4.2 of this chapter.

This section builds on those earlier discussions. It begins by providing some

descriptive statistics related to these individual factors, then moves on to discuss the

results of a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) or decision tree predictive


modelling approach that was used to analyse the extent to which these individual

factors predict SMC usage behaviour.

4.4.1 Descriptive Statistics for Individual Learning Dispositions Variables

There are three constructs associated with the individual learning dispositions

considered in this study, namely, Achievement Goal Orientations, Personal Innovativeness

(INV) and Cognitive Playfulness. Achievement goal orientations comprise two distinct

dimensions, Learning Goals Orientation (LG) and Performance Goals Orientation (PG).

Similarly, cognitive playfulness consists of two distinct dimensions, Curiosity (CPcu)

and Creativity (CPcr). The descriptive statistics for the composite measure of these

three constructs and their sub-dimensions, as well as the dependent variable (Usage)

are presented in Table 4.7.

Table 4.7 Descriptive Statistics for Individual Learning Dispositions Variables

Variables (composite

measure)

Theoretical

range Min Max Median Mean

Mean

Rank

(as % of

max.

value)

SD

Performance goals orientation

(PG)

Min: 8

Max: 40 15 40 27.5 31.5 78.7% 4.4

Learning goals orientation

(LG)

Min: 8

Max: 40 11 40 25.5 30.6 76.6% 5.2

Personal innovativeness

(INV)

Min: 6

Max: 30 6 30 18.0 20.0 66.7% 4.2

Cognitive playfulness

— Creativity (CPcr)

Min: 5

Max: 25 5 25 15.0 18.2 72.9% 3.5

Cognitive playfulness

— Curiosity (CPcu)

Min: 7

Max: 35 10 35 22.5 25.3 72.4% 4.4

Usage

(USE)

Min: 2

Max: 26 2 26 14.0 8.0 30.6% 5.7

On the whole, the descriptive statistics for individual learning dispositions indicate

that the senior school student community exhibited above-average levels of


achievement goal orientations, cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness,

with the mean rank for the first two constructs scoring at least 70% of the

maximum value, while personal innovativeness exhibited a slightly lower mean rank

score of 66% of the maximum value. In terms of achievement goals orientations,

both learning and performance goals orientations scored highly among the senior

student respondents, with performance goals orientation scoring a marginally higher

mean than learning goals orientation. One interpretation that follows is that the

senior school student community, on the whole, exhibited a tendency to be more

performance goals-oriented than learning goals-oriented, although this difference

was not shown to be statistically significant. On the other hand, no discernable

differences were noted in the mean rank scores for both dimensions of cognitive

playfulness. This suggests that the senior school student community exhibited

comparably high levels of cognitive creativity and cognitive curiosity. In addition,

the low mean value (30% of maximum range) of the usage variable underscores the

low adoption rates of the SMC among the senior school students.

Against this general picture of the senior school student community’s individual

learning dispositions, the discussion moves on to analyse the relationships between

these individual learning dispositions and students’ SMC usage behaviour. A

Classification and Regression Tree (CART), or decision tree in short, was generated

to understand these relationships. Before moving on to discuss the results, it is

useful to provide an overview of the CART analysis technique.


4.4.2 CART/Decision Tree Methodology

Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modelling was first developed more

than twenty years ago as a statistical method of analysing relationships among

variables (Breiman et al., 1984), and has since been used widely in scholarly fields

that engage primarily with non-parametric data sets, such as finance and banking,

international relations, social welfare policy, epidemiology and biomedical

engineering (e.g., Bridgstock, 2007; Furnkrantz, Petrak & Trappl, 1997; Gibb,

Auslander & Griffin, 1993; Yohannes & Webb, 1999). In brief, the CART method

of predictive modelling aims to obtain the most accurate prediction of the

dependent or target variable through a process of binary recursive partitioning of

data (Breiman et al., 1984; Salford Systems, 2003) whilst maintaining maximal levels

of parsimony, non-triviality and interpretability (Moore, Jesse & Kittler, 2001).

When the value of the target variable is categorical, a classification tree is developed,

whereas a regression tree is developed for quantitative (discrete and/or continuous)

target variables.

Binary recursive partitioning is acknowledged to be the most well-established and

commonly used decision tree algorithm developed by Breiman and colleagues

(1984), and is an essential first step in a CART analysis. This process is considered

binary because each split of a group of participants or cases (parent node) results in

two groups (child nodes). This partitioning procedure asks successive questions

with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to split the data, where all possible splits for all variables

included in the analysis are considered and ordered using a goodness-of-split

criterion. The best split is the one that maximizes the homogeneity of the resulting

two child nodes, by maximizing the between-nodes sums of squares (Breiman et al.,


1984). In other words, CART examines each predictor variable and every possible

cutoff score at each decision point to determine which variable will yield child

nodes that are as ‘pure’ as possible, that is, they exhibit minimal variance on the

target measure. The predicted value at each node is the mean of the target variable

for all cases included in that node. CART then repeats this search process

continuously for each child node until further splitting is impossible or stopped,

that is, when a single case remains in a node or if all the cases in a node are exact

copies of each other on the predictor variables (Bridgstock, 2007; Salford Systems,

2003).

After this process of generating the maximal tree, the CART analysis proceeds to

determine the optimal tree with the lowest error cost and highest explanatory power

(Moore et al., 2001) using the technique of v-fold cross-validation (deVille, 2006;

Salford Systems, 2003). The cross-validation procedure essentially divides the

dataset into v groups, and takes the first v-1 group of data (test sample) to construct

the largest possible tree while using the remaining groups of data to obtain initial

error cost estimates of the sub-trees. This process is carried out in an iterative

fashion until each data group has been used as a test sample at least once. The

results of the v-tests are then combined to calculate the error cost for trees of each

possible size, and these error costs are applied to the tree generated from the entire

dataset. While the researcher can exercise discretion in choosing how many splits

the tree should include, in a CART analysis software program 11 , the optimal

decision tree solution presented is the one that reported the lowest error cost along

11 There are several commercial CART analysis software programs available. These include CART®6.0 (Salford Systems, 2008), DTREG, and SAS® Enterprise Miner 9.1. The last of these was used in this study because the university had an institutional licence for the software and it was thus freely available to the researcher.


with the highest explanatory power (Lemsky et al., 1996). A comprehensive

discussion of the decision tree predictive modeling technique is expounded in

Breiman and others’ (1984) definitive text on classification and regression trees.

In sum, the CART method analyses the extent to which the predictor variables (in

this illustrative case, the individual learning dispositions) explain the variance in the

dependent variable (in this case, SMC usage behaviour), in a way that (i) represents

and generalises the relationships succinctly (parsimony), and (ii) generates

interesting results that are easy to interpret (non-triviality and interpretability). The

decision tree method does not rely on statistical assumptions such as normality and

collinearity that are imperative in traditional parametric regression techniques

(Murthy, 1998; Tabachnik & Fidell, 2001). It is therefore particularly useful for

predictive modelling of data when the data set is non-parametric in nature, as is the

case in this study.

Against this background, the next section focuses more squarely on the CART

modelling results. Specifically, three decision trees were generated in analysing the

relationships among the individual, technological, social and usage variables

pertinent to this study. The first decision tree provides insights into how individual-

level factors predict students’ usage of the SMC, while the latter two decision trees

build on the individual-level factors to consider the interaction of individual-level

factors with technological and social factors, and how these factors collectively

predict students’ decision to engage with or resist the SMC in their schooling

practice.


4.4.3 Decision Tree 1: Individual Learning Dispositions and SMC Usage

The first decision tree documents the relationships among individual learning

dispositions (predictor variables) and SMC usage behaviour (target variable). The

results of Decision Tree One presented in Figure 4.9 provide an indication of the

individual learning dispositions that emerge as salient predictors of students’ level of

SMC usage.

Figure 4.9 Optimal Decision Tree One: Individual Learning Dispositions (predictors) and SMC Usage (target)

Model R2 = 0.44

Where:

Mean SMC Usage ≤ 6.0 but ≤ 6.9 (very low)

Mean SMC Usage ≥ 7.0 but ≤ 8.5 (moderately low)

Mean SMC Usage ≥ 8.6 but ≤ 11.0 (moderate)

Mean SMC Usage ≥ 11.1 but ≤ 12.9 (moderately high)

Mean SMC Usage ≥ 13.0 (high)

CART modelling, though widely employed in multiple disciplines and professional

settings over the last decade, is still less common than traditional linear regression

≥22.5 ≤22.5 ≥38.5 ≤38.5

N = 9

Mean = 13.0

(SD=5.8)

N = 34

Mean = 7.3

(SD=5.1)

N = 7

Mean = 6.0

(SD=6.1)

N = 83

Mean = 11.2

(SD=6.6)

Personal Innovativeness ≥19.5 ≤19.5

N = 43

Mean = 8.5

(SD=5.7)

N = 90

Mean = 10.8

(SD=6.7)

Performance goals CP-Creativity

Learning goals ≥36.5 ≤36.5

N = 326

Mean = 6.9

(SD=4.8)

N = 22

Mean = 11.5

(SD=6.6)

N = 481

Mean = 8.0

(SD=5.6)

CP-Curiosity ≥27.5 ≤27.5

N = 133

Mean = 10.0

(SD=6.5)

N = 348

Mean = 7.2

(SD=5.1)


models. In that light, this discussion starts with a technical explanation of how the

results of the optimal tree solution presented in Figure 4.9 are to be understood.

This is followed by a richer interpretation of the decision tree results in light of the

conceptual underpinnings and research question pertinent to this inquiry. In other

words, this report of the first decision tree findings also serves as an illustration of

the analytic and interpretive process.

First, all the individual-level variables (learning and performance goals, cognitive

playfulness and personal innovativeness) emerged as significant predictors that

together explained 44% of the variance in the target variable SMC usage. Second,

the predictor variable that emerged as the first child node, positioned at the top of

the tree (Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity), is referred to as the primary or best splitter

variable for this optimal solution, and is therefore, the strongest predictor of SMC

usage. The Cognitive Playfulness: Curiosity cut-off score of 27.5 partitioned the student

respondents into two groups: ‘low cognitive curiosity’ (≤27.5) and ‘high cognitive

curiosity’ (≥27.5). The ‘low cognitive curiosity’ group consisted of 348 students and

yielded a predicted mean SMC usage value of 7.2 (moderately low; SD=5.1). The

‘high cognitive curiosity’ group consisted of 133 students and yielded a predicted

mean SMC usage value of 10.0 (moderate; SD=6.5). The ‘low cognitive curiosity’

group was split further into two groups according to their learning goals orientation:

‘low learning goals’ (≤36.5) and ‘high learning goals’ (≥36.5). The ‘low learning

goals’ group consisted of 326 students and yielded a predicted mean SMC usage

value of 6.9 (very low; SD=4.8). The ‘high learning goals’ group consisted of 22

students and yielded a predicted mean SMC usage value of 11.5 (moderately high;

SD=6.6). Learning goals therefore, emerged as a variable that had mediating effects


on the relationship between cognitive curiosity and SMC usage. If a student was low

in cognitive curiosity but high in learning goals, then they would still engage with

the SMC to a comparatively high degree. On the other hand, students who reported

very low levels of SMC usage ranked low on both cognitive curiosity and learning

goals.

On the right side of the decision tree solution, the ‘high cognitive playfulness’ group

was further split further into two groups based on their levels of personal

innovativeness. The ‘low personal innovativeness’ group (≤19.5) consisted of 43

students and yielded a predicted mean SMC usage value of 8.5 (moderately low;

SD=5.5). The ‘high personal innovativeness’ group (≥19.5) consisted of 90 students

and yielded a predicted mean SMC usage value of 10.8 (moderate; SD=6.7).

Students with higher levels of personal innovativeness therefore, generally reported

higher levels of SMC usage. However, this relationship between personal

innovativeness and SMC usage is in turn mediated by two other variables: cognitive

creativity and performance goals, as evidenced through the subsequent splits on the

personal innovativeness node.

The ‘low personal innovativeness’ group was further partitioned into two groups

based on cognitive creativity. The ‘low cognitive creativity’ group (≤22.5) consisted

of 34 students and yielded a mean SMC usage value of 7.3 (moderately low;

SD=5.1). The ‘high cognitive creativity’ group (≥22.5) consisted of 9 students and

yielded a mean SMC usage value of 13.0 (high; SD=6.5.8). On the other hand, the

‘high personal innovativeness’ group was further partitioned into two groups based

on performance goals orientation. The ‘low performance goals’ group (≤38.5)


consisted of 83 students and yielded a mean SMC usage value of 11.2 (moderately

high; SD=6.6). The ‘high performance goals’ group (≥38.5) consisted of 7 students

and yielded a mean SMC usage value of 6.0 (very low; SD=6.1). These results

suggest that cognitive creativity mediates the relationship between personal

innovativeness and SMC usage in a positive way, whereas performance goals have a

converse effect. More importantly, when these results are interpreted in light of the

whole decision tree solution, the characteristics of the students who report the

highest, moderately high and lowest levels of SMC usage can be identified. The

highest users (mean=13.0, SD=5.8) ranked (i) high on cognitive curiosity, (ii) low on

personal innovativeness, but (iii) high on cognitive creativity. This emphasises the

importance of cognitive playfulness, in terms of both cognitive curiosity and

creativity, in predicting high SMC usage levels. Students who reported the second-

highest (moderately high) levels of SMC usage (mean=11.5, SD=6.6) ranked (i) low

on cognitive curiosity, but (ii) high on learning goals. This underscores the

significance of learning goals in predicting high levels of SMC usage among students.

Students who reported the lowest levels of SMC usage (mean=6.0, SD=6.1) ranked

(i) high on cognitive curiosity, (ii) high on personal innovativeness, but (iii) high on

performance goals. This calls attention to the fact that high levels of cognitive

curiosity and personal innovativeness notwithstanding, high performance goals may

undermine an individual student’s frequent and meaningful engagement with the

SMC in school.

A richer interpretation and re-description of the abovestated findings are now

provided in light of the broader conceptual issues framing this study. First, and

most importantly, at the individual level, cognitive playfulness (in terms of cognitive


curiosity) emerged as the primary splitter variable and strongest predictor of SMC

usage. In other words, students who exhibited higher levels of intellectual

inquisitiveness, the learning disposition that causes them to ‘explore and play with a

problem until it is solved’ (Glynn & Webster, 1993; Dunn, 2004), were most likely

to sustain their engagement with the SMC learning innovation, in comparison with

the general student population.

Second, students who exhibited higher levels of cognitive playfulness in terms of

both curiosity and creativity, relative to their peers, emerged as the learner category

that reported the highest levels of SMC usage (mean=13.0, SD=5.8). On the other

hand, students who reported low levels of engagement with the SMC (means=6.0;

7.2; 7.3; SD=6.1; 5.1; 5.1 respectively) exhibited relatively low levels of cognitive

playfulness (both cognitive curiosity and creativity) and learning goals orientation.

This finding underscores the importance of cognitive playfulness as a learning

disposition that motivates individuals to engage with and embrace novel situations

and affordances within their environment. It indicates that cognitive playfulness, as

symptomatic of an orientation towards learning rather than performance, may be a

decisive learning disposition for students in a high-performing school when seeking

to negotiate the tensions around ‘being diligent’ in the conventional academic sense

while at the same time engaging closely with innovative digital learning initiatives.

Two other notable trends emerge from the results of Decision Tree One, which call

attention to the value of being both learning-oriented and performance-focused.

Specifically, the profile of the lowest SMC user group (mean=6.0, SD=6.1) suggest

that despite possessing high levels of cognitive playfulness and personal


innovativeness, an individual who tends towards being highly performance-driven,

may value ‘performing’ in ways that overwhelm the former learning dispositions.

This in turn may act as a barrier to the individual’s capacity to experiment with new

ideas, innovations and learning opportunities. On the contrary, as indicated by the

profile results of the second-highest SMC user group (mean=11.5, SD=6.6),

individuals who may not be particularly dexterous or agile in the cognitive domain,

but who exhibit robust levels of learning goals orientation, may nonetheless be open

to experiencing new ways of living and learning by engaging with innovative

technologies available to them. Once again, these students may be able to ‘self-

fashion’ in ways that incorporate both academic achievement and new strategies for

learning.

In summary, the analysis indicates that students who are intrinsically motivated to

learn new things and acquire new skills are likely to appreciate the opportunities

presented by digital learning innovations such as the SMC to extend their range of

abilities and competencies. By contrast, individuals who are primarily focused on

‘getting the right answer’ and winning positive judgments of their competence while

avoiding ‘looking dumb’, are likely to resist experimenting with new learning

technologies that challenge the comfort zones of traditional pedagogical practices.

This resistance or unwillingness to take on new ways of learning and engaging

militates against the sort of robust learning disposition needed for 21st century

digital-age lifeworlds characterised by forces of rapid change, shifting and multiple

identities, and exponential technological advancements and growth.


The above discussion on the individual learning dispositions and the extent to

which they predict SMC usage behaviour models the analytic and interpretive

process of CART, and provides insights into the SMC adoption and diffusion

process within the senior school community. The next section presents a more

economical discussion that builds on this individual-level analysis. In order to gain

a more systemic understanding of the SMC adoption and diffusion process in the

formal senior schooling environment, two further decision trees are generated to

analyse the interactions that occur among the individual, social and technological

variables. These are reported and discussed in turn.

4.5 SRQ 2.2 and 2.3 − Social and Technological Predictor Variables

This interactional level of analysis addresses the sub-research questions of how and to

what extent the measured social and technological variables, namely perceived peer support, ease of

use and usefulness of the SMC, predict students’ engagement with the SMC. These

relationships are considered in light of the individual learning dispositions variables

discussed in the preceding section. Descriptive statistics for the social and

technological variables are first described, after which the results of two decision

tree models are presented and discussed.

4.5.1 Descriptive Statistics for Social and Technological Variables

There are three constructs associated with social and technological aspects of

innovation adoption and diffusion that are of interest to this study, namely Perceived

Peer Support (social variable), Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness (technological

variables). The descriptive statistics for the composite measure of these three

constructs and the dependent variable SMC Usage are presented in Table 4.8.


Table 4.8 Descriptive Statistics for Social and Technological Variables

Variables

(composite measure)

Theoretical

range

Min Max Median Mean Mean

Rank

(as % of

max.

value)

SD

Perceived peer support (PS) Min: 4

Max: 20 4 19 11.5 8.5 44.7% 3.7

Perceived ease of use (PEOU) Min: 5

Max: 25 5 25 15.0 16.1 64.2% 5.0

Perceived usefulness (PU) Min: 20

Max: 100 20 92 55.5 46.8 50.9% 16.7

Usage (USE) Min: 2

Max: 26 2 26 14.0 8.0 30.6% 5.7

It is evident from the descriptive statistics shown in Table 4.8 that the senior school

students perceived low levels of peer support associated with using the SMC, as

reflected in the low mean score, which only amounts to 45% of the maximum value.

This suggests that students were likely to have encountered the idea, or were of the

opinion, that using the SMC was associated with low levels of peer encouragement

and social acceptance. On the other hand, the senior school student community

generally considered the SMC to be relatively uncomplicated and easy to use, with

the mean rank scoring a moderately high 65% of the maximum value. The mediocre

mean value of the composite perceived usefulness variable highlights the fact that

the senior school students did not consider the SMC particularly useful for their

learning and schooling practices. The SMC usage target variable had been previously

discussed in Section 4.4.1. In order to gain richer insights into how these variables

interact with the individual learning dispositions variables to predict the senior

school students’ SMC usage behaviour, two decision trees were generated. The first

builds on Decision Tree One (individual learning dispositions) by including the

social variable Peer Support in the analysis, the results of which are presented in

Figure 4.10. The second decision tree, presented in Figure 4.11, builds on all prior


decision trees to examine the combination of the individual, social and technological

variables (Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness) that is significant in explaining

the SMC innovation and diffusion process.

4.5.2 Decision Tree 2: Individual Learning Dispositions, Peer Support and SMC Usage

Decision Tree Two documents the relationships between individual learning

dispositions, perceived peer support and the target variable SMC usage. The results

are presented in Figure 4.10.

Figure 4.10 Optimal Decision Tree Two: Individual Learning Dispositions & Peer Support (predictors) and SMC Usage (target)

Model R2 = 0.58

Where:

Mean SMC Usage ≤ 4.5 (very low)





≥36.5 ≤36.5 ≥14.5 ≤14.5

N = 249

Mean = 10.3

(SD=5.9)

CP-Curiosity ≥27.5 ≤27.5

N = 172

Mean = 9.2

(SD=5.4)

N = 77

Mean = 12.5

(SD=6.3)

Peer Support Learning goals

N = 14

Mean = 14.4

(SD=6.8)

N = 158

Mean = 8.8

(SD=5.0)

N = 10

Mean = 18.2

(SD=5.6)

N = 67

Mean = 11.7

(SD=5.9)

≥32.5 ≤32.5 ≥31.5 ≤31.5

N = 481

Mean = 8.0

(SD=5.6)

Peer Support ≥7.5 ≤7.5

N = 232

Mean = 5.5

(SD=4.1)


N = 123

Mean = 4.3

(SD=3.4)

N = 109

Mean = 6.9

(SD=4.4)

Learning goals Learning goals

N = 42

Mean = 8.4

(SD=4.8)

N = 67

Mean = 5.9

(SD=3.9)

N = 47

Mean = 5.4

(SD=4.1)

N = 76

Mean = 3.6

(SD=2.6)


By including the social variable Peer Support, Decision Tree Two allows the

identification of those individual learning dispositions that remain salient predictors

of usage behaviour when the social context is taken into consideration. The

inclusion of the peer support variable has significantly improved the explanatory

power of the model, as reflected in the increase in R2 value from 0.44 (Decision

Tree One) to 0.58. Indeed, the incorporation of this social variable in the predictive

model has improved the explanation of the variance in the target variable SMC

usage by approximately 30%. This underscores the important role that perceived

peer support plays in encouraging senior school students’ to engage with the SMC

learning innovation.

In line with the abovementioned point, peer support emerged as the primary split

variable, and was therefore, the most significant predictor of SMC usage. Students

who perceived a high level of peer support and ranked high on cognitive curiosity

reported the highest levels of SMC usage (mean=18.2, SD=5.6). This suggests that

students who scored high on intellectual inquisitiveness and dexterity, and at the

same time experienced peer encouragement and social acceptance in using with the

SMC, were likely to engage with the learning innovation to a large extent.

Notably, students who reported high levels of perceived peer support but ranked

low on cognitive curiosity still tended to engage with the SMC to a large extent if

they had a strong orientation to learning goals. This is reflected in the characteristics

of the second-highest user group (mean=14.4, SD=6.8), which consisted of

students who reported (i) high levels of peer encouragement and social acceptance


in using the SMC, (ii) low levels of intellectual inquisitiveness, but (iii) high levels of

learning goals orientation. This finding reinforces the results of Decision Tree One.

Against this background, it was not surprising to find that students who reported

the lowest levels of SMC usage also reported low levels of perceived peer support

and learning goals orientation. In other words, students who did not experience

positive levels of peer encouragement and social acceptance associated with using

the SMC, and were not intrinsically motivated to learn new skills by embracing

opportunities to extend their abilities, were least likely to engage with the SMC

learning innovation at school.

4.5.3 Decision Tree 3: Individual, Social and Technological Variables and SMC Usage

Decision Tree Three documents the relationships between individual learning

dispositions, peer support, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and the target

variable SMC usage. The results are presented in Figure 4.11.

The inclusion of the social and technological variables, namely, Peer Support, Perceived

Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness in the analysis, allowed for a more sophisticated

predictive model with a strong R2 value of 0.6112. This emphasises the importance

of examining not only individual factors but also contextual, technological and

institutional issues, in order to understand better the complexities at work in the

implementation and uptake of new technologies in any given context.

12 This is a relatively strong predictive model outcome in the field of innovation adoption and diffusion. In comparison, a landmark innovation adoption predictive model proposed by Chwelos et al. (2001) which considered the impact of a range of individual, technological and institutional factors on the adoption of Business-to-Business (B2B) Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) technology among commercial enterprises reported an R2 value of 0.32.


Figure 4.11 Optimal Decision Tree Three: Individual, Social and Technological Variables (predictors) and SMC Usage (target)

Model R2 = 0.61

Where:

Mean SMC Usage ≤ 4.5 (very low)





Specifically, the Decision Tree Three results presented in Figure 4.11 showed peer

support as the primary splitter variable and the most significant predictor of SMC

usage, while both technological factors perceived ease of use and perceived

usefulness also emerged as important predictors of the target variable. The

significance of peer support in predicting SMC usage buttresses the findings of

Decision Tree Two. In addition, the importance of perceived ease of use and

usefulness is consistent with prior empirical studies in technology adoption models

(TAM), in which both technological variables were consistently found to

≥62.5 ≤62.5 ≥29.5 ≤29.5

Perceived Ease of Use ≥18.5 ≤18.5

N = 159

Mean = 8.5

(SD=5.6)

N = 90

Mean = 13.3

(SD=5.1)

Learning goals Perceived Usefulness

N = 19

Mean = 11.9

(SD=4.7)

N = 140

Mean = 8.1

(SD=5.6)

N = 62

Mean = 14.6

(SD=4.9)

N = 28

Mean = 10.6

(SD=4.4)

N = 481

Mean = 8.0

(SD=5.6)


N = 249

Mean = 10.3

(SD=5.9)

≥20.5 ≤20.5

N = 232

Mean = 5.5

(SD=4.1)

Perceived Ease of Use ≤15.5

N = 144

Mean = 4.3

(SD=2.9)


N = 75

Mean = 5.1

(SD=3.1)

N = 69

Mean = 3.3

(SD=2.3)

≥59.0 ≤59.0

≥15.5

N = 88

Mean = 7.5

(SD=5.0)


N = 12

Mean = 13.0

(SD=5.6)

N = 76

Mean = 6.7

(SD=4.3)


significantly predict usage intentions and behaviours (see for example Davis, 1989;

Ngai et al., 2007; Rogers, 1995; Turvey, 2006; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). The

results of Decision Tree Three presented above, however, extend the TAM model

by providing empirical evidence demonstrating the vital role that peer support plays

in predicting users’ engagement with a new innovation, in this case the SMC.

Correspondingly, students who (i) perceive low levels of peer support in using the

SMC, (ii) find the SMC to be difficult to use, and (iii) consider it to be lacking in

usefulness or relevance for their learning and schooling practice, reported the lowest

levels of SMC usage (mean=3.3, SD=2.3). This indicates that students who

considered the SMC as a socially marginalised or irrelevant space in school were

unlikely to engage with it whether or not they were digital enthusiasts outside the

school context.

Two other insights emerge from the results of Decision Tree Three. First, students

who perceived low levels of peer support but considered the SMC easy to use and

useful for their learning and schooling practice may still engage with the SMC to a

reasonably large extent (mean=13.0, SD=5.6 or the second-highest user group).

Second, and more importantly, students who reported the highest levels of SMC

usage (mean=14.6, SD=4.9) displayed the following characteristics: (i) they

experienced high levels of peer support and social acceptance in using the SMC, (ii)

they perceived a low level of complexity associated with accessing and using the

SMC, and (iii) they exhibited greater tendencies towards being learning-oriented

rather than merely performance-oriented. In other words, students who engaged

with the SMC most frequently and most comprehensively (in terms of learning

features) experienced high levels of peer support and encouragement in using the


SMC, considered the SMC was easy to use, and at the same time, exhibited a strong

orientation towards learning by relishing new opportunities to master new skills and

extend their competencies. Again, this finding reinforces the value of students being

learning-oriented rather than merely performance-focused, because such a learning

disposition allows them to negotiate more effectively the affordances of engaging

with innovative technologies available to them, despite the pull of a traditional

schooling culture that privileges academic achievement and measures diligence

primarily in terms of academic success.

4.6 Summary of Key Findings

The key findings of the quantitative investigation of student engagement with the

SMC can be summarised as follows. First, an evaluation of students’ perceptions

and usage of the SMC approximately ten months after its implementation indicated

widespread ambivalence on the part of the senior school student community

towards the SMC in terms of its relevance for their learning and schooling practice.

This was reflected in the low usage levels of the SMC, as well as unconvincing levels

of peer support and perceived usefulness of the SMC. The mean levels of peer

support experienced by students in using the SMC, as well as their perceptions of

the usefulness of the SMC were both well below average. In terms of usage, a

noteworthy 24% of the senior school students reported that they have not accessed

and did not use the SMC. By contrast, only 1% of senior school students reported

that they accessed and used all seven SMC learning features more than once a week.

The average student user is likely to have accessed the SMC only once a term and

on those occasions, engaged with only about two to three of seven SMC learning

features.


Second, peer support emerged as the most salient predictor of students’ decisions to

engage with the SMC. This is evidenced by the results of a comprehensive decision

tree model that considered all the measured individual, technological and social

variables in predicting SMC usage behaviour. In other words, peer encouragement

and social acceptance play a vital role in determining students’ decisions to engage

with and/or move away from new learning innovations such as the SMC in their

schooling practice. Other significant determinants of SMC usage include the

technological factors perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, as well as the

individual dispositions of cognitive playfulness (particularly cognitive curiosity) and

learning goals-orientation (as distinct from performance goals orientation, Dweck,

2000).

Third, the findings indicate that students who reported the highest levels of SMC

usage experienced high levels of peer support in using the learning innovation,

found it easy to use, and exhibited a strong orientation towards learning rather than

being merely performance-focused. By contrast, students who reported the lowest

levels of SMC usage reported a lack of peer support for using the learning

innovation, found it relatively complex to use, considered it lacking in usefulness for

their learning and schooling purposes, and exhibited strong orientations towards

performance rather than learning. It is therefore possible to infer from these

findings that students who are more focused on performance rather than learning

were less likely to be mobilised to engage beyond what seemed to be necessary to

their academic pursuits, and so were not particularly motivated by opportunities to

learn new skills or enhance their repertoire of competencies, especially if these were

not directly related to achieving better academic grades.


In summary, this chapter has documented the novel use of a relatively modern yet

powerful technique particularly suited to the predictive modelling of nonlinear and

complex relationships among multiple variables, to investigate students’ evaluations

of and engagement with the SMC innovation. This quantitative investigation has

provided some notable insights into the complexities of digital technology adoption

and innovation diffusion in schools that go beyond well-rehearsed explanations of

teacher and/or school deficiencies. Despite the fact that the school was well-

resourced technologically and financially, and the school leaders endorsed the

learning initiative, the quantitative findings indicate that the SMC learning

innovation was not utilised to a large extent by the senior school students. In fact,

the learning innovation was largely sidelined by students as an activity not worth

pursuing in school. This trend in turn appeared to be largely associated with the

pitiable levels of peer support experienced by students in engaging with the learning

innovation, and the general perception that it lacked usefulness for their schooling

practices.

In the subsequent explanatory Phase Two of this study, these observed trends and

interactions among the measured individual, social and technological levels and

students’ engagement with the SMC were further examined to provide in-depth

insights into the ways these abstract numeric narratives are enacted in the social

realities and interactions of the students’ schooling practice. The next chapter

provides an account of this further examination.

Cha p te r F i ve : Qualitative Phase – Students’ Accounts of Adoption Behaviour Pag e | 165

CHAPTER FIVE

QUALITATIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

STUDENTS’ ACCOUNTS OF ADOPTION BEHAVIOUR

To investigate practices and behaviours at the intersection of formal schooling

and digital online learning is a demanding task, not only because of the multiple

contexts, attitudes and behaviours, but also because of the complexity of the

social identities being formed and re-formed in a relatively short timeframe. This

chapter augments the quantitative investigation and analysis discussed in the

previous chapter by focusing on gaining deeper insights into the different ways

that the senior school students responded to and made sense of the attempted

integration of the SMC innovation within their existing schooling context. By

doing so, this chapter addresses specific research question three (SRQ-3): How do

students describe, explain and account for the Web 2.0 learning initiative, its prospects and

consequences for their schooling experience?

The chapter begins by revisiting the key findings of the preceding quantitative

phase and highlighting some significant tensions around SMC engagement and

conventional schooling practice that warrant closer examination. The analytical

framework and method are then outlined, followed by a detailed discussion of

the qualitative analysis and findings.


5.1 Revisiting key findings of the quantitative phase

To revise, the specific context of the research is a long-established, well-

resourced independent senior school that is committed to providing its students

with a comprehensive learning environment that focuses on both academic

excellence as well as moral and personal growth. The key findings of the

quantitative investigation indicate that students in the senior school community

experience real and palpable tensions in engaging with the SMC innovation

within the context of their mainstream social and cultural schooling practices.

The first tension is related to the marked disparity in the levels of popularity and

social endorsement for contemporary peer-to-peer digital engagement within and

beyond the school. That is, the use of social networking technologies may be

highly popular among the senior school students in their personal spaces

(outside of school), but the use of such technologies in school seem far from

being socially mandated. The second tension pertains to the ways in which

students, under constant pressure to perform well in high-stakes tests, make

sense of their choices to engage or otherwise with school-sanctioned digitally

enhanced learning opportunities. These findings emerged from the descriptive

analysis and predictive modelling of the numeric questionnaire data.

Specifically, the descriptive analysis of numeric data indicated an unexpectedly

ambivalent response on the part of the senior school student community

towards the SMC innovation. At the outset, the low level of peer support is

indicative of the general lack of peer encouragement and social acceptance

experienced by the students with regard to using the SMC. Results also


suggested that students were generally unenthusiastic about the benefits of the

SMC and perceived it as lacking in usefulness for their schooling practice.

Following this, the predictive modelling conducted on the numeric dataset

established both peer support and perceived usefulness as salient predictors of

SMC adoption behaviour. Put simply, students who perceive a high level of

support from peers in using the SMC, and evaluated the SMC as a useful tool for

their learning and schooling purposes were significantly more likely to use the

SMC to a large extent, as compared to the rest of the senior student community.

In light of the low levels of peer support and perceived usefulness then, it is not

surprising to find that reported levels of SMC usage by the senior school

students were low, with the average student user accessing the learning

innovation only once a term. Furthermore, when asked whether having the SMC

in school was a good idea, the senior school student community’s aggregated

response indicated a less than sanguine attitude to the SMC.

These findings may seem counter-intuitive in light of all that is documented in

extant literature of ‘Net-Gen’, more recently referred to as Generation ‘C’, and

their preferred modes of social engagement, inquiry and learning (e.g. Brown,

2006; Bruns et al., 2007; Downes, 2004; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky,

2001, 2006). On the other hand, recent research by Albright and others (2006)

and Warschauer (2007), have indicated that students, especially high-performing

ones, tend to be acculturated into a set of schooling norms that implicitly and

explicitly privilege academic success. These researchers argue that this socialised

‘performance-oriented’ schooling disposition in turn militates against any serious


engagement with activities, digital or otherwise, which are not explicitly related

to high academic performance.

In a similar vein, the quantitative results of this study suggest that contemporary

social networking digital technologies such as the SMC, which are popular

among youths beyond school, may not necessarily be seen by these same young

people as relevant, useful or worth engaging with in school. In fact, these same

digital tools that are essential to their lives outside of school may, perhaps not so

paradoxically, be perceived as distractions from ‘in-school’ activity, inappropriate

to the conventional expectations and/or obligations of ‘normal’ or ‘mainstream’

student practice. These senior school students, under constant pressure within

the academically-competitive schooling environment to perform well in high-

stakes assessments, make context-specific decisions about the extent to which

they take up school-sanctioned ICT-enhanced learning opportunities―decisions

that are made more complex and therefore, harder to negotiate, when these

digital learning opportunities do not explicitly address academic performance.

This diligent-or-digital conundrum experienced by these students is potentially

exacerbated by the high value that the case study school places on both

traditional academic achievement and learning through digital innovation. It is a

conundrum that is being noted in recent discussions of young people’s

experience of schooling as “divide[d]… between academic and creative”

(Roberts, 2008, p. 31). This phenomenon is intensified “because of the pressures

on schools to achieve top academic results” (Asthana, 2008, p. 7). While the

students’ ambivalence to the learning opportunities afforded by the digital


environment of the SMC initiative may be seen by its champions as

disappointing―even inexplicable―in light of recent research on adolescent

preferences in digital times (Bruns et al., 2007; Prensky, 2006; McWilliam, 2008;

Tapscott, 2009), the students’ ambivalence may well be a very reasonable (and

reasoned) response to a problematic set of contradictory options. It could be

symptomatic of just how well these students are ‘schooled’ in knowing what

their priorities need to be when inside the institutional gates. While young

people are constantly monitoring―influencing and being influenced by―the

attitudes and behaviour of their peers, the fact that the very mode of social

engagement that counts as ‘normal’ (or in their colloquial jargon ‘cool’) everyday

practice beyond the institutional walls is judged to be less socially acceptable in-

school warrants further investigation. Moreover, in light of increasingly urgent

calls for the development of flexibility, creativity and digital literacies as essential

skills for the new creative economy (Howkins, 2002; McWilliam, 2008), the fact

that an overwhelming proportion of student participants in the study appear to

make the choice of resisting contemporary digital engagement in favour of

traditional academic achievement is a trend that needs to be examined in greater

depth.

Of equal significance is the fact that the predictive modelling results point to a

small minority of students that seem dispositionally inclined to negotiate across

this diligent/digital identity conundrum. These are students who report a

relatively high level of SMC usage contrary to the generally low usage trend, and

comprise approximately 15% of the senior school student community. This is an

important finding given that this sort of proactive negotiation (Bauman, 2000)


across diligent and digital student identities appears to be more complex than the

extant literature on individual attributes and technology adoption in schools may

suggest. Taken together, these quantitative findings point to the need to delve

more deeply into student accounts of why and how they come to hold particular

viewpoints and/or make particular choices associated with the SMC innovation.

Specifically, the analysis that follows is designed to serve two key purposes

commonly cited for undertaking a mixed-method study, namely,

complementarity and initiation (Greene, 2008; Greene et al., 1989). First, the

qualitative investigation of students’ textual accounts complements the more

abstract narratives derived from the variables examined in the quantitative

analysis by way of providing concrete instances of how these abstractions get

enacted in various ‘real situations’. Second, the qualitative data may initiate

further understandings or explanations not previously considered, by drawing

attention to consistencies and/or discrepancies between the qualitative and

quantitative data. These initiations may take several forms, such as (i) potential

qualifications to and around the generality of the narratives drawn from

questionnaire results, and (ii) the identification of antecedent influences

impacting on the students’ perceptions and evaluation of the SMC innovation as

measured in the questionnaire. These points of convergence and/or divergence

in both corpuses of data in turn provide an additional layer of texture closer to

the ‘experienced realities’ of these young people in their daily schooling practices.

Put simply, the variety of opinions and reactions that emerge from the students’

accounts of the SMC innovation process may bring to bear some complementary


and fresh perspectives on the key tensions drawn from the quantitative

investigation that warrant further explication.

In summary, this chapter documents, analyses and discusses how students make

sense of the key tensions discussed earlier, in terms of the accounts and

explanations they provide of their experiences associated with the SMC

innovation adoption and diffusion process. The interest here is to explicate the

shared cultural logic and reasoning practices that students draw on and use in

their talk to reflect on and reconstruct the social order of schooling, that is, what

they do in school and how they do it while they are at school. The particular

experiences under scrutiny are the ways in which the students, as members of

the school community, draw on their socio-cultural and institutional identities to

build accounts that describe and substantiate particular opinions, choices and

actions related to their evaluation and use of the SMC.

5.2 Shifting the analytic focus from individuality to sociality

The quantitative phase of this study focused on the individual attitudes,

dispositions & behaviours of student participants, and identified tensions that

they appear to negotiate with varying degrees of success around their learning

and academic performance. In order for the research to gain deeper insights into

how students in the research setting experience, negotiate and account for the

complexities of technology-based innovation and change in their schooling

practices, it is necessary to move the focus of the analysis from individual

attributes to social identity formations, that is, how individual students shape

and are shaped by their social/cultural context of formal schooling. An analytical


framework that is particularly well-suited to this qualititative phase of the study

is Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA). The following section elaborates

on this analytic framework as it applies to this study.

5.2.1 MCA as analytic framework

MCA originated from Harvey Sacks’ (1972) ethnomethodological work on

description and recognisability in conversation. This qualitative analytic method

has since been applied in rich and diverse ways by a growing body of social

scientists (e.g., Baker, 1997; Butler & Weatherall, 2006; Eglin & Hester, 2003; K.

Freebody, 2008; P. Freebody, 2003; Housley & Fitzgerald, 2002; Jayyusi, 1984;

McHoul & Watson, 1984; Schegloff, 1992, 2007; Vallis, 2001; Watson, 1997).

This section provides a brief description of MCA and its key premises, concepts

and features, as they apply to this study. Extended treatments of

ethnomethodology and membership categorisations are available in the works of

Sacks (1972, 1979, 1992), Jayyusi (1984), Eglin and Hester (2003), Hester and

Eglin (1997), Housley and Fitzgerald (2002), and Butler (2008).

MCA takes as its starting point the fact that interviews are neither “authentic

gazes into the soul of another” nor “dialogic revelation of selves” (Atkinson and

Silverman, 1997, p. 305). Rather, interviews make available for analysis how

individuals or groups collectively produce, construct and generate accounts of

their social reality, in turn based around the use of social categories and their

recognisable descriptors (Baker, 1997; P. Freebody, 2003). MCA focuses on the

use of these categorisations in talk as a way of gaining analytic insight into how


speakers understand, make sense of and engage as members of their social world

(Sacks, 1972).

In Sacks’ (1972) terms, members of society interact in ways that are methodical,

mutually constitutive and socially recognisable. This is commonly displayed

through members’ reciprocal and systematic use of social categories and their

associated implications (Housley & Fitzgerald, 2002). It has been observed that

people commonly understand each other and their world through grouping and

identifying themselves and others into culturally defined types, and routinely

assume a shared understanding of those types when interacting with others

(Austin & Fitzgerald, 2007; Baker, 1997; Eglin & Hester, 1992; Sacks, 1972, 1992;

Watson, 1997). These categorisations typically relate to people, but may also

extend to non-personal categories, such as things, places, ideas, contexts,

structures and the like (Austin & Fitzgerald, 2007; Housley & Fitzgerald, 2002;

McHoul & Watson, 1984).

A person can be, at once, referred to or classified in multiple ways. For example,

one could, at any given point in time, be a male, bachelor, son, middle-aged,

Anglo-Saxon, alcoholic, lawyer; or a female, mother, widow, professor,

Sagittarian, musician, immigrant. In any given interactional setting, participants

may choose to invoke any one particular category out of the many available

categories, or call upon any combination of these categories to describe

themselves and others in accomplishing the interactional purposes at hand. To

illustrate the point further, take for instance the latter case of the Female in the

context of delivering a keynote address at an academic conference. In this


situation, following the ‘economy rule’ developed by Sacks (1972), which states

that the application of one category is usually sufficient in making a description,

the occupational category of Professor is likely to be a pertinent and sufficient

identity frame for the speaker and her audience as they interact in that context.

Other available categories such as Mother, Widow, Immigrant, and/or Sagittarian are

unlikely to be relevant or necessary to the task at hand, unless her talk

specifically revolves around topical issues related to these categories. MCA

therefore, holds that the categorisation choices made by members in their talk

are rationally conceived and skilfully enacted. In other words, a key premise of

MCA is that members of a culture are “artful, reasoned and sophisticated

cultural practitioners” (P. Freebody, 2003, p. 169) who have commonsense or

vernacular understandings of social structures and norms relevant to their social

world (Baker, 1997). These in turn comprise shared cultural knowledge that

become available to members as resources for reasoning and interaction.

Membership categorisation is one expression of this shared cultural knowledge

and resource for collective sense-making and interaction in a range of contexts,

including interviews of the sort conducted in this study.

As an analytic framework, MCA comprises a set of procedures that provides for

the documentation and analysis of how social identities, relationships and

institutions are produced and organised (Baker, 1997). Specifically, these

analytical procedures examine the ways in which “speakers draw on and

reconstruct common cultural sense in specific situations” (P. Freebody, 2003, p.

156), through their use of culturally-recognisable categorisations and associated

descriptions in interactions. Central to this work is how interview participants


make relevant in their talk particular membership categories to which they

and/or those that are being discussed belong. This categorisation work can be

accomplished either explicitly or inferentially through speakers’ descriptions in

their talk. By focusing on the way speakers display their social and cultural

knowledge within interaction, MCA investigates the way members’

‘commonsense’ is locally organised in a complex yet methodical fashion around

membership categories, the grouping of these categories into collections of

categories through Membership Categorisation Devices (MCDs), and the mapping of

culturally-recognisable category-bound attributes and activities (or predicates) to these

categories. These three key concepts are discussed in turn.

Membership categories are classifications of people (as well as things, ideas, and so

on) that comprise a number of culturally-recognisable, standard and expected

predicates and activities (otherwise known as attributions) that can be

commonsensically attributed to these categories (Sacks, 1972, 1992; P. Freebody,

2003; Housley & Fitzgerald, 2002; Silverman, 2006). According to Eglin and

Hester (1992), membership categories frequently used by speakers include those

that are (i) activity/action-consequent (e.g., a Bully is understood as such for

engaging in activities that are cruel to others, particularly those who are weaker

or have less power), (ii) event-consequent (e.g., a School Dropout is understood as

such as a consequence of the event of quitting school before completion of the

stipulated course), and (iii) ability/competency-based categories (e.g., a Gifted and

Talented Student is understood as such for exhibiting intellectual abilities

significantly higher than the average; an ‘At-Risk’ Student is understood as such


for lacking in the necessary competencies to meet the average educational

requirements at school13).

Membership categories are linked in interaction into larger collections, known as

membership categorisation devices (MCD). An MCD consists of two features (Hester

& Eglin, 1997; Schegloff, 2007). First, an MCD refers to a larger collection (or

collections) of membership categories that can be used and heard

commonsensically as ‘going together’ to the exclusion of others. For instance,

the MCD: University may include membership categories such as Undergraduate

Student, Doctoral Candidate, Lecturer, Professor, Dean, Vice-Chancellor, and Registrar,

but excludes Colonel, General, Lieutenant, Private, Quartermaster, Pilot, Sniper (MCD:

Military). Second, this larger collection/s of categories may be applied to some

population (containing at least one member) through the use of some rules of

application 14 for the pairing of members within the population and the

categorisation device (Psathas, 1999; Sacks, 1972, 1992). This pairing of

conventionally-collected categories within an MCD, otherwise known as

Standardised Relational Pairs (SRPs), such as Undergraduate Student–Lecturer;

Doctoral Student–Research Supervisor, Doctor–Patient, is often used and heard by

13 Eglin and Hester (1992) go on to highlight that participants in any given interactional context tend to invoke relevant categories through the following common procedures in talk: (i) perception (either ‘natural’ such as age or gender, or ‘emblematic’ such as occupation); (ii) behaviour; (iii) first person avowal; (iv) third person declaration; and (v) credential presentation. 14 See Sacks (1979, 1992), Eglin and Hester (2003), Jayyusi (1984), Housley and Fitzgerald (2002), and Schegloff (2007) for extended discussions on rules of application. In brief terms, Sacks’ (1972, 1992) formalised two rules of application, namely the economy rule and the consistency rule. The economy rule holds that one membership category is “referentially adequate” for describing a member of some population, even though more may apply (Sacks, 1992, p. 246; Schegloff, 2007; Psathas, 1999). The consistency rule holds that “when two or more categories are used to describe two or more members and it is possible to hear those categories as belonging to the same MCD, then we hear them that way” (Ruane & Ramcharan, 2006, p. 313; Sacks, 1972). A well-known illustration of these rules used by Sacks (1972) is the statement “The baby cried, the mommy picked it up”. The categories ‘baby’ and ‘mommy’ tend to be heard as members belonging to the same family (MCD: Family), even though no further information is provided in relation to either the child or mother, who could very well be strangers.


interactional participants as bearing particular institutional, social and moral

implications for the social reality being discussed and accounted for. These

implications stem from the fact that categories and devices are inference-rich

(Sacks, 1972). That is, membership categories and their collections appeal to and

are shaped by commonplace cultural knowledge shared by ordinary members of

a given society. These often include reciprocal rights and obligations associated

with specific categories evoked in the talk then-and-there. These expected

institutional, social and moral norms can in turn be understood in terms of

category-bound predicates.

Category-bound predicates refer to the culturally-recognisable attributes and activities

that are commonsensically associated with specific membership categories.

These predicates or attributions may include personality traits, characteristics,

motives, expectations, rights, obligations, needs, preferences, competencies and

possible actions, among others. For instance, some category-bound predicates

associated with the category Gifted Student could be strong academic performance,

learns fast with good memory, intensely curious but easily bored, motivated by

challenging problems, a highly-developed sense of humour in relation to

chronological age, potential social isolation and behavioural problems, and so

on15. As P. Freebody (2003) stressed, these attributions may not necessarily be

‘correct’ in some empirical sense, but rather, are normative attributions assigned

15 Part of the descriptive work produced by members (or interactional participants) could involve disrupting and/or resisting these category-bound attributions, through the use of pre-emptive “modifiers” (Sacks, 1992, p. 45) such as the terms ‘but’, ‘however’, ‘except’. For example, ‘he’s a geek but is popular’ indicates that although the individual being discussed is geeky, he does not align fully with the attributions generally allocated to the categorisation Geek, such as being generally introverted, unpopular and socially-challenged. Speakers may also use modifiers to indicate that they may be part of a group but do not identify or feel a sense of belonging to that group, for instance, ‘I am in the rugby team but I joined only because the school requires me to participate in sports’.


by members in their interaction as they describe and make sense of the topical

issue or social phenomenon at hand.

These categorisations, collections of categories and category-bound predicates

serve as building blocks for the explanations afforded by participants of the

topic at hand. Together they form reasoning practices, that is, ways of making

the talk reasonable, not necessarily logical or correct in some abstract sense, but

‘having reason’ then and there, at that point in the interview, to produce orderly

sensible accounts of everyday experience (P. Freebody, 2003). More importantly,

these explanations and reasoning practices bear cause-effect relationships and

consequences for the local context. That is, the descriptive work of selecting

categories and attributes, as accomplished by participants, are actions that not

only have empirical consequences, but also have consequences for the expected

moral order and relations among the participants as they produce accounts of

the topic at hand (Jayyusi, 1991; P. Freebody, 2003). In this way, categorising an

individual necessarily invokes a commonsensical categorial framework through

which perceptions, judgments and consequences can flow. This is summed up in

the following quote by Sacks (1979, p. 13):

any person who is a case of a category is seen as a member of the

category, what’s known about the category is known about them, and the

fate of each is bound up in the fate of the other, so that one regularly has

systems of social control built up around these categories which are

internally enforced by the members because if a member does something

like rape a white woman, commit economic fraud, race on the street, etc.,


then that thing will be seen as what a member of some applicable

category does, not what some named person did. And the rest of them

will have to pay for it.

5.2.2 Applying MCA to the research problem

In order to apply these set of concepts to the problem of how students in the

research setting experience, negotiate and account for the complexities of

technology-based innovation and change in their schooling practices, it is

necessary to interrogate textual data produced in authentic contexts by the

students themselves. Using MCA, the analysis that follows focuses on how

students articulated their ‘in-school’ social world in relation to the SMC. In other

words, the analysis in this qualitative phase of the study aims to make explicit the

range and significance of relevant membership category types that appear in

student accounts of their rationales for their various degrees of engagement with

the SMC.

Because MCA is a tool for unpacking social identities as they are being played

out ‘in the real’, the method for collecting relevant data must be aligned with this

purpose. Clearly, self-report questionnaires does not offer the sort of rich

dialogic text to which MCA can be meaningfully applied. It is for this reason that

focus groups were used to generate the textual data for closer analysis of the

research problem. The dynamics of focus groups allow for more than individual

interviews or questionnaires because the texts that are produced are intended to

be as meaningful for peer-to-peer participation as they are for the researcher:

Focus groups, when properly conducted, produce ‘social texts’. Accordingly, on


the collective grounds presented above, focus groups emerge as a highly

appropriate method of choice for the purposes of this qualitative inquiry phase.

5.2.3 Focus groups as method

A focus group is commonly defined as a group of interacting individuals having

some common interest or characteristics, brought together by a moderator (or

facilitator), who uses the group and its interaction as a method of collecting

textual data on and gaining insights into a specific or focussed issue of interest

(Barbour, 2007; Marczak & Sewell, 2006). This method originated in the 1950s

after the second World War to evaluate audience response to radio programs

(Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990), and have since been employed by social scientists

as a useful research tool for understanding how or why people hold particular

beliefs about an issue, program or phenomenon of interest (Marczak & Sewell,

2006).

In recent years, a growing number of researchers agree that focus groups can be

usefully employed in mixed-methods research to illuminate or clarify results

from previous quantitative phases (Barbour, 2007; Wilmot & Ratcliffe, 2002). In

other words, focus groups have the potential to extend, or according to Barbour

(2007, p. 45), “transform [numeric] results into ‘findings’ by furnishing

explanations, particularly with regard to surprising or anomalous associations

identified in the first part of the study”. Importantly, focus groups provide

insights into public discourses (Kitzinger, 1994). In this regard, the ‘public’

accounts offered by participants in focus group discussions may well be different

from ‘private’ accounts made available in one-on-one interviews (Smithson,


2000). Consequently, the use of focus groups as method is likely to be

inappropriate when the research is concerned with eliciting individuals’

narratives, accessing and measuring individuals’ attitudes for statistical

generalisations to the larger population. Barbour (2007) noted that while

marketing research may employ focus groups to obtain inferences regarding the

perceptions or preferences of the wider consumer masses, this is not generally

the preferred outcome in social science research. Instead, within the social

sciences, focus groups are particularly relevant and useful when the research

concern is to investigate and elucidate the process of analytic decisions that take

place during the talk of focus group participants, where shared cultural

understandings and attitudes are expressed, negotiated and “performed” rather

than considered as being “pre-formed” (Puchta & Potter, 2004, p. 27).

Furthermore, Barbour (2007) explained that focus group as method is

particularly well-suited to in-depth explorations of decision-making processes of

institutional or cultural groups of people, where negotiations of competing

priorities and qualifications of views in light of situational and circumstantial

factors are of import to the inquiry at hand. In this regard, focus groups arguably

emerge as the method of choice when it is of central interest to understand

group norms, group meanings and group processes (Bloor et al., 2001), as is the

case in this inquiry.

5.2.3.1 Size and sampling

In relation to size and sampling, a focus group typically comprises about seven

to ten participants who are purposively selected (Kuzel, 1992) because they

exhibit certain characteristics or belong to a particular identifiable collection of


people, for instance, teachers, students, parents, adolescents, and so on, that are

relevant to the inquiry at hand. In deciding the composition of each focus group,

however, due consideration should be given to the selection of individual

participants that reflect diversity within the group and/or the population under

study (Kuzel, 1992; Mays & Pope, 1995).

In contrast to quantitative sampling in which the chief aim is often to recruit a

representative sample, such qualitative sampling seeks to capitalise on any

identified ‘outliers’ and aims to incorporate, rather than dismiss, these

individuals or subgroups (Barbour, 2007). As for the recommended number of

participants to recruit in focus groups, Barbour (2007) points to distinctions

across different fields of research. For instance, marketing research tends to

subscribe to an ideal size of 10-12 participants, contingent on the skill of the

facilitator and also the desired levels of depth and complexity in the discussions.

On the other hand, in social science research where the general interest lies in

exploring in depth participants’ accounts, sense-making and the ways in which

beliefs and explanations are socially constructed, a minimum of three to a

maximum of ten participants is recommended (Barbour, 2007; Bloor et al., 2001;

Kitzinger & Barbour, 1999; Seymour, Bellamy, Gott, Ahmedzai & Clark, 2002).

In terms of the number of focus groups to hold, Barbour (2007, p. 59) stressed

that “there is no magic number and more is not necessarily better”, but rather,

the choice is contingent on the research topic, as well as the desired comparisons

across groups, types of data to be generated and forms of analysis to be carried

out, among others.


In line with these suggestions, a total of six focus groups were conducted for the

purposes of this qualitative phase. Each focus group was approximately 60 to 90

minutes in length, and comprised between eight to ten student participants each.

Given that the SMC learning initiative was designed for the whole senior school

community, students from all three senior grades (i.e., Years 10, 11 and 12) were

recruited to participate in the discussions and two focus groups were conducted

for each senior grade.

Further to the recommended number of participants for each focus group, the

decision to hold two focus groups per year level was made for the following

reasons. First, given the logistical complexities of school timetabling, it was

considered pragmatically viable for the researcher and staff to organise, and

more importantly for the students to participate in year-level specific focus

groups. Of secondary concern was the potential opportunity to make

comparisons across year levels and draw out any similarities and/or

dissimilarities in terms of the academic and social pressures, expectations and

negotiations that these students may experience as they progress towards higher

grades and therefore, closer to high-stakes standardised assessments (in this

instance, the Queensland Core Skills Test in Year 12 that largely determines

students’ access to tertiary educational pathways), and how these may

differentially impact on their opinions and choices related to the SMC.

Within each focus group, student participants were selected with the intention of

allowing for some level of diversity and potential differences of opinion and

experience associated with the evaluation and use of the SMC in school.


Drawing on the findings from the quantitative phase of the study, focus group

participants were chosen collaboratively by the researcher and the lead teacher in

a manner that sought to incorporate students with differing levels of SMC usage

(e.g., non-users, moderate users, high-users) and potentially diverse range of

learning dispositions, interests, academic and schooling achievement orientations.

In this way, the focus groups conformed to the recommendation that they

“should be homogeneous in terms of background but not attitudes” (Morgan,

1988; cited in Barbour, 2007, p. 59), in that the participants share particular

homogeneous background characteristics (i.e., year levels and year-level specific

social and cultural norms and expectations), but are likely to offer some level of

heterogeneity in terms of their attitudinal beliefs, perceptions, intentions and

behaviour associated with the SMC innovation in school. As Barbour (2007)

pointed out, such variation in participants is useful in terms of generating

discussion for documenting reasoning practices concerned with opinions, and

can allow both the participants and the researcher to clarify their own and others’

perspectives, making for rich data and potentially enriched understandings.

5.2.3.2 Practicalities and protocols

In the conduct of focus groups, researchers that specialise in focus groups (e.g.,

Barbour, 2007; Krueger & Casey, 2000; Marczak & Sewell, 2006) highlight

several important guidelines regarding practicalities and protocols involved.

These concern moderators’ skills in creating environments constructive to rich

discussions, managing difficult situations, developing and using interview

protocols (more commonly referred to in focus groups as topic guides), as well

as ethical and logistical issues including the recording and transcribing of data.


While there are differences in literature about what constitutes ‘best practices’ in

conducting effective focus groups, there is general agreement that a skilful

moderator (or facilitator) is one that has the ability to foster a permissive and

comfortable environment that encourages participants to present and discuss

diverse opinions and viewpoints, without feeling any particular pressure to reach

consensus, vote or align to one particular dominant viewpoint (Krueger & Casey,

2000; Marczak & Sewell, 2006). Some useful guidelines include (i) adequate

preparation, (ii) appropriate management of difficult situations that many

involve excessively dominant and opinionated individuals, and

disproportionately emotive or unconstructive “slanging matches”, as well as (iii)

a readiness to identify and capitalise on “distinctions, qualifications and tensions

that have analytic promise” as and when they occur (Barbour, 2007, p. 80).

While these skills are expectedly developed over time, Bloor and others (2001)

provided a useful reminder that the key role of the moderator is to facilitate the

group discussions rather than to control it. This includes allowing sufficient time

for participants to formulate their responses, and therefore tolerating silence

where necessary and avoiding the rush to use prompts which, although useful

for stimulating discussion and clarification, may also prematurely foreclose an

important line of discussion (Barbour et al., 2000).

The development and use of an appropriate topic guide or interview protocol

may also have significant bearing on the quality of the focus group discussion.

Barbour (2007) recommended the use of a semi-structured topic guide that

consists of a few targeted brief questions and well-chosen stimulus materials,

and also avoids questions that are too individually focussed and too detailed


such that participants may feel too embarrassed to respond. Stimulus materials

may include hypothesised scenarios, physical artefacts such as photographs,

vignettes and media resources that are culturally accessible and relevant to the

topic of inquiry (Crossley, 2003; Umana-Taylor & Bamaca, 2004). These have

been found to be particularly useful in focusing group participants to the topical

interest at hand and generating impassioned discussions and debates that go

beyond mere descriptions of individual narratives to provide a window into

processes of collective sense-making and negotiations of meaning and identities

that may otherwise remain hidden or difficult to penetrate (Wilkinson, 1999). To

this end, the focus group topic guide for this qualitative phase consisted of four

questions based on hypothesised scenarios. These are listed in Table 5.1.

With regard to ethical and logistical issues, the focus groups were conducted in

school during school hours, in the last week of Term Four (December 2007)

when students had completed their scheduled classroom activities and

assessments for the school year, so as to minimise any potential disruption to

their regular schooling activities. In accordance to UHREC ethical requirements,

selected students and their parents were provided with a comprehensive

information sheet detailing the project and requesting their consent for

participation. Given that these students were minors, the consent of their

parents was required for their participation. Students (and their parents) were

assured that participation was voluntary and non-participation would not bear

any adverse consequences for their future trajectories and relationships with the

school as well as the researcher’s tertiary institution. Student participants were

also assured of confidentiality and anonymity in the reporting of data. The focus


group discussions were audio-recorded with the verbal consent of the students,

and transcribed verbatim. The student participants were provided with a copy of

the relevant transcripts and the option of editing their comments prior to

analysis and reporting. While this option was provided, none of the student

participants made any changes to the transcripts.

Table 5.1 Focus Group Topic Guide Hypothesised Scenarios Questions (and prompts, if any)

Scenario 1: Future of the SMC in school In your opinion, what is the future of SMC in your school five years’ on?

• What role does the SMC play in terms of learning and school life in general?

• What place does the SMC have in the lives of the students and teachers?

• How would it be different or similar to the current situation?

Scenario 2: You as Head of Senior School Would you endorse and support a student-led initiative like the SMC? Would you do anything differently? If so, in what ways, and why?

Scenario 3: You as Parent Would you endorse and support your child’s participation in a student-led initiative like the SMC? Yes or no, and why?

Scenario 4: You as Senior School Student (Five Years On)

Would you participate in a student-led initiative like the SMC? Yes or no, and why?


5.2.3.3 Analysing focus group data

At the start of this chapter, two key tensions that warrant examination in greater

depth were raised, namely (i) the schooling practices that are perceived by the

students to be socially mandated within the school as an academic community,

and (ii) the ways in which students, under constant pressure to perform well in

high-stakes academic tests, make sense of their choices to engage or otherwise

with school-sanctioned digitally enhanced learning opportunities. These tensions

relate specifically to the quantitative variables of Peer Support, Perceived Usefulness,

and SMC Usage. These tensions, and their related variables, serve as the broad

lines of inquiry guiding the qualitative analysis that follows. Consequently, the

application of MCA to the focus group textual data is framed within the broader

thematics arising from these key tensions, with the aim of gaining deeper

insights into how and why students, as members of their schooling community,

come to hold particular opinions, negotiate contesting expectations and

obligations, and “produce orderly sensible accounts” (P. Freebody, 2003, p. 157)

of specific choices associated with the SMC learning initiative in their everyday

experience at school. Informed by the MCA analytical guidelines set out by P.

Freebody (2003), the following questions are asked when examining selected

excerpts of student focus group transcript data:

(i) What categories of people (and/or things) and collections of categories

(MCDs) do the student participants rely on, call on or make

relevant in their responses to the hypothesised scenarios and

topics discussed? In explicating the categories that are made

hearable in the talk, the analytic task is also concerned with


drawing out the paired/relational categories of people, whether

contrasting, supplementary and/or complementary, that are

overtly produced or implied by the speakers in their accounts.

(ii) What predicates and attributes are attached to or assumed of the

members of these categories and collections of categories, and

how are these attributions accomplished in the talk, whether

explicitly stated or by implication?

(iii) What explanations―cause-effect sequences and moral

evaluations―are enabled by this combination of categories and

attributions? That is, what are the explanations of social activity

that are made pertinent, permissible and predictable by this

process of categorising and attaching attributes to people

implicated in the talk?

(iv) Where relevant, what are the substantiation procedures used by the

student participants to support and legitimise the categorisations,

attributions and explanations accomplished in their accounting

work? A number of common substantiation procedures used in

talk that may be relevant to this study include:

• Shared understandings, in which the speaker takes it as commonly

understood and accepted that their accounting procedures are

self-evident (e.g., “everybody knows that…”)

• Anecdotal evidence, in which stories from the past are presented

as iconic narratives that support the account (e.g., “my teacher


went on Myspace and told me to take stuff off…”). This may

include dramatic techniques and extreme case formulations. The

former may include direct quotes or enlivened re-enactments

of events (e.g., “…yeah, a lot of people haven’t even been on it

and say “oh it’s crap!”). The latter may comprise descriptions

of cases as maximum cases so as to provide for a sense of the

severity of the present problem (e.g., “with blocking and

restrictions… we had to choose a topic on terrorism and stuff

and I was doing 9/11 and I couldn’t get any videos of it to

work, like anything with the word ‘war’, ‘terror’ or anything

like that all sites were just blocked…”)

• Personal experience is drawn to support a generalisation (e.g., “I

use the SMC abit and what I’ve experienced…”)

• Official discourses, in which formal documents and accounts are

presented as substantiation (e.g., “I’ve come across a page in

the school diary, page two… commitment to learning and

academic success in all subjects…”)

By asking these questions of the textual data generated through the student

focus group discussions, the analytic task was to locate the central categories that

underpin students’ accounts of their opinions, experiences, choices and actions

associated with the adoption and diffusion of the SMC learning initiative in

school. The identification of the central categories in students’ accounts is

followed by a close analysis of students’ descriptions of category-bound


attributes and activities, and their consequential moral and institutional

implications. The interest here is to document the shared cultural logic and

reasoning practices that students draw on and use, in their talk, to reflect on and

reconstruct the social order of schooling, as it applies to the complexities of

technology-based innovation and change in their schooling practices.

Pseudonyms are used to describe the school (RBS) and student participants.

Their year levels are indicated in square brackets. Detailed transcription

notations are provided in the Table 5.2.

Table 5.2 Transcription Notations

Turn A proposed unit of conversation, that is, something said by one speaker and preceded, followed by or both by a ‘turn’ of some other.

under Underlining indicates emphasis

run= / =on ‘=’ sign link material that runs on

↑word / ↓word

Arrows indicate the onset of a rising or falling intonational shift

[…] Indicates material that has been left out of the extract

lo:ng Colons show that the speaker has stretched the preceding letter or sound

[high pitch] Material in square brackets indicates transcriber’s commentary

<slow> ‘less than’ signs indicate that the talk they encompass was produced noticeably slower than surrounding talk

(.) The shortest hearable pause, less than about 0.2 of a second

⁰soft⁰ Degree signs indicate speech spoken noticeably more quietly than surrounding talk

Source: Transcription symbols developed by Gail Jefferson (see Atkinson and Heritage, 1984: ix-xvi)

5.3 Overview of the central thematic: SMC as both useful and useless

The textual data was most relevant to the study when it foregrounded the

‘experienced realities’ of the schooling order and its associated cultural norms

and practices. A central thematic of the textual data was embedded in students’

accounts of the SMC as either useful and/or not useful for their schooling


activities. A major point of resonance across all six focus group discussions was

that students, in their individual and collective accounting work, frequently

framed their responses directly or implicatively, in explanation of and impacting

on this issue of low SMC adoption and use by senior school students. This was

so despite the fact that the focus group topic guide did not explicitly address the

issue of low adoption/usage levels of the SMC within the senior school student

community. It was evident therefore, that since the implementation of the SMC

in school, students have had to come to grips with the opportunities and

challenges afforded by the SMC innovation in relation to their ‘normal’ or

‘mainstream’ schooling life, whatever that may be in terms of their existing

commitments, priorities, preferences and affiliations at school.

The explanations of SMC usage patterns offered by student participants,

regardless of whether they were part of the student leadership group overtly

responsible for the implementation of the SMC initiative, frequent users,

infrequent users or non-users, tended to involve the association of favourable

and/or unfavourable responses to the SMC with distinct categories of persons,

attributes, norms and practices. Low SMC usage rates were explained in terms of

an elaborate weave of culturally defined attributes and practices associated with

(i) social identities and peer validation, (ii) perceptions of unequal power

relations among executive leadership staff and students as reflected in the push-

and-pull of staff governance and student agency, and (iii) student roles,

obligations and pressures in a culture of academic performativity. It was evident

from the students’ accounts that these issues buttressed one another in complex

and mutually constitutive ways. In other words, these issues impacted on one


another and also served to explain as well as confer meaning to the actual

phenomenon of low SMC usage among students, which in turn reinforced

and/or sustained the salience of these culturally defined attributes and practices.

Interwoven with these discussions were students’ assertions of possible solutions

or ways of overcoming these barriers to widespread adoption of the SMC by the

student body.

The focus groups generally started with the students responding to the first

question and discussing their positions on the future of the SMC in five years’

time. Some students expressed a positive view of the SMC’s future as one that

will continue to grow and develop in the next five years, not only within and for

the school but for similar senior schooling environments (e.g., “I can see the SMC

being, um, involved with multiple schools, even around the country or around the world, being

an international network where each school has set up their own SMC and they’ve become

inter-connected” – Akmal[11], Turn 51, Excerpt 6). This was counterposed by the

less sanguine view that the SMC would not recover from its current ‘comatose’

phase and that the five year prognosis would be a ‘total miss’ (e.g., “In the end the

SMC might just be a total miss, not a hit at all and it is pretty much, this whole factor is

because it is a school” – Adam[11], Turn 553). The shared sentiment among

students taking this position was that the SMC held great appeal when it was

first launched but then ‘fizzled out’ and ‘died’ because of specific institutional

constraints that worked against the ‘promise’ of the SMC, and that these

constraints were not expected to change in the near future. A further position

was also evident in their talk, reflecting a view that ongoing success would be

contingent on whether existing constraints could be overcome, including the


matter of improved popularity with students and staff as a whole. The

importance of attaining a critical mass of advocates among students and staff

users was held to be absolutely essential for the sustainability and growth of the

SMC (e.g., “I don’t see the SMC … as having any possibility of success without the complete

endorsement of the majority of students, all staff… all executive staff, as well as the wider

school community. And that’s something that is absolutely essential for the establishment and

maintenance of this sort of program” – Ben[11], Turn 13).

When students were probed, either by the facilitator or their focus group peers

to justify their positions in these discussions, regardless of their positions, their

accounts across all six groups tended to converge around a key proposition,

namely that the SMC is ‘useful-in-principle’. That is, it holds much promise and

usefulness for their learning and development as young adults, particularly in

terms of exploiting multimodal learning and enhancing peer-to-peer networks

for developing academic, social and real-world skills. Before examining this key

proposition in greater detail (in Section 5.3.1), it is worthwhile to highlight the

importance of this convergence in the students’ collective accounts.

This convergence is noteworthy because, according to the quantitative analysis,

the students were less than convinced of the usefulness of the SMC for their

learning and schooling purposes, a finding made even more important by the

fact that perceived usefulness emerged as a salient predictor of SMC usage.

Following Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) and Turvey’s (2006) conceptualisation

of the various purposes of learning and schooling, the self-report questionnaire

measured students’ perceptions of how useful the SMC was in terms of its


contribution to their (i) socialisation at school, (ii) academic learning and

performance, (iii) development of multiliteracies and creativity, and (iv) self-

expression and identity-formation. In their questionnaire responses, students

rated the SMC’s usefulness across all four aspects as less than mediocre. By

contrast, the students’ accounts in the focus group discussions presented

inflections on and qualifications to the more abstract numeric measurement of

students’ perceptions. In all six focus group discussions, the students repeatedly

spoke favourably of the SMC and its potential benefits for their learning and

schooling in concrete terms, with clear descriptions and examples of how they

saw the SMC as making, or more often, potentially making significant

contributions to the diversity and quality of their schooling experiences and

outcomes. These are discussed in detail in Section 5.3.1.

This raises the question of why, then, the students had rated the SMC as lacking

in usefulness. A closely bounded issue emerged from the students’ discussions

concerning why, despite its potential for enhancing their learning and schooling

activities, the SMC had failed to achieve more extensive usage rates among the

senior school student community. According to the students’ accounts of the

patterns of SMC usage, in practical terms and unfortunately for its advocates, the

very aspects of the SMC that bore the greatest rewards for peer-to-peer learning

were also its key weaknesses. In their collective interactions, the students alluded

to a number of key practices, dispositions and norms embedded within their

schooling institution as militating against―or in their words―‘castrat[ing]’ the

potential of the SMC, thereby rendering the SMC ‘useless-in-practice’. This was

the rationale given for the small number of students who engaged regularly and


meaningfully with the SMC. Consequently, the lack of mass buy-in from the

senior school student population sealed its place as a tangential learning space

within mainstream schooling life.

5.3.1 SMC: Useful-in-Principle

To bring a deeper understanding of engagement and non-engagement, it is

necessary to explore the theme of ‘useful-in-principle’ in greater detail through a

closer examination of selected excerpts from students’ accounts. The analyses

that follow examine the talk of the students on the benefits of having a

contemporary peer-to-peer digital learning initiative such as the SMC in the

senior school, and how these perceived benefits relate to the adoption and

diffusion of the SMC learning initiative within their formal schooling

environment.

5.3.1.1 Promoting student expression, agency and ownership in learning

The usefulness of the SMC, not only for promoting the expression of students’

opinions, but also for allowing more students’ agency and ownership in their

schooling community, is reiterated and reinforced in all focus group discussions

to varying degrees. In general, students spoke of the SMC as a useful medium

for students to publish their works and express their opinions about school-

related issues, in ways that may productively challenge existing power relations

within the school by contesting excessive staff authority and promoting parity of

esteem between staff and students. Excerpt 1 provides a relevant exchange

between three Year 12 focus group student participants.


Excerpt 1.

108. Hugh[12]: […] The SMC is all about an online community that you can put

forward your own opinions, your own work, anything like that,

on an equal playing field to somebody like a teacher. So anybody

who’s got an [RBS] login can go onto the SMC and look around

and post something […] but the point, the ma:in task that I see

SMC performing is providing a place where a student can go on

[…] and if they feel that something needs to change in the

school to benefit the boys (..) then they can say something about

↑it, without fear of repercussion from, you know, teachers or

anything like that. So you know we have had articles up there

going on about [Religious Education] and you know the English

faculty and I reckon that sort of critical feedback is actually

really necessary, particularly in a school like [RBS], it’s just that a

lot of people, unless they had that sort of forum to do it,

wouldn’t put themselves into that situation because as students,

we ↓aren’t in a position to challenge the authority of teachers=

109. Eric[12]: =Yeah, yeah… I have always like=

110. Ben[12]: =Yeah, SMC is like putting us on an equal field

In the opening Turn 108, the speaker recurrently evoked the standardised

relational pair of ‘teachers’ and ‘students’ within the MCD School and, in so doing,

made hearable two key points: (i) the asymmetric authority/power relations

between students and teachers in the social order of the school, and (ii) the

idealised formulation of the SMC as an online learning tool that ‘can’ level the

‘playing field’ between these two groups by providing students with a safe place

(‘without fear of repercussion’) to express their honest opinions and ‘critical feedback’

to the staff/teachers about their schooling experience. This position was heard

as a shared cultural understanding among the three speakers as they coordinated

and buttressed one another’s arguments by completing each other’s turn of talk.


Through the repetitive use of verb ‘can’ in the first half of Turn 108, the speaker

underscored the possibility and potentiality of the SMC to promote student

expression and agency in the school, which according to him, is a ‘necessary’ part

of learning, but one that is not afforded students in the current social reality of

the school (‘because as students, we ↓aren’t in a position to challenge the authority of

teachers’).

The same sentiment was expressed in another Year 12 focus group but, this time,

the student spoke of the SMC’s usefulness for the membership category of

‘teenage boys’ within the MCD Stage-of-Life.

Excerpt 2.

“[…] Yeah, it is really good, I suppose, for teenage ↑bo:ys, it’s when you

really start to think about or challenge authority and come up with your own

view of the world. So getting back to what [Gerald] said about a place to

express ↓yourself […] putting forward your own opinion and trying, I

suppose as a teenager trying to le:arn how to do that in a way that won’t

really offend others. If there is a community, like the SMC is an online

community for doing that, a place where you can voice your opinion without

really having anything to worry about, you know, any ↓repercussions and

then if somebody doesn’t agree with you, them telling you and you being

able to defend yourself, instead of just getting a detention ↓straightaway. I

think that that’s such a gre:at positive learning experience.” (Joe[11], Turn

164).

As evidenced in Excerpt 2, the speaker drew attention to the social-

psychological developmental attributes commonly associated with the

membership categories of young people in general and male adolescents in

particular. The student appealed to the ‘commonsense’ understanding that young


adults growing in independence and autonomy, are (i) more responsive to

respectful learning environments that afford ‘gre:at positive learning experience[s]’ by

allowing students to put forward their ‘own view of the ↑world’ and their ‘own opinion’

(i.e., the SMC learning space), and (ii) less receptive to the kind of rigid punitive

measures (‘just getting a detention ↓straightaway’) that staff in authority employ to

shape students’ social and behavioural development (by implication, the

prevailing status-quo or conventional practice at school). In this way, the speaker

artfully accomplished a moral inferential logic of educational practice that

positioned the asymmetrical staff/student authority relations and rights within

the prevailing traditional school culture as oppositional and inferior to the

egalitarian organisation of these same staff/student roles-in-interaction afforded

by the innovative Web 2.0 learning ecology. The latter was established in the talk

as affording significant benefits for the development of teenagers, particularly in

the essential areas of self-expression, opinion-making and autonomous learning.

5.3.1.2 Multimodal ‘one-stop’ learning resource for developing 21st century skills

The ‘useful-in-principle’ theme is further exemplified in two Year 10 students’

responses to a question posed by the facilitator about whether the SMC had a

place in their current education system. These students spoke explicitly and

assertively of the SMC’s current and potential contribution to the development

of real-world, profession-related skills, digital literacies and creative dispositions

such as ‘lateral thinking’, ‘flexibility’ and risk-taking. This is shown in Excerpt 3.


Excerpt 3.

144. Justin[10]: To program the SMC you’ve gotta use that lateral thinking (…)

thinking outside the box (..) and flexibility (..) to actually get the

add-ons, the mambots16, you have to take risks.

145. Slim[10]: Um, never in normal life in school (..) and outside school (.) at

this age, can you (..) I mean maybe oc↓ca:sionally in an English

assignment you could write some articles but you could never

write journalist-like articles and be critiqued by your peers,

which I think is a ↓plus of the SMC.

146. Spuds[10]: Well, I agree with that. There’s a lot of avenue for creative

writing on the SMC, uh, I know there is one really, really, re:ally

good story there called Sanjoe versus Nathan, which was a small

set of creative writing (.) um (.) stories that did encapsulate a

large portion of the school for at least a short amount of time.

In Turn 145, the speaker oriented to the membership categories of

teenagers/young adults (‘at this age’) and working professionals (‘journalist’),

evoking the MCDs Stage of Life and Workplace respectively. In so doing, he made

available a number of practical-moral inferential trajectories that, at the one time,

affirm the significance and usefulness of the SMC learning innovation, while

framing it as an unconventional, even ‘abnormal’, learning activity within the

social reality of the school. In his account, he drew attention to the mismatch

between (i) the conventional (‘normal’) activities such as ‘English assignment[s]’

afforded senior school students by formal (‘in school’), even informal (‘outside

school’) learning environments in the main, and (ii) the ‘real-world’ technology-

driven social and professional knowledge and skills pertinent to the workplace

16 A small program which is executed immediately before any content item is displayed in the website front end. It is an application specific to open-source Web 2.0 technology such as the SMC’s Joomla platform.


(e.g., ‘journalist-like articles’, ‘critiqued by peers’). Consequently, the SMC innovation

was framed as bearing relative advantage (‘a ↓plus of the SMC’) to conventional

learning and teaching practices, in that it provides valuable opportunities, that are

at best few and far between (‘never in normal life… I mean maybe oc↓ca:sionally’), for

the development of 21st century digital literacies and profession-relevant skills

and dispositions in young adults who constitute an important part of the

emerging workforce. This positive evaluation of the SMC was substantiated by

another student in Excerpt 4 with the use of anecdotal evidence indicating one

explicit instance of this affordance enacted in the school, albeit for only ‘a short

amount of time’ (Excerpt 4, Turn 146). The fact that this relative advantage of the

SMC did not yield sustained engagement from the senior school student

population at large hints at a pervasive underlying reasoning practice that

characterises the SMC as a beneficial but nonetheless ‘outlier’ activity to the main

of ‘normal’ school life and its associated socio-institutional priorities and

imperatives. The persistence of this reasoning practice that frames the SMC as

useful and advantageous, but nonessential and expendable with regard to the

main of schooling, is further exemplified in Excerpt 4.

Excerpt 4.

97. Rump[11]: I think [the SMC] is more about, like, learning outside the

square and alternative styles of learning, like, when I was in

primary school I know we hardly did anything that was

abnormal but then my teacher in, like, five, six and seven was

doing a PhD. On, like, philosophy and all this sort of stuff so

we did all these things that were different that none of the

other classes were doing and I think that’s a bit of what we’re

doing here, like, having this online learning thing where we’re

going to put all of this exemplary work and we allow people to


express their opinion is just a good way to develop people’s

brains, like, in a different way and not to be so ↓boring that

people usually see school as.

[…]

109. Ben[11]: …it’s part of the learning experience at [RBS] … and I feel

with so many different opportunities at this school I think

we’ve probably got more co-curricular activities than half the

schools in, like, the world probably, there’s so many

different opportunities. And this is just another opportunity

and it’s something really different. I don’t think people get

to express their opinions and especially when we’re kids, you

know, we’ve got teachers at school that say, you know, “your

opinion doesn’t really matter unless you have a PhD or a

university degree” and it’s probably true in the real world

and, you know, this is where we’re all equal (.) we can all

express our opinions and people can learn from each other.

In their talk, the Year 11 students repeatedly acknowledged the SMC’s significant

benefits for ‘develop[ing] people’s brains… in a different way’ by (i) reorganising the

conventionally didactic pedagogical relations between students and teachers

(‘we’ve got teachers at school that say, you know, “your opinion doesn’t really matter… [SMC] is

where we’re all equal’) and (ii) providing an outlet for students to express their

opinions and make their voices heard (‘we can all express our opinions and people can

learn from each other’) and potentially effect change within the school community,

especially in a schooling culture generally perceived to be more focused on

compliance than on creativity. At the same time, however, the adjectives used by

both students to characterise the SMC hint at its unconventional and ancillary


place in the lives of students and teachers within the social reality of the school

(e.g., ‘learning outside the square’, ‘alternative’, ‘just another opportunity’, ‘really different’).

Despite its ‘alternative’ place in the school, students stressed the positive

multimodal affordances of the SMC’s Web 2.0 features for enhancing student

learning as compared to the conventional print ‘published medium’ that is

pervasively used at school. This is exemplified in the talk of two Year 10

students shown in Excerpt 5.

Excerpt 5.

157. Peter[10]: I just think that probably the main thing the SMC’s got going for

it is the fact it’s, you know, live updating, anyone that’s got the

[login] privileges can update the work (.) can go on to the back

end of the site and update the work that’s waiting there (.)

anyone that wants to can update an article and that really

wouldn’t be possible on a published medium because that would

just take too ↓long, going through and sifting each one. I

remember the SMC originally started as a student newsletter↑ (..)

I think the actual current way the SMC is organised is much

more effective than a newsletter in the fact that it has videos and

everything, a [picture] gallery, it hasn’t really been used to its full

extent yet, it has a lot of potential but hasn’t really been utilised

that much.

[…]

162. Max[10]: The potential of the SMC is an exciting vibrant website that

contains numerous updates on student activities and it’s a good

social and academic resource, individual pages for each person,

lots of videos documenting the life of the school. It’s a one-stop-

shop for all your academic school information.


In Turn 157, the speaker oriented to the MCD School and the membership

category of students of which he is an incumbent, in order to point out the

contrasting pedagogical affordances of conventional schooling and the digital

SMC learning innovation. The student highlighted the accessibility and

responsiveness of the online SMC as superior to conventional print in two ways.

First, through the repetitive use of the hyperbolic pronoun (‘anyone’), he asserted

that the SMC extends participatory learning opportunities to a much wider

proportion of the student community, a pedagogic practice that is otherwise

impossible given the logistical constraints of the print medium (‘that really

wouldn’t be possible … because that would just take too ↓long, going through and sifting each

one’). Second, the student described the SMC as a cut above the conventional

print format of a ‘student newsletter’ by highlighting its multimodal functionalities

and consequent ‘potential’ and capacity to generate a more diverse collection of

student products and also cater to a wider range of student interests and needs

(‘much more effective… videos and everything… a [picture] gallery’). When prompted by

the facilitator to elaborate on this ‘potential’ of the SMC, another student in Turn

162 substantiated his schoolmate’s account by articulating a detailed list of the

SMC’s potential affordances, which culminated in the idealised formulation of

the SMC as an exceptional ‘one-stop shop for all your academic school information’ that

significantly augments existing social and academic programs available at school.

This notion of the SMC as a one-stop learning resource encompassing multiple

modalities and learning experiences, both social and academic, was echoed in

another Year 11 focus group discussion, as shown in Excerpt 6. These accounts


were embedded within a larger discussion of the ‘state’ of the SMC (i.e., ‘dead’)

and its expected future within the school.

Excerpt 6.

24. Fred[11]: I think the SMC was a short term thing in the beginning to just

promote what people wanted to say, like, in the forums and

once that, sort of, the hype over that got over, it soon died

down and become dead. What I think the SMC could be used

as (.) and it needs the support from the teachers and the

school, as sort of a body where a lot of work is put forward

perhaps, um, as we see in videos that people enjoy, places that

people can go to reference, perhaps news about sports and

those things, that people need to go and look at if they’re

really involved.

[…]

27. Graeme[11]: I think the SMC for teachers it can be a good way for

intellectual discussion. I think it’s sort of cool now not to

really know what’s happening in the world and, you know, I

know people who still don’t e:ven know [politician’s name] is

the new [state] premier which scares me and I think the SMC

is a perfect vehicle for intellectual discussion to happen and

for people to voice their opinions, you know, teachers don’t

enjoy when their classes get disturbed, when people start to

have discussions about things ‘cause it goes off-topic and it’s

not good for the ↓exam etcetera etcetera. The SMC is

somewhere where it can be done in an enjoyable medium but

it can also be really beneficial to the person starting the

discussion when everyone else contributes, cause this is, you

know, real learning, this is not in the textbook, this isn’t stuff

you’re gonna be taught and lectured about in the class, this is

stuff which has real world applications.


In Turn 24, the speaker appealed to the commonsense understanding that within

the schooling order (MCD School), learning tools that provide an outlet for

expressing opinions, while beneficial, are neither sufficient nor sustainable in

promoting widespread adoption and deep engagement among the membership

category of senior school students. The underlying reasoning practice here is that

students, as members of the schooling order, have particular school-based

obligations and priorities that are more of the essence than merely ‘the hype’ of

putting forward personal views (‘to just promote what people wanted to say’); rather, all

the members in the school, teachers and students alike, need to collaboratively

build on and exploit the multimodal and social networking functionalities of the

SMC to establish a vibrant and inclusive virtual learning community that is

relevant not only to the social aspects (‘videos that people enjoy… news about sports’),

but also the academic priorities at school (‘that people can go to reference’).

Along with this perspective of the SMC as a ‘one-stop-resource’ was more

explicit endorsement of the SMC’s potential benefits in terms of promoting

student expression and ‘intellectual discussions’ (explicated in Section 5.3.1.1), as

well as the opportunities it afforded for ‘real learning’ and its relevance to ‘real

world’ knowledge and applications. The speaker in Turn 27 augmented his

schoolmate’s description by adding two key benefits of the SMC. He evoked the

MCD School, the member categories of students and teachers, and oriented to

two distinct, contrasting types of learning ecologies within the school: conventional

classroom learning and learning via the SMC. The upshot of drawing on these

categorisation devices, members and predicates, is the formulation of the SMC

as a useful learning environment that augments the prevailing classroom


teaching and learning model―a model that can be heard as characteristically

teacher-centred, transmissionist-oriented, and primarily focused on memory-

and-recall of prescribed ‘textbook knowledge’ and rigid test-based curriculum (e.g.,

‘teachers don’t enjoy when their classes get disturbed, when people start to have discussions

about things ‘cause it goes off-topic and it’s not good for the ↓exam etcetera etcetera.’).

Consequently, teachers perceive activities outside of these strict boundaries as

‘disturb[ances]’ and ‘don’t enjoy’ them, even if they are productive discussions. The

speaker proceeded to make a negative moral assertion of how this form of rigid

classroom pedagogy is contributing to a more severe moral-civic problem of

producing students who are politically apathetic, lacking in current world

knowledge, and therefore, inadequate as participatory citizens and/or productive

members of the wider MCD Society. He substantiated his opinion through an

extreme case formulation of how it seemed socially-mandated (‘cool’) for ‘people’

(by implication, peers or young people in senior school) to be ignorant of and

parochial to basic general knowledge such as the name of local political leaders.

The speaker’s use of the intensive adverb ‘don’t e:ven know’ further accomplished

his emphatic stance that this level of ignorance and political apathy, which not

only troubles but ‘scares’ him, is a problematic, even unacceptable condition for

educated youths and civic participants like himself. By contrast, the SMC is

characterised in the talk as a learning environment that bears significant potential

and opportunities for engaging students in ‘real learning’, which include

intellectually productive and stimulating debates on issues that constitute

knowledge, skills and dispositions with ‘real world applications’.


5.3.1.3 Enhancing transboundary peer-to-peer interactions

In a separate focus group discussion, two other Year 11 students called attention

to the potential of the SMC’s ‘digital medium’ for significantly enhancing peer-to-

peer student networks by facilitating transboundary communications among

student groups that belonged conventionally to discrete membership categories

and sub-categories within the current MCD Education System with which they

were familiar (e.g., ‘Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Muslims, Jews’). As evidenced in

Excerpt 7, these students oriented to the potentially extensive network benefits

or network externalities of the SMC for bringing together, on a ‘much greater level’,

students from different grades and classes, even students from different schools

that predominantly cater for gender-specific, religion/denomination-specific, or

locality-specific groups.

Excerpt 7.

51. Akmal[11]: I can see the SMC being involved with multiple schools, even

around the country or around the world, being an

international network where each school has set up their own

SMC and they’ve become inter-connected.

52. Rump[11]: Long term (.) I think that [SMC] would be a brilliant medium

of breaking down the um (.) traditional, historic (.)

segregations between, say, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans,

Muslims, Jews and any other denomination that’s involved in

schooling (..) it’s a digital medium for schools to communicate

via (.) it takes away the kind of tradition that Anglicans can

only organise things with Anglicans and stuff like that. So I

think the SMC in that regard would be perfect for solving that

problem. And, also, it allows you to organise things on a much

greater level.


In Turn 52, the student explicitly named this lack of inter-school connectedness

and cross-category collaboration in their current mainstream educational practice

as a ‘problem’―one that the SMC, as a digital social networking learning platform,

has the potential to resolve. Taken together with his schoolmate’s account in

Turn 51, these speakers made hearable the inferential logic that contemporary

schools and students, as members of the MCD Global Society, should no longer

be predicated on or constrained by ‘traditional, historic segregations’ in schooling that

emerge from religious, ethnic and geographical attributions. Rather, learning

should occur ‘on a much greater level’ and these socio-institutional norms and

relationships among the member categories of students and schools have the

potential to be profoundly reorganised by capitalising on the technological

affordances of new forms of social networking tools such as the SMC.

Furthermore, student participants frequently characterised these enhanced social

interactions afforded by the SMC as neither ‘random’ nor trivial (as sometimes the

case in social networking sites outside of school such as MySpace) but as

particularly relevant for schooling. The essence of this characterisation is

reflected in the following Year 12 student’s account.

Excerpt 8.

“[…] you know everyday we just talk about random stuff and I don’t see SMC

as being, you know, really ran↑dom. I like the idea that everything there has a

point, like, a message you are trying to get ac↑ross and um, we were talking

before about it being an academic or a social community but really it is sort of

↓both. It is not social in that you talk about what you’re doing on the weekend

or something like that, or you know, “Hey, so and so is going to have a sweet

party” ‘cause you can just talk about that face to face with somebody anyway.

But it is, sort of like, you’re putting forward, articulating an argument or um, a


view of something and looking for feedback or, you know, just trying to get it

out there, maybe spread the ↑word. It is so:cial in an academic sense. (Moe[12],

Turn 203)

In his account, the speaker evoked the MCD School and oriented to the

membership category of students, of which he is an incumbent (‘we’). In so doing,

he described the online interactions that take place on the SMC as bearing both

‘social’ and ‘academic’ benefits for student learning, rather than one or the other.

In formulating his account, he appealed to the commonsense understanding that

in conventional schooling practice, the social and academic aspects while both

present, tend to occur in predominantly distinct spaces, whereas the SMC offers

a richer learning experience for student members by integrating these two key

aspects of learning and schooling (‘everything there has a point… articulating an

argument… looking for feedback’).

Another group of Year 12 students, despite their self-identification as infrequent

and non-users of the SMC, nonetheless ascribed potential benefits to the SMC

and provided concrete examples of how it can (i) allow for the development of

social/interpersonal skills by promoting transboundary interactions among

students, and (ii) enhance schooling engagement and facilitate peer mentoring

between middle-school and senior-school students. These benefits were

explicitly expressed in the students’ interactions that took place between Turns

106 to 245 of the focus group discussion. Examples of these accounts include

students characterising the SMC as a beneficial space for ‘meeting people’, ‘having a

conversation’ and ‘mak[ing] talking to anyone easier’, especially for students who are

‘too shy to talk’ in person to ‘have confidence’. Others noted the SMC as bearing


opportunities for students in the younger grades to be mentored by students in

the senior grade, both explicitly, in terms of referring to work or getting advice

on subject options without wasting a semester, as well as being motivated and

inspired by senior students to ‘get involved’ and ‘try harder’ in a range of schooling

activities, whether academic (‘Bio and Chem’), artistic (‘artwork’) or athletic

(‘sporting thing’).

The usefulness of the SMC in principle was further supported in students’

responses to the question of whether they would endorse the SMC if they were in

the position of the school’s executive leadership, and if they would do anything

differently. Two key points are worth noting here. First, when students imagined

themselves in the role of an executive staff member such as the Head of Senior

School or Headmaster, their talk conveyed a consistent view of unequivocal and

universal endorsement for a student-run learning initiative such as the SMC in

school. Students’ accounts such as ‘If I was the head of the school I would definitely endorse

the SMC’ (Tom[12], Turn 93) and ‘Yeah. I would definitely endorse the SMC’ (Sol[10],

Turn 384) were recurrently heard. This striking convergence in the students’

accounts, regardless of whether they were high, moderate, low or non-users of the

SMC, served to substantiate the proposition of a shared perception that the SMC

was, in principle, a highly valuable learning tool for students and for their schooling

context.

Second, they qualified their strong support for the SMC by talking about some

specific ways that they would, in the role of the school’s executive leadership,

possibly do things differently, in such a way as to improve significantly the


reputation of the SMC and promote students’ usage of the SMC. These measures

included making structural changes related to (i) curriculum and timetabling so as to

provide students with more time to work on the learning innovation (e.g. ‘Yeah, [as

Head of Senior School] I would definitely endorse the SMC, I’d keep it much the same but give

students more time to work on it so that they can uphold it better themselves.’ Reet[12], Turn

96), (ii) removing online web restrictions that are perceived to be excessive (e.g.,

‘And with that blocking and restrictions, I think that I would block, of course, all pornographic

sites and things like that but [...] for my history [assignment] I was doing 9/11 and I couldn’t get

any videos of it to work […] anything like with the word ‘war’, ‘terror’ or anything like that, all

sites were just ↑blocked. I think sites like that I would unblock, I would let them have access.’

Chip[10], Turn 383), and (iii) allowing students more ownership of the learning

initiative, rather than monitoring the students’ content too closely (e.g., ‘I’d probably

try and disassociate myself from the SMC to try and (..) at least give the image that I’m ↓not

looking over the shoulder of the SMC and writing through people’s posts.’ Ben[11], Turn 179).

These proposed institutional/structural changes highlighted by the student

participants are discussed in greater detail in Section 5.3.2: SMC Useless-in-Practice

and sub-section 5.3.2.2: Institutional-Pedagogical Barrier.

In summary, students provided a wealth of descriptive detail concerning the

perceived usefulness of the SMC in principle, as it was conceptualised and

designed, and its relevance and potential affordances as a Web 2.0 digital and

social networking platform for enhancing their learning and schooling

experiences. In their accounts, student participants recurrently framed the

learning affordances of the SMC as oppositional and superior to conventional

schooling practices, in terms of reorganising traditional staff/student authority


relations, student/student learning interactions, as well as traditional

print/multimodal and social/academic schooling distinctions. These articulated

benefits, however, came alongside formulations of the SMC as an

unconventional ‘alternative’ learning activity within the social reality of the school,

and therefore, tangential to the main of ‘normal’ school life and its associated

socio-institutional priorities and imperatives.

Given the ubiquity of this thematic of useful-in-principle, the widespread

ambivalence of the students towards the SMC, as indicated by the markedly low

actual usage levels of the SMC among the senior school community, is all the

more compelling as a phenomenon worthy of investigation. Clearly, insights are

required into students’ accounts of the phenomenon of low SMC adoption and

usage, that is, how it is known, understood and talked about by students

themselves. Students’ accounts of the SMC show it, in general terms, as being

rendered ‘useless-in-practice’ by existing mainstream schooling norms and

practices, whether social, academic and/or institutional. Of interest here are

students’ accounts of why, given all its potential in principle, the SMC was

unable to deliver on these promises in practice.

5.3.2 SMC: Useless in Practice

In the focus group discussions, students devoted a significant proportion of time

to the issue of why the SMC is not as popular and widely used by the general

senior school population, despite its potential strengths and benefits. Students

made clear in their talk that the unfortunate ‘truth’ was that the design

affordances of the SMC were unable to be translated into actual practice.


Students’ accounts of the problems associated with the SMC in practice centred

on three key issues, namely, (i) the social stigma or negative reputation of the

SMC among some categories of their peers and the resultant lack of peer critical

mass or network externalities associated with the SMC, (ii) the perceived

authoritarian, punitive culture of the school and the perceived lack of student

autonomy and agency in light of excessive teacher-determined regulatory

practices, and (iii) the pressures to perform academically within a crowded

curriculum with tight timelines. It was clear from the students’ talk that these

issues, while distinct, were far from discrete. The students often constructed and

ascribed correlations, even causal associations among these perceived constraints

or barriers in their schooling that accounted for the low SMC uptake among

students in the school. By and large, such contributions followed from responses

to the initial question regarding the future of the SMC, and tended to expand in

breadth and depth as the student participants explained, justified and

substantiated their positions at length.

The MCA analysis shows that student rationales for the uselessness of the SMC

in practice appear to be cast in terms of three key barriers. These are (i) social-

reputational barrier, (ii) institutional-pedagogical barrier, and (iii) academic-

performativity barrier. The first concerns students’ perceptions of and responses

to peer groups and social status, social stigma and limited social network benefits

associated with the SMC. The second is related to the students’ perceptions of

and responses to issues of staff governance and student agency in the wider

schooling order, which extended to and impacted on the SMC digital learning

space. The third is associated with the students’ perceptions of and responses to


expectations from the school, parents and themselves to strive for academic

excellence by focusing on schoolwork and performing well in summative and/or

high-stakes assessments. While articulations of these barriers were interwoven in

the student talk, it was possible to draw out exemplars of the way each of the

three barriers were understood to be impediments to usage. These are discussed

in turn.

5.3.2.1 Social-Reputational Barrier

The social-reputational barrier was identifiable most commonly in students’

discussions of the SMC as ‘geeky’ and by implication ‘uncool’, which in turn was

taken to account for its lack of popularity among the senior school students.

This social stigma associated with the SMC was established by the student

participants as a major problem, if not the main reason, that the SMC was not

being used more extensively by the majority of the senior school student

population. This line of reasoning, exemplified in the excerpt of student talk

below, was ubiquitous in participants’ accounts across all six focus groups.

Excerpt 9 was taken from the talk of a group of Year 10 students who were

members of the SMC team primarily responsible for contributing and editing

content on the SMC. These students were regular users of the SMC.

Excerpt 9.

16. Spud[10]: I think the major problem and goal we should have is to remove

all the negative stigma that comes with the name, the <S:M:C>

and the thought of it (.) and that should just basically be the

main goal for the moment, just making it (.) just bring it back to

a neutral level, where not everybody hates its ↓guts.

17. Facilitator: Why do you think everybody hates it guts?


18. Slim[10]: […] ↓ba:sically I think a lot of the negative stigma comes from it

being associated with school and I think in the name having

<student media ↓centre>, I think that’s already getting it off to

a bad start […] ‘stu:dent’ still sort of sounds academic, and

that’s not really what the general cool, inverted comas,

population of the school wants. And ↓so if we are trying to

target the whole group, then it kind of needs to be something

not necessarily associated with, uh, ↓ner:dy student stereotypes.

In the above excerpt, the social stigma of the SMC was named in the opening

sequence as a ‘major problem’ associated with the SMC initiative. The severity of

this problem was indicated through the student’s use of an extreme case

formulation of graphic detail: ‘everybody hates its guts’, with the ‘it’ referring to the

SMC. By invoking this hyperbole, the speaker framed his claim as a widely-held

commonsense view of social life in the school, where empirical evidence to

warrant the claim was neither given nor needed. In this way, the assertion was

constituted as one that was generally acknowledged to be true, or simply known

to be so, by the student population of the school. In fact, he asserted that the

mere ‘thought’ of the SMC was sufficient to evoke a strong sense of aversion to

this digital learning initiative. Given that the speaker was a member of the SMC

team, the plural pronoun ‘we’ in his statement can be taken to refer to the SMC

student leaders and team members, which comprised thirty students from Years

10, 11 and 12. In his opinion, the immediate priority and primary objective of

the SMC team should be to improve the reputation of the SMC. The difficulty of

this task was implied by the statement ‘just bring it back to neutral level’, with the

adverb ‘just’ suggesting that the task of elevating the social reputation of the

SMC to a level where the student population is merely apathetic (‘neutral’) would


constitute significant progress. By implication, establishing a positive reputation

is simply unrealistic, which again conveyed his sense of the gravity of the

problem.

When probed by the facilitator to justify the strong claim that ‘everybody hates its

guts’, a fellow student in Turn 18 elaborated on what he considered to be a

significant antecedent or cause of the problem by evoking two social

membership categories at play in the school, namely, the ‘cool population’ and its

standardised relational pair (SRP) the ‘nerdy student’. It is useful to note that the

student indicated that these groups were based more on perceptions rather than

reality through his use of the qualifiers ‘inverted commas’ and ‘stereotypes’ when

naming the ‘cool’ and ‘nerdy’ categories respectively. Nonetheless, according to

him, these perceptions accounted for a significant proportion (‘a lot’) of the

problem of the SMC’s social stigma. In his account, this problem was initially

articulated as a consequence of the SMC’s association with the ‘academic’ attribute

conventionally associated with ‘school’, an attribute that is at best unappealing,

and at worst, actively resisted by members of the ‘cool’ category. This initial

formulation, however, was immediately followed by an if-then proposition

stating the solution to the problem: if the aim was to attract the ‘cool’ students

who were considered to be the majority (‘the whole group’), then the SMC must

(‘needs to’) be disassociated with ‘nerdy’ students.

Two analytical points are worth making here. First, ‘cool’ and ‘nerdy’ student types

were accomplished in the talk as contrasting member categories. These social

types could in turn be plausibly collected into a larger category through the


MCD Peer Social Status, although this term was not explicitly used in the talk.

Second, the attribute of ‘academic’, while associated with ‘school’ in general, was

more specifically associated with members of the ‘nerdy’ student category within

the school. Taken collectively, one could reasonably argue that the active

resistance of the SMC by the ‘cool’ students represented an aversion to being

classified as a member of the ‘nerdy’ student category, rather than a simple

rejection of the ‘academic’ aspect of schooling.

The need to improve the social reputation of the SMC as a matter of priority was

echoed in a Year 11 focus group, as shown in Excerpt 10. The speakers

comprised SMC team members earmarked for SMC leadership when they

advance to Year 12. As with the Year 10 group in Excerpt 9, these students

made the observation that the SMC was seen by the wider student population as

an initiative closely associated with ‘a bunch of nerds’, and, unless this unfavourable

‘perception’ is modified, the SMC will remain an unappealing and marginal activity

in the school.

Excerpt 10.

54. Akmal[11]: […] our group is seen as like maybe elitist or the upper echelon

of the students and I think that’s, like, we were put (hehh hh)

in the program for that reason↑. And so I think it’s maybe

something that we find hard sometimes to try and relate to the

middleman and, um, a few of us were actually told this

yesterday that we need to sort of represent the whole school

and not just the people who are in this room.

55. Ben[11]: Basically we need to, um, seeing as we are the leaders of this

group, at this point in time, we need to change the image of


this group, as someone in, um, high up, referred to this group

of boys as um=

56. Isaiah[11]: =a bunch of nerds=

57. Ben[11]: = ‘geeksville’. We need to change that perception so that we

appeal a bit more to the ↑plebs (hehh hh)

58. Graeme[11]: =⁰get some street cred⁰=

59. Ben[11]: =and, uh, get a bit of street cred with those other boys in the

↑school and without that we’re never gonna have the

viewership that’s essential to the success of something like

this, and none of our aims can be achieved without that

viewership so our first priority needs to be establishing that

street cred with those boys.

In Turn 54, the speaker evoked two competing social categories in the school by

first characterising himself as a member of a minority elite group in the school

(‘our group…elitist…a few of us’) that comprised the ‘upper echelon of students’ and

then, by contrasting his group with the majority of students in the school (‘the

whole school’) whom he named as the collective ‘middleman’. He went on to point

out the existence of a gap between these two categories of students who ‘find it

hard to relate’ to one another. In Turns 56 and 57, we are to hear that this ‘elite’

category of students are definitively characterised and perceived as ‘a bunch of

nerds’ and ‘geeksville’. By inference, their elite status stems from academic

excellence rather than social prominence or reputational prestige. The terms

‘upper echelon’ (Turn 54), ‘middleman’ (Turn 54) and ‘plebs’ (Turn 57) also connote a

hierarchical social structure in the school, where the speakers considered

themselves a cut above the ‘other boys’ in the school. This proposition that they

were the superior group was qualified to some extent by the occasions of mild


laughter (‘hehh hh’) observed in the students’ talk, which could be construed as a

tone of irony or even self-satisfaction (‘we were put [hehh hh] in the program for that

reason’) and slight derision (‘the plebs [hehh hh]’). The combination of these

discursive devices suggests that the speakers were aware of the problematics of

such a form of social classification enacted by themselves and others in the

school (‘someone…high up’). Nevertheless, they seemed to insist on it as a logical

and pertinent explanation for the widespread ambivalence exhibited by the wider

student population towards the SMC. Consequently, the students asserted that a

prime solution for improving SMC usage rates among students was to have the

SMC leadership team shed its geeky image in order to establish ‘street cred’ with

‘those boys’. This was framed emphatically as a necessity rather than an option, as

indicated by the continual repetitions of ‘need to’ infused throughout the

sequence of talk. Given that ‘street cred’ is the abridged variation of a colloquial

term conventionally used to refer to fashionable young urban individuals

(Wordnetweb, 2008), the categorisation of ‘those boys’ could be taken as referring

to the ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ students who enjoyed a high level of social validation in the

school. By contrast therefore, the ‘nerdy’ SMC team members were perceived as

their doppelganger, the ‘uncool’. Thus the solution produced by the students can

be reframed in simple terms as the need for the SMC to be both ‘less uncool’

and ‘more cool’.

This proposition was not produced exclusively by SMC team members. Students

who described themselves as infrequent users (approximately once a term)

and/or non-users of the SMC initiative also articulated a similar logic when


accounting for the low adoption rates of the SMC in the school. An example is

shown in Excerpt 11.

Excerpt 11.

45. Chip[10]: It’s been labelled geeky. It’s been given a stereotype.

46. Hec[10]: Like the population of the school just think it’s, you know, some

people who are so called co:ol have said it’s geeky and everyone

else seems to want to follow them. To conform.

47. Sol[10]: ⁰peer pressure⁰

48. Chip[10]: I think it was because of the fact that it’s on a computer and that

group that’s cool so to speak in the school yard, they just decided

“Well it’s a computer, it’s got to be for nerds” and everyone

follows them into the next thing or the next craze or whatever.

49. Hec[10]: I’d say half the people who say it’s geeky haven’t even tried it.

50. Chip[10]: Yeah, a lot of people haven’t even been on it and say “Oh that’s

crap!”

[…]

109. Max[10]: I’d say it’s probably the main reason why it doesn’t get ↓used.

110. Chip[10]: Definitely, it would have to be.

Once again, the unfavourable reputation of the SMC among some categories of

students was established by the speakers, explicitly (‘the main reason why’) and

confidently (‘definitely, it would have to be’), as the primary cause of low usage

among the senior school student population. According to these students, the

low usage was a result of the SMC digital learning initiative being labelled ‘geeky’

by the ‘cool’ students in the school. Together, the speakers pointed to a regime of

conformity to the ‘cool’ category among students that exacerbated the effect of

this negative stereotyping. ‘Cool’ and ‘geeky’ were formulated as contrasting


categorial attributes. As in Excerpt 9, the speakers in Turns 46 and 48 used two

qualifiers ‘so-called’ and ‘so to speak’ immediately before and after the adjective ‘cool’

respectively. The purpose of using these qualifiers is plausibly this: the speakers

considered it necessary to disrupt any routine assumptions of the term ‘cool’ as an

authentic measure of enviable or positive character. Rather, others involved in

the discussion, including the facilitator, were to hear the term ‘cool’, and more

pertinently, the ‘cool’ students of the school that they were referring to in their

accounts, as more of an image or facade that was shallow in nature. Furthermore,

this ‘cool’ group was characterised in the talk as being prone to hasty and ill-

informed decision-making. This claim, made in Turn 48, was substantiated by

the intensifier ‘they just decided’ and a dramatic portrayal or mimicry of what was

held to be rash reasoning practices and prejudices of the ‘cool’ students: ‘well it’s

a computer, it’s got to be for nerds”. Nonetheless, the cool label was established as

socially desirable according to peer conventions within the school. The subtle

and artful critique of the ‘cool’ category incumbents was accompanied by a more

overt criticism of the ‘cool-wannabes’―the generic ‘everyone’ of the

school―characterised as undiscerning and gullible followers who simply adopted

or replicated the activities that defined ‘cool’ without critical or independent

thought (see Turns 49 and 50). The use of the intensifier ‘even’ by both speakers

(e.g., ‘haven’t even tried it’) and their confirmation of one another’s accounts in

quick succession and with increasing dramatic effect (‘they haven’t even been on it

and say “Oh it’s crap!”’) serve the function of (i) establishing the accuracy and

validity of their negative assertion, and (ii) reinforcing the extent of the peer

pressure to conform to the ‘cool’ social category that is experienced by every

student in the school.


This peer pressure to conform meant that the negative characterisation of the

SMC as geeky and uncool was costly to the reputation of those who were known

to be regular users of it. It was clear that students perceived this as a circular

problem inasmuch as the students who ran the SMC were identified

unequivocally as ‘nerds’ and/or ‘geeks’ and so were not in a position to do

anything but reinforce this unfavourable reputation for those who might

otherwise be interested in engaging with the SMC. As a Year 10 student asserted

matter-of-factly through a series of cause-and-effect sequences, this issue of

social stigma was a particularly problematic one, given that:

Excerpt 12.

“…[i]t’s a bit of a circular problem. Since the SMC is considered to be geeky, if

you do the SMC, you’re automatically a geek, and therefore a geek does SMC,

which contributes to its geekiness, which contributes to its stigma.” (Jus[10],

Turn 22).

Given the inherent unattractiveness of ‘geekiness’, resistance to the ‘geeky’ and ‘not

cool’ peer categories was articulated as matter of social survival in the school, in

turn characterised as a place of closely networked proximity, particularly for

students who were boarders or students who resided in student accommodation

on the school grounds. In Excerpt 13 below, circumventing the ‘uncool’

categorisation was produced as a salient commonsense logic underpinning the

social reality of schooling.

Excerpt 13.

288. Imam[11]: […] the reason that people don’t go on the SMC, like say the

boarding house, one person says it’s bad and then it catches on

to a couple of people and then the whole boarding house says


it’s bad […] now I don’t think there’s any chance that we’ll get

anyone in the boarding house to like it because as soon as

someone goes into their room and sees that they’re on the

SMC they get paid out and=

289. Ben[11]: =‘cos that’s culture.

[…]

292. Stew[11]: […] At this school the impression is if […] it’s not as

mainstream then you’ve got the whole <not cool> factor and

[…] in boarding houses, which is a twenty four hours a day

environment where you’re amongst your peers, I mean, you

really don’t want to be different because you don’t want to

make yourself a large target because if you’re in a twenty four

hour high stress (.) what could possibly be a high stress

environment, you don’t want to make yourself a target. You

want to make life as easy for yourself as possible so, you

become mainstream.

According to the student participants, ‘paying out’ is a slang/term commonly used

by adolescents to refer to ‘ragging, just destroying them’ (Ben[12], Turn 157). In

other words, when someone is ‘paid out’, it means that they are being ‘ragged,

bullied’ (Pete[12], Turn 161) or a ‘joke is made at [their] expense' (Hugh[12], Turn

163). To engage with the SMC meant therefore, to create significant problems

for ‘getting-by’ socially, because one would be identified as not only a ‘target’ but a

‘large target’ for social sanction by peers, as a result of going ‘against the grain’ of

conventional peer-group norms and socially validated mainstream opinions and

activities. Given this logic, regressing to the social mean, that is, ‘becom[ing]

mainstream’, was formulated as a strategic and valuable mode of social behaviour

in the school, and more pertinently, in the boarding houses. In these potentially

hostile environments, not being identified as exceptional in a negative way was


seen as equally important, if not more important than being recognised as ‘cool’

or popular. Put another way, while being ‘cool’ may be preferable, not being

‘uncool’ is absolutely vital.

It is worth noting at this point that the focus group participants comprised a

wide range of students who expressed an alignment or association with either

the ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’ peer crowd. Regardless of their category affiliation, students

consistently characterised these two social groups in terms of contrasting or

competing categorisations. Not only did the students articulate clear distinctions

between the members and predicates of these two social categories, they tended

to position themselves as superior to the other group in some way. This was

most often accomplished in their talk by way of disapproving assertions and

negative attributions in their characterisations of the other group. The group of

students in Excerpt 11 were critical of the ‘cool’ students for being prejudiced

against the SMC as a matter of stereotyping rather than informed evaluation.

Furthermore, ‘cool’ students were depicted as perpetuating the ‘tall poppy syndrome’

(Chip[10], Turn 54), which is a pejorative term frequently used to describe a

levelling social attitude in which people of self-determined and often genuine

merit are criticised or resented, albeit without basis, because their talents or

achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers

(Wikipedia, 2008). Following this logic, the ‘cool’ students were described as

actively ‘cutting down’ (Sol[10], Turn 55) the SMC and applying peer pressure on

others to conform to their opinions and resist the SMC. These students went on

to describe the majority of the student population as ‘bandwagon people’ who were

‘easily influenced’ (Chip[10], Turn 56). These negative assertions served to portray


the majority of students in the school as not only mindless followers deficient in

critical thought, but also as weak characters who lacked the necessary moral fibre

to withstand the peer pressure to be or look ‘cool’.

Interestingly and by contrast, another group of students who were (i) non-users

of the SMC, and (ii) members of the ‘cool’ group in the school as inferred from

earlier sequences of talk, asserted in Excerpt 14 that the SMC was an ‘exclusive

club’ comprising a group of ‘suck up[s]’ who were ‘nerdy’, ‘have no friends’ and had

‘nothing else to do, nothing better to do’.

Excerpt 14.

132. Ollie[12]: One thing that I’ve noticed within [SMC] is that it’s a bit of an

avenue for a lot of boys to um (..) suck up in a way.

133. Facilitator: To who?

134. Ollie[12]: To senior executives. ‘Cause they do know that they read it, so

they write stuff regarding forums about traditions of the

school and how we’re not upholding them and it’s a bit of an

avenue for students to get a bit of a head start and impress the

teachers a bit.

[…]

146. Ben[12]: Like, in the school at the moment, the SMC sort of gets a bad

rap, because it sort of has something to do with school, like

people on the outside, when they see people logging on to

SMC for fun it, sort of, seems a bit (.) I don’t know, nerdy or

stuff like that=

147. Jon[12]: =or you have no friends, nothing to do=

148. Ben[12]: =Yeah like you have nothing else to do, nothing better to do

with your time then log onto a school based website where

there is no, like, everything is restricted for ↑you, so it gets a

bad rap […]


[…]

267. Cox[12]: Well, I think at the moment it’s just an exclusive club.

268. Paul[12]: Yeah, you’ve got to be into computers and all that to get into it

so it’s not really interesting.

Through this clear demarcation between peer groups and inclinations of self-

legitimisation that permeated the reasoning practices of students, the students

performed a series of blaming attributions that saw the SMC as a pawn and

casualty in their game of mutual ‘othering’. In fact, according to one student, the

demarcation between the two groups were so deeply embedded in the social

order of the school that “it’s like West Side Story, we have dance-offs.” (Joe[10], Turn

28). More importantly, one consequence of this reductionist approach to social

identity categorisation is that it does not provide the students, as a collective

whole, with a productive recourse for social action in relation to promoting

wider and more frequent usage of the SMC among the senior school student

community. Instead, students frequently oriented to the recruitment of ‘cool’

people into the SMC team who were to act as ‘popular figureheads’ (Stew[11], Turn

31) for the SMC as a primary solution to low usage rates. Members of the ‘cool’

social category were often named as athletically-inclined students or ‘jocks’. In

particular, the sports captains of Rugby and Rowing were generally

acknowledged to be the ‘two biggest jocks’ (Graeme[11], Turn 70) in the school

with an extensive sphere of influence over the student body.

A final excerpt worthy of discussion in this section is taken from a Year 10 focus

group comprising SMC team members and content editors. As shown in Excerpt

15, this sequence of student talk was dense in categorisation work and provided


a representative example of how students simultaneously understood the

polarisation of ‘cool/uncool’ as problematic and at the same time insisted on it as

crucial to the shaping of their daily practices.

Excerpt 15.

13. Spud[10]: Well, a good business model for this is what MTV has done […]

they have managed to keep up with the image of cool and if the

SMC wants to really succeed it ↓has to be cool.

14. Joe[10]: Um, I think Spud has a bit of a point there, in the fact that we

ne:ed to be cool. At the moment we have pretty much the

academic students working on it and only the academic

students, because they are the only ones that can get out of

class whereas um to actually bring most of the school

populous in we need to have more sports correspondence,

more of the average folk, so we can actually have an accessible

face.

15. Facilitator: Anyone agrees or disagrees with him, or would like to add to

that?

16. San[10]: I sort of agree with most of the people here that the SMC is

sort of seen as something that people aren’t interested in just

because it’s sort of the nerdish type of phase that people are

sort of going through. They don’t see a sort of side of it that

some of the other people working on it might see. We have a

lot of journalists and editors that are working really hard but

it’s just sort of disappointing to see that all of the rewards

aren’t getting reaped out of, um, what everyone’s doing.

17. Pete[10]: It would be hard to get the sporty kids to sort of join the cause

of the SMC, if they’re the ones that aren’t using it at the

moment anyway, so, yeah=


18. Spud[10]: = yeah, I think (..) getting time off class is a major incentive

enough to draw in some of the jocks per se. That would bring

about popularity for the SMC. A lot of them aren’t

compl:etely stupid, I mean, some of them do have a couple of

brain cells that would allow them to miss out on a bit of time

and not fall behind in class, which is the major problem with

bringing them into the program at the moment.

19. Joe[10]: […] we need to get people aware that it’s not just a geek-fest,

so we can actually get those jocks, per se=

20. Mac[10]: =⁰make it rad⁰=

21. Slim[10]: As Mac said, we have to make it rad17.

In the sequence of talk presented above, the student participants collectively

produced and constructed a version of social reality that made sense of low SMC

adoption rates among the senior school student population. In building and

substantiating their accounts, these students once again drew attention to a

powerful system of peer-to-peer social membership and relationships operating

in the school. The ‘social system’ constituted by the students in the selected

segment of talk can be synthesised and re-presented in Figure 5.1, using the

MCA analytical concepts of MCD, membership categories and category-bound

predicates.

17 An abbreviation of 'radical'-- a term made popular by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Still primarily used by people on the West Coast who find words like 'cool', 'awesome', and 'tight' to be tired and overused; 'rad' is generally considered to be a much higher praise than the aforementioned superlatives. Also used as a general expression of awe. (Urban Dictionary, 2009)


Figure 5.1 Social-reputational barrier ― Cool/Uncool

The above analysis foregrounds the ways in which student participants

accomplished social identities, namely ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’, as a powerful form of

peer validation and conversely, peer sanction. One analytical insight gleaned

from the MCA analysis is that there exists very little room for troubling the

prevailing social identities in the schooling order constructed by the students in

their accounting work. The conditions of possibility for SMC engagement in the

school were severely limited by the fact that there was so much agreement about

the commonsense of SMC as ‘uncool’. This agreement could be understood in

political terms as evidence of a hegemonic principle (Gramsci, 1971) at work at

‘Uncool’ ‘Cool’ MCD: Peer Social Status

Contrasting pair/ categorisations

Member categorisations

Sporting person Jocks

Average folk

Geeks Nerds Academic elites

• SMC initiative closely bound to incumbents of the ‘uncool’ social category, which comprises geeks/nerds/academic students who are the minority group in school.

• Therefore, SMC attributed negative stigma of being ‘nerdish’ and a ‘geek-fest’.

• By contrast, majority of students were collected into the ‘cool’ category, comprising jocks/sporty kids/average folk. These students were heard as primarily concerned with social aspects of schooling and keeping an image of ‘cool’.

• Using the SMC was an activity bound to the ‘uncool’ social category, and therefore resisted by the majority of the student population.

Explanations (ie. cause-effects,

moral evaluations)

MajoritySporty, social

Popular, influentialAcademically-disinclined

Social aspects of school as focusPrejudiced against/not using the SMC

Category-bound predicates

and attributes

Minority Nerdy, geeky Negative stigma, inaccessible Academically-inclined Academic aspects of school as focus Working hard on the SMC


the local level of the school. In other words, the high degree of agreement

around the ‘uncoolness’ of SMC as well as the unlikelihood of its becoming

either ‘cool’ or sufficiently ‘un-uncool’ connotes a high degree of fixity around

the SMC as socially illegitimate in the context of the school. Based on the

students’ accounts, it is difficult to imagine this negative framing of the SMC

being overturned.

In summary, the binary formulation of ‘cool-uncool’ was produced recurrently

by students in all six focus groups as active social categories that served as a

powerful measure of peer validation. In light of its acknowledged prevalence in

adolescent literature as fundamental to youth culture (Erikson, 1968;

Widdicombe & Woofitt, 1995), a useful starting point for explaining students’

resistance towards the SMC is the students’ understanding of this binary in terms

of what practices it enables and disables among the students themselves. As

McWilliam (2008, p. 32) argued, “the Yuk/Wows … want to be where the action

is, somewhere cool with cool people doing cool things”. Similarly, a classic study

carried out by Coleman (1961) on high school peer relations found that not only

were most students aware of a leading crowd and the attributes that define this

group, many aspired to membership in this leading crowd.

In line with this description of contemporary youth’s fascination for and

insistence on the importance of what is popular or ‘cool’, the student

participants in this qualitative phase of the study repeatedly evoked ‘cool’ and its

binary opposite, ‘uncool’, in their talk. They used these terms as collective

descriptors of particular social members with distinct attributes, drawing on


them as part of the ‘commonsense’ of student life in the school. In other words,

the binary formulation of ‘cool/uncool’ was accomplished in the accounting

work as a powerful reasoning practice for students to make sense of their social

world and experiences in school.

‘Cool’ as a discursive organiser was certainly formulated by the students as a

privileged category of young adult identity. It was, however, not seen as a neat or

unadulterated category. Indeed, many of the students questioned its authenticity

at the same time that they recognised its power to shape the conduct of students

at all levels in the school. In this sense, ‘cool/uncool’ was produced in the talk as

powerful organisers of social and moral relationships, or further, as a form of

politicised and politicising work through which students governed themselves

and their peers, in terms of attitudes and activities that were either socially

mandated or marginalised. In the case of the SMC initiative, not only did the

binary formulation of ‘cool/uncool’ serve as an explanation for the limited social

network benefits associated with SMC use, but it also emerged as the very

language system through which the negative network externalities of the SMC

were constituted and perpetuated by students in the school.

In sum, what this analysis has made possible is the revelation of those

propositions about the social order of the school that have gained the status of

hegemony, in that they have congealed into a powerful, long-term, shared

cultural logic that legitimises certain practices and delegitimises others. Most

importantly for this study, when taken together, these propositions served to


militate against the SMC innovation as a well-utilised and valued component of

school life.

5.3.2.2 Institutional-Pedagogical Barrier

Binary formulations of role-based identities in the social order of the school

were just as prevalent in students’ talk relating to the second barrier around the

press of institutional/pedagogical norms. In their accounts, students recurrently

framed themselves as being dispossessed in terms of agency by a schooling

culture that, despite progressive rhetoric, demanded compliance and was highly

controlling and restrictive. In theoretical terms, ‘school’ was discursively organised

in student talk as a delimited and highly regulated social space. It was a space

characterised by ‘control, restriction and rules’, where activities such as the SMC that

were meant to privilege or enhance student autonomy and ‘free’ expression were

inexorably rendered ‘clinical and contrived’ (Moe[12], Turn 67), unauthentic and

unappealing in practice. This characterisation was reiterated consistently by

student participants across all the senior year levels, as shown in the excerpts

below. Excerpt 16, taken from the talk of a group of Year 10 students who were

minimal users of the SMC, provides an account that ties the unpopularity of the

SMC to its close identification with ‘school’.

Excerpt 16.

545. Sol[10]: […] People don’t really want to go on the SMC because it’s

sort of run by school.

546. Facilitator: Why is that an issue?

547. Hec[10]: Well, there are restrictions and things […]


548. Chip[10]: I think that has got a big part of it, the fact that it’s a school.

That immediately gives a person an image of control,

restriction, rules. At home you are ↓free but you come to

school and as soon as the word school is used, immediately

your mind goes “Well, that’s not going to be as free, that’s

going to be more controlled.” It immediately puts that bad

image.

In Turns 545 and 548, both speakers invoked the generic nouns ‘people’ and ‘a

person’ to establish that this negative perception (‘bad image’) of the school was

not restricted to a small number of identifiable individuals. Rather, this was a

commonsense view shared by members of the senior school student population

in the school. In fact, the first part of Turn 548 points to the self-evident

attribute of ‘restrictions’ to ‘schooling’. It is the axiomatic nature of this assertion

that is emphasised by the speaker, pointing directly to its commonsense status.

Furthermore, the speaker’s repeated use of the adverb ‘immediately’ and adverb

clause ‘as soon as’ in Turn 548 served to emphasise the deep and protracted

nature of this unfavourable characterisation of the schooling environment

among students in the school. The depiction of this negative perception of

school as an inherent and entrenched student mindset was also observed in

another focus group discussion where one participant emphatically asserted that

the reason for low SMC usage rates among students was ‘because it’s got school

associated with it! As soon as you hear the word ↓school, you ↓stop!’ (Jus[10], Turn 99). In

Excerpt 17, three Year 11 students provide an explanation of SMC un popularity

among students in the school, that resonates with the account given above, in

that the institutional ‘norm’ is held to be that ‘things are restricted’. Their accounts


also provided additional insights into the reasoning processes of students as they

engaged or considered engaging with the SMC.

Excerpt 17.

34. Hugh[12]: I think that one of the reasons the SMC is failing is because when

people post comments and things in the forum they’re knowing

that what they post falls under school rules and they don’t post

what they really want to say which wouldn’t normally be accepted

in school.

35. Pete[12]: Yeah, in [RBS] it just seems to be the norm that things are

restricted […] maybe it’s because we haven’t had SMC in the past

and teachers don’t know what to think of it, teachers don’t know

how to, like, restrict it in the best sense to make sure that most

opinions are passed through besides absolutely ridiculous ones,

so […] I think it is a learning curve for the school to, sort of,

know how to let the students have their ↓say but not take away

everything that we put up there.

36. Foo[12]: When the SMC came out we were told that teachers didn’t have a

say in what was going on in it and now they’re ↓censoring it.

In the above account, the students evoked two role-based member

categorisations within the social order of the school, namely, ‘students’ and

‘teachers’. The interactional relations between these two member categories were

taken to contribute to the problem of ‘the SMC failing’. Members of the ‘teacher’

category were depicted as ‘restrict[ors]’ and regulators, who tended towards

excessive censorship (‘not take away everything that we put up there’) due to insecurity

or inexperience with a student-led initiative such as the SMC, which was

designed, at least by way of the rhetoric of its motto ‘Your Way, Your Say’ to

privilege the student voice. By contrast, ‘students’ were characterised as discerning


but impotent political actors in the context of the SMC and the school.

Discernment of what ‘wouldn’t normally be accepted in the school’ meant that students

could not and did not express their authentic views on the SMC, which

inadvertently rendered the ‘Your Way, Your Say’ ideal of the SMC useless-in-

practice. This was reinforced by the the participants’ observation that they were

less than active players in the negotiation and establishment of rules and

boundaries in the social reality of the school, which included the SMC space

(‘when the SMC came out we were told teachers didn’t have a say… now they’re censoring it’).

Rather, the role of the students was portrayed as one of waiting passively, even

patiently, for ‘the school’ and by implication, the ‘teachers’, to learn to ‘let’ the

students ‘have their say’. Once again, the collective use of the generic noun ‘people’

in Turn 34 and the explicit use of ‘norm’ in Turn 35 to preface an elaboration of

the relevant role categorisations and attributions served to substantiate these

explanations as pervasive among the wider student population rather than

exclusive to a few students in the school context. In other words, the speakers

accomplished this form of ‘knowing’ (Turn 34)―of the school being censorious

rather than enabling of genuine student-led innovation―as ‘just’ (Turn 35) the

way it is, unchangeably, in their schooling context. In pursuing and detailing this

point, Excerpt 18 exemplifies how a group of Year 12 students drew analogies

with a top-down commercial enterprise, characterising the school as a large

corporate entity (‘[RBS] is run like a big corporation’) that was impersonal,

authoritarian and punitive.

Excerpt 18.

50. Ben[12]: School tries to control a lot of what you ↑do. Like at [RBS], you

have to wear a uniform, you have to do your homework, you have


to do all this stuff […] so what happens is that students want to

get away from that […] and the SMC unfortunately falls into the

basket of school-related stuff that you won’t go to. That is my

opinion.

[…]

67. Moe[12]: Yeah. I think because sadly it’s sort of the age where everybody is

afraid of getting ↑sued. So, um, the school’s really picked up on

that and everything that is done at [RBS] always seems quite

clinical and contrived […] There was a big push towards

becoming more conservative […] [RBS] is run like a big

corporation, rather than what most people would say a school

should be run like. It doesn’t really have that family ↑dynamic […]

where every person in the school […] feel like they belong, they

don’t have to feel like “if I mess up I’ll get kicked out”. Every

time somebody does mess up, what we’ve seen recently, is that

they get punished, they are prescribed a punishment […] not

wearing your hat equals sus↓pension or something like that. It’s

almost as though no effort is put into making the student in

particular under:stand why what they did is wrong, rather than

punishing them so ↓strictly that the next time all they will

remember is fear ‘cause they don’t want to get the same

punishment ↑again. If everybody in the school has to walk such a

fine line that they are too scared to push the boundaries a little bit,

then, I don’t really think that that’s the sort of environment that is

going to extend anybody […] other people have described it as

car:bon copy kids.

68. Tom[12]: I think Moe’s hit the nail on the head.

[various other students signal agreement]

70. Ray[12]: Yeah, I think that’s been one of the main problems that they are

just afraid to take risks and like “What’s too far?” and like “What

won’t be accepted by the Heads of the School?” and all that.


In Turn 67, the student invited the analogy of the school to ‘a big corporation’. In

this regard, the speaker mapped onto this specific school, by implication, and

further explicitly, the key features of a traditional corporation as commonly

understood: (i) the imperative of the bottom line, in this school’s case, grades, (ii)

the rigid hierarchical nature of the institutional relationships, in this case,

teachers and students, and (iii) the culture of risk minimisation in light of legal

vulnerabilities. In accomplishing this characterisation of the school, the students

oriented to the standardised relational pair of ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ membership

categories collected within the MCD: School. The ‘teacher’ category, however, was

clarified as referring specifically to executive staff members, such as ‘Heads of

School’, rather than the classroom teacher. As one of the students in the focus

group asserted in a later part of the discussion not included in the segment of

talk below, “when I say teachers I don’t necessarily mean in the classroom, it’s more of a

management sort of thing” (Moe[12], Turn 80). In this regard, the ‘teacher’ category

has within it a sub-category of ‘school executive staff’ to reflect a more accurate

understanding of the system of social relationships that framed the students’

reasoning practices and explanations for the widespread student ambivalence

towards the SMC in school.

In the opening Turn 50, the speaker produced a negative characterisation of

‘school’ as a space where students felt controlled to a large degree through an

extensive range of institutional rules that must be adhered to. To substantiate his

claim, he provided a list formation that ranged from dress codes to academic

work, and concluded with an extreme case formulation pointing to ‘all this stuff’,

the implication being that these behavioural conventions imposed on the student


body by the executive staff were innumerable and impossible to list individually.

According to the speaker, an upshot of this stringent system of control was the

production of disenfranchised students who tended to a default position of

disengagement from any activity that ‘falls into the basket of school-related stuff’

wherever possible. The SMC was constituted through this talk as an unfortunate

casualty of this push-and-pull of staff governance and student agency.

This tension between the invitation to be part of a student-led initiative and the

highly regulated space that is ‘school’ was further elaborated by other students as

a problem grounded in the school being ‘conservative’ and ‘run like a big corporation’.

According to the speaker in Turn 67, this contravened the normative standards

of how ‘a school should be run’. In his view, a school should have more of a ‘family

dynamic’, where students felt a sense of belonging, validation and security. The

student went on to express this problem in moral terms: he proposed that the

fear of legal complications had caused the school to regress to the traditional

historical model of student behaviour management through corporal punishment

and threat of expulsion. As a result, he surmised, the student body had been

instilled with a general sense of fear and docility, where ‘everybody… has to walk

such a fine line that they are too scared to push the boundaries’. At worst, students were

inflexible clones lacking a sense of individuality (‘car:bon copy kids’), who tended

to experience paralysis in the face of uncertainty and risk (‘they are just too afraid to

take risks’). This was in turn taken to constitute ‘one of the main problems’ that

thwarted the SMC’s credibility as an innovation that could productively

challenge prevailing staff/student relations by being the ‘student voice of change and

development’ (Moe[12], Turn 278) in the school.


The validity of this detailed and compelling account of the schooling

environment as one that was not ‘going to extend anybody’ was endorsed by another

student as having ‘hit the nail on the head’ and a general consensus was indicated by

a number of other students in the focus group. Furthermore, students in the

same group went on to describe a sense of paranoia that seemed to permeate the

student population as a result of what students’ perceived to be a pervasive form

of staff-dominant, top-down and exacting institutional pedagogy. For instance, it

was held that a specific member of staff―the leading disciplinarian of the school

(Dr G)―‘hasn’t been on the SMC for the whole ye:ar’ to moderate students’ online

posts, and yet the students in the school ‘still have the preconception that he is Big

Brother and he is always watching … just waiting for someone to say something a little bit off-

hand’ (Moe[12], Turn 79). The sense of this staff member as a ubiquitous and

potentially punitive presence in school was reinforced by a fellow student’s

extreme case formulation: ‘everyone is scared of him, he’s got the fe:ar ↓factor over us’

(Ray[12], Turn 80).

The emphasis placed on this individual member of staff in students’ accounts of

SMC non-use was not exclusive to Year 12 student talk. In Excerpt 19, a group

of Year 10 students provided a detailed account of perceived excesses of rigid

staff-determined regulatory practices in the school as a major source of tension

for the ‘teenage boys’ at school, with adverse effects on their schooling engagement,

as well as their predicated and projected social and psychological development.

Excerpt 19.

396. Hec[10]: That is why I think our current senior school head’s gone wrong.

[…]


408. Max[10]: His values, I think, he has taken a little bit too far. People just

don’t like him anymore. He is not a bad person but the way he is

enforcing it…

409. Sol[10]: Yeah, he is enforcing his own personal beliefs into his job, like,

what he may want his kids to become; he has made the entire

school to become.

410. Chip[10]: He has taken away our independence and our own decisions and

just cutting it off, like we don’t get to choose almost anything

that goes on. We don’t have a decision on how our hair can

look, how we wear our uniform or like how we have our hats or

anything like that. We don’t have any independence or any choice

or any freedom. He makes all of our decisions↑. I think it’s not

good for teenage boys to be grown up and about to head out to

the real world without having any of our own say, our own

choice, sort of shaping how we do what we do. He’s just taken it

and he’s moulded it with his hands and his beliefs, which doesn’t

give you much room for independence=

411. Hec[10]: =individuality. There is no individuality in this school.

412. Max[10]: The rules aren’t bad. Like I can see why he’s put them in place.

Just=

413. Chip[10]: =They’ve gone too far.

414. Max[10]: Yeah. He sort of, just for a young group, a cohort of fifteen,

sixteen year olds, it’s sort of a bit too strict. Like, the rules aren’t

bad.

In the above excerpt, participants used a series of extreme case formulations and

list formations, which act as evidence or exhibits supporting the point

concerning teachers’ authority at the expense of students’ independence. These

are found in Turns 410 and 411 (‘we don’t have any independence, or any choices or any


freedom’, ‘he makes all of our choices’ ‘there is no independence… no individuality in this

school’). In addition, to emphasise their point, they oriented to a new member

category ‘teenagers’, or a ‘young… cohort of fifteen and sixteen year olds’, that can be

understood as belonging to the MCD: Stage of Life. One consequence of orienting

to the categorisation device of ‘Stage of Life’ is that the personal, social and

developmental needs of students as ‘teenage boys… head[ing] out into the real world’

were accentuated. Speaking in this way allowed the students to see themselves as

more than individuals and more than members of a school: Their own and their

school’s moral responsibility as contributors to The Good Society, The Orderly

Society, is foregrounded. They thereby underscored the school’s role in and

responsibility to society to provide for their perceived developmental needs. In

their view, drawing on prevailing normative discourses that constitute

‘adolescence’, the ‘teenage’ stage of life was a critical phase for developing

certain dispositions that were essential predicates of ‘adulthood’. In line with

commonly accepted Anglo/Western conceptions of adulthood, they named

‘adults’ as independent, autonomous, enterprising and democratic. The negative

moral valuation accomplished in the talk therefore, was that the top-down and

adversarial governance mechanisms applied by the executive staff to shape

student behaviour meant that the school was not only failing to meet the

developmental needs of the adolescent students, but more importantly, the

school was failing to fulfil its central role and responsibility in society of

cultivating productive and participatory citizens.

At the same time that they expressed such criticisms, the students nevertheless

expressed a general affirmation of the need for rules―that rules, in and of


themselves ‘aren’t bad’ but rather fulfilled a particular purpose. This purpose was

not explicitly stated; instead, the problem was articulated in the opening turn as a

problem associated with a specific member of staff, not as an individual (‘he is not

a bad person…’), but rather, in his role as the Head of Senior School (‘…but the

way he is enforcing it’). In MCA terms, the problem articulated by the students can

be understood as a violation of the set of rights and privileges normally

attributable to the ‘school executive staff’ member category in the standard expected

moral order of contemporary senior schooling. The proposition asserted

repeatedly by the student participants, positioned the staff member, who was

representative of school authority, as ‘too strict’ and going ‘too far’ by way of

imposing his ‘personal’ values, taken from the private domain of family (‘what he

may want his kids to become’) onto his professional role in the public domain of

school (‘he has made the entire school to become’). The consequences were described as

severe for the standardised relational pair category of ‘student’, but also for the

staff and the school as a whole (‘people just don’t like him anymore’).

In Excerpt 20, the student participants elaborated on what they considered to be

the adverse consequences and ‘negative influence’ that a repressive school culture

with excessively ‘strict guidelines’ had on students as young adults.

Excerpt 20.

415. Hec[10]: Like, from the scenes of last year, I know a few of them who

were like really, really bright, really, really sort of, they followed

these rules and stuck to them. Then they’ve just gone off the

tracks because they’ve been on this <really, really> strict

guidelines for so long, when they get their own freedom, they’re

not used to it and go off the track.


416. Chip[10]: I think with these rules he’s put in, it affects us a lot more

because (..) I think a large group of us, because of those rules,

become rebellious. We decide that we’re not having any fun

here, we’re going to rebel against this suppression we’re living

under. […] Our minds work in different ways like, it puts a

negative influence on us↑. We don’t get any choice ourselves (.)

which is natural for teenage boys to make their own decisions

and want to be independent. And because he’s suppressing us

we get this negative influence on the way we think=

417. Hec[10]: =and saying like you shouldn’t have your own opinion.

418. Sol[10]: Yeah, it’s sort of making that we’re just thinking “Well, this isn’t

very good” and it just becomes like (.) school (…) no one enjoys

school↓, I don’t think.

[…]

532. Chip[10]: I think that they should, yeah, they should try and mould us but

not so much that it is like, a <steel mould>, using a metaphor, it

might be like rubber or something like that, or like jelly, where

you can sort of have a bit of movement, you get a bit of choice

how your mould is going to turn out. Just that they should have

some freedom in, have some friction and movement where they

can change their mould, whereas what is going on at the moment

they are just giving us, sort of, like, a steel mould, there is no

movement, you are just either that or you are out of here. There

should be one that you should be able to ↓have a bit of freedom

and a bit of space.

In the formulation of his argument, the speaker in Turn 416 again reinforced the

proposition that it was ‘natural’ for ‘teenage boys’ to have a developmental need to

be independent thinkers and autonomous decision-makers. This attribution is an

appeal to a commonly understood aspect of MCD Stage of Life. But, he went


further to explain that the excessive containment or ‘suppression’ of this inherent

adolescent aspiration by staff at the school provoked rebellious dispositions

among students. In this way, the student artfully established the institutional-

pedagogical practices of the school as contravening the ‘natural’ order of positive

adolescent growth and development, and therefore, as unreasonable and

illegitimate.

The consequences of the school employing this unbending form of ‘steel mould’

institutional pedagogy to shape students’ behaviour were taken to be severe. In

their view, not only would students lack the necessary self-discipline,

independent thinking and competent decision-making skills to cope successfully

beyond school, but their motivation and engagement in school would be

adversely affected (‘no one enjoys school’). At worst, student graduates were

purported either to lack the necessary social resilience or to develop a rebellious

disposition in and beyond school that would be dysfunctional (‘go off the tracks’)

and unconstructive in terms of participatory citizenship in the wider society.

According to the students, this ‘steel mould’ pedagogy had specific consequences

for the SMC initiative. As in Excerpt 19, these students shared the perception

that, despite the rhetoric of the SMC being ‘run by students’ (Hec[10], Turn 471),

the SMC was in reality ‘monitored by teachers anyway’ (Hec[10], Turn 471), and

therefore, students, as a collective category, were unable to ‘speak to who we want,

when we want and whatever we want about’ (Max[10], Turn 470). By contrast, this

degree of freedom was perceived to be entirely possible on the public Web 2.0

social tool MySpace: ‘that’s why we enjoy MySpace because there’re no teachers there to


restrict us and say you can’t say that’ (Chip[10], Turn 469). By invoking the plural

pronoun ‘we’ in his talk, the speaker spoke as an incumbent of the ‘student’

category, thereby establishing his view as a commonplace perspective shared by

other students in the school. Put another way, the speakers posited that the

general student population at school preferred using MySpace to the SMC

because of their widely shared cultural logic that the SMC’s potential for

enhancing students’ learning experiences―by promoting student agency and

encouraging students’ expression of opinions―was put as purely a theoretical

one, unrealistic and unachievable in practice within the staff-dominant, rigid

institutional boundaries of the school.

In the preceding excerpts of students’ accounts, the binary formulation of

‘dominant-staff/dispossessed-student’ member categories was recurrently

produced across all six focus groups. The extensive categorisation work and the

consequential implications produced by students that both constituted and

reflected this binary logic can be summarised in Figure 5.2.


Figure 5.2 Institutional-pedagogical barrier ― Domineering staff/Disposessed student

The synthesis of the analysis in Figure 5.2 distils the version of social reality

constituted in the students’ talk, through which sense is made of the low SMC

adoption rates among senior students in the school. In accomplishing their

explanations, students called attention to a pervasive system of role-based

identities and relationships operating in the school. In other words, the student

participants pointed to a version of in-school social relationships between staff

and students that has congealed as a relatively stable commonsense feature of

‘Domineering-Staff’ ‘Dispossessed-student’ MCD: School

Contrasting pair/ categorisations


Management/Executive Staff Big Brother Enforcer/Punisher/Censor

• SMC initiative, by virtue of a school-based activity, was perceived to reflect the problematic relations between domineering-staff/dispossessed-student in the wider school context.

• SMC initiative perceived to be closely bound to ‘domineering-staff’ category and therefore, category-bound activities of excessive staff surveillance, censorship, punishment at institutional level extended to the SMC space.

• By contrast, ‘dispossessed-student’ category formulated as resistant of staff control, fearful of punishment and therefore risk-averse.

• Using the SMC to present authentic student views taken to be unstrategic and risky. SMC’s ‘Your Way, Your Say’ ideal rendered useless-in-practice.

• Resistance/disengagement from SMC posited as commonsense, strategic and legitimate response to the conservative school culture/staff-dominant institutional pedagogy.


moral evaluations)

Restricted and controlledDiscerning of rules but ‘powerless’

Dispossessed, disenfranchised, defiantInsecure, risk-averse, fearful

Reluctant to post content on SMC


and attributes

Restrictive and controlling Authoritarian and ‘powerful’ Domineering, dominant, dictatorial Corporate, impersonal, punitive Surveilling/censoring content on SMC

‘Steel Moulded’ Student Carbon Copy Kids

‘Suppressed’ Teenagers


the categorisation system. It is important to note, however, that this version of

social reality shared by students in their talk is not the Truth about the school,

nor does it necessarily reflect the actualities of the school, especially the degree

of staff surveillance or censorship in relation to the SMC. This is reflected in

one Year 11 student’s account, shown in Excerpt 21. This student has been

earmarked for SMC leadership in Year 12.

Excerpt 21.

“… the truth is we’ve only got two major rules for the SMC […] One rule is

that there’s no bullying, no discriminatory views or anything like that coming

across that would be offensive. The second one is, you know, not taking aim at

the headmaster. Other than that there’s pretty much anything that you can do

with the site and I think people are just scared that they think “Oh, I’ll get in

trouble for this” but they haven’t really got the balls to just come out and say it.

The truth is it shouldn’t be any different to any other medium.” (Graeme[11],

Turn 35)

In his view, the problem of low SMC usage rates was not so much attributable to

the staff or the school, but rather, in the general student population lacking the

initiative and strength of character to negotiate pro-actively institutional

boundaries by voicing their opinions. This perspective was, however, exceptional

in the student talk, just as the earmarking of this student for future SMC

leadership marked him as exceptional.

As with the binary formulation Cool/Uncool, the deep-seated polarisation of

‘Domineering-staff/Dispossessed-student’ fails to provide the students, as a collective

whole, with a productive recourse for social action in relation to promoting

wider and more frequent usage of the SMC among the senior school student


community. Instead, the student participants frequently aligned themselves with

one of two possible solutions, both of which were heard to be highly contested

and inconsistent within and across the groups. The first and most commonly

proposed solution was the complete disassociation of executive staff from the

SMC. That is, the SMC ought to be completely free of any involvement from

staff, particularly involvement that may be perceived to enfeeble student

ownership and autonomy on the site. This is the logic exemplified in Excerpt 22.

Excerpt 22.

“The executives certainly need to disassociate themselves from the SMC so

that its i:mage is built up as something that’s entirely student run. Because

that’s where the magic of the SMC comes in, that it’s a student voice and

nothing else. (Stew[11], Turn 186)

A more moderate inflection of this proposed solution was that executive staff

should be granted access to the SMC, in accordance with the SMC’s ideals of

equity among staff and students. However, executive staff have to ‘agree to

relinquish all power that they have at school whilst they’re on the SMC’ (Ben[11], Turn

246), which would mean that on the SMC space, students and staff ‘must be

equal… there is no retribution’ (Rump[11], Turn 247). This proposition, however,

was contested by other students in the group as fanciful and unrealistic in

practice (‘as long as he has power in school it doesn’t work’, Imam[11], Turn 246),

because:

Excerpt 23.

“He has a role to protect the students ‘cause one of the concerns, one of the

↓rules is that there is no harassment or bullying. If he relinquishes all control

and makes it entirely student-run, there’s a chance that stuff could be missed


and he has a responsibility to the students in this school to look after them.”

(Stew[11], Turn 248)

Taken together with previous segments of talk, a paradoxical characterisation of

the executive staff as both problematically-ever-present and potentially-missing-

in-action is produced in the student accounts. The incongruity of this logic is

strongly reflected in students’ criticisms of the staff member for his ‘Big Brother’

role in the school alongside an insistence on his responsibility to ‘look after’ the

student population by ensuring that no one was harassed or bullied. The

students’ talk reflected the conundrum of competing desires, that is, the desire to

be free from staff authority and monitoring, and the paradoxical desire that staff

be accountable in terms of their duty to surveil and control in order to safeguard

students from the potential danger of discrimination or corrupting influences.

This is exemplified in the following turns of talk by two Year 12 students:

Excerpt 24.

135. Oz[12]: I don’t reckon we can have it completely student-run because

teachers can’t let stuff, like, inappropriate stuff, be said on a

school website (..) I mean (..) like, what if somebody was, like,

some little kid was getting bullied the shit out of.

136. Cal[12]: I know, and like, selling drugs and stuff like that.

In this exchange, the students’ talk reclaimed the institutional norms of ‘school’

as a social space where staff, rather than peers, are assigned the role and

responsibility of regulator and rule-enforcer for the sake of safety. Students’

internalisation and reproduction of the institutionally-traditional pedagogy was

also reflected in the second proposed solution to promote higher levels of SMC


usage among students. According to some students, the only way to increase

students’ engagement with the SMC would be to mandate the use of the SMC,

particularly for student leaders and sports captains. For example, one student

asserted:

Excerpt 25.

“[…] the whole premise of leadership at [RBS] in the coming year should be

forced to be based around the SMC, um, there’s no other alternative, whether

people like it or not” (Ben[11], Turn 360).

This perspective, however, was highly contested. Some students expressed the view

that ‘that’s a very bad thing’ because ‘it just goes to show that there’s no point to having it if

you’re forced to have it’ (Hugh[11], Turn 360), while another candidly asserted, ‘I

personally think being forced to go through the SMC […] would give me the complete shits’

(Ben[11], Turn 361). This issue was strongly debated in the focus groups and

students failed to reach any clear consensus. The difficulty of achieving a consensus

in turn reflects the internal inconsistency or problematics of the binary logic that

underpinned the student’s categorisation work around staff and students in their

respective institutional roles.

In summary, the above analysis reveals a further logic underpinning students’

reasoning practices beyond that of the ‘Cool/Uncool’ peer social system at play in

the school. This logic is most evident in the students’ discursive framing of ‘school’

as a hierarchical institutional structure with two contrasting categories: The ‘executive

staff’ emerged as the dominant category and are described in morally negative terms

(e.g., ‘totalitarian’, Hugh[11], Turn 150); in contrast is the ‘student’ category, which is

constituted as the repressed and powerless standardised relational pair (e.g., ‘we don’t


get any choice ourselves’, Chip[10], Turn 416). This is consistent with observations from

Raby and Domitrek’s (2007) recent study of Canadian secondary students’

engagement with school rules, where it was found that, although students made

some attempts to negotiate and circumvent school rules, they were “already caught”

within the “dominant language that frames the rules and their top-down

application” and “felt that they had little say in how their lives were governed” (p.

950-951). The data here supports this general conclusion. In simple terms, in the

talk, there seems to be no ‘outside’ to institutional identity―one is always already

constituted as an insider.

The overarching pattern that emerges in students’ accounts in this phase of the

study is of student participants being more likely to reproduce, rather than disrupt,

the binaries and boundaries of the institutional structure in their collective sense-

making. This does not surprise. Although students acknowledged, at least in part,

the inherent paradox of requiring executive staff to be both present and absent, they

nevertheless insisted on the polarised categories of ‘domineering-staff/dispossessed-

student’ as having significant consequences for the students’ choices and decisions

about engaging with non-mandatory activities in school. Drawing on a common

cultural logic, the students characterised themselves as institutional members

resigned to a repressive, even ‘oppress[ive]’ (Spud[10], Turn 108) structural

environment, with little sense that they could or should negotiate the governance or

disciplinary practices of the school. More importantly, the inferential consequence

of this form of rationalisation produced by the students in their talk served to

legitimise and normalise their deep scepticism about any authentic possibility for the

SMC to be the productive ‘student voice of change and development’ in the school


environment. In other words, the students established a sense of ‘unfreedom’ within

school as a non-negotiable cultural system, in which engagement in non-mandatory

activities such as the use of the SMC, is always inevitably compromised by the

prevailing relations of power.

5.3.2.3 Academic Performativity Barrier

Beyond the ‘cool/uncool’ and ‘domineering-staff/dispossessed-student’ binary

formulations, a further barrier to student engagement with the SMC may be

argued to be the formulation of digital learning opportunities as lesser than and

oppositional to traditional academic performance expectations of mainstream

schooling. According to the focus group participants, all students at every level

are expected first and foremost to meet the high expectations of teachers and

parents around academic excellence. This is mirrored in their academic

expectations of themselves. In practical terms, the ‘good student’ prioritises

schoolwork and performing well in summative and/or high-stakes academic

assessments over every other schooling objective. In the absence of any explicit

integration of the learning possibilities afforded by the SMC and the

performance expectations of the school, the either-or-binary of ‘digital-or-

diligent’ serves to pit the SMC against performative norms notwithstanding any

rhetoric to the contrary. What follows is a closer investigation of how this binary

formulation shapes and is shaped within the students’ talk.

In students’ accounts, high academic performance in conventional or prescribed

curriculum subjects was accomplished as the prioritised goal of schooling. In

particular, students who specialise in the traditional ‘academics, like sciences and math’


were understood to be ‘living the dream’, whereas ‘elective subjects like drama, art, film

and television… [are] not given the same sort of acclaim’ (Goku[12], Turn 357).

Consequently, students spoke of how they felt, as responsible members of the

school’s academic community, that they ‘should be doing’ or focusing on the

privileged science and math subjects ‘instead of the other more elective subjects’

(Moe[12], Turn 358). In light of this shared cultural knowledge of schooling

priorities and academic performativity pressures, learning opportunities such as

the SMC, which do not map neatly onto the formal curriculum or contribute in

precise and demonstrable ways to better performance in exams, were often

commonsensically characterised by the students as a ‘waste of time’ (e.g., Slim[10],

Turn 236; Dwayne[11], Turn139; Odie[12], Turn 205).

A close analysis of the students’ accounts revealed two distinct sources of

academic performance pressures―School and Family―both of which impacted

on students’ decisions to engage with and/or disengage from the SMC. In brief,

students frequently framed the academic pressures of School as primarily about

coping with the relentless quantity of schoolwork delegated by teachers and

avoiding the punitive consequences that come with the failure to complete

designated homework and assignments on time. In this fraught context, the

learning affordances of the SMC become a distraction from the ‘main game’, in

ways that are reminiscent of Dweck’s (2000) concerns about a potentially

dysfunctional ‘learning-or-performing’ binary. The privileging of academic

performance at the expense of SMC-based opportunities for new and different

sorts of learning is a strong thematic in discussions around students’ perceived

lack of time and space to engage with the SMC in-school. For them, the crowded


curriculum and the constant press of academic demands exacted by teachers in

terms of large amounts of homework and assignments rendered the SMC as

neither a practical option nor one likely to be rewarded in their record of

achievement.

Academic pressures emanating from Family served to reinforce this binary, but in

more qualitative ways, in that many of the students recurrently expressed a deep

sense of obligation to meet parental expectations of achieving good grades,

rather than merely to complete the assigned quantity of work. This was evident

in students’ accounts that framed the SMC as a peripheral activity and potential

distraction from ‘real work’ (Foo[11], Turn 251) at school. For many of them, it

did not constitute part of the formal curriculum and therefore did not have any

direct bearing on students’ achievements in the annual state-wide high-stakes

assessment conducted at the end of their senior schooling. This high-stakes

examination, known as the Queensland Core Skills Test (QCS), had significant

bearing on students’ access to future pathways in tertiary education programs. In

Excerpt 26, a group of Year 10 students, all of whom had used the SMC to

varying degrees, commented on the high levels of pressure they experienced

around schoolwork and academic performance. They also distinguished the

types of pressure emanating from ‘teachers’ and ‘parents’ as being qualitatively

different.


Excerpt 26.

179. Max[10]: There is no time of the year when there is less pressure, there’s

always pressure, just at points there are more pressure than

often.

180. Hec[10]: There’s always pressure, just close to the end of year, there’s

more pressure than usual.

181. Facilitator: And what is this pressure that you feel?

182. Hec[10]: The amount of work to get done.

183. Chip[10]: Generally, it’s threats usually=

184. Sol[10]: =threats from teachers and things.

185. Facilitator: ↑Threats?

186. Sol[10]: If you have an assignment due the next day they’ll say, “If you

haven’t got it done and you don’t bring it, you get a Saturday

detention”.

187. Chip[10]: Yeah, there’s a lot of pressure.

188. Hec[10]: ↑Yeah! You get into lots of trouble and then you might fail or

whatever or not get marked.

189. Max[10]: It’s also, the pressure is […] you get your assignments done but

there’s still assignments, homework every night, sort of builds

up and if you don’t get it done the night it’s meant to be done

then it builds up and you have more and more to do closer to

the actual due date.

190. Chip[10]: The teacher puts pressure on you to get it done and then

you’ve got your pa:rents on your back for doing it at a ↓decent

level. So you can’t just rush through it and get it done like the

teachers would like you to get it done on time, you have to do


it at a decent level or else parents will, at least my parents

definitely would get upset.

191. Facilitator: How many of you sense this pressure from your parents?

192. Various: Yeah, yeah [many students nod and mumble agreement]

In the above account, the students expressed the view that the pressure they felt

at school was not only substantial (‘a lot of pressure’) but also constant (‘there’s

always pressure, just at points… more’). When asked to elaborate on this pressure,

students characterised this ‘pressure’ as being academic in nature (‘the pressure is…

assignments’; ‘the amount of work to get done’). Further, students were heard to evoke

two different membership categories that these academic expectations stemmed

from, namely ‘teachers’ and ‘parents’. Moreover, the speakers distinguished

between the types of expectations, obligations and motivations that

corresponded to the two different standardised relational pairs (SRP) of

Teacher-Student (MCD School), and Parent-Child (MCD Family). In the former

SRP Teacher-Student, ‘teacher’ expectations and corresponding ‘student’

obligations revolved around the timely completion and submission of designated

homework and assignments (‘the teacher puts pressure on you to get it done’). The

primary motivational mechanism for meeting these obligations was framed as

punitive in nature, namely, ‘threats’ of ‘Saturday detention’ and ‘not get[ting] marked’.

By contrast, in the case of SRP Parent-Child, the pressure experienced and

articulated by the students had less to do with the daily pragmatics of schooling,

such as the completion and submission of work. Instead, the focus was on the

quality of performance in the academic subjects (‘you’ve got your parents on your back

for doing it a decent level’), where the consequence of low performance was heard to


be emotional reproach from parents (‘my parents definitely would get upset’), rather

than the more functional penalties meted out by teachers (‘detention’). Although

the speaker in Turn 190 used a personal anecdote ‘at least my parents definitely would

get upset’ to both qualify and substantiate his claim, a general agreement was

heard among most other student participants in the room. By distinguishing

between these two forms of academic pressure discussed above, the students

painted a picture of the intensity of the overall pressure they experienced in

terms of both quantity and quality of academic work that they had to negotiate

constantly in their daily schooling.

The nature and extent of this ‘performance drive’ in the school was further

elaborated and substantiated in the accounts of a group of Year 12 students in

Excerpt 27. These students described the formalisation of the school’s ‘scholastic

attainment expectations’ by way of explicit statements in whole-school policy

documents, such as the ‘school diary’. The formalised academic expectations

established by the school were criticised as neither feasible nor achievable (‘I

can’t believe that … no one would do that’). The implication was that this ‘who:le

performance drive we’ve got ↑going’ has resulted in an excessively crowded curriculum,

leaving the student population with hardly enough time or space to engage in

basic essential activities such as ‘sleep’, much less engage meaningfully with non-

mandatory and non-assessed learning initiatives such as the SMC.

Excerpt 27.

383. Moe[12]: […] I’ve come across a page in the school diary, page two, so

it’s right at the sta:rt, […] it says this “The school rules or

expectations are defined for the good of the entire school

↓community” [various mild laughter] … “They define the


boundaries within which the life of the school functions,

<maintaining a place at the school> and gaining promotion

from year to year is based on the commitment to, and

achievement of these expectations.” So this is the who:le

performance drive that we’ve got ↑going and then […] they

like even quantify things like “academic achievement is going

to be measured on this”. […] then the diary tells us ↓that in

each year level how many hours of homework we should be

doing per ↓week. So in Year Twe:lve, if you’re not doing

twenty to twenty four hours per week you have fa:iled the

scholastic attainment expectations of the school.”

384. Reet[12]: Oh, I can’t believe that they’ve said twenty to twenty four

hours. That’s like four hours a night, three, four hours a night,

no one would do that.

385. Moe[12]: Well let’s make it a nice rounded figure of twenty five […]

we’re doing five hours of work a night and being a boarder

I’ve most often got training in the afternoon. So from 3:05 to

5:00 I’ve got training, then I get ready for dinner. That goes

until about 6:45. So from 6:45 until (.) when’s ↑that (.) ele:ven

I’m meant to be studying.

386. Reet[12]: Then you miss out on too much sleep.

387. Ray[12]: So the downward spi:ral. It’s you know, a perpetuation of our

↓loss of sanity.

In Turn 382, the statement ‘school rules or expectations are defined for the good of the

entire school ↓community’ drew mild laughter from various participants, including

the speaker. The somewhat scornful laughter could arguably be taken as an

indication of mild contempt aimed at the school’s claim that these expectations

were for the benefit of the student body. Students were heard to take this

statement as rhetoric rather than reality. In fact, the speaker elongated his


reading of the following phrase ‘<maintaining a place at the school>’ in order to

emphasise what he took to be a paradoxical, even hypocritical, parallel threat,

albeit a subtle one, of parting company in the event that these ‘expectations’ were

not met. In Turn 384, the same speaker added credibility to his assertion that the

‘scholastic attainment’ expectation was unrealistic by providing a detailed list of

activities that included ‘training’, ‘dinner’ and ‘studying’, which showed the

compactness of a regular schooling day that left neither space nor time for

leisure activities. This was then accentuated by another students’ extreme case

formulation that this ‘pressure cooker’ lifestyle inadvertently leads to ‘a

perpetuation of [the students’] ↓loss of sanity’. The moral allocation here is that the

school’s insistence on ‘performance’ was not only unreasonable but harmful to

students’ physical and mental health (‘miss out on too much sleep’; ‘loss of sanity’).

The school’s prioritising of academic performance was also heard to impact

problematically on teachers’ pedagogical orientations and perceptions of the

SMC, with this in turn being a negative influence on students’ engagement with

the SMC, as illustrated in the segment of talk between two Year 11 students

shown in Excerpt 28.

Excerpt 28.

25. Stew[11]: When the SMC first came out there was this whole hype

about it and […] it was sort of foregrounded to the teaching

population that the SMC is bad cause all that was going on

was the forums and everyone was just wasting a lot of time

[…] You’ve got teachers who really see it as just a student

forum and nothing more and nothing less and that there’s

no positive learning that can be produced from the SMC.

Rather it’s just a little place where students have a chat and


say silly things. So to get support from the staff you really

have to change their perception of what the SMC is…

26. Facilitator: Do you think it is possible to change their perception?

27. Graeme[11]: […] I think the SMC is a perfect vehicle for intellectual

discussion to happen and for people to voice their opinions,

you know, teachers don’t enjoy when their classes get

disturbed, when people start to have discussions about

things ‘cause it goes off-topic and it’s not good for the

↓exam etcetera etcetera. The SMC is somewhere where it

can be done in an enjoyable medium but it can also be really

beneficial to the person starting the discussion when

everyone else contributes, cause this is, you know, real

learning, this is not in the textbook, this isn’t stuff you’re

gonna be taught and lectured about in the class, this is stuff

which has real world applications.

In the above accounts, the ‘teaching population’ rather than individual teachers,

were described as prejudiced against the SMC because it was seen as an

inconsequential (‘just a little place where students have a chat and say silly things’), even

distracting (‘wasting a lot of time’), digital space in the school that produced ‘no

positive learning’. In Turn 27, the student characterised the ‘teacher’ member

category as primarily concerned with teaching ‘what is good for the ↓exam’ and

other similarly narrow test-oriented curriculum that were commonly understood

by fellow students and therefore did not require explicit naming (‘etcetera etcetera’).

This ‘etcetera’ procedure indicates widespread recognition of the point. This

finding confirms observations documented in extant literature about the

constraining impact of a high-stakes assessment culture on teachers’ pedagogical

practices. For instance, Faulkner and Cook (2006) and Passman (2000) have


observed that in response to state-wide testing, teachers often reverted to a

narrow focus on test-based curriculum and teacher-centred instructional

methods, despite acknowledging the importance of active and student-centred

pedagogies for enhancing student learning. In similar vein, teachers in this

context were characterised by the speakers as strongly focused on exam-oriented

‘topic[s]’, preferential to teacher-centred pedagogical approaches (‘taught and

lectured about in class’), as opposed to more student-centred approaches that

support authentic discovery through questioning, discussion and debate (‘teachers

don’t like it when their class gets disturbed when people start to have discussions’).

By contrast, the SMC was purported to be a genuinely useful alternative learning

space in the school for students to engage in ‘real learning’ with ‘real world

applications’ outside of the formal ‘textbook’ curriculum. This viewpoint of the

SMC being a practical learning tool for encouraging ‘intellectual discussion’ and

developing digital-age skills was, however, contested by another student in the

group as idealism rather than reality. This is illustrative of the extent to which

many students were more concerned with ‘achi:evement’ rather than the ‘whole real

world learning… and that kind of stuff’, as illustrated in Excerpt 30.

Excerpt 29.

137. Dickie[11]: It’s a bit hard though to change, like, the attitudes that are hit

down at us from middle school about achi:evement, so it’s

kind of difficult for the whole real world learning,

interpersonal (development) and that kind of stuff.

139. Dwayne[11]: […] the school pretty much ↓dri:lls into you, as most schools

do, that the most important thing in your schooling career is

grades (..) and then at the end of your schooling career


getting an OP18 and then getting into university ‘cause if you

can’t do that then you have to go to college or TAFE and ⁰be

an idiot⁰ (hehh hh) […] even though like in the real world

that’s not true↑ and I think most people in this room realise

that once you leave school your OP really doesn’t count […]

and so this alternative way of doing things is getting people

to not just focus on their schoolwork. But then maybe people

don’t want to do that because it’s been drilled into them that

school’s the most important thing and they don’t want to

waste their time on the computer.

140. Hugh[11]: Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Because a lot of people at

[RBS], you know, we’re drilled in with the grades and we do,

like, try to concentrate and do well with the grades […]

people aren’t going to be drawn to the SMC […] ‘cause

they’re going to be like “Ok, I go to school, I do academics,

I’m not going to do this extra thing and waste my time with

it.” […] To be blunt, I think when you get into year eleven

and twelve […] people start realising “Oh, you know, this

isn’t counting for my OP” which is a big thing and I think

that the SMC may be more successful for the younger years.

In the above accounts, the speakers were heard continually to reinforce one

another’s description of the relentless top-down pressure from the school and

staff that ‘the most important in your schooling career is grades’. This was framed as an

exceptionally powerful logic of the schooling order that has permeated the

collective consciousness of the student population (we’re drilled in with the grades’).

Thus, despite the knowledge that this logic may not hold in ‘the real world’ where

the OP test scores on the state-wide exam ‘really doesn’t count’, students insisted

18 OP or ‘Overall Position’ is a tertiary entrance rank used in the Australian state of Queensland for selection into universities. Like similar systems used throughout the rest of Australia, the OP shows how well a student has performed in their senior secondary studies compared to all other OP-eligible students in Queensland.


on the importance of ‘grades’ to the exclusion of activities such as the SMC,

which is ‘this extra thing’ and essentially a ‘waste [of] time’.

Some Year 11 and 12 students, however, asserted that ‘OP… is a big thing’ and

therefore, students in the younger grades who are not facing high-stakes

assessments such as the QCS would feel less pressure to perform academically.

Yet Year 10 students were found to articulate similar experiences of high levels

of academic pressures. This was first exemplified in Excerpt 26, and again in

Excerpt 30.

Excerpt 30.

162. Max[10]: Well, we’re in year ↓ten, we have assessment, assignments and

like also=

163. Sol[10]: =especially towards the end of the year.

164. Max[10]: Yeah like especially for me, I live further out so by the time I get

home it’s like 4.30 and then I have to do assignments and eat and

all that.

165. Chip[10]: ⁰We have to eat, keep going⁰.

166. Max[10]: =and get to bed at a time that I will be able to sort of get out of

bed the next morning, cause if I am up too late then, I sleep in

and then miss the bus or something. So it’s sort of just, we have

<so much work> that we don’t really have that much time at

↓home. Like if, on the SMC it’s more sort of at school we get

the opportunity=

167. Sol[10]: =Yeah, that relates back to the in-class distraction on teachers

and students, that sort of thing.


Similar to the Year 12 students in Excerpt 27, the Year 10 students in the above

segment of talk collectively produced a graphic depiction of the density of their

regular schooling day, which was given weight and credibility through their

personal anecdotes and detailed list of mundane yet essential activities. The

implication here was that the SMC had been crowded-out by existing

commitments and responsibilities, both in and out of school. In light of the

countless ‘must-dos’ of the day that ranged from important responsibilities such

as ‘assignments’ to basic necessities (‘eat’, ‘sleep’, ‘get out of bed’), the wider student

population’s ambivalence towards the SMC was accomplished as a normal and

reasonable response, one that might be expected of any conscientious student

given the moral order and institutional priorities of the school.

The MCA analytical diagram presented in Figure 5.3 provides a summary of the

moral order within the school as formulated by students in their talk. This moral

order is constituted out of normative expectations and responsibilities bound to

the standardised relational pair categories of ‘demanding-teacher/diligent-

student’. It has specific consequences for the low uptake of the SMC innovation

among students in the school.


Figure 5.3 Academic Performativity Barrier ― Demanding teacher/Diligent student

It is apparent from the above distillation that a key node around which the moral

order is organised comprises the speakers’ sense of obligation as ‘diligent

students’ to meet the rigorous academic demands of teachers in the school. The

imperative of being ‘diligent’ meant that students and their teachers, when faced

with time constraints, have to prioritise and concentrate on activities that are

likely to result in high performance in the traditional academic domain. By

implication, activities such as the SMC that are not deemed to have direct

bearing on students’ academic performance in high-stakes assessments, should

‘responsibly’ and ‘commonsensically’ be rejected in favour of the foremost

schooling priority of completing schoolwork and achieving good grades. The

above analysis provides evidence that the low uptake of the SMC innovation

MCD: School

Standardised relational pair


Demanding-Teacher

• Most important priority at school is high performance in local and statewide assessments. This is reflected in high demands from teachers in terms of schoolwork (homework, assignments), and high pressure for students to be diligent in managing a crowded curriculum.

• The SMC, despite affordances for ‘real world learning’, does not contribute directly to this foremost priority of schooling.

• Therefore, the SMC is generally perceived to be inconsequential to schooling―a distraction and waste of time―by ‘responsible’ members of the school, both teachers and students.

• Disengagement from SMC posited as either a commonsense and/or responsible response to a schooling culture that privileges academic performativity, both explicitly (policy) and implicitly (in everyday classroom practices).


moral evaluations)

Internalises high academic expectationsResponsibility to perform well in exams

Fear of punishment motivates performancePerceives SMC as distraction, waste of time


and attributes

Imposes high academic expectations Responsibility to focus on teaching to exams Threats to motivate performance Perceives SMC as distraction, waste of time

Diligent-Student


among students is an effect of this perception having congealed into a relatively

stable commonsense. The conditions of possibility for SMC engagement in

school are thus severely limited by the high degree of fixity around the moral

obligations of students and teachers in a schooling culture that privileges

academic performativity over other modes and objectives of learning. In simple

terms, the rhetoric of open-ended inquiry collapses under the weight of the

cultural logic of the mainstream academic order.

Other than negotiating exacting teachers’ demands around schoolwork, students

also expressed a deep sense of obligation to parents to perform well academically

at school and not ‘waste time’ on learning opportunities that were tangential to the

achievement of good grades. This issue is elaborated in Extract 31.

Excerpt 31.

193. Chip[10]: […] you have to do it at a decent level or else parents will, at

least my parents definitely would get upset.

194. Facilitator: How many of you sense this pressure from your parents?

195. Various: Yeah, yeah [many students nod and mumble consensus]

196. Chip[10]: Definitely, mine would get upset.

197. Hec[10]: =They pressure me but they don’t look at my work. I do fairly

well anyway so=

198. Sol[10]: My mum doesn’t pressure me↑ but she just sort of likes me to

do the best I can.

199. Facilitator: How do you know she wants you to do the best you can?

200. Chip[10]: They ↓tell you like=


201. Sol[10]: No no, she implies it, she won’t get mad at me unless I sort of

do badly, like if I’m getting ‘A’s and that, she’s happy she’s

fine it doesn’t really matter, but if I start slipping(hh) down

then…

202. Max[10]: Like “If you get a B plus in your English!” [dramatic tone]

In the above account, students provided personal experiences of parental

pressure to do well in school. While some experienced this pressure in more

explicit ways (‘they ↓tell you’), others considered their parents’ expectations to be

more implicit (‘she just sort of likes me to do the best I can’). Regardless of whether the

pressure was overt or covert in nature, the intensity and weight of these

expectations were heard to be substantial. According to one speaker, his

mother’s emotional state (‘happy’) was dependent on him achieving distinctions

(‘getting As’). In the event that his grades ‘start slipping’, the consequences were

formulated to be so problematic that they defied explicit description. This was

achieved by an artful use of ending the sentence on an open adverb ‘then…’ in

Turn 201. This was further substantiated in the next turn when another student

pointed out that even a negligible ‘slip’, from an ‘A’ to a ‘B plus’ could be

construed as ‘do[ing] badly’ by parents, which would result in parental reproach

(‘upset’, ‘mad’).

Other students in Year 12 were heard to associate this sense of obligation to

parents with the substantial cost of school fees that were being invested in their

schooling. For example, one student pointed out in Excerpt 32:


Excerpt 32.

“It may be different in state schools, but most people that go to this school,

whether or not they’re smart, they sort of have the respect of their parents to

worry about their grades, seeing that they’re paying the best part of seventy

↓gra:nd to send us here from year seven to whenever we can […] yeah, you still

just have that respect where you (.) everyone sorta has a little bit of a worry

about their academic grades (Cal[12], Turn 198).

From the above excerpt of talk, MCD Family and MCD School are heard to be

aligned on the matter of the Good Child/Diligent Student’s responsibility to

‘worry’ about grades, regardless of their individual academic capabilities and

potential. The moral inferential logic here is that it is legitimately the business of

the family to be concerned about their child’s diligence as reflected in good

grades, and, reciprocally, the legitimate business of the school to respect the

family concern by emphasising students’ high performance in academic tasks and

assessments. In the above excerpt of talk, the speaker clearly established that

‘everyone’ enrolled as students in ‘this school’, had a duty to their parents to focus

on their schoolwork and achieve good grades, regardless of whether they were

innately intelligent (‘smart’) or otherwise. The reason for this was declared to be

the extensive financial cost borne by parents to enrol and maintain their

children’s place in the school. As a result, it was held to be only reasonable that

parents have the expectation (‘just have that respect’) that their children put in

substantial effort to achieve good ‘academic grades’. Indeed, according to another

fellow focus group participant, the general student population (‘everyone’) is so

concerned about their grades that they would ‘put more effort into their work rather

than going and wasting time on the SMC’ (Odie[12], Turn 203). These same students


had been noted earlier to espouse the potential benefits of the SMC for

developing ‘real world’ digital-age skills and promoting student agency in learning.

When pitted against their obligation to parents to focus on ‘academic grades’,

students’ use of the digital affordances of the SMC were a luxury activity, an

indulgence that could and should be relinquished in favour of ‘proper’ exam-

related ‘work’.

This binary formulation of digital-learning-versus-academic-performance also

emerged strongly in discussions addressing the questions of whether they would

endorse the future growth of the SMC as parents. When asked to imagine

themselves in the role of parents, they responded in ways that recurrently and

problematically tied the matter of the SMC’s usefulness to expectations of high

academic performance. Yet again, with academic achievement the main

schooling priority, internet-based digital learning opportunities such as the SMC

were articulated as a distraction from ‘proper’ schoolwork and achieving ‘good

grades’. In some instances, a more ‘empowering’ or ‘hands-off’ approach to

parenting and SMC endorsement was heard (‘I’d want my children to have freedom to

make their own decision’ Isaiah[11], Turn 250; ‘I wouldn’t care at all’ Spud[10], Turn

232). These statements were, however, exceptions to the rule. Most student

participants saw parents reasoning the SMC as an activity that was at best,

peripheral to schooling and at worst, a distraction from ‘work’ and a ‘waste of time’.

Some students proposed that this may be due in part to the type of schooling

experience their parents went through, which was conservative (‘strict’), skill-and-

drill (‘copied out in the textbook’) and exam-driven (‘do the test, if you pass good, if you


fail you suck’), where ‘computers’ were mere novelty and ‘textbooks’ the norm. An

illustration is provided in Excerpt 33.

Excerpt 33.

243. Hugh[11]: All of our parents, who are at least 35 years old […] They all

grew up decades ago when there was maybe computers and,

like, all learning was strict, in the classroom type stuff, copied

out in text book, do the test, if you pass good, if you fail you

suck and you fail life, you get to go and drop out of school.

So, most of them are not going to be really aware of any

alternative learning unless they’re in the field of alternative

learning as their occupation. And so most of them aren’t

going to support the SMC, they are just going to want you to

sit down at your desk and do your homework and not watch

TV and then go to bed.

244. Stew[11]: Yeah that’s something that I do con:stant↓ battle with my

parents to do with study and, um, with something like this

[the SMC], it’s not an idea that’s going to appeal to them

because it’s a website and […] it’s got the videos and the

forum. So as a parent, I’m not sure my parents would

endorse it (..) if I were my parents I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t

endorse it.

The SMC was here characterised as an ‘alternative learning’ space that was not

‘going to appeal’ to the parents for two reasons. First, parents were held to be

imposing or reproducing their own experiences with school by way of insisting

on a strict routine of ‘homework’ and ‘bed’. Second, parents were characterised as

conservative in their attitudes towards media and new media technologies such

as ‘TV’, ‘website’, ‘videos’ and ‘forum’, which were taken to be distractions from

schooling rather than productive learning tools. Consequently, students


subscribed to the view that their parents would not endorse their engagement

with the SMC. This reflects to a large extent the phenomenon that Popkewitz

(2003) terms the ‘pedagogicalisation’ of parents. In simple terms,

‘pedagogicalised’ parents are those who are deemed particularly ‘good’ and

‘responsible’ for their willingness to become enlisted as like-minded partners

into perpetuating the dominant values and priorities of the prevailing or

normalised schooling process. In this case, the emphasis lies with the

endorsement that parents are perceived to give to strong academic performance

in academic assessments, to the exclusion of meaningful participation in any

other learning opportunities at school that are not perceived to have a direct

bearing on exam scores. As a site of learning opportunities, the SMC is

nevertheless deemed to fit this latter category.

What is more important here than the alignment of school and parent values is

that some students were heard to have internalised this same propensity to

‘alignment’ and reproduced it as their own. For instance, as shown in Excerpt 34,

a Year 11 student pointed out that his mother had a ‘significant involvement with

education’ and was well-informed on ‘boys’ education’, and as far as he knew, she

was ‘entirely in support of the SMC program’. Nonetheless, he went on to assert that

this positive response was likely to be predicated on whether the child (in

abstract) was a ‘good learner’, and this in turn would be defined by the child’s

performance in academic subjects.

Excerpt 34.

“[…] So if I was a parent I know that I’d definitely look at whether my child is a

really good learner or whether he or she isn’t. Because if they are, well then I’d


definitely be looking for extension programs in order to further their learning

because it’s important that you keep learning new things all the time but in saying

that if they were mentally challenged and had difficulty doing Maths A↑ (hehh hh)

[mild laughter from other students], then I would be telling them to sit down at

the bloody desk and do some proper study and stay off the SMC!” (Rump[11],

Turn 245)

The students went on in subsequent turns to assert that Maths A was generally

considered to be a very simple Maths subject that only poor-performing, or in

their own terms―‘mentally challenged’―students struggled with. The logic

accomplished in their talk was that the SMC would be useful as an ‘extension’ for

students who were already high achievers at school, but a prohibited zone for

students who were struggling with basic subjects in the formal curriculum.

Despite the fact that one student reminded the group to consider the academic

benefits of the SMC because of ‘past study guides or past exams that could be used’

(Isaiah[11], Turn 247), the majority of students in the group agreed with the

proposition that the SMC should be reserved for students who had no trouble

fulfilling their primary obligation of achieving good grades in academic subjects.

If unable to achieve strong academic performance, a student should not consider

engaging with the SMC, despite its recognised benefits for developing skills

relevant to work futures.

The students’ expressed obligation to their parents in terms of academic

achievement and the necessary implications for their engagement with non-

assessed learning initiatives such as the SMC are summarised in the Figure 5.4.


Figure 5.4 Academic Performativity Barrier ― Good Parent/Responsible Child

The high degree of agreement produced by students around the importance of

academic achievement, often to the exclusion of other non-assessed learning

opportunities offered at school, calls attention to this binary as a third cultural

imperative entrenched in students’ mindset of the moral order of school. While

accounts of teachers’ and parents’ responses to high-stakes assessment and

academic performativity culture in the enterprise of schooling have been well-

documented in extant literature (e.g., Faulkner & Cook, 2006; Goertz & Duffy,

2003; Passman, 2000; Sloane & Kelly, 2003), less is known about how students

respond to and negotiate such academic pressures. The above analysis of

students’ accounts provides insights into the ways that young people, under

constant pressure to perform well in local and state-wide assessments, make

sense of their choices to engage or otherwise with school-sanctioned digital

MCD: Family

Standardised relational pair


Good Parent(s) (‘mother’ sometimes specified)

• Main responsibility as a child is to strive for academic excellence in the curriculum subjects.

• The SMC, despite affordances for ‘real world learning’, is seen as an indulgence that detracts from the fulfillment of this responsibility.

• Therefore, the SMC is generally perceived to be at best, an ‘extension’ to learning reserved for academic elites, and at worst, a distraction, waste of time and forbidden zone for low-performing students.

• Disengagement from SMC posited as either a commonsense and/or responsible response in light of their moral obligation to parents who bear the substantial costs of their secondary education (~$70,000).


moral evaluations)

Responsibility to strive for good gradesBears emotional reproach if standards dropPerceives SMC as distraction, waste of time


and attributes

Responsibility to pay substantial school fees Gets ‘upset’/‘mad’ at marginal slip in grades Perceives SMC as distraction, waste of time

Responsible-Child


learning opportunities which do not explicitly address academic performance.

The analysis reveals a high degree of fixity around the commonsense that as a

‘diligent student’ and a ‘responsible child’, their main obligation to the school

and to parents is to concentrate on academic achievement rather than ‘waste time’

on peripheral activities such as the SMC. The power of this prevailing logic is

further reinforced by the students’ concurrent acknowledgement that the SMC

held significant benefits for ‘real world’ learning relevant for their work and

citizenry futures.

As with the binary formulations of ‘cool/uncool’ and ‘domineering-

staff/dispossessed-student’, the students’ continual polarisation of ‘digital-

learning’ and ‘academic-performance’ fails to provide them with a logic for

promoting wider SMC usage among the senior school student community.

Instead, students pointed to two solutions that were both heard to be highly

contested among the participants. The first relates to making the SMC ‘compulsory’

(Jon[11], Turn 250) by integrating it with formal curriculum and ensuring that

the SMC is primarily about ‘schoolwork’ (Various[11], Turn 251). Many student

participants contended that this stands in direct contrast with the SMC’s current

design, which privileges a range of student interests and creations that include

but are not limited to conventional academic disciplinary boundaries.

The second proposed solution involves the award of ‘academic colours’, defined by

the students as ‘performance-based rewards’ that students get for ‘winning one game in

Open Chess’ or for joining ‘stage crew’ (Various[10], Turn 191-196). This suggestion

appeared to be highly contentious. Students engaged in an impassioned debate


about the tendency for ‘materialistic colours-based performance reward system’ to detract

from the ‘real appeal of the SMC’ (Peter[10], Turn 196). The ‘real appeal’ of the

SMC was in turn described as it being an authentic and ideal space for students

with a ‘fundamental passion’ (Slim[10], Turn 204) in new media, publishing and

digital-age literacies to engage in flexible digital-networked learning. Some also

raised the challenge of appropriately assessing participation in the SMC (‘… how

do you sort of assess how they’re performing in the SMC?’ San[10], Turn 215). Others,

however, were of the view that the ‘material gain’ would merely act as ‘catalyst for

them [non-users] to get started’ on the SMC, and in particular, ‘an incentive for the jocks

to come in’ (Jus[10], Turn 209, 223). The fact that students failed to reach a clear

consensus on this issue reinforces the significant tensions they experience in

negotiating ‘authentic learning’ and ‘conditioned performing’ in their everyday

schooling practices.

There are echoes here of the observations of Albright and others (2006) and

Warschauer (2007), that students tend to be acculturated and socialised to

privilege particular types of literacy practices that their school, families and

communities believe will contribute to academic success and therefore life

futures. Student participants in this study were heard to justify their resistance

towards the SMC initiative as a commonsensical and responsible choice given its

lack of direct relevance to the chief schooling priority―academic success. Put

simply, when faced with the conundrum of being called simultaneously to

develop powerful digital capacities and to perform as diligent members of their

school community, as a general rule―‘diligence’ prevails. The SMC therefore,


came to be framed by most of these students as an expendable casualty in the

push-and-pull of digital learning and diligent performing in school.

5.4 Summary of Key Findings

This chapter has presented and discussed the findings that emerged from the

qualitative phase of this study. Specifically, the chapter has provided a detailed

exposition of how student participants describe, explain and account for the

tensions and affordances presented by the SMC innovation, as well as its

consequences and prospects for their schooling experience. This qualitative

phase of the study represents a purposeful analytic shift from individual attitudes,

dispositions and behaviours of student participants to their shared social and

cultural knowledge, and the reasoning practices and imperatives that shape and

are shaped by students’ opinions and decisions about the SMC innovation. The

central analytic task undertaken in the chapter has been to explicate the shared

logic and reasoning practices that students draw on and use, in their talk, to

reflect on and reconstruct the social order of schooling, as it relates to their

evaluation and use of the SMC. The chapter has performed this analytic task by

applying MCA to textual data from six in-depth student focus group interviews.

The outcomes of this qualitative phase augment the preceding quantitative phase

by providing deeper insights into how students in the research setting experience,

negotiate and account for their behaviour in light of the complexities of

technology-based innovation and changes in their schooling practices. While the

quantitative phase has identified the ‘what’ of the SMC adoption and diffusion

process, that is, key trends and predictors of SMC uptake among students, this


qualitative phase has gone further to reveal the complexities surrounding why and

how these trends and predictor variables were prevalent and significant to their

daily social and institutional practices. The key findings that emerged from this

phase of the study are summarised below.

First, students’ accounts across all six groups were found to converge around a

key proposition, namely that the SMC is both useful-in-principle and useless-in-

practice. Student participants gave in principle support to the proposition that the

SMC holds much promise and usefulness for their learning and development as

young adults, particularly in terms of exploiting digital and multimodal

engagement, as well as enhancing peer-to-peer networks for developing

academic, social and real-world skills. At the same time that student participants

acknowledged the relevance and potential affordances of the SMC as it was

conceptualised and designed for broadening their learning and schooling

experiences, they were quick to point out the problems associated with

translating these design affordances into actual practice. In the focus group

discussions, the students alluded to a number of key practices, dispositions and

norms embedded within their schooling institution that militated against―or in

their terms ‘castrated’―the potential of the SMC, thereby rendering the digital

learning initiative useless-in-practice. This was the rationale given by them for

the low SMC usage rates and the small number of students who engaged

regularly and meaningfully with the SMC.

Second, it is evident from the students’ talk that the affordances and

problematics of the SMC, while distinct, buttressed one another in complex and


mutually constitutive ways. According to the students, the potential benefits of

the SMC were significant across three areas. These include enhancing social and

learning networks, promoting student expression and agency, as well as

developing real-world skills and dispositions beyond ‘textbook’ knowledge.

Specifically, the SMC was characterised by students as (i) a digital social

networking platform that could significantly enhance peer-to-peer student

networks by facilitating transboundary communications among students that

belonged to conventionally-discrete groups, such as students from different

localities, grades, classes, and schools, (ii) a useful medium for promoting the

expression of students’ opinions, thereby enhancing student agency and

ownership in their schooling community, particularly in ways that may

productively challenge existing power relations within the school by contesting

excessive staff authority and promoting parity of esteem between staff and

students, and (iii) a multimodal and multifunctional one-stop resource that could

publish a diverse collection of student products, cater for a wider range of

student interests and needs, and extend classroom learning to facilitate the

development of creative dispositions and real-world, profession-related skills.

At the same time, the student participants pointed to three corresponding social

and institutional barriers to engagement. These pertain to (i) the social stigma or

negative reputation of the SMC among peers and the resultant lack of peer

critical mass or network externalities associated with the SMC, (ii) the

widespread perception held by students that the institutional-pedagogical culture

was authoritarian and punitive due to excessive staff-determined regulatory

practices, with adverse effects on student autonomy and agency, and (iii) the


pressures to perform academically within a crowded curriculum with tight

timelines.

A key issue within the social stigma barrier is students’ accomplishment of social

identities framed in terms of ‘Cool/Uncool’ as a powerful form of peer

validation and conversely, peer sanction. The MCA analysis revealed a high

degree of fixity around the ‘uncoolness’ of the SMC and the unlikelihood of its

becoming either ‘cool’ or sufficiently ‘un-uncool’ in the short or even medium

term. This lack of social desirability served as a significant impediment to the

SMC’s potential network benefits. The second barrier was framed by students in

terms of the polarised categories of ‘Domineering Staff/Dispossessed Student’

within an institutional space characterised by high levels of staff-determined

controls and regulations, where activities such as the SMC that were meant to

privilege or enhance student autonomy and expression were inexorably rendered

unauthentic, unappealing, even unsafe (as a result of potential punitive action) in

practice. Third, students justified their resistance towards the SMC initiative as a

commonsensical and responsible choice given its lack of direct relevance to the

chief schooling priority―academic success in high-stakes assessments. Despite

their recognition of the SMC’s benefits for extending real-world skills and

dispositions, student participants repeatedly expressed a strong sense of

obligation to fulfil exacting academic demands, expectations and pressures from

both school and family. In this way, the SMC came to be framed as an

expendable casualty in the push-and-pull of digital learning and diligent

performing when at school.


An important point to note is that these accounts of social realities provided by

students are not taken as ‘correct’ reflections on the actualities of the school, but

rather, they are normative attributions assigned by students in their collective

interactions as they describe and make sense of the SMC innovation adoption

and diffusion process in their schooling experiences. What the MCA analysis has

revealed are three key shared reasoning practices that have congealed as

relatively stable commonsense among the student population. Together, these

constitute deep-seated cultural imperatives that obfuscate students’ extensive

engagement with the SMC innovation and its utilisation as a valued component

of school life.

In summary, this qualitative chapter has extended the rigorous measurement

conducted in the quantitative phase to provide an in-depth characterisation of

the social phenomena pertinent to this study. In the following concluding

chapter of this thesis, the key findings that have emerged from both the

quantitative and qualitative phases are synthesised and discussed in light of the

central and specific research questions that guide this inquiry. Implications of

these findings for theory, methodology, policy and practice are considered, after

which the limitations of this study and corresponding opportunities for future

research are highlighted and discussed.

Cha p te r S i x : Co nc l u s io n Pag e | 282

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

“… an historical, dialectical conception of the world … understands movement and

change, and appreciates the sum of effort and sacrifice which the present has cost the

past and which the future is costing the present, and … conceives the contemporary

world as a synthesis of the past, of all past generations, which projects itself into the

future"

(Gramsci, 1935, trans. 1971, p. 34-35).

6.1 Overview

This chapter concludes the thesis by reviewing and synthesising the findings

from the preceding quantitative and qualitative phases, and interpreting these

empirical findings in light of the broad issues and theoretical underpinnings that

motivated the study. In so doing, this third and final phase of the study allows

for the development of empirically-grounded theoretical propositions related to

the educational complexities of Web 2.0 innovation diffusion within established

conventions of contemporary formal schooling, which in turn bears implications

for educational policymakers and practitioners in their move towards more

effective and sustainable integration of contemporary technologies in formal

learning contexts. This concluding phase and chapter of the thesis therefore,

addresses SRQ-4) What are the implications of the nature and outcomes of this study for

innovation adoption and diffusion in postmillennial schooling? This integrative synthesis

and analytic generalisation work is accomplished by revisiting the research

questions and indicating how the empirical research conducted within the thesis


informs us not only about what has happened in a particular school at a

particular time, but also about how schools as social institutions are coming to

terms, and might come to terms, with the significant and inevitable transition

from an Industrial Age to the current ICT-driven Conceptual Age (Hobsbawm,

1994; Perez, 2007; Pink, 2005). Drawing on Gramsci’s (1935/1971) remarks

about education, we can observe certain residual, hegemonic and emergent

values and practices that are presenting distinctive contradictions and challenges

in the schooling of young people. As the following discussion shows, one overall

implication of this thesis is that those contradictions and challenges need to be

the focus of the sum of educators’ “effort and sacrifice”.

This chapter first revisits the rationale and research questions guiding this

inquiry set out in Chapter One. Second, it summarises the key findings as a

synthesis of both the quantitative and qualitative components of the study. Next,

it discusses the significance of the study in terms of the tensions that exist

between the techno-economic and socio-institutional spheres of society, tensions

that are direct effects of technological innovation. Out of this discussion,

contributions to theory, methodology, policy and practice are presented. Finally,

the limitations of this study are acknowledged and possibilities for future

research proposed.

6.2 Rationale and research questions revisited

The inquiry documented in this thesis is located at the nexus of technological

innovation and traditional schooling. This inquiry began with the observation

that, despite substantial investments from governments and businesses globally,


widespread adoption and diffusion of contemporary digital technologies in the

schooling sector is yet to eventuate (e.g. Ofsted, 2004; Russell et al. 2005;

Vrasidas & Glass, 2005). While old routines of work and productivity are being

overturned by the revolutionary impact of contemporary digital technologies in

social and economic spheres, it is apparent that schools are struggling to come to

terms with the implications of all this for education, clinging to the well-worn

routines of content transmission, worksheets and pen-and-paper memory tests.

Educators and social commentators alike have made the observation that at best,

we are seeing gestures towards contemporary digital innovations such as Web

2.0 and related technologies, and at worst, that schooling is a sector in digital

denial (Lunn, 2007; Tan & McWilliam, 2008; Tapscott, 2009; Warshauer, 2007,

2008).

To date, the most common explanations of this phenomenon centre on

deficiency discourses of schools and teachers, such as institutional inertia,

resource constraints, and teacher technophobia. Despite interventions that

specifically address budgetary funding and teacher training, no significant

changes have yet been observed in adoption trends over the last decade (see

Becta, 2003, 2007; Cox et al. 1999; Preston et al., 2000; Warschauer, 2007, 2008).

Meanwhile, little is known about the cultural and pedagogical complexities of

innovation diffusion within long-established conventions of mainstream

schooling, particularly from the standpoint of students as critical stakeholders.

The study reported here has attempted to address this gap by moving beyond

the deficiency discourses of teacher technophobia and school resource

constraints to inquire into how students evaluate and account for the constraints and


affordances of contemporary digital tools when they engage with them as part of their

conventional schooling. To investigate this central research question, the thesis has

focused on a ‘case’ of innovative practice in a traditional, well-resourced and

high-performing independent secondary school in urban Australia. It has

documented the attempted integration of a student-led Web 2.0 learning

initiative known as the Student Media Centre (SMC) into the mainstream

learning and teaching practices of everyday schooling. This staff-endorsed,

student-driven, peer-to-peer (P2P) learning initiative was set up in the school

with the specific purpose of engaging the whole senior student population in

flexible networked digital learning that extends beyond conventional classroom

pedagogies and traditional literacies, in order to develop in the senior student

cohort autonomous and leaderly dispositions, as well as creative capacities in

relation to student learning. According to its design principles―technological,

organisational and pedagogical (see Chapter Three, Sections 3.2.2.1 to

3.2.2.3)―the SMC had the potential to reshape the learning culture of the school

in quite profound ways. Therefore, the adoption and diffusion process of this

potentially ‘disruptive’ or ‘radical’ innovation (Christensen et al., 2009; Freeman,

1984; Hedberg & Chang, 2007; Perez, 2004) served as the point of entry for

analysing how students experienced the complexities of being simultaneously

called to engage with conventional and digital forms of learning, particularly in

competitive academic schooling contexts.

Specifically, this thesis set up and tested the proposition: if progressive school leaders

and teachers in a well-resourced school endorse the implementation of a student-led digital

learning innovation built on cutting-edge Web 2.0 technologies that are embraced by ‘digital


kids’ in their personal sphere, then surely there will be no question of widespread uptake

among these same ‘Net Gen’ students in school. It was argued in Chapter One, that, if

this proposition does not hold, then three research questions (SRQ) ensued,

namely: (i) SRQ-1) What are the SMC engagement trends and patterns among

the senior school student community?; (ii) SRQ-2) What factors―individual,

social and technological―predict the extent to which students engage with the

learning innovation?; and (iii) SRQ-3) How do students describe, explain and

account for the Web 2.0 learning initiative, its prospects and consequences for

their schooling experience?

To address the research questions, the study employed an ‘explanatory’ two-

phase research design (Creswell, 2003, 2005) that combined complementary

quantitative and qualitative methods both to measure and characterise the

students’ responses to the SMC. The first two research questions were addressed

in the initial quantitative phase outlined in Chapter Four, in which a self-

reported questionnaire was administered to the senior school population of 600

students. The numeric data was analysed through descriptive statistics and a

series of incremental Classification and Regression Tree (CART) predictive

models. The third specific research question was then evidenced by the

qualitative phase that followed (outlined in Chapter Five), in which six in-depth

focus groups were conducted with 60 students who reported varying levels of

SMC usage. The textual data was analysed using Membership Categorisation

Analysis (MCA). Taken together, the quantitative and qualitative phases

provided complementary and rich insights into the ways that students’

perceptions, experiences and understandings of their socio-institutional world at


school were constituted and organised. The key findings of both phases of the

study are highlighted and synthesised in the following section.

6.3 Summary and synthesis of key findings

6.3.1 Phase One: Measuring digital engagement through description and prediction

As indicated above, the initial quantitative phase utilised a student questionnaire

to measure trends and patterns of student engagement with the SMC as well as

identify significant individual, social and technological factors that predicted

students’ SMC engagement. Measurement constructs included individual learning

dispositions (learning and performance goals, cognitive playfulness and personal

innovativeness), as well as social and technological variables (peer support, perceived

usefulness and ease of use). The effective response rate was extremely high. After

the statistical characteristics of the measurement scales used in the questionnaire

were tested and proven to display satisfactory internal consistency and construct

and discriminant validity, more specific descriptive and predictive analyses were

conducted.

In terms of the SMC engagement trends and patterns among the senior school

student community (SRQ-1), the quantitative findings indicated widespread

ambivalence towards the SMC. A significant 24% of the student population did

not engage at all with the digital innovation (non-users); a majority 38% engaged

with the SMC only about once a term and used approximately two of seven SMC

learning features (low-users); 23% engaged with the SMC about once a month and

used approximately three of seven SMC learning features (average-users); only a

small minority of 15% used the SMC at least once a fortnight and engaged with


about three to four of seven SMC learning features (high-users). Of these high-users,

a negligible 1% reported that they used all seven learning features afforded by the

SMC more than once a week. In addition to low usage levels, students also reported

low levels of peer support for using the SMC and low perceived usefulness of

the SMC for their schooling practice. Most telling of all, student respondents

across all senior year levels generally disagreed with the proposition that having

the SMC in school was a good idea.

Next, three predictive models of SMC usage were conducted using CART

modelling in order to ascertain the extent to which the measured individual

learning dispositions, social and technological factors predicted students’ levels

of engagement with the SMC (SRQ-2). The predictive modelling was carried out

in an incremental fashion that yielded increasing explanatory power in

accounting for the variance in the target variable, that is, students’ SMC usage

behaviour. First, only individual-level predictors were considered, followed by a

combination of individual and social predictors. Finally, all individual, social and

technological predictors were included in the cumulative regression tree model.

This incremental CART analysis provided a comprehensive yet parsimonious

solution when all variables were included in the model. It allowed simultaneously

for a ‘drilling-down’ of influential variables at different levels for richness of

characterisation.

Taken collectively the key findings of the CART layered analysis can be

summarised as follows. The social variable Peer Support emerged as the best

predictor of SMC usage. Both technological factors Perceived Ease of Use and

Usefulness also emerged as salient predictors. In terms of individual-level factors,


Learning Goal Orientations and Cognitive Curiosity were particularly significant in

explaining SMC usage among students. This being said, all the individual

learning dispositions: (i) Achievement Goal Orientations (both learning and

performance, albeit in opposite ways), (ii) Cognitive Playfulness (both curiosity and

creativity dimensions), and (iii) Personal Innovativeness, emerged as significant

predictors of SMC usage in the individual-level regression tree analysis.

On the whole students who reported the highest levels of SMC usage

experienced high levels of peer support in using the SMC, perceived the SMC as

both easy to use and useful, and were characterised as possessing high levels of

cognitive playfulness and robust learning goal-orientations rather than being

merely performance-focused. On the other hand students who reported the

lowest levels of SMC usage experienced low levels of peer support, considered

the SMC complex to use and lacking in usefulness, and were characterised by

low levels of curiosity and learning goal-orientations but high performance goal-

orientations. Also noteworthy are the mediating effects that performance goals

and cognitive creativity exerted on personal innovativeness. Generally, students

with higher levels of personal innovativeness used the SMC to a larger extent.

However, if they were low in personal innovativeness but high in cognitive

creativity, they would still engage significantly with the SMC. On the other hand,

students who exhibited high levels of personal innovativeness but were

particularly performance-focussed (i.e., high performance goals), then they tend

to emerge as the lowest SMC users.

In sum, these findings suggest that Web 2.0 technological affordances in

themselves are necessary but insufficient to motivate digital engagement among


students. Peer endorsement is crucial to students’ adoption decisions. In

addition, a healthy learning disposition comprising cognitive playfulness,

personal innovativeness and robust learning goals motivate students’

engagement with new media technologies in mainstream schooling, but high

performance goal-orientations have the opposite effect on students’ adoption

decisions. These findings pointed to tensions around (i) the social validation of

contemporary technologies within and beyond school, (ii) the relevance of

Web2.0 technological affordances for mainstream schooling and contrariwise,

and (iii) the push-and-pull of digital learning innovations and conventional

academic performance pressures experienced by students in an institution

boasting a long tradition of success but concurrently coming to terms with the

significant transitions brought on by momentous shifts in the wider

technological, social and economic landscape. Compatible with Warschauer

(2008) and Ware (2008), the results of the quantitative analyses indicate that

simply giving students access to contemporary digital resources does not of itself

lead to successful adoption and diffusion in schools.

6.3.2 Phase Two: Moving from measurement to characterisation of constraints and affordances

The qualitative phase that followed provided deeper insights into these tensions

by shifting the analytics from individual attitudes and behaviours to shared social

and cultural reasoning practices underpinning students’ evaluations of and

engagement with the SMC innovation. The objective of this phase was to

provide an in-depth characterisation of how students described and accounted

for their adoption behaviour in light of the complexities of digital innovation in


conventional schooling, as well as its consequences and prospects for their

schooling experience (SRQ-3). As indicated earlier, six focus groups were

conducted, comprising 60 student participants with varying levels of SMC usage.

Textual data from the focus group transcripts were analysed using MCA, an

analytic framework particularly suited to the explication of underlying

‘commonsense logic’ that social members share, draw on and use in their talk to

reflect on and reconstruct the social order pertinent to the discussion, in this

case, contemporary digital innovation in traditional mainstream schooling.

The qualitative findings showed that students’ accounts across all six focus

groups converged around a key proposition: The SMC was useful-in-principle but

useless-in-practice. Student participants consistently endorsed the usefulness that

the SMC held for augmenting their current schooling practice and personal

development as young adults. In particular, students pointed to the value of the

SMC for enhancing multimodal engagement, extending P2P learning networks,

promoting student expression and agency, developing creative dispositions and

acquiring real-world, profession-related skills that go beyond textbook

knowledge. At the same time, however, the students were quick to point out that

despite these prospects for learning, few were willing to engage with the SMC to

any significant degree, citing a number of socio-institutional constraints that

impeded the realisation of these design affordances in practice.

Student rationales for the uselessness of the SMC in practice were cast in terms

of three key cultural ‘norms’ or imperatives at play within the school. These

include: (i) social-reputational norms, (ii) institutional-pedagogical norms, and (iii)

academic-performativity norms. The premises of MCA hold that members’


accounts should not be taken as ‘fact’ or ‘true’ reflections of the actualities of the

pertinent social order, but rather as a tool for gaining analytic insight into how

members understand and make sense of their socio-institutional norms and

identities as they are being played out ‘in the real’. In this study therefore, the

MCA analysis revealed three key reasoning practices that have coalesced as

relatively stable commonsense among the student population and together, these

constitute a powerful, long-term, shared cultural logic that undermines the

potential of the SMC innovation as a valuable affordance of the school.

There are three imperatives arising out of this cultural logic that are particularly

noteworthy in setting up an ‘either-or’ rather than ‘both-and’ identity norm for the

students involved in the study. The first cultural imperative concerns students’

perceptions of and responses to peer groups and social status, the negative

stigma associated with the SMC and its resultant lack of network externalities or

positive network benefits, which is in turn crucial to the success of any P2P

social networking platform. This was identifiable most commonly in students’

binary formulation of themselves and their peers as either ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’. The

SMC, associated as it was in their talk with the ‘geek’ crowd rather than the ‘jock’

crowd, was perceived as ‘uncool’ and thus unappealing to the wider majority. Put

another way, the low SMC adoption rates among the senior school community

may be attributed to an overwhelming number of students sharing the opinion

that the social pressure of performing ‘cool’ or at least ‘not uncool’ outweighed

the learning opportunities afforded by the SMC.

The second cultural imperative relates to students’ perceptions of and responses

to issues of staff governance and student agency in the wider schooling order,


which extended to and impacted upon the SMC digital learning space.

Specifically, student participants recurrently framed themselves as dispossessed

in terms of agency by a schooling culture that, despite progressive rhetoric and

even student-centred pedagogical practice at the classroom-level, demanded

compliance and was perceived by many of the students as highly controlling and

restrictive at the institutional school-level. According to the students, this

authoritarian and punitive culture undermined the very student agency required

to drive the SMC innovation designed to privilege students’ intellectual and

creative expression of opinions and works. In terms of institutional role

identities therefore, the majority of students were not able to imagine

possibilities beyond the binary or contrasting pair of the domineering, censorious staff

and the dispossessed, compliant student. They expressed reluctance to exploit the

SMC’s potential for disseminating their opinions in any honest, authentic fashion

due to preconceived notions of excessive staff censorship or due to fears of

undue punishment in the case of inappropriate comments. This appeared to limit

their participation in student/staff negotiations of relational boundaries in this

transitional institutional environment. In other words, students accepted

limitations of the SMC’s use within the institutional hierarchy.

The third cultural imperative is associated with students’ perceptions of and

responses to expectations from the school, parents and themselves to strive for

academic excellence by focusing on schoolwork and performing well in

standardised assessment. This imperative to academic performativity is

characterised in their talk by the recurrent formulation of digital learning

opportunities as lesser than, and oppositional to, traditional academic


performance expectations of mainstream schooling. The majority of students

spoke of digital learning as a distraction from ‘main game’ of academic performance.

There was general agreement that the chief schooling priority was achieving

good grades in high-stakes tests and assessments that together determined

tertiary educational pathways and future employment prospects. In this regard,

digital engagement with non-mandatory learning innovations such as the SMC,

while beneficial in terms of its potential for personal and skill enhancement, was

at best garnish to the roast of high test scores. In the context of the school’s

crowded curriculum and demanding co-curricular commitments, students were

found to vote with their feet away from engaging extensively with the learning

innovation. In this case, the high-performing students seeking to negotiate the

fundamental tensions around a digital-or-diligent student identity guarded

against failure rather than look for innovative ways to extend their skills and

capacities through digital engagement.

6.3.3 Phase Three: Synthesising measurement and characterisation

By integrating both numeric and textual data corpuses, the mixed-methods study

has identified the ‘what’ of in-school innovation adoption in terms of the key

trends and predictors of SMC uptake among students, and revealed ‘why’ and

‘how’ these numeric narratives were enacted in the experienced realities of these

particular students’ daily social and institutional practices.

First, although the numeric data suggested that students perceived the SMC as

low in usefulness, the MCA analyses provided a richer understanding of students’

reasoning behind this evaluation of the SMC. As evidenced through the student


talk, the digital learning innovation of itself, in principle, was not lacking in

usefulness. Rather, students recognised and endorsed the significant value-add

and learning affordances of contemporary digital engagement such as the SMC

to their current schooling practices. In particular, students described the SMC as

having considerable merit for promoting student autonomy and ownership in

their learning and schooling, extending print-based ‘textbook knowledge’ to

multimodal ‘real-world competencies’, as well as transforming conventional

learning networks by breaking down communicative barriers between

traditionally disparate learner groups and augmenting productive associations

within and beyond the school, locally and globally. The quandary, however, lies

in translating these design affordances into practice. For the majority of students,

these learning affordances were overshadowed by the performative demands of

schooling, both social and academic. These students saw any significant level of

engagement with the SMC in school as distinct from, even oppositional to, the

conventional social and academic performance indicators of schooling, which

are (i) being ‘cool’ (or at least ‘not uncool’), (ii) sufficiently ‘compliant’, and (iii)

achieving good academic grades. Governed primarily by this binary either-or logic

that positions the SMC’s digital learning affordances as incompatible with

conventional performance indicators at school, students’ decision to resist any

serious engagement with the digital learning innovation had become normalised

among the wider senior school community.

Second, in spite of the considerable tensions between engaging with the SMC

learning innovation and mainstream schooling practice described above, a small

proportion of senior school students were able to engage more frequently and


meaningfully with the SMC in school. These were the students who engaged

with approximately half of the SMC’s seven learning features at least once a

month (24% – moderate users), or even once a fortnight (15% – high users). As

identified in the quantitative phase of the study, these frequent users shared a

number of common dispositional characteristics. These include a high level of

personal innovativeness, but more importantly, robust learning goal orientations (as

distinct from performance goals) and high levels of cognitive playfulness in terms of

both intellectual curiosity and creativity. An argument can therefore be made

that this small minority of students seemed dispositionally inclined to negotiate

the tensions of digital learning and traditional schooling more effectively than

others. That is, these students seemed to possess the necessary learning

dispositions that enabled them to accommodate contestations and find

complementarities between the SMC innovation and the socio-institutional

norms of conventional schooling practice. This ability to productively negotiate

the affordances of Web 2.0 learning and the performative demands of

conventional schooling can in turn be conceptualised as a form of in-situ cultural

agility, that is, an ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incompatible social,

cultural and institutional identities and norms in order to engage with

opportunities for innovation and learning.

Following this argument, the concept of cultural agility as defined above, can be

theorised as a dispositional construct that comprises three distinct dimensions: (i)

a disposition to learning, (ii) a disposition to ‘playing’, and (iii) a disposition to

innovating. The disposition to learning is characterised by robust learning goal

orientations. This refers to a healthy orientation to learning rather than being


merely performance-focussed, where an individual’s motivation to master new

skills and expand their repertoire of capabilities overwhelms the fear of ‘looking

dumb’ and the tendency to ‘stick to what I know best’ rather than embrace new

learning opportunities in order to avoid making errors (Dweck, 2000). The

disposition to ‘playing’ is characterised by high levels of cognitive playfulness, that is,

a high level of individual dexterity and agility in the cognitive domains (Dunn,

2004; Glynn & Webster, 1993). Such individuals are intellectually inquisitive and

imaginative, motivated by complexity and predisposed to finding pleasure in the

challenge of making novel associations across seemingly oppositional ideas (Tan

& McWilliam, 2008). The disposition to innovating, that is, high levels of personal

innovativeness (Rogers, 2005; Sternberg, 1999) refers to an individual’s

motivation or propensity to take risks and engage with novel ideas, inventions

and practices, which overwhelm the need to observe substantial evidence of

benefits and/or mainstream acceptance before engaging with any new invention

or practice. A visual summary of this new knowledge object and its key

dimensions is presented in Figure 6.1.

Cha p te r S i x : Co nc l u s io n

Figure 6.1 Cultural agility

Where:

Cultural Agility Defined as an ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incommensurate social,

cultural and institutional norms and identities, to engage with novel opportunities for innovation and learning

Disposition to Learn Demonstrated in An individual’s motivation to master new skills and expand capabilities is greater than the fear of making errors and ‘looking dumb’

Disposition to Play Demonstrated in An individual is motivated to imagination to make novel associations across conventionally disparate ideas and practices

Disposition to Innovate Demonstrated in An individual is motivated to take rand practices despite the lack of mainstream acceptance

Taken together, these individual attributes

cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness

disposition that, in the context of th

effectively the affordances of engaging with innovative technologies

despite the pull of a traditional schooling culture that privileges particular social

groups (cool/uncool), requires compliance

measures success primarily in terms of academic achievement

learning/academic performance).

these culturally agile individuals

performance in school, whether in terms of digital engagement

Disposition to Learn

efined as an ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incommensurate social, cultural and institutional norms and identities, to engage with novel opportunities for innovation and learning emonstrated in high learning goal orientations, where:

An individual’s motivation to master new skills and expand capabilities is greater than the fear of making errors and ‘looking dumb’ emonstrated in high cognitive playfulness, where:

An individual is motivated to engage with complexity and use inquisitiveness and imagination to make novel associations across conventionally disparate ideas and practices emonstrated in high personal innovativeness, where:

An individual is motivated to take risks and engage with novel ideas, inventions and practices despite the lack of mainstream acceptance

er, these individual attributes ― high learning goal orientations,

cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness ― constitute a culturall

n the context of the school, enables students to negotiate more

the affordances of engaging with innovative technologies. This is so


, requires compliance (dominant-staff/compliant-student)

measures success primarily in terms of academic achievement

. The logic then is ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or

individuals; that is, they can accommodate both learning

whether in terms of digital engagement and

Cultural Agility

Disposition to Play

Disposition to

Innovate

Pag e | 298

efined as an ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incommensurate social, cultural and institutional norms and identities, to engage with novel opportunities

An individual’s motivation to master new skills and expand capabilities is greater

engage with complexity and use inquisitiveness and imagination to make novel associations across conventionally disparate ideas and

isks and engage with novel ideas, inventions

high learning goal orientations,

a culturally agile

enables students to negotiate more

. This is so


student), and

measures success primarily in terms of academic achievement (digital

either or’ for

that is, they can accommodate both learning and

academic


excellence, or successful brokerage across multiple social identities and

institutional affiliations within the school.

6.4 Contributions to theory, methodology, policy and practice

At the most general level this study directs the attention of educators beyond the

familiar terrain of deficit discourses that tend to blame institutional conservatism,

lack of resourcing and teacher resistance for low uptake of digital technologies in

schools. It does so by providing an empirical base for the development of a

theoretical ‘borderland’, that is, an alternative way of theorising technological

and pedagogical innovation in schools, one which is more informed by students

as critical stakeholders and thus more relevant to the lived culture within the

school. This was afforded in part by the mixed methods used in the study, but

more importantly, by the productive recruitment of multi-disciplinary

theorisation and research evidence on the nature of technology, schooling and

social practice from the fields of business and information systems, social

psychology and mainstream educational literature. In this regard, the thesis

contributes to a growing body of knowledge about the promises and

problematics of 21st century learning, and has implications for theory and

practice in the field of ICT adoption and schooling in postmillennial times.

Significant implications drawn from this study are outlined below.

6.4.1 Digital kids, analogue students

While much has been written about contemporary youth and their attendant

modes of socio-technological engagement outside of formal schooling, little is

known about the ‘new youth culture’ in school. On the one hand, literature on


‘digital natives’ or Generation ‘C’ learners and contemporary Web 2.0

technologies (such as YouTube, Facebook, online gaming) abound, but these

studies are generally situated within informal learning contexts (see Bruns et al.,

2007; Gee, 2007a, 2007b; Prensky, 2006; Tapscott, 2009; Oblinger & Oblinger,

2005). On the other hand, as argued in the literature review in Chapter Two,

empirical evidence is lacking on innovation adoption and diffusion from the

student perspective in formal learning or mainstream schooling contexts. While

insights can be drawn from studies conducted by Albright and others (2006) and

Warschauer (2007), which show that students acculturated into privileging

traditional academic achievement tend to shy away from learning opportunities

that are not directly perceived to contribute to higher test scores, these insights

have yet to be tested specifically with regard to the adoption of Web 2.0

technologies in schools. Rich understandings of youths and digital engagement,

its prospects and consequences for the conventional socio-institutional norms

and practices of formal schooling are overdue.

This study bridges this knowledge gap in several ways. The findings not only

support the observations of Albright and others (2006) and Warschauer (2007)

but extend them to technology adoption and Web 2.0 digital engagement in

mainstream schooling. The empirical evidence suggests that where the governing

institutional culture privileges and rewards traditional print-based academic

literacies, high-performing students negotiating the fundamental tensions around

digital learning and academic performance can and will step around digital

engagement as it suits them. The bottom line seems to be that, no matter how

welcoming the school is to digital kids, when test performance is threatened, it is


more sensible to remain an analogue student. It is this dichotomy that the title of

this thesis attempts to capture.

Beyond the insights of Albright and colleagues (2006) and Warschauer (2007),

the study goes on to show that what ‘suits’ the students is more than a simple

matter of personal choice between academic performance and digital

engagement. It involves a complex interaction of in-school identity formations

and its attendant expectations, of which academic achievement is but one of

several critical considerations. In particular, social identities among peer groups

are vital in determining digital engagement in school. For Web 2.0 contemporary

technologies, network externalities or positive network benefits are particularly

critical to widespread use. For the young people in the school under study, this

aspect of network externalities for the given innovation is predicated or negated

through a system of language use most commonly identified through the binary

formulation of ‘cool/uncool’. This binary logic was a powerful influence on

decisions about the types of schooling practices that were socially-mandated or

marginalised by the students. This is evident in the paradoxical finding that,

however ‘cool’ digital may be for Generation ‘C’ in their own personal time and

place, it may not follow that in-school digital use will be considered ‘cool’ for a

range of reasons to do with the perceived social identity of student users and

non-users. In the students’ own terms, if being digital in-school means an

affiliation with the ‘geeky’ or ‘uncool’ peer crowd, then remaining ‘analogue’ is

by far the smarter and more sensible choice.

This finding challenges the more widespread understanding that digital is ipso

facto ‘cool’ to young people regardless of the setting. In his recent book, Grown


Up Digital (2009), Tapscott implied as much in his characterisation of The Net

Generation as “conquering fear with knowledge” (p. 7), and that is leading, in

turn, to “a new fervour in …education, a new creativity – driven in part by this

generation of tech-savvy students” (p. 143). It is difficult, in light of the findings

of this study, to be as sanguine as Tapscott about the power of digital tools to

transform learning in school settings. In cases where a student identity that is

endorsed both by the school and the immediate community of peers is not

equivalent to ‘going digital’, as instanced in this the school setting studied here,

then it is difficult to support Tapscott’s celebratory and triumphalist conclusions.

This thesis has presented a more empirically complex picture of students’

institutional identities and lives than that provided by Tapscott; it has therefore

been necessary to provide a more sophisticated conceptual analysis of that

picture.

A further important consideration concerns the extent to which a ‘proper’

student identity is performed in relation to staff-determined regulatory practices

and rules of conduct within the school. The students here appear to understand

school as a social space run or at least regulated to a large extent by significant

adults – the principal, heads of department, the teachers, and so on. Within this

social space, there are tolerable levels of agency and autonomy afforded to

students, and the violation of these institutional role boundaries is likely to have

consequences that are at best unpleasant and at worst, demeaning and punitive.

For the students therefore, the ability to comply with and manoeuvre skilfully

through the performative demands of conventionally-accepted institutional role


identities and stay on the ‘good side’ of teachers is a critical factor in surviving

the schooling venture, let alone thriving in it.

In sum, when innovative digital learning opportunities are perceived to be in

conflict with conventional social or academic performance indicators in school,

that is, being ‘cool’ (social identity), ‘compliant’ (institutional role identity) and

‘conscientious’ (academic performance), then digital learning opportunities such

as those afforded by the SMC are likely to be sidelined, particularly if

engagement is not mandatory: Performance, both academic and social―rather

than learning―prevail. The argument here is not that it is possible to extrapolate

from this one example to an entire generation of young people, or even to the

population of high-achieving students in Australia. However, this study assists in

understanding the complexity of the schooling/digital use nexus. Students’

perceptions of, and engagement with, contemporary digital tools in school is in

this case a complicated matter, involving peer sub-cultures, school priorities,

parent expectations and the affordances of the innovation itself, as well as the

extent to which it is normalised and/or mandated in the pedagogy of the school

and classrooms. In this regard, students are powerful carriers of deep-seated

social and institutional norms in school that can obfuscate widespread uptake

and optimal use of digital innovation. This may be so in spite of their preferred

modes of digital engagement beyond school. The findings of this thesis affirm

the need for educational theorising of the digital/school nexus to move beyond

teacher deficits, school resource constraints and institutional inertia to consider

the perspectives and experiences of students as a key group of stakeholders.


The findings also contain insights for policymakers and practitioners with regard

to the implementation and optimal utilisation of contemporary technologies in

schools. What the study suggests is that good intentions on the part of school

leaders and teachers, coupled with the learning affordances of Web 2.0 tools of

themselves, cannot be guaranteed to evoke authentic and extensive student

engagement with digital learning innovations. To promote widespread adoption

of student-led learning innovations, there needs to be an alignment between the

use of the digital tools and the preferred social identities and the academic

performance enhancement measures of schooling.

Policymakers are primarily responsible for guiding, if not determining, the

formal academic agenda and assessment regimes. If the aim of 21st century

policymakers is widespread adoption of contemporary digital learning tools in

schools, then it is imperative that the academic agenda and corresponding

performance measures acknowledge and validate students’ frequent and

meaningful engagement with any digital innovation. In other words, if the

development of 21st century literacies, skills and dispositions through

engagement with contemporary digital learning innovation is indeed a priority of

schooling, this needs to be made explicit to students as an incorporation of

digital learning into the formal curriculum in ways that render it assessable and

rewarded.

At the local level of policy formulation in schools, the findings outlined in this

thesis call attention to the fact that bringing in a digital learning innovation that

seems relevant to students’ life outside school does not guarantee uptake and

optimal use among students in the school. To promote students’ adoption and


authentic engagement with contemporary digital tools, due consideration must

be given to the implementation process, particularly in terms of three aspects.

First, particular attention needs to be paid to the dynamic of peer social

identities and status among students. That is, a successful student-led peer-to-

peer technology needs to be driven by, or at least affiliated with, students with

significant social standing among their peers. Second, the study’s findings imply

that it is useful to understand that the ‘institutional pedagogy’ or disciplinary

routines and standards at the school level may work directly against the very

student autonomy or agency that is required to drive the adoption process

among students. If there are strict rules of conduct and punitive consequences

for violating those rules at the school level, then opportunities for exercising

student agency and autonomy through the voicing of opinions and ideas on

digital platforms that are accessible by staff are likely to be perceived as a threat

rather than a promise. Third, the adoption process should not be in relative

isolation from the central ecology of learning and teaching activities - the

classroom. This does not mean that digital engagement needs to take place

within the physical space of the classroom but rather, that the learning

affordances of the digital innovation need to be allied with and responsive to the

enacted curriculum in the school setting. This is because the nexus between the

disposition to perform and the disposition to learn is a complex and contested

one, as this study has demonstrated.


6.4.2 Complexities of digital innovation in mainstream schooling

The push-and-pull of learning and performance is one of several key tensions

identified in this study as a phenomenon that arises out of the complexities of

digital innovation in mainstream schooling. Such complexities have been

previously foregrounded by two prominent educators in a well-documented

debate about the relation of new technologies and education (see Postman,

Kenner & Perelman, 1993). Lewis Perelman first argued that “the role of

modern technology in education is precisely the same as the role of the

automobile in the horse economy ― replacement”, to which Postman responded

that introducing new technologies in society and mainstream schooling is more

akin to “bringing a case of gin to celebrate an opening meeting of Alcoholics

Anonymous” (Postman et al., 1993, cited in Richards, 1997, p. 1). Both

propositions are true, but insufficient of themselves. While the automobile may

replace the horse as a core technology, the ‘replacement process’ is not simply

that of a superior technology supplanting its outmoded counterpart. The

‘economy’ involves an interconnected system of significant social, institutional

and political agents. New technologies therefore, offer exciting possibilities; they

also pose significant threats to the stability of prevailing social, institutional and

political structures and their attendant norms, identities, aspirations, obligations

and practices for an educational sector with a long-term culture and policy

climate of risk minimisation (McWilliam & Dawson, 2008).

The empirical evidence generated in this study supports Feenberg’s (1991)

critical theory of technology in showing the digital innovation to be neither a

determined outcome based solely on its technological superiority, nor a neutral tool


whose proliferation depends primarily on human aspirations and/or conducive

social conditions (Bijker, 2006; Dunn, 2004; Surry, 1997). Well-meaning

aspirations and significant monetary investments on the part of the school

leaders coupled with the notable technological affordances of the Web 2.0

technology were insufficient of themselves in promoting high usage levels

among students. Rather, engagement with the digital innovation was observed to

be a “scene of struggle between different social forces” (Warschauer, 2007, p. 47)

within the institutional setting. These social forces, in turn, shape and were

shaped by a set of prevailing socio-institutional norms, identities and imperatives

within the mainstream school setting that were not congruent with one another.

This is a reminder that, unlike individual businesses or commercial organisations,

the bottom line pertinent to the schooling venture is not as clear-cut as

accounting for financial profit and loss (Warschauer, 2008). Rather, the

education enterprise answers to multiple stakeholders and fulfils a number of

core functions in society that may be mutually incompatible during specific

historical periods in time, especially in periods of transition between two distinct

technological styles (e.g., from the preceding Age of Oil, Automobile and Mass

Production to the current Age of Information and Telecommunications) where new

modes of growth are being constructed in the wider economy. These contesting

expectations and demands made of schooling are in turn reflective of a larger

decoupling or mismatch between the techno-economic and socio-institutional

spheres of the societal system as a whole (Perez, 2002, 2004). On the one hand,

schools are called upon to respond to the changing requirements in workplaces

and economies by developing 21st century creative human capital with digital-age

literacies, dispositions and knowledge competencies. On the other, they are


called upon to continue to perform their core functions in society―that of

custodianship, sorting and credentialing (Luhmann, 1995)―and the performance

of these roles often entails responding to politicised demands for ‘digging deep’

and ‘anchoring down’ on a traditional curriculum that privileges core cultural

values, canonical disciplinary knowledge, basic print literacies and high stakes

assessments. This is especially so when the instability, ambiguity and change in

the wider society and economy are perceived by many to be overwhelming.

The findings of this study provide clear insights into the ways in which these

contestations and conundrums were enacted in the lives of a particular group of

students. The ambivalent response of the student community to the Web 2.0

learning initiative in school showed them to be both digital and analogue, both

autonomous and disenfranchised, both keen to learn and constrained by

performance in the context of digital innovation and traditional schooling.

Correspondingly, the technology proved both relevant and unpopular, both

useful and impractical. Thus the study suggests that explanations of schooling

models informed by supply-push or demand-pull approaches to education (see

OECD, 2007; Plank, 2007) may be inadequate to account for the changes and

transitions taking place within mainstream schooling, particularly with regard to

digital innovation and diffusion. The supply-push and demand-pull binary sets

up a false dichotomy of education and posits a static view of schools as either

resistant or responsive, outmoded or relevant, authoritarian or egalitarian. It also

tends to pit the core functions of custodianship, sorting and credentialing against

the ‘service provider’ role of developing necessary knowledge, skills and

literacies in young people. The research outlined in this study makes apparent


that the schooling site under study was in fact (i) both responsive and resistant

(endorsed digital innovation yet experienced low uptake), (ii) both relevant and

outmoded (engaging Web 2.0 tools while privileging traditional academic print

literacies and canonical disciplinary knowledge), and (iii) both egalitarian and

authoritarian (supporting student-led learning initiative while maintaining high

levels of staff-determined regulatory practices). Most importantly, the school was

simultaneously serving, or at least attempting to serve, all three core functions of

(i) custodianship, (ii) sorting and credentialing, and (iii) developing 21st century

skills, literacies and competencies amongst its students.

In summary, the binary either-or logic of supply-push and demand-pull schooling

leaves us with limited productive recourse for social, intellectual and political

action. Theoretical frameworks for understanding the complexities of innovation

diffusion in mainstream schooling may need to take into account issues of socio-

institutional transitions as part of a larger whole of techno-economic paradigm

shifts and ‘creative destruction’ processes (Freeman, 2004; Perez, 2002, 2004;

Schumpeter, 1939) at the systemic level, as well as issues of identity, multiple

roles and affiliations (Sen, 2006) at the individual school, staff and student level.

An argument can be made for going beyond studies of barriers and enablers as

static, linear predictors of digital engagement, to documenting and characterising

the dynamic nature of contestations and complementarities embedded within the

innovation diffusion process. This conceptual expansion signals the need to

extend the disciplinary and empirical knowledge base upon which educational

researchers, practitioners and policymakers draw to understand techno-

pedagogical innovation and institutional change. This will in turn help shift


debates away from ‘naming, blaming and shaming’ (Reason, 2000) discourses

that are prevalent but unproductive for the educational community as a whole.

6.4.3 Cultural agility and productive negotiations of contestations

The research outlined has sought to extend existing models of technology

adoption and diffusion by examining a combination of individual learning

dispositions, attitudes and behaviours of students that have not been previously

considered. In particular, as highlighted in the synthesis of quantitative and

qualitative findings (Section 6.3.3), it is evident that a small proportion of

learners seemed dispositionally inclined to negotiate the complexities of digital

innovation in mainstream schooling more effectively than others. These students

seemed able to hold open the possibilities of digital use in school while

simultaneously paying attention to the larger demands of academic pressure and

social validation from peers and teachers. This disposition to negotiate across

the traditional and the digital spheres of schooling has been conceptualised as a

form of ‘cultural agility’, which comprises three key dispositional attributes:

innovating, playing and learning (see Figure 6.1).

The disposition to innovate is measured by one’s personal innovativeness, which

has been previously tested and confirmed in this study to lead to higher digital

engagement levels among students (Marcinkiewicz, 1993; Yi et al., 2003). The

disposition to engage in serious ‘play’ is measured by one’s cognitive playfulness,

which comprises both intellectual curiosity and creativity. This disposition has

been previously shown to predict higher technological usage among teachers

(Dunn, 2004), but has yet to be extended to student users until this study. The


disposition to learn is based on Dweck’s (2000) conceptualisation of

achievement goal orientations and measured by an individual’s learning goal

orientations (as distinct from their performance goal orientations). This is the

first study to examine the impact of an individual’s learning and performance

goal orientations on digital adoption and engagement. The findings show that

students who reported high levels of digital engagement were characterised by

high levels of personal innovativeness, cognitive playfulness and learning goal

orientations, and together, these three individual attributes lend themselves to a

culturally agile disposition that enabled students to engage in skilful

manoeuvrings and productive negotiations across the contestations and

complementarities of digital learning and the conventions of mainstream

schooling.

In addition to making theoretical and methodological contributions, this finding

also has implications for policy and practice. Within any given population of

schools and students, a number of learning sites and individuals are likely to

possess this combination of dispositions. Therefore, instances of schools and

students that can accommodate the complexities, even relish the opportunities

that come with the digital innovation in mainstream schooling practices are likely

to be observed. The fact that some ‘culturally agile’ learners and learning sites

exist, even flourish, in individual schools and within the larger schooling system

may make it easy for school leaders and to point to these self-contained

occurrences as evidence of progress and reform. However, effective techno-

pedagogical work in one program or one school does not shift mainstream

schooling culture; indeed it can keep it squarely in place. As a partial adoption, it


can be to mainstream pedagogy as historically, Carnival was to Church. Carnival

never threatened the authority and power of the Church, but allowed it to

remain intact as ‘playful alternatives’ flourished in spaces that were bounded and

delimited by cultural tradition. Like Carnival, digital spaces can be different,

exciting, and seductive. However, like Carnival, they may remain on the edge of

‘real schooling’, which remains resilient for the very fact that it can point to this

myriad of ‘innovative instances’ without having to fundamentally rethink daily

practice in mainstream schooling (Tan & McWilliam, 2009 forthcoming).

Meanwhile, the need for deep institutional renewal and transformation in the

schooling economy is becoming increasingly self-evident. Perez (2004) argued

that while these profound shifts will no doubt come with significant social costs,

it is only when the diffusion of new techno-pedagogical innovation and its

modernising logic has reached a certain critical mass that the benefits of a

systemic deployment of the new potential become fully visible. To this end, this

thesis has argued the value of ‘cultural agility’ as a new knowledge object that

can be empirically investigated in terms of its potential contribution to achieving

widespread and sustainable techno-pedagogical innovation in mainstream

schooling. This empirical grounding is significant in that it makes terms and

notions such as ‘innovation adoption and diffusion’, ‘institutional change’, ‘productive

negotiations’ and ‘successful transitions’ in mainstream schooling less nebulous and

rhetorical.

It is clear that there is still much work to be done in translating this knowledge

object into mainstream curriculum reform, assessment and accountability

benchmarks, and professional development. Larger scale studies in a wide


diversity of sites will be important in building on this modest platform of one

student cohort in one Australian school. Nonetheless, this thesis does

underscore the point that digital innovation in mainstream schooling cannot be

relegated to the sideline as either extension programs for high-performing

students/schools or ‘quick-fix’ interventions for disengaged students/schools if

sustained integration of digital and pedagogical is to be the new reality.

6.5 Limitations and Future Research

There are a number of limitations associated with this research study. These are

highlighted in the following sections and corresponding areas for future research

outlined.

6.5.1 Cultural agility as knowledge object

The conceptualisation of cultural agility as a dispositional construct, with three

underlying dimensions comprising of the individual-level variables of personal

innovativeness, cognitive playfulness and learning goal orientation, has emerged through

an inductive synthesis of the quantitative and qualitative components of this

study. Correspondingly, the implications of this new knowledge object for digital

innovation in mainstream schooling are explicated specifically in the context of

this study and should be interpreted with due caution in terms of their

generalisability. Although the factor analysis and discriminant analysis conducted

in the quantitative phase has shown the three individual-level variables to be

distinct, no further statistical validation has been undertaken to explore the

relationships between them and establish cultural agility as a second order factor.

This was beyond the scope and purpose of this present study, but it would be


important that they be validated more fully in future research through the

conduct of a series of appropriate confirmatory statistical procedures using

additional data sets.

In similar vein, although the empirical findings provide a view of the value of

cultural agility (as it is conceptualised in this study) in terms of individuals’

preparedness to engage with new ways for learning, they do not offer any

insights into whether or how this disposition can best be engendered in

individuals. Further studies that examine the importance of cultural agility for

21st century living and engaging will point the way for developing pedagogical

strategies to build such dispositions systematically in young people, teachers and

school leaders.

6.5.2 Study design

There are some methodological limitations associated with the design of this

study. Although this research site was purposively selected for the reasons set

out in Chapter One: Section 1.4, it is nonetheless bounded. Caution needs to be

exercised in generalising the findings and implications. Second, the study was

cross-sectional in design. Although mixed methods were employed to enrich

understandings and extend explanatory power, innovation diffusion and

institutional transitions are dynamic processes that would benefit from

observations over a longer timeframe. In this regard, there exist significant

possibilities for any future research project seeking to build on or extend this

work to incorporate a longitudinal element, and to conduct comparative studies


across schooling sites with diverse geographical, financial, political, social and

cultural parameters.

6.5.3 Data

Finally in terms of the study’s limitations, it is worth noting that the

questionnaire and focus group interview data collected and analysed were

primarily print-based and ‘old-school’. On the surface, this might seem an

underutilisation of the naturally-occurring digital data captured on the Web 2.0

platform of the learning innovation examined in the study. These digital data

included, among other things, online forum posts and backend online user

statistics. The latter would have provided objective measures of students’ usage

that can triangulate or complement the self-report measures used in the

questionnaire. In the design and execution of the study, collection of digital data

afforded by the SMC technical platform was indeed planned. Moreover, ethical

clearance and due consent had been obtained from the relevant research bodies

as well as the school, the students and their parents to collect and use this data in

the analyses. This intention, however, did not materialise in practice. The school

engaged in a major server migration exercise towards the end of the data

collection phase. In this process, the SMC’s open-source platform and all the

backend data were lost due to a technical incompatibility and were not able to be

retrieved. Unfortunately, the recovered data and backups were found to be

corrupted and unusable. This experience shows that the research process itself is

not immune to the teething problems of technological transitions. In this case,

the potential value-add afforded by the innovation was unable to be optimised in

the research practice. By implication, there is a growing need for increased


knowledge, understandings and expertise on how to optimise the affordances of

contemporary technologies for the research process as a whole, and this

constitutes an area that lends itself to worthwhile future research.

6.6 Concluding remarks

This thesis took as its starting point the paradox of schools becoming more

important and less relevant in the current Conceptual Age (Pink, 2005). It now

concludes by revisiting this proposition. The findings of this study reaffirm the

significant role that schools continue to play in wider society as sites of

custodianship, sorting and credentialing, a role that has been amplified in recent

decades since knowledge and ideas became the core drivers of economic value.

At the same time, the study provides particular insights into the ways that

schools are making sense of, and coming to terms with, the transition to post-

industrial knowledge and modes of production. Contrary to popular critique, this

study shows that mainstream schooling at both the centre (Ministries) and

periphery (schools) is neither passive nor regressive. Rather, it is actively

enrolled in the fraught process of deep, though gradual change to its governing

techno-pedagogical ‘commonsense’ principles and their attendant socio-

institutional norms, practices and identities.

Like all other social institutions, schools are not immune from the challenges of

transition, and it may well be argued that they have significantly more

responsibilities to society in general than an individual corporation or

commercial enterprise. Schools, as educational sites, do not operate as internal

‘silos’ but have obligations and responsibilities to a wide range of stakeholders


that have specific expectations and demands which may not necessarily be

compatible. In fact, the ‘bottom line measures’ for these different stakeholders

may often be in conflict with one another. On one hand, schools need to be

guided by and accountable to the governing public body that sets system-level

policy directions, curriculum and assessment requirements. On the other, there is

an implicit yet undeniable obligation to develop literate and responsible citizens

with relevant skills and dispositions that add value to the wider economy,

workplaces, and civic life. Put simply, introducing new technologies into schools

is a relatively straightforward move, yet it is one that is both necessary and

insufficient in terms of the ‘rubber’ of digital tools hitting the ‘road’ of

pedagogical practice in schools. The challenge is to introduce the practices,

dispositions, and values that are able to be sustained within schooling, by being

relevant to the culture of the school and the life futures of its most important

stakeholders―the students.

As pointed out by Gramsci in the head quote to this chapter, it is the “sum of

effort and sacrifice” invested by one generation that shapes the conditions of life

that the next generation experiences and often takes for granted. This thesis has

shown that a particular focus of ‘effort and sacrifice’ for the current generation

of educators is to commit to techno-pedagogical innovations that enhance the

rigor of traditional academic knowledge by recruiting more powerfully the digital

affordances of contemporary technologies that pervade young people’s lives. For

all members with stakes in the schooling venture, this challenge is necessarily

problematic and inevitably painful, but also compelling and exciting.


REFERENCES

Ajzen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting behaviours. NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Agarwal, R., & Prasad, J. (1998). A Conceptual and Operational Definition of

Personal Innovativeness in the Domain of Information Technology.

Information Systems Research, 9(2), 204-215.

Albright, J. Walsh, C. S. & Purohit, K. (2006). Hybridity, Globalization and Literacy

Education in the Context of NYC’s Chinatown. Pedagogies: An International

Journal, 1(4), 221-241.

Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching

and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. NY: Longman.

Arola, K.L. (2006). Invitational listening: Exploring design in online spaces. Retrieved from

Proquest Dissertation and Theses. (ATT 3231761).

Asthana, A. (2008). Developing national talent for all our futures. New Statesman,

Special Issue on Creativity and Culture, London, September 22 (pp. 6-7).

Atkinson, Paul & Silverman, David (1997). Kundera's immortality: The interview

society and the invention of the self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3, 304-325.

Attewell, P., & Winston, H. (2003). Children of the digital divide. In P. Attewell, &

N.M. Seel (Eds.), Disadvantaged teens and computer technologies (pp. 117-136).

Münster, Germany: Waxmann.


Austin, H., Fitzgerald, R. (2007). Resisting categorisation: an ordinary mother.

Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 30(3). Retrieved November 17, 2008,

from http://publications.epress.monash.edu/loi/aral

Baker, C. (1997). Membership categorization and interview accounts. In D.

Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 130-143).

London: Sage Publications.

Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Maldan, MA: Polity Press.

Barab, S.A., & Plucker, J.A. (2002). Smart people or smart contexts? Cognition,

ability and talent development in an age of situated approaches to knowing

and learning. Educational Psychologist, 37(3), 165-182.

Barbour, R.S. (2007). The SAGE qualitative research kit: Doing focus groups. Thousand

Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.

Barbour, R.S., Featherstone, V.A. & Members of WoReN. (2000). Acquiring

qualitative skills for primary care research: review and reflections on a three-

stage workshop. Part 1: Using interviews to generate data. Family Practice,

17(1), 76-82.

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Lisa, K. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical

review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 775–786.

Bensaou, B.M. & Venkatraman, N. (1996). Inter-organizational relationships and

information technology: a conceptual synthesis and a research framework.

European Journal of Information Systems, 5 (2), 84-91.

Berge, Z.L. (1998). Barriers to online teaching in post-secondary institutions: Can

policy changes fix it? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 1(2).


Retrieved January, 30, 2006, from

http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer12/berge12.html

Bernstein, B. (1973). Class, codes and control. Cornwall: Routledge & Keagan Paul Ltd.

Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique (revised

ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.

Betts, K.S. (1998). An institutional overview: factors influencing faculty

participation in distance education in the United States: An institutional

study. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 1(3). Retrieved January,

30, 2006, from

http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/fall13/betts13.html

Bijker, W. E. (2006). Why and how technology matters. In R.E. Goodin, & C. Tilly

(Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (pp. 681-706).

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Birch, D. (2006). Factors influencing academics’ adoption and integration of educational

technology for the design and delivery of multimodal distance higher education courses.

Unpublished doctoral confirmation portfolio, Queensland University of

Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of

educational goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. NY: McKay.

Bloor, M., Frankland, J., Thomas, M. & Robson, K. (2001). Focus groups in social

research. London: Sage Publications.

Bolter, J.D. (1991). Writing space: The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing.

Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.


Bouchard, L. (1993). Decision criteria in the adoption of EDI. Proceedings of the 14th

International Conference on Information Systems, December 5-8, Orlando, Florida (pp.

365-376).

Brandon, P.R. (1998). Stakeholder participation for the purpose of helping ensure

evaluation validity: Bridging the gap between collaborative and non-

collaborative evaluations. American Journal of Evaluation, 19(3), 325-337.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind,

experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Breiman, L., Friedman, J. H., Olshen, R. A. and Stone, C. J. (1984). Classification and

Regression Trees. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole Advanced Books

& Software.

Bridgstock, R. (2007). Success in the protean career: a predictive study of professional artists

and tertiary arts graduates. (Doctoral dissertation, Queensland University of

Technology, 2007). Retrieved November 17, 2008, from

http://www.eprints.qut.edu.au/16575/

British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta). (2003).

Barriers and enablers to teachers’ use of ICT. Retrieved April 3, 2006, from

http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_rp_02_a

&rid=13642

British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta). (2007). Becta:

2007 Annual Review. Retrieved August 17, 2007, from

http://publications.becta.org.uk/download.cfm?resID=33625


Brook, C. & Oliver, R. (2006). Online learning communities: Enhanced learning in

the K-12 setting. In L. Tan, & R. Subramaniam (Eds.), Handbook of research

on literacy in technology at the K-12 level (pp. 552-573). London: Idea Group

Reference.

Brown, A. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges

in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. Journal of the Learning

Sciences, 2(2), 141-178.

Brown, J.S. (2006). New learning environments for the 21st century: Exploring the

edge. Change, September/October, 18-24. Retrieved 1 June, 2006, from

http://www.johnseelybrown.com/Change%20article.pdf

Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and

learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16–32.

Brown, J.S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of

learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Bruns, A., Cobcroft, R., Smith, J., Towers, S. (2007). Mobile learning technologies

and the move towards ‘user-led education’. Proceedings of the Mobile Media

2007 Conference. Sydney. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from

http://snurb.info/files/Mobile%20Learning%20Technologies.pdf

Butler, C.W. (2008) Talk and Social Interaction in the Playground. Aldershot: Ashgate

Butler, C.W., & Weatherall A. (2006). “No, we're not playing families": membership

categorization in children's play. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 39,

441-70.


Button, S.B., Mathieu, J.E., & Zajac, D.M. (1996). Goal orientation in organisational

research: A conceptual and empirical foundation. Organisational Behavior and

Human Decision Processes, 67, 26-48.

Campell, D. T., & Fiske, D. W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant validation by

the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 81-105.

Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing

Ltd.

Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell

Publishing Ltd.

Chang, S-C., & Tung, F-C. (2008). An empirical investigation of students’

behavioural intentions to use the online learning course websites. British

Journal of Educational Technology, 39(1), 71-83.

Chang, L.Y., & Wang, H.W. (2006). Analysis of traffic injury severity: An

application of non-parametric classification tree techniques. Accident Analysis

and Prevention, 38, 1019-1027.

Chen, C., Wu, J-P., & Yang, S.C. (2008). Accelerating the use of weblogs as an

alternative method to deliver case-based learning. International Journal on E-

Learning, 7(2), 331-349.

Cheng, Y.C. (2006). New paradigm of learning and teaching in a networked

environment: Implications for ICT literacy. In L. Tan, & R. Subramaniam

(Eds.), Handbook of research on literacy in technology at the K-12 level (pp. 1-20).

London: Idea Group Reference.


Cheng, Y.C., & Townsend, T. (2000). Educational change and development in the

Asia-Pacific region: Trends and issues. In T. Townsend, & Y.C. Cheng

(Eds.), Educational change and development in the Asia-Pacific region: Challenges for

the future (pp. 317-344). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger.

Chin, W. W. & Newsted P. R. (1999). Structural equation modeling analysis with

small sample using partial least squares. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Statistical

strategies for small sample research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication Inc.

Chiu, C.M., Hsu, M.H., Sun, S.Y., Lin, T.C. & Sun, P.C. (2005). Usability, quality,

value and e-learning continuance decisions. Computers and Education, 45(4),

399-416.

Christensen, C.M. (2003). The innovator's dilemma: the revolutionary book that will change

the way you do business. New York: HarperCollins

Christensen, C.M., Horn, M.B., & Johnson, C.W. (2009). Disrupting class: how

disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York:

McGraw-Hill.

Crossley, M.L. (2003). Would you consider yourself a healthy person? Using focus

groups to explore health as a moral phenomenon. Journal of Health Psychology,

8(5), 501-514.

Chwelos, P., Benbasat, I., & Dexter, A.S. (2001). Empirical test of an EDI adoption

model. Information Systems Research, 12(3), 304-321.

Clark, A. (2003). Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human

Intelligence. NY: Oxford University Press.


Claxton, G. (2004). Learning is learnable (and we ought to teach it). In J. Cassell

(Ed.), Ten Years On. London, UK: The National Commission for Education.

Coleman, J. S. (1961). The adolescent society: The social life of teenagers and its impact on

education. New York: Free Press.

Cortina, J. M. (1993). What is coefficient alpha? An examination of theory and

applications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 98-104.

Covington, D., Peterbridge, D., & Warren, E.S. (2005). Best practices: A

triangulated support approach in transitioning academic to online teaching.

Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 8(1). Retrieved January 30,

2006, from

http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring81/covington81.htm

Cox, M., Preston, C. & Cox, K. (1999). What factors support or prevent teachers

from using ICT in their classrooms? Proceedings of the British Educational

Research Association Annual Conference, September 2-5. University of Sussex,

Brighton.

Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in schools: Tensions and dilemmas. NY: Routledge.

Creswell, J. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Creswell, J. (2005). Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and

qualitative research (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice

Hall.

Crocker, J., & Park, L.E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological

Bulletin, 130(3), 392-414.


Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests.

Psychometrika. 16, 297-334.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and

invention. NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of

technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox.

American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 813-834.

Cummins, J., Ardeshiri, M., and Cohen S. (2008). Computer-Supported Scaffolding

of Literacy Development. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 3(1), 4–21

Cunningham, A. (2004, Spring). Aiming higher: Technology and 21st century skills.

Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 20(2).

Cunningham, S. (2005). Creative enterprises. In J. Hartley (Ed.) Creative industries.

Oxford, UK: Blackwell, pp. 282-298.

Dai, G. (2006). Functional universal of goal orientation: A cross-cultural study. Retrieved

from Proquest Dissertation and Theses. (ATT 3246916).

Daley, E. (2003). Expanding the concept of literacy. Educause Review. March/April

2003, 33-40. Retrieved January 15, 2006, from

http://iml.usc.edudownloads/news_articles/erm0322.pdf

Davies, J.P. (2003). Education in the electronic culture. Maryland: Scarecrow Publishing

Inc.

Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user

acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-339.


Day, D. (2005). Online learning in a senior secondary school: technological affordances in context.

Unpublished doctoral confirmation portfolio, Queensland University of

Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

De’ath, G. & Fabricius, K.E. (2000). Classification and regression trees: A powerful

yet simple technique for ecological data analysis. Ecology, 81(11), 3178-3192.

Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of qualitative research.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

DeVille, B. (2006). Decision trees for business intelligence and data mining: Using SAS®

Enterprise Miner. Cary, NC: SAS Press.

Dosi, G. (1982). Technological paradigms and technological trajectories. Research

Policy, 11(3), 147-162.

Downes, S. (2004). E-learning 2.0. eLearn Magazine: Education and Technology in

Perspective. Retrieved, December 28, 2006, from

http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1

Drucker, P. (1995). Managing in a time of great change. Boston: Butterworth-

Heinemann.

Dunn, L.L.S. (2004). Cognitive playfulness, innovativeness, and belief of essentialness:

Characteristics of educators who have the ability to make enduring changes in the

integration of technology into the classroom environment. Retrieved from Proquest

Dissertation and Theses. (ATT 3144983).

Dweck, C. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development.

Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.


Eccles, J.S., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values and goals. In S.T.

Fiske, D.L. Schacter, & C. Sahn-Waxler (Eds.), Annual review of psychology.

Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.

Eccles, M.P., Hrisos, S., Francis, J., Kaner, E.F., O Dickinson, H., Fiona Beyer, F.,

& Johnston, M. (2006). Do self- reported intentions predict clinicians'

behaviour: a systematic review. Implementation Science 1(28). Retrieved April 6,

2009, from http://www.implementationscience.com/content/pdf/1748-

5908-1-28.pdf

Egan, K. (2008). The Future of Education: Reimagining our schools from the ground up. Yale:

New Haven and London.

Eglin, P., & Hester, S. (1992). Category, predicate and task: the pragmatics of

practical action. Semiotica 88, 243–68.

Eglin, P., & Hester, S. (2003). The Montreal Massacre A Story of Membership

Categorization Analysis. Waterloo, ONT, Ca: Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. NewYork: Norton.

Fabio, A., Sauber-Schatz, E.K., Barbour, K.E., and Li, W. (2009). The Association

Between County-Level Injury Rates and Racial Segregation Revisited: A

Multilevel Analysis. American Journal of Public Health, 99(4), 748-753.

Facebook (2009, April). Facebook Statistics. Retrieved 13 April, 2009, from

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.

Faulkner, S.A., & Cook, C.M. (2006). Testing vs. teaching: the perceived impact of

assessment demands on middle grades instructional practices. Research in

Middle Level Education Online, 29(7), 1-13.


Farquhar, J.F., & Surry, D.W. (1994). Adoption analysis: An additional tool for

instructional developers. Education and Training Technology International, 31(1),

19-25.

Feagin, J., Orum, A., & Sjoberg, G. (Eds.). (1991). A case for case study. Chapel Hill,

NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Feenberg, A. (1991) Critical theory of technology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Fitz, J., Gorard, S., & Taylor, C. (2002). School admissions after the School

Standards and Framework Act: Bringing the LEAs back in? Oxford Review of

Education, 28(2), 373-393.

Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. NY: Basic Books.

Freebody, K. (2008). Opportunity structures and the drama classroom: Socio-economic status as

interactional topic and resource. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The

University of Melbourne, Australia.

Freebody, P. (2003). Qualitative research in education: Interaction and practice. London:

Sage Publications.

Freebody, P. & Luke, A. (2003). Literacy as engaging with new forms of life: The

‘four-roles’ model. In G. Bull and M. Anstey (Eds.), The Literacy Lexicon (pp.

51-66). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.

Freeman, C. (1984). Prometheus unbound. Futures, 16(5), 494-507.

Freeman, C. (2004). Income inequality in changing techno-economic paradigms. In

S. Reinert (Ed.), Globalization, economic development and inequality (pp. 243-257).

Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.


Friedman, T.L. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. NY:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Frielick, S. (2004). Beyond constructivism: An ecological approach to e-learning.

Proceedings of the ASCILITE Conference, December 5-8, 2004. Perth, Western

Australia. Retrieved January 20, 2007, from

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/frielick.html

Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. NY: Penguin Books.

Fullan, M. (1995). The school as a learning organization: distant dreams. Theory into

Practice, 34(4), 230-235

Furnkrantz, J., Petrak, J., & Trappl, L. (1997). Knowledge discovery in international

conflict databases. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 11, 91-118.

Gee, J. P (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York:

Palgrave Macmillan.

Gee, J. P. (2007a). Good video games and good learning: Collected essays on video games,

learning, and literacy. New York: Peter Lang.

Gee, J. P. (2007b). Are video games good for learning? In S. de Castell & J. Jenson

(Eds.), Worlds in play: International perspectives on digital games research (pp. 323–

332). New York: Peter Lang.

Gibb, W., Auslander, D., & Griffin, J. (1993). Selection of myocardial electrogram

features for use by implantable devices. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical

Engineering, 40(8), 727-735.


Glynn, M.A., & Webster, J. (1993). Refining the nomological net of the Adult

Playfulness Scale: personality, motivational and attitudinal correlates for

highly intelligent adults. Psychological Reports, 72, 1023-1026.

Goertz, M., & Duffy, M. (2003). Mapping the landscape of high-stakes testing and

accountability programs. Theory into Practice, 42(1), 4-12.

Gorard, S. & Taylor, C. (2004). Combining methods in educational and social research.

Berkshire: Open University Press.

Gorsuch, R.L. (1983). Factor analysis (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gramsci, Antonio. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare

& G. Nowell-Smith. New York: International Publishers.

Greene, J.C. (2008). Is mixed methods social inquiry a distinctive methodology?

Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 2(1), 7-22.

Greene, J.C., Caracelli, V.J., & Graham, W.F. (1989). Toward a conceptual

framework for mixed-method evaluation designs. Educational Evaluation and

Policy Analysis, 11(3), 255-274.

Greenspan, A. (2004, February 20). The critical role of education in the nation's

economy. Speech at the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce Annual

Meeting. Retrieved August 15, 2007, from

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boardDocs/Speeches/2004/200402202/def

ault.htm

Grover, V. (1993). An empirically derived model for the adoption of customer-

based interorganizational systems. Decision Sciences, 24(3), 603-640.


Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., & Black, W.C. (1998). Multivariate data

analysis (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Hart, P. & Saunders C. S. (1998). Emerging electronic partnerships: Antecedents

and dimensions of EDI use from the supplier's perspective. Journal of

Management Information Systems 14(4), 87-111.

Hedberg, J. G. & Chang, C. H., (2007) The G-portal digital repository as a

potentially disruptive pedagogical innovation. Educational Media International,

44(1), 3-15.

Henriques, J., Holloway, W. Urwin, C., Venn, C., & Walkerdine, V. (1984). Changing

the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity. London and NY: Methuen.

Hester, S. & Eglin, P. (1997). Culture in action: studies in membership categorization analysis.

Washington, DC: University Press of America.

Hirumi, A. (2002). Student-centred, technology-rich environments: Operationalising

constructivist approaches to teaching and learning. Journal of Technology and

Teacher Education, 10(4), 497-537.

Housley, W., & Fitzgerald, R. (2002). The reconsidered model of membership

categorization analysis. Qualitative Research, 2, 59-83.

Howe, N. & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials rising: the next great generation. New York:

Vintage.

Howkins (2002). The creative economy: how people make money from ideas. London:

Penguin.

Huebner, J. (2005, October). A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation.

Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 980-986.


Hurt, H.T., Joseph, K., & Cook, C.D. (1977). Scales for the measurement of

innovativeness. Human Communication Research, 4(1), 58-65.

Iacovou, G. L., & Benbasat, I. (1995). Electronic data interchange and small

organisations: Adoption and impact of technology. MIS Quarterly, 19(4), 465-

485.

Issroff, K. & Scanlon, E. (2002) Educational technology: The influence of theory.

Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 6. Retrieved August 5, 2007, from

http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/6/issroff-scanlon-02-6-paper.html

Jayyusi, L. (1984). Categorization and the moral order. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan

Paul.

Jayyusi, L. (1991). Values and moral judgement: communicative praxis as moral

order. In G. Button (Ed.), Ethnomethodology and the human sciences (pp. 227-251).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

John, O.P., & Benet-Martinez, V. (2000). Measurement: reliability, construct

validation, and scale construction. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.),

Handbook of research methods in social psychology (pp. 339-369). New York:

Cambridge University Press.

Joomla (2009). What is Joomla? Retrieved April 13, 2009, from

http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla.html

Kaiser, H.F. (1958). The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis,

Psychometrika, 23, 187-200.


Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B, & the Learning by Design Project Group. (2005). Learning

by design. Melbourne: Victorian Schools Innovation Commission and

Common Ground Publishing.

Kane, P. (2004). The play ethic. London, UK: Macmillan.

Kaplan-Leiserson, E. (2005) Trend: Content copyright, the commons, and the C

generation. Learning Circuits. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from

http://www.learningcircuits.org/2004/aug2004/0408_trends.htm

Karahanna, E., Straub D. W., Chervany, N.L. (1999). Information technology

adoption across time: A cross-sectional comparison of pre-adoption and

post-adoption beliefs. MIS Quarterly, 23(2), 183-213.

Kaufman, J.C., & Sternberg, R.J. (Eds.). (2006). The International Handbook of

Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kendall, J., Tung, L.L., Chua, K., Ng, C., Tan, M. (2001). Electronic commerce

adoption by SMEs in Singapore. Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International

Conference on System Sciences, January 3-6, Maui, Hawaii. Retrieved May 5, 2006,

from

http://computer.org/proceedings/hicss/0981/volume\%207/09817037abs

.htm

Kennedy, G., Dalgamo, B., Bennett, S., Gray, K., Waycott, J., Judd, T., Bishop, A.,

Maton, K., Krause, K-L., & Chang, R. (2009). Educating the Net Gen: A

handbook of findings for policy and practice. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from

http://www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/handbook/NetGenHandbo

okAll.pdf


Kennedy, G., Krause, K., Judd, T., Churchward, A. & Gray, K. (2006). First year

students’ experiences with technology: are they really digital natives? Melbourne,

Australia: University of Melbourne. Retrieved June 28, 2009, from

http://www.bmu.unimelb.edu.au/research/munatives/natives_report2006.r

tf

Kim, J-O. and Mueller, C.W. (1978). Factor analysis: Statistical methods and practical

issues. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Kim, J-O. and Mueller, C.W. (1994). Factor analysis: Statistical models and practical

issues. In M.S. Lewis-Beck (Ed.), Factor Analysis and Related Techniques, Vol. 5

(p. 111). London: Sage Publications.

Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: the importance of

interaction between research participants. Sociology of Health & Illness,

16(1), 103-121.

Kitzinger, J. (1995). Qualitative research: Introducing focus groups. British Medical

Journal, 311, 299-302.

Kitzinger, J., & Barbour, R.S. (1999). Introduction: the challenge and promise of

focus groups. In R.S. Barbour & J. Kitzinger (Eds.), Developing focus group

research: politics, theory and practice (pp. 1-20). London: Sage Publications.

Kishore, R., Lee, J-W., McLean, E.R. (2001). The role of personal innovativeness

and self-efficacy in information technology acceptance: an extension of tam

with notions of risk. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Information

Systems, December 16-29, New Orleans, USA. Retrieved April 6, 2009 from

http://cq-pan.cqu.edu.au/david-jones/Reading/ICIS_2001/01RIP10.pdf


Kline, P. (1994). An easy guide to factor analysis. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage

Publications.

Korica, K., Maurer, H., & Schinagl, W. (2006). The Growing Importance of e-

Communities on the Web. Proceedings of IADIS International Conference on Web

based Communities, February 26-28. San Sebastian, Spain. Retrieved January 4,

2007, from

http://www.iicm.tugraz.at/iicm_papers/growing_importance_of_e-

communities.doc

Kozma, R.B., & Anderson, R.E. (2002). Qualitative case studies of innovative

pedagogical practices using ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 387-

394.

Kress, G. (1999). Educating for an unknowable future. Telemedium: The Journal of

Media Literacy, 45(1), 7-10.

Kress, G. (2000). Design and transformation: New theories of meaning. In B. Cope

and M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social

futures (pp. 153-161). London: Routledge.

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge Falmer.

Krueger, R.A., & Casey, M.A. (2000). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research.

London: Sage Publications.

Kuzel, A.J. (1992). Sampling in qualitative inquiry. In B.F. Crabtree & W.I. Miller

(Eds.), Doing qualitative research (pp. 31-44). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Lamnek, S. (1995). Qualitative social research (4th ed.). Weihnhein, Basil: Beltz

publishing house.


Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Leadbeater, C. (1999). Living on thin air: The new economy. NY: Viking.

Leavitt, C., & Walton, J. (1975). Development of a scale for innovativeness. In M.J.

Schlinger (Ed.), Advances in consumer research (pp. 545-554). Provo, UT:

Association for Consumer Research.

Lemke, C. (2002). enGauge 21st century skills: Digital literacies for a digital age. Naperville,

IL and Los Angeles, CA: North Central Regional Educational Lab and the

Metiri Group. Retrieved July 11, 2007, from

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01

/0000019b/80/29/cf/24.pdf

Lemsky, C.M., Smith, G., Malec, J.F., & Ivnik, R.J. (1996). Identifying risk for

functional impairment using cognitive measures: An application of CART

modelling. Neuropsychology, 10(3), 368-375.

Leonard-Barton, D., & Deschamps, I. (1988). Managerial influence in the

implementation of new technology. Management Science, 34(10), 1252-1265.

Levy, S., & Stone, B. (2006, April 3). The new wisdom of the web. Newsweek.

Retrieved April 5, 2006, from http://www.newsweek.com/id/45976

Limayem, M., & Hirt, S. G. (2003). Force of habit and information systems usage:

theory and initial validation, Journal of the Association for Information Systems,

4(3), 65-97.

Lincoln, Y.S. (1995). In Search of Students' Voices. Theory into Practice, 34(2), 88-93.


Lou, H., Luo, W., & Strong, D. (2000). Perceived critical mass effect on groupware

acceptance, European Journal of Information Systems, 9, 91–102.

Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Lunn, S. (2007, July 27). Face to face in cyberspace. The Australian. Retrieved August

1, 2007, from

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22143354-

15302,00.html

MacGilchrist, B., Myers, K., & Reed, J. (2004). The Intelligent School. London: Sage

Publications.

Malhotra, Y., & Galletta, D.F. (2005). A multidimensional commitment model of

volitional systems adoption and usage behavior. Journal of MIS, 22(1), 117-

151

Marczak, M., & Sewell, M. (2006). Using focus groups for evaluation. Retrieved

November 18, 2008, from

http://ag.arizona.edu/fcs/cyfernet/cyfar/focus.htm

Marcinkiewicz, H.R. (1993). Computers and teachers: Factors influencing computer

use in the classroom. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 26(2), 220-

237.

Mays, N. & Pope, C. (1995). Rigour and qualitative research. British Medical Journal,

311, 109-112.

McHoul, A., & Watson, D.R. (1984). Two axes for the analysis of “commonsense”

and “formal” geographical knowledge in classroom talk. British Journal of the

Sociology of Education, 5(3), 281–302.


McWilliam, E. (1989). Teaching Kylie Mole. Journal of Australian Studies, 25, 5-10.

McWilliam, E. (1997). Gender Im/material: Teaching bodies and gender education,

Australian Journal of Education, 41(1), 48-58.

McWilliam, E. (1998). On the proper governance of children. In M. Alexander, S.

Harding, P. Harrison, G.Kendall, Z. Skrbis and J. Western. (Eds.).

Refashioning Sociology: Responses to a New World Order. Proceedings of the TASA

Conference, Brisbane Australia (pp. 395-401).

McWilliam, E. (2006 May). Schooling the Yuk/Wow Generation. The Bassett Oration

Ed. Ventures Paper (No. 3). Camverwell, Victorial: Australian College of

Educators.

McWilliam, E. (2008). The Creative Workforce: How to launch young people into high-flying

futures. Sydney, Australia: UNSW Press.

McWilliam, E. (in press). The creative workforce. In M. Keane (Ed.), Executive

leadership in the creative industries: The Queensland Model. Brisbane, Australia:

Queensland University of Technology.

McWilliam, E. (2010 forthcoming) Learning Culture, Teaching Economy, Pedagogies:

An International Journal, 5(4).

McWilliam, E., & Brannock, J. (2001). The Way to a Boy’s Heart? New mechanisms

for making boys better. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 29(1), 7-18.

McWilliam, E. & Dawson, S. (2008). Pedagogical practice after the information age.

Journal of Futures Studies, 12(3), 1-14.

McWilliam, E. and Vick, M. (1995). Bodies of Knowledge: Teachers, students and

gender education. Proceedings from Girls and Boys: Challenging Perspectives, Building


Partnerships, Brisbane, Australia, June (pp. 43-58). Ministerial Advisory

Committee on Gender Equity.

Modis, T. (2002). Forecasting the growth of complexity and change. Technological

Forecasting & Social Change, 69(4). Retrieved December 6, 2007, from

http://www.ncap.gr/tmodis/articles/TedWEB.htm

Moore, T., Jesse, C., & Kittler, R. (2001). An overview and evaluation of decision

tree methodology. Paper presented at the American Statistical Association Quality

and Productivity conference, Austin, Texas, May 23-25.

Morgan, D.L. (1988). Focus groups as qualitative research. London: Sage Publications.

Mortimore, P. (2000) Does educational research matter? British Educational Research

Journal, 26(1), 5-24.

Morris, M.G., & Dillon, A. (1997). How user perceptions influence software use.

IEEE Software, 14(4), 58-65.

Murphy, T. J., Reed-Rhoads, T., Stone, A. D., Terry, R. A., and Allen, K. (2008,

January). Coefficient Alpha: An Engineer's Interpretation of Test Reliability.

Journal of Engineering Education. Retrieved 21 April 2008, from

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1428822571.html

Murthy, S. (1998). Automatic construction of decision trees from data: a

multidisciplinary survey. Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery, 2(4), 345-389.

Myers, J.R., Henderson-King, D.H., & Henderson-King, E.I. (1997). Facing

technological risks: The importance of individual differences. Journal of

Research in Personality, 31, 1-20.


National Center on Education and the Economy. (2007). Tough Choices or Tough

Times: The report of the new commission on the skills of the America workforce.

Washington DC: Jossey-Bass, Wiley Imprint.

National Research Council (2002). Scientific research in education. Washington: National

Academy Press.

National School Boards Foundation (NSBF). (2007). Are we there yet? Research and

guidelines on schools’ use of the Internet. Retrieved August 5, 2007, from

http://www.nsbf.org/thereyet/fulltext.html

Nelson, G. (1999). Science literacy for all in the 21st century. Educational Leadership,

57(2), 14-16.

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social

futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.

The New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social

futures. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and

the design of social futures. London: Routledge.

Ngai, E.W.T., Poon, J.K.L., & Chan, Y.H.C. (2007). Empirical examination of the

adoption of WebCT using TAM. Computers & Education, 48(2), 250-267.

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL). (2003). enGauge 21st

century skills: Literacy in the digital age. Naperville, IL and Los Angeles, CA.

Retrieved July 11, 2007, from

http://www.grrec.ky.gov/SLC_grant/engauge21st_Century_Skills.pdf

O’Reilly, T. (2005, September 30). What is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models

for the next generation of software. Retrieved October 17, 2006, from


http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-

web-20.html

Oblinger, D.G., & Oblinger, J.L. (2005). Is it age or IT: First steps towards

understanding the Net Generation. In D.G. Oblinger and J.L. Oblinger

(Eds.), Educating the Net Generation. Educause.

OECD. (2006). Demand-sensitive schooling: Evidence and issues. Centre for

Educational Research and Innovation: Education & Skills, 15, 1-153. Retrieved

May 17, 2007, from

http://oberon.sourceoecd.org.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/vl=859335/cl=12/n

w=1/rpsv/ij/oecdthemes/99980029/v2006n15/s1/p1l

OECD. (2007). The OECD Schooling Scenarios in Brief. Centre for Educational

Research and Innovation, OECD. Retrieved Mar 20, 2007, from

http://www.oecd.org/document/10/0,2340,en_2649_34521_2078922_1_1

_1_37455,00.html

Ofsted. (2004). ICT in schools: The impact of government initiatives five years on. UK:

Oxford Publications Centre. Retrieved July 12, 2006, from

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-

research/Browse-all-by/Education/Curriculum/Information-and-

communication-technology/Primary/ICT-in-schools-2004-the-impact-of-

government-initiatives-five-years-on/(language)/eng-GB

Oliver, B. and Goerke, V. (2007). Australian undergraduates’ use and ownership of

emerging technologies: implications and opportunities for creating engaging

learning experiences for the Net generation. Australasian Journal of Educational


Technology, 23(2), 171–186. Retrieved June 28, 2009 from

http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/oliver.html

Passman, R. (2000). Pressure cooker: Experiences with student-centered teaching

and learning in high-stakes assessment environments. Paper presented at the

Annual Meeting of the Southwest Educational Research Association, Dallas, Texas,

January 27-29. Retrieved November 12, 2008 from ERIC Document

Reproduction Service (No. ED 440 146).

Parveen, F., and Sulaiman, A. (2008). Technology complexity, personal

innovativeness and intention to use wireless internet using mobile devices in

Malaysia. International Review of Business Research Papers, 4(5), 1-10.

Pearson, M., & Naylor, S. (2006). Changing contexts: Teacher professional

development and ICT pedagogy. Education Information Technology, 11, 283-291.

Pelgrum, W. (2001). Obstacles to the integration of ICT in education: Results from

a worldwide educational assessment. Computers and Education, 37, 163-178.

Perez, C. (2002). Technological revolutions and financial capital: The dynamics of bubbles and

golden ages. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Perez, C. (2004). Technological revolutions, paradigm shifts and socio-institutional

change. In S. Reinert (Ed.), Globalization, economic development and inequality (pp.

217-242). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Perrin, D.G. (2005). Editor’s note. International Journal of Instructional Technology and

Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved February 2, 2007, from

http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm


Pinch, T. J. (1996). The Social Construction of Technology: a Review. In R. Fox

(Ed.), Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (pp. 17

- 35). Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Plank, D. (2007). Understanding the demand for schooling. Centre for Educational

Research and Innovation, OECD. Retrieved May 14, 2007, from

http://www.oecd.org/document/34/0,3343,en_2649_34859774_35415010

_1_1_1_1,00.html

Pink, D.H. (2005). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. NY: Penguin

Group.

Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.Y., & Podsakoff, N.P. (2003). Common

method bias in behavioural research: A critical review of the literature and

recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879-903.

Popkewitz, T. (2003). Governing the child and pedagogicalization of the parent: A

historical excursus into the present. In M. Bloch, K. Holmlund, I. Moqvist,

& T. Popkewitz (Eds.), Governing children, families and education: restructuring the

welfare state (pp. 35-61). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Postman, M., Kenner, H., & Perelman, L. (1993). The new technology: Three views

(reprinted with permission from The Washington Post, November 1, 1992).

Australian Educational Computing, 8(1), 17-20.

Premkumar, K., Bhattacherjee, A. (2008). Explaining information technology usage:

a test of competing model. Omega, 36, 64-75.


Premkumar, G., & Ramamurthy K. (1994). Implementation of electronic data

interchange: An innovation diffusion perspective. Management Information

Systems, 11(2), 157-186.

Premkumar, G. & Ramamurthy K. (1995). The role of interorganizational and

organizational factors on the decision mode for adoption of

interorganizational systems. Decision Sciences, 26(3), 303-336.

Premkumar, G. & Ramamurthy K. (1997). Determinants of EDI adoption in the

transportation industry. European Journal of Information Systems, 6(2), 107-121.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1.

Prensky, M. (2006). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8 -13.

Preston, C., Cox, M., & Cox, K. (2000). Teachers as Innovators in learning: What motivates

teachers to use ICT. London: MirandaNet.

Psathas, G. (1999). Studying the organization in action: Membership categorization

and interaction. Human Studies, 22, 139-62.

Puchta, C. & Potter, J. (1999). Asking elaborate questions: focus groups and the

management of spontaneity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 3(3), 314-325.

QSR International Pty Ltd (QSR). (2000). NVivo qualitative analysis program: Version

1.7. Melbourne.

Raby, R. & Domitrek, J. (2007). Slippery as fish… but already caught? Secondary

students’ engagement with school rules. Canadian Journal of Education, 30(3),

931-958.

Rallis, S.F. (1995). Creating learner-centered schools: dreams and practices. Theory

into Practice, 34(4), 224-229.


Reason, J. (2000) Human error: Models and management. British Medical Journal, 320,

768-770.

Richards, C. (1997). Researching the ‘organising metaphors’ which inform teachers’

uses of computers in classrooms. Paper presented at the Australian Association for

Research in Education (AARE) Annual Conference: Researching Education in New

Times, Brisbane, Australia, November 30 - December 4. Retrieved January 12, 2009,

from http://www.aare.edu.au/97pap/richc277.htm

Roberts, P. (2008). Roundtable: What’s the point of creativity in the classroom? New

Statesman, Special Issue on Creativity and Culture, London, September 22 (pp. 21-31).

Robinson, K. (2001). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. West Sussex: Capstone

Publishing Limited.

Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). NY: The Free Press.

Ruane, J., & Ramcharan, P. (2006). Grounded theory and membership

categorisation analysis: Partner methodologies for establishing social

meaning — A research example. Clinical Effectiveness in Nursing, 9(3), 308-316.

Russell, M., Bebell, D. & O’Dwyer, L.M. (2005) Tracking the arc of new teachers’

technology use. In C. Vrasidas & G.V. Glass (Eds.), Preparing teachers to teach

with technology (pp. 45-63). Greenwich: Information Age publishing.

Rychen, D.S., & Salganik, L.H. (Eds.). (2003). Key competencies for a successful life and a

well-functioning society. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Sacks, H. (1972) An initial investigation of the usability of conversational data for

doing sociology. In D. Sudnow (Ed.), Studies in social interaction (pp. 31-74).

New York: Free Press.


Sacks, H. (1979). Hotrodder: a revolutionary category. In: G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday

language: studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 7-14). New York: Irvington.

Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation (Vols. I and II). In G. Jefferson (Ed.) with an

introduction by E.A. Schegloff. Oxford: Basil Blackwell

Salford Systems. (2002). An overview of the CART methodology. Retrieved November

17, 2008, from http://www.salford-systems.com/421.php

Sassen, S. (2004) Space and Power. In N. Gane (Ed.) The Future of Social Theory (pp.

125-142). London: Continuum.

Sawchuk, S. (2009, March 4). Backers of ‘21st century skills’ take flak. Education

Week, pp. 1-4.

Schegloff, E.A. (2007). A tutorial on membership categorisation. Journal of Pragmatics,

39, 462-482.

Schumpeter, J. (1939). Business cycles. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Sclove, Richard E. (1995). Democracy and Technology. NY: The Guilford Press.

Scott, M. (2007, June 30). Primped and primed to hang on to the young ones. The

Sydney Morning Herald, p. 13.

Seidensticker, B. (2006). Future hype: the myths of technology change. San Francisco:

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Selim, H.M. (2003). An empirical investigation of student acceptance of course

websites. Computers and Education, 40, 343-360.

Sen, A.K. (2006). Identity and violence: The illusion of destiny. New York: W.W. Norton

& Co.


Seymour, J., Bellamy, G., Gott, M., Ahmedzai, S.H. & Clark, D. (2002). Using focus

groups to explore older people’s attitudes to end of life care. Ageing and

Society, 22(4), 517-526.

Sheeran P. (2002). Intention-behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review.

European Review of Social Psychology, 12, 1-36.

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International

Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved February

2, 2007, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

Siemens, G. (2006). Connectivism: Learning and knowledge today. Global Summit

2006: Technology connected futures. Sydney. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from

http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/users/root

/public/globalsummit/gs2006_siemens.pdf

Silverman, D. (2006). Interpreting qualitative data: methods for analysing talk, text and

interaction (3rd ed). London: Sage Publications.

Sliwka, A. & Istance, D. (2006). Parental and stakeholder 'voice' in schools and

systems. European Journal of Education, 41(1), 29–43.

Sloane, F., & Kelly, A. (2003). Issues in high-stakes testing programs. Theory into

Practice, 42(1), 12-18.

Smith, K. (2008, May). The challenge of environmental technology: promoting radical innovation

in conditions of lock-in. Final report to the Garnaut Climate Change Review.

Australian Innovation Research Centre: University of Tasmania. Retrieved

January 20, 2009 from

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/Thechall


engeofenvironmentaltechnologypromotingradicalinnovationinconditionsoflo

ck-in/$File/The%20challenge%20of%20environmental%20technology%

20promoting%20radical%20innovation%20in%20conditions%20of%20lock

-in.pdf

Smithson, J. (2000). Using and analyzing focus groups: limitations and possibilities.

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 3(2), 103-119.

Sniehotta F.F., Scholz U., Schwarzer R. (2005). Bridging the intention-behaviour

gap: planning, self-efficacy, and action control in the adoption and

maintenance of physical exercise. Psychology & Health, 20,143-160.

Spodark, E. (2003). Five obstacles to technology in small liberal arts university.

T.H.E. Journal Online. Retrieved January 30, 2006, from

http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4344.cfm

Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Sternberg, R.J. (Ed.). (1999). Handbook of creativity. NY: Cambridge University Press.

Stevens, J. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.).

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stewart, D. W., & Shamdasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice.

Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Streiner D (2003) Starting at the beginning: an introduction to coefficient alpha and

internal consistency. Journal of Personality Assessment, 80(1), 99-103.

Surry, D.W. (1997). Diffusion theory and instructional technology. Proceedings of the

Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology


(AECT), Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 12–15. Retrieved January 22,

2006, from http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwitr/docs/diffusion/

Swan, K. & Shea, P. (2005). The development of virtual learning communities. In S.

R. Hiltz & R. Goldman (Eds.), Learning together online: research on asynchronous

learning networks (pp. 239-280). Mahwah NJ: Erlbaum.

Tabachnik, B., & Fidell, L. (2001). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). Needham

Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Tan, J. P-L. (2003). An empirical analysis of B2B electronic purchasing usage by

firms: a post-adoption model integrating trust. Unpublished Masters

Dissertation. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Tan, J. P-L., & McWilliam, E. (2008) Cognitive playfulness, creative capacity and

generation ‘C’ learners. Cultural Science, 1(2). Retrieved April 13, 2009, from

http://www.cultural-science.org/journal/index.php/culturalscience/article

/view/13/51

Tan, J. P-L., & McWilliam, E. (2009). From literacy to multiliteracies: Diverse

learners and pedagogical practice. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 213-

225 (Special issue: Multiliteracies).

Tan, S.S.L., and Fichman, M. (2002). Adoption of web-Based transactional banking:

Efficiency-choice and neo-institutional perspectives. Proceedings of the 23rd

International Conference on Information Systems, December 15-18, Barcelona, Spain

(pp. 143-152).

Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing the world. New

York: McGraw-Hill.


Thompson, B., & Vidal-Brown, S.A. (2001). Principal components versus principle

axis factors: when will we ever learn? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of

the Southwest Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, February 1-3.

Retrieved 5 May, 2008, from

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01

/0000019b/80/16/cc/42.pdf

Thong, Y. L. (1999). An integrated model of information systems adoption in small

businesses. Journal of Management Information Systems, 15(4), 187-214.

Toffler, A. (1970). The Future Shock. NY: Random House.

Trendwatching. (2004, March). Generation C. Retrieved April 2, 2008, from

http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/GENERATION_C.htm

Turvey, K. (2006). Towards deeper learning through creativity within online

communities in primary education. Computers and Education, 46(3), 309-321.

Umana-Taylor, A.J. & Bamaca, M.Y. (2004). Conducting focus groups with Latino

populations: lessons from the field. Family Relations, 53(3), 261-272.

van Dijk, J. (2006). The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media (2nd ed.). London:

Sage Publications Ltd.

Venkatesh, V. & Davis, F.D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the technology

adoption model: four longitudinal field studies. Management Science, 46(2),

186-204.

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance

of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425-

478.


Verhagen, P. (2006). Connectivism: A new learning theory? Retrieved February 2, 2007,

from http://www.elearning.surf.nl/e-learning/english/3793

Vijayasarathy, L.R. (2004). Predicting consumer intentions to use on-line shopping:

the case for an augmented technology acceptance model. Information and

Management, 41(6), 186-204.

Vollmer, J. (2003). The increasing burden on America’s public schools. Fairfield, IA:

Vollmer and Associates.

von Glasersfeld, E. (1995) A constructivist approach to teaching. In L. P. Steffe & J.

Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in Education (pp. 3-15). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Vrasidas, C., & Glass, G.V. (2005). Preparing teachers to teach with technology. Greenwich:

Information Age publishing.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Waddoups, G.L. & Howell, S.L. (2002). Bringing online leaning to campus: the

hybridization of teaching and learning at Brigham Young University.

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2(2), 1-13.

Ware, P. (2008). Language learners and multimedia literacy in and after school.

Pedagogies: An International Journal, 3, 37–51.

Warschauer, M. (2007). The paradoxical future of digital learning. Learning Inquiry,

1(1), 41-49.

Warschauer, M. (2008). Technology and literacy: Introduction to the special issue.

Pedagogies: An International Journal, 3, 1–3.


Warschauer, M. (2008). Laptops and Literacy: A Multi-Site Case Study. Pedagogies:

An International Journal, 3(1), 52-67

Warschauer, M., & Grimes, D. (2008). Automated writing assessment in the

classroom. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 3(1), 22–36.

Watson, R. (1997). Some general reflections on 'Categorization' and 'Sequence' in

the analysis of conversation'. In S. Hester & P. Eglin (Eds.), Culture in action:

studies in membership categorization analysis (pp. 49-76). Washington, DC:

University Press of America.

Weatherley, R. (2006). Connectivism. NSW: International Centre for VET Teaching

and Learning. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from

http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/connectivism.htm

Webb T.L, & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioural intention engender

behaviour change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological

Bulletin, 132, 249-268.

Webster, J., Tervino, L.K., & Ryan, L. (1993). The dimensionality and correlates of

flow in human-computer interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 9(4), 411-

426.

Welsman, S. (2006, January 11). Enterprise is the key to the future. The Australian:

Higher Education Supplement, p. 50.

Weston, T.J. (2005). Why faculty did (or did not) integrate instructional software in

their undergraduate classrooms. Innovative Higher Education, 30(2), 99-115.


White, P., Gorard, S., Fitz, J., & Taylor, C. (2001). Regional and local differences in

admission arrangements for schools. Oxford Review of Education, 27(3), 317-

337.

Wikipedia. (2007). Web 2.0. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Wilkinson, S. (1999). How useful are focus groups in feminist research? In R.S.

Barbour & J. Kitzinger (Eds.), Developing focus group research: politics,

theory and practice (pp. 64-78). London: Sage Publications.

Wilmot, S. & Ratcliffe, J. (2002). Principles of distributive justice used by members

of the general public in the allocation of donor liver grafts for

transplantation: A qualitative study. Health Expectations, 5, 199-209.

Wilson, B.G. (1996). Constructivist learning environments: Case studies in instructional design.

Englewood Cliffs: Educational Technology Publications.

Widdicombe, S., & Wooffitt, R. (1995). The language of youth subcultures: social identity in

action. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Wordnetweb. (2008). Street cred. Retrieved November 18, 2008, from

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=street+cred&sub=Search

+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=

Yi, Y., Tung, L.L., & Wu, Z. (2003). Incorporating Technology Readiness (TR) into

TAM: Are individual traits important to understand technology acceptance?

Paper presented at the Diffusion Interest Group in Information Technology (DIGIT)

Workshop. Seattle, WA. Retrieved, March 2, 2007 from

www.mis.temple.edu/digit/digit2003/files/DIGIT-2003-yi.pdf


Yin, R.K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage Publications, Inc.

Yohannes, Y., & Webb, P. (1999). Classification and Regression Trees (CART): A user

manual for identifying indicators of vulnerability to famine and chronic food insecurity.

Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Yuen, A. & Ma, W. (2002). Gender differences in teacher computer acceptance.

Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 10(3), 365-382.

Zhu, K., Kraemer, K., Xu, S. (2003). Electronic business adoption by European

firms: a cross-country assessment of the facilitators and inhibitors. European

Journal of Information Systems, 12(4), 251-268.

Zuboff, S. (1988). In the age of the smart machine: The future of work and power. NY: Basic

Books.

APPE NDI CES Pag e | 356

APPENDIX A

QUT UHREC ethics approval for the research study in general

From: Research Ethics [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, 6 June 2007 10:40 AM To: Miss Jennifer Puay Leng Tan Cc: Janette Lamb Subject: Ethics Application Approval -- 0700000538 Dear Miss Jennifer Tan Re: Student Media Centre research project This email is to advise that your application 0700000538 has been reviewed as Human Ethics Level 1 and confirmed as meeting the requirements of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. Please note that before data collection can commence you should submit copies of the questionnaire, interview items and any other related documentation for approval. Whilst the project has received ethical clearance, the decision to commence and authority to commence may be dependant on factors beyond the remit of the ethics committee (eg ethics clearance/permission from another institute/organisation) and you should not commence the proposed work until you have satisfied any other requirements. If you require a formal approval certificate, please respond via reply email and one will be issued. Decisions related to Level 1 and 2 ethical review are subject to ratification at the next available committee meeting. You will only be contacted again in relation to this matter if the Committee raises any additional questions or concerns. This project has been awarded ethical clearance until 6/06/2010 and a progress report must be submitted for an active ethical clearance at least once every twelve months. Researchers who fail to submit an appropriate progress report when asked to do so may have their ethical clearance revoked and/or the ethical clearances of other projects suspended. When your project has been completed please advise us by email at your earliest convenience. Please do not hesitate to contact the unit if you have any queries. Regards Research Ethics Unit Office of Research | O Block Podium | Gardens Point | p: +61 7 3138 5123 | f: +61 7 3138 1304 | e: [email protected] | w: http://www.research.qut.edu.au/ethics/


APPENDIX B

QUT UHREC ethics approval for the use of research instruments

From: Research Ethics [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 19 June 2007 12:23 AM To: Miss Jennifer Puay Leng Tan Cc: Janette Lamb Subject: Ethics Minor Amendments -- 0700000538 Dear Miss Jennifer Tan Project Title: "Student Media Centre research project" Project #: 0700000538 End Date: 6/06/2010 This email is to advise that your application for a minor amendment has been received by the Research Ethics Unit and approval has been provided for the roll-out of the SMC Student Questionnaire and the Student Focus Group Interview Protocol. This decision is subject to ratification at the next meeting of UHREC and you will only be contacted again in relation to this matter if the Committee raises any additional questions or concerns. Regards Research Ethics Unit Office of Research | O Block Podium | Gardens Point | p: +61 7 3138 5123 | f: +61 7 3138 1304 | e: [email protected] | w: http://www.research.qut.edu.au/ethics/


APPENDIX C

Participant Information Sheets & Consent Forms

Participant Information for Students

Student Media Centre Research Project

Research Team Contacts Jennifer Tan

Research Fellow & PhD Candidate Professor Erica McWilliam PhD Research Supervisor

+617 3138 5417 +617 3138 3412 [email protected] [email protected]

Description

This project is being undertaken as part of a collaborative research process between [RBS] and the Creative Workforce Program (ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, QUT). A component of this research project involves a PhD study for the named Research Fellow, Jennifer Tan. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the impact of the Student Media Centre (SMC) on student learning and teaching practices. In particular, the study will focus on exploring the role of the SMC in (i) developing student leadership, engagement and creativity, as well as (ii) facilitating innovative teaching practices through engagement with digital new media technologies. SMC was set up at the beginning of this school year with a vision to become a student-directed online creative learning ecology that promotes student publishing of creative works. These include podcasts, vodcasts, creative and journalistic writing, digital art and music and other media products. SMC starts off as being primarily student-oriented and co-curricular, but seeks to ultimately engage the whole school community in using the online environment to promote both individual and collaborative creative processes. The research team requests your assistance in this project by participating in our research activities detailed in the next section. Your participation and opinions would be most valuable to this study. Participation

Your participation in this project is voluntary. If you do agree to participate, you can withdraw from participation at any time during the project without comment or penalty. Your decision to participate will in no way impact upon your current or future relationship with the school and QUT.

This project will span a period of seven months, from June to December 2007. During this time, we will invite you to participate in one or more of the following research activities: � Completion of a short survey (June 2007) � Participation in focus group discussions or semi-structured interviews (July to September 2007)


The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The focus group interviews will last approximately 30 minutes each. These research activities will be conducted by members of the QUT research team stated above.

Confidentiality

All comments and responses are anonymous and will be treated confidentially. Utmost care will be taken to ensure that any information that can identify you is removed. All data will be presented in aggregate form. You are requested to provide your name in the survey response to facilitate further selection of participants for follow-up semi-structured interviews. We stress that this information will only be available to the researchers for data analysis purposes, and will not be accessible in any way nor at any time to the school, teachers, and parents.

All the interviews will be audio-recorded with your permission and transcribed verbatim. You will be provided with a copy of the transcript for verification and edit prior to final inclusion in any research reports. Similarly, the interview recordings and transcriptions will only be available to the researchers for data analysis purposes, and will not be accessible in any way and at any time by the school, teachers, and parents. All data collected for this project will be stored in a secure filing cabinet or a secure network folder within QUT. Only the research team will have access to the data. Data will be retained for five years after research findings have been published. These will be appropriately disposed of thereafter. Expected benefits

It is expected that this project will benefit you in terms of helping schools and teachers better understand how to design learning environments that are more student-centred and better meet the learning needs of senior school students like yourself.

Risks

There are no risks beyond normal day-to-day living associated with your participation in this project.

Consent to Participate

We would like to ask you to sign a written consent form (enclosed) to confirm your agreement for you to participate in this project.

Questions / further information about the project

Please contact the Research Fellow (Jennifer Tan) or any other research team member named above if you have any questions or if you require further information about the project.

Concerns / complaints regarding the conduct of the project

QUT is committed to researcher integrity and the ethical conduct of research projects. However, if you do have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project you may contact the QUT Research Ethics Officer on 3138 2340 or [email protected]. The Research Ethics Officer is not connected with the research project and can facilitate a resolution to your concern in an impartial manner.


Consent Form for Student Participants


Statement of consent

By signing below, you are indicating that you:

• have read and understood the information document regarding this project

• have had any questions answered to your satisfaction

• understand that if you have any additional questions you can contact the research team

• understand that the project may include audio recording

• understand that you are free to withdraw at any time, without comment or penalty

• understand that you can contact the Research Ethics Officer on 3138 2340 or [email protected] if you have concerns about the ethical conduct of the project

• agree to participate in the project

Name

Signature

Date / /


Information Sheet for Parents/Guardians


Research Team Contacts

Research Team Contacts Jennifer Tan

Research Fellow & PhD Candidate Professor Erica McWilliam PhD Research Supervisor

+617 3138 5417 +617 3138 3412 [email protected] [email protected]

Description

This project is being undertaken as part of a collaborative research process between [RBS] and the Creative Workforce Program (ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, QUT). A component of this research project involves a PhD study for the named Research Fellow, Jennifer Tan. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the impact of the Student Media Centre (SMC) on student learning and teaching practices. In particular, the study will focus on exploring the role of the SMC in (i) developing student leadership, engagement and creativity, as well as (ii) facilitating innovative teaching practices through engagement with digital new media technologies. SMC was set up at the beginning of this school year with a vision to become a student-directed online creative learning ecology that promotes student publishing of creative works. These include podcasts, vodcasts, creative and journalistic writing, digital art and music and other media products. SMC starts off as being primarily student-oriented and co-curricular, but seeks to ultimately engage the whole school community in using the online environment to promote both individual and collaborative creative processes. According to ethical guidelines, parental/guardian consent must be sought for participants below 18 years of age. The research team requests your assistance in consenting to your child’s participation in this project. Your child’s participation would be most valuable to this study. Details of the research activities and ethical policies guiding this project are provided in the following sections. Participation

Your child’s participation in this project is voluntary. If he agrees to participate, he can withdraw from participation at any time during the project without comment or penalty. His decision to participate, and your decision to give parental consent, will in no way impact upon you and your child’s current or future relationship with the school and QUT.

This project will span a period of seven months, from June to December 2007. During this time, we will invite your child to participate in one or more of the following research activities: � Completion of a short survey (June 2007) � Participation in focus group discussions or semi-structured interviews (July to September 2007)


The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The focus group interviews will last approximately 30 minutes each. These research activities will be conducted by members of the QUT research team stated above.

Confidentiality

All comments and responses are anonymous and will be treated confidentially. Utmost care will be taken to ensure that any information that can identify your child is removed. All data will be presented in aggregate form. Your child will be requested to provide his/her name in the survey responses to facilitate further selection of participants for follow-up semi-structured interviews. We stress that this information will only be available to the researchers for data analysis purposes, and will not be accessible in any way nor at any time by the school, teachers and fellow students.

All the interviews will be audio-recorded with your child’s permission and transcribed verbatim. Your child will be provided with a copy of the transcript for verification and edit prior to final inclusion in any research reports. Similarly, the interview recordings and transcriptions will only be available to the researchers for data analysis purposes, and will not be accessible in any way and at any time by the school, teachers and fellow students.

All data collected for this project will be stored in a secure filing cabinet or a secure network folder within QUT. Only the research team will have access to the data. Data will be retained for five years after research findings have been published. These will be appropriately disposed of thereafter. Expected benefits

It is expected that this project will benefit you and your child in terms of helping schools and teachers better understand how to design learning environments that are more student-centred and better meet the learning needs of senior school students.

Risks

There are no risks beyond normal day-to-day living associated with your child’s participation in this project.

Consent to Participate

Your child’s consent to participate in this project will be sought separately via a written consent form addressed to him.

Due to the large number of students invited to participate in this research project (whole senior school student population), we are seeking parental/guardian consent in the following way:

1) If you do not agree to your child’s participation in this project, please send a short email to Jennifer Tan at [email protected] by Friday, 1 June 2007.

2) If you agree to your child’s participation in this project, no further action is required on your part. If we do not hear from you via email by Friday, 1 June 2007, you are indicating that you:

• have read and understood the information document regarding this project

• have had any questions answered to your satisfaction

• understand that if you have any additional questions you can contact the research team

• understand that the project may include audio recording


• understand that your child is free to withdraw at any time, without comment or penalty

• understand that you can contact the Research Ethics Officer on 3138 2340 or [email protected] if you have concerns about the ethical conduct of the project

• agree to your child’s participation in the project

Questions / further information about the project

Please contact the Research Fellow (Jennifer Tan) or any other research team member named above if you have any questions or if you require further information about the project.

Concerns / complaints regarding the conduct of the project

QUT is committed to researcher integrity and the ethical conduct of research projects. However, if you do have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project you may contact the QUT Research Ethics Officer on 3138 2340 or [email protected]. The Research Ethics Officer is not connected with the research project and can facilitate a resolution to your concern in an impartial manner.


APPENDIX D

Screenshots of the SMC to illustrate its online design features (Note: The name of the school has been erased from the screenshots)

Home page: Login/out, sections as tabs, featured articles, online polls

Section: Online polls created by students


Section: Your Work (academic exemplars and social commentaries)

Section: Podcasts created by studets


Section: Videos created by students

Section: Picture gallery


Section: Forums


APPENDIX E

Student Self-Report Questionnaire

SMC STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE THANK YOU for agreeing to fill in this questionnaire – there are only 2 pages and it takes about 10 minutes to complete. 1.1 The questionnaire covers a range of areas about how you learn and your attitudes towards the Online Student Media Centre

(SMC). 1.2 Your accurate and honest opinions are highly valued and deeply appreciated. 1.3 Please answer all the questions. There is no right or wrong answer. 1.4 The information in this questionnaire is confidential. Only aggregate data will be reported. 1.5 If you wish, a brief personal report of your results (compared to average responses) can be emailed to you when analysis is

completed. For further information about the questionnaire please contact Jen Tan (QUT) on 3138 5417, email [email protected]

ABOUT YOU

(i) 1. First name Last name

2. [RBS] ID Year Level 3. What are your interests? (Circle as many as you wish) English Languages Maths Science Multimedia Technology

Arts Humanities Music Drama Business Communication

RE Sports Health Others (please specify):

(ii) 4. Do you have problems logging in to the

[RBS] portal? Yes 1 No 2

5. Do you know how to access the new SMC website? Yes 1 No 2

ABOUT YOUR LEARNING

6. This question is about your achievement goals. Indicate (√) your level of agreement with each of the following statements. S

trongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Neutral

Somewhat agree

Strongly agree

I prefer to do things that I can do well rather than things that I do poorly

1

2

3

4

5

I am happiest when I perform tasks on which I know that I won’t make any errors

1

2

3

4

5

The things I enjoy the most are the things that I do the best

1

2

3

4

5

The opinions others have about how well I can do certain things are important to me

1

2

3

4

5

I feel smart when I do something without making any mistakes

1

2

3

4

5

I like to be fairly confident that I can successfully perform a task before I try it

1

2

3

4

5

I like to work on tasks that I have done well on in the past

1

2

3

4

5

I feel smart when I can do something better than most other people

1

2

3

4

5

The opportunity to do challenging work is important to me

1

2

3

4

5

When I fail to complete a difficult task, I plan to try harder the next time I work on it

1

2

3

4

5

I prefer to work on tasks that force me to learn new things

1

2

3

4

5

The opportunity to learn new things is important to me

1

2

3

4

5

I do my best when I’m working on a fairly difficult task

1

2

3

4

5

I try hard to improve on my past performance

1

2

3

4

5

The opportunity to extend the range of my abilities is important to me

1

2

3

4

5

When I have difficulty solving a problem, I enjoy trying different approaches to see which one will work

1

2

3

4

5

7. This question is about your learning style. Indicate (√) your level of agreement with each of the following statements. S

trongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Neutral

Somewhat agree

Strongly agree

I am generally cautious about accepting new ideas

1

2

3

4

5

I rarely trust new ideas until I can see whether the vast majority of people around me accept them

1

2

3

4

5

I am usually one of the last people in my group to accept something new

1

2

3

4

5

I am reluctant about adopting new ways of doing things until I see them working for people around me

1

2

3

4

5

I find it stimulating to be original in my thinking or behaviour

1

2

3

4

5

I tend to feel that the old way of living and doing things is the best way

1

2

3

4

5

I am challenged by ambiguities and unsolved problems

1

2

3

4

5

I must see other people using new innovations before I will consider them

1

2

3

4

5

I am challenged by unanswered questions 1

2

3

4

5

I often find myself sceptical / wary of new ideas

1

2

3

4

5

8. This question is about how you see yourself as a learner. Indicate (√) what best describes you in general. st

rongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Neutral

somewhat agree

strongly agree

Spontaneous 1 2 3 4 5

Conscientious / Hardworking 1 2 3 4 5

Imaginative 1 2 3 4 5

Experimenting 1 2 3 4 5

Flexible 1 2 3 4 5

Mechanical 1 2 3 4 5

Creative 1 2 3 4 5

Curious 1 2 3 4 5

Intellectually Active 1 2 3 4 5

Inquiring 1 2 3 4 5

Investigative 1 2 3 4 5

Unoriginal 1 2 3 4 5

Scrutinizing / Analytical 1 2 3 4 5

Inventive 1 2 3 4 5

Inquisitive 1 2 3 4 5

Questioning 1 2 3 4 5


ABOUT YOUR ATTITUDES & EXPERIENCES WITH SMC

9. How often do you login / use the SMC now?

Never About once a term

About once a month

About once a fortnight

About once a week

More than once a week

1 2 3 4 5 6

10. How often do you intend to login / use the SMC in future?

Never About once a term

About once a month

About once a fortnight

About once a week

More than once a week

1 2 3 4 5 6

11. Tick (√) the SMC sections that you access / use now? News

Forum

Your Works

Videos

Podcasts

Images

Poll

12. Tick (√) the SMC sections that you intend to use in future? News

Forum

Your Works

Videos

Podcasts

Images

Poll

13. Please rate (√) how interesting you find each SMC section :-

Boring

Mediocre

Very

interesting

News 1 2 3 4 5 Forum 1 2 3 4 5

Your Works 1 2 3 4 5 Videos 1 2 3 4 5

Podcasts 1 2 3 4 5 Images 1 2 3 4 5

Poll / Poll Results 1 2 3 4 5

14. This question is about your beliefs and opinions about the SMC. Indicate (√) your level of agreement with each of the following statements. st

rongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Neutral

somewhat agree

strongly agree

I am encouraged by my good friends to use the SMC

1

2

3

4

5

Students that I respect/like use the SMC 1

2

3

4

5

My good friends use the SMC 1

2

3

4

5

There is positive support from the [RBS] student community to use the SMC

1

2

3

4

5

It is a good idea to have SMC at [RBS] 1

2

3

4

5

Using the SMC is ‘cool’ 1

2

3

4

5

I have no problems logging-in/using the SMC 1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC user-friendly 1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC sections easy to navigate 1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC sections clear/understandable 1

2

3

4

5

I find it easy to add / contribute to forums 1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC useful for my learning 1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC content intellectually stimulating (provokes new ideas and conversations)

1

2

3

4

5

I find the SMC content visually captivating 1

2

3

4

5

15. This question is about how you think using the SMC can benefit you. Indicate (√) your level of agreement with each of the following statements. Using the SMC can : N

ot beneficial at all

Neutral

Very beneficial

enhance my personal profile at school 1

2

3

4

5

keep me up-to-date with what is going on at school

1

2

3

4

5

help me feel more connected to the [RBS] student community

1

2

3

4

5

expand my social network of friends at school 1

2

3

4

5

expose me to exemplary work from peers 1

2

3

4

5

help me get inspiration for new ideas 1

2

3

4

5

increase my opportunities for self-expression 1

2

3

4

5

enhance opportunities to voice my opinions 1

2

3

4

5

give me a place to share / publish my works 1

2

3

4

5

help develop my creative skills 1

2

3

4

5

help develop my digital / technology skills 1

2

3

4

5

help develop my critical / analytical skills 1

2

3

4

5

help develop my interests and pursuits 1

2

3

4

5

help me learn to approach issues from different perspectives

1

2

3

4

5

expose me to more tips/ideas from others on how to do well in exams (e.g. QCS)

1

2

3

4

5

help improve my academic performance 1

2

3

4

5

help me learn new skills beyond those learnt in the classroom

1

2

3

4

5

16. List the top 3 reasons why you use the SMC?

17. List the top 3 reasons why you DO NOT use the SMC?

18. List the top 3 incentives that would make you use the SMC? Thank you again for taking time to complete this survey.

Your effort is very much appreciated! If you would like a brief personal report when analysis is complete,

please indicate your email address here:

digital kids, analogue students - connecting repositories · 2013-07-05 · digital kids, analogue...

Documents