Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education

The challenge to enhance staff development processes in a way that reflects a changing global learning environment and supports academic staff in their efforts to integrate the affordances of the rapidly changing learning technology opportunities into their learning environments is a common one for...

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Main Author: Burns, Robert
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10324/
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author Burns, Robert
author_facet Burns, Robert
author_sort Burns, Robert
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The challenge to enhance staff development processes in a way that reflects a changing global learning environment and supports academic staff in their efforts to integrate the affordances of the rapidly changing learning technology opportunities into their learning environments is a common one for many of the institutions in higher education. This dissertation records a response to this challenge in the context of a higher education institution in Ireland. In an attempt to understand how a selected cross-section of the academic staff of the institution were aware of the pedagogical underpinning required for the effective use of learning technologies, a grounded theory approach was used to interpret their individual and degree group responses to a guided interview process. Co-raters independently identified learning issues raised by the informants in the recorded data, and, reliability tests were performed on the results from the co-raters. Having identified the highest occurring learning issues from this phase of analysis these key issues were taken back to the informants for further discussion in focus groups aimed at clarifying their thinking regarding these issues. Cluster Analysis was used at the next phase to inform how best to analyse the recordings of the focus groups. The application of grounded theory methods is set out in a way to provide transparency, seeking to respond to the, sometimes critical, comment made regarding the use of this methodology. The use of grounded theory methods enabled themes to be identified from the focus group data leading to a definition of theory that affirmed some existing theoretical positions and extended others by more specific identity of the role that academic management need to play in understanding, and planning for the integration of, the use of learning technologies by the academic staff for whom they have management responsibility.
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spelling nottingham-103242025-02-28T11:07:53Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10324/ Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education Burns, Robert The challenge to enhance staff development processes in a way that reflects a changing global learning environment and supports academic staff in their efforts to integrate the affordances of the rapidly changing learning technology opportunities into their learning environments is a common one for many of the institutions in higher education. This dissertation records a response to this challenge in the context of a higher education institution in Ireland. In an attempt to understand how a selected cross-section of the academic staff of the institution were aware of the pedagogical underpinning required for the effective use of learning technologies, a grounded theory approach was used to interpret their individual and degree group responses to a guided interview process. Co-raters independently identified learning issues raised by the informants in the recorded data, and, reliability tests were performed on the results from the co-raters. Having identified the highest occurring learning issues from this phase of analysis these key issues were taken back to the informants for further discussion in focus groups aimed at clarifying their thinking regarding these issues. Cluster Analysis was used at the next phase to inform how best to analyse the recordings of the focus groups. The application of grounded theory methods is set out in a way to provide transparency, seeking to respond to the, sometimes critical, comment made regarding the use of this methodology. The use of grounded theory methods enabled themes to be identified from the focus group data leading to a definition of theory that affirmed some existing theoretical positions and extended others by more specific identity of the role that academic management need to play in understanding, and planning for the integration of, the use of learning technologies by the academic staff for whom they have management responsibility. 2007 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10324/1/eThesis_Version_070920.pdf Burns, Robert (2007) Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Grounded Theory Social Constructivism Vector & Cluster Analysis Institutional Change
spellingShingle Grounded Theory
Social Constructivism
Vector & Cluster Analysis
Institutional Change
Burns, Robert
Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title_full Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title_fullStr Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title_full_unstemmed Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title_short Supporting Staff Development through change in Learning Technologies in Higher Education
title_sort supporting staff development through change in learning technologies in higher education
topic Grounded Theory
Social Constructivism
Vector & Cluster Analysis
Institutional Change
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10324/