1 Rational choice, technology and teacher agency
The conundrum of teachers’ uses and non uses of technology in formal school settings has been for many years an important topic in educational research. At the heart of this “problem” lies an unresolved theoretical tension between competing models of teacher agency. On the one hand, there is a rationalistic and instrumentalist view of teachers’ actions, which is grounded in psychological and economic explanations of human behaviour; on the other hand, there is a more sociological or “socio-cultural” position which sees agency as shaped by contextual forces and cultural meanings. The overarching aim of this paper is to tease out this tension and articulate an empirically grounded discussion which will advance theoretical development. The primary focus is on the relationship between rationality, culture and agency; this relationship is analysed in the specific context of the adoption of innovations in formal school settings. The paper assumes that the interaction between teachers and technology constitutes a vantage point from which to observe the interplay of beliefs, emotions and cultural discourses that shape choices and behaviours.
Rational choice can be considered as a unified, universal view of human behaviour informed by individualist psychology and the economic logic of market transactions, whereby individuals are seen as “rational maximisers of interest and utility” (Green et al.
1994: 3). This view is deeply embedded in most models of technology adoption – not only in education but more broadly. In fact, technology is often used as a shorthand for rationality and efficiency, as aptly illustrated in the highly influential “diffusions of innovations model” (Rogers
2003), where technology is defined as “a design for instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a desired outcome” (ibid: 13). Zhao and Frank (
2003) conceptualise technology adoption in school settings along similar lines:
When teachers are given the opportunity and resources to experiment with computers, they may improve their technology proficiency and see how computers further their goals, that is, reduce perceived costs and increase perceived benefits (p. 817).
Strong rationalistic assumptions also underpin established models of individual-level technology adoption, such as the Technology Adoption Model (TAM) (Davis
1989; Davis et al.
1989), which expands on the psychological theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen
1975) and attempts to explain adoption patterns on the basis of quantifiable factors, chiefly the perceived usefulness of a certain technology and its ease of use. This model can predict quite accurately intentions to use and, to a degree at least, actual use of technology in a variety of contexts (Legris et al.
2003) – not least among school teachers (Scherer et al.
2015; Teo
2009). Although it should be noted that “behavioural intention” does not always translate into “actual” use, especially when uses and non-uses are analysed in situ through systematic observation and ethnographic approaches (Selwyn
2010; Selwym and Grant
2009). The TAM model has evolved significantly over the last couple of decades, incorporating a range of moderating factors which were found to influence the adoption of innovations (Straub
2009; Straub et al.
1997; Venkatesh et al.
2003). Despite this, the mainstream view of technological integration still reflects a rather restrictive model of individual rationality, insofar as it assumes that a linear (or at least broadly predictable) relationship exists between the personal beliefs and benefit-maximising dispositions of teachers and their actions (Ertmer, and Ottenbreit-Leftwich
2010; Jimoyiannisa and Komisb
2007; Kim et al.
2013). In the early 2000s, the main challenge of technology integration was a matter of gradually progressing from low-level to high-level uses over a period of approximately 5–6 years. This was, for many, the time needed for teachers to accumulate enough expertise to change their belief systems in ways that were more compatible with meaningful and “student-centred” uses of technology (Ertmer
2005). The predictions of technological integration through a rational “slow revolution” have been largely disconfirmed as the traditional realities of schooling - the “deeply entrenched structures of the self-contained classroom, departments, time schedules, and teachers’ disciplinary training” (Cuban et al.
2001: 83) - have proved incredibly resilient to the sustained attacks of technological innovation.
At the time of writing, in 2015, this is still largely the case in spite of a widespread consensus about the potential benefits of digital technology in the classroom. A more realistic assessment of the current state of technological adoption in schools is that
sometimes changes in beliefs lead to changes in behaviour in a fairly linear and rational fashion, for instance through strategies that increase confidence and a positive approach to risk-taking (Howard and Gigliotti
2015). However, just as often they do not, and many have noted the inconsistencies between teachers’ “rational” beliefs about technology or pedagogy and their actions (Calderhead
1996; Ertmer et al.
2001; Fang
1996). In addition, empirical research has suggested a “filtering” effect of emotions (particularly negative ones) on beliefs about teaching, learning and motivation (Mansfield and Volet
2010).
Across these debates, the influence of culture on individual-level beliefs and even emotions is often recognised as crucial, but it remains theoretically underdeveloped and limited to two areas:
a)
The analysis of school-level values and group dynamics among teachers, such as the cultural “distance” between innovative, technology-based practices and the pre-existing practices (Roehrig et al.
2007; Somekh
2008; Zhao & Frank
2003).
b)
The study of “cultural dimensions” (Hofstede et al.
1997) (power-distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and individualism, see also Nistor et al.
2014); a theory which has been criticised for oversimplifying cultural differences between countries (Signorini et al.
2009).
Conversely, established sociological views emphasise the relative qualities of cultures and the non-homogenous nature of modern societies; thus the empirical study of the production and negotiation of culture is prioritised over the quantitative measurement of “cultural dimensions” or values, viewed as reified and fixed entities (Du Gay et al.
2013; Hall
1997).
According to this more sociological and anthropological view, it is impossible to analyse culture without a concern for processes of signification. It follows that the tendency of mainstream technology adoption models to rely on structured questionnaires poses problems in terms of ecological validity, because it precludes insights into everyday practices and meaning making processes which can only be appreciated through the deployment of more qualitative methodologies.
This paper tries to advance this theoretical and methodological discussion further, arguing that our understanding of the culturally shaped, rational and less-than-rational actions of teachers in relation to technology is still incomplete. In particular, the paper aims to develop an analysis from a range of observations and empirical materials collected over the course of two large scale international projects. In both cases, the aim was to understand the conditions that can foster “innovative teaching and learning” in formal secondary education.
The paper will suggest that culture, not much (or not only) at the “local” and intra-group level but at the macro level of “discourses” and ideologies (which are then reflected in national policies and institutional values), acts as an additional filter or mediating factor for individual choices and behaviours. In the next section, I will briefly describe these projects and I will then summarise the empirical background which underpins the research questions. The remainder of the paper will focus on an empirical study involving a total of 39 secondary teachers from England and other European countries.
2 Empirical background and research questions
Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) was a 2-year international project sponsored by Microsoft Partners in Learning that investigated the conditions leading to innovation in formal learning contexts (see Langworthy et al.
2010). The project started in 2010 and ended in 2012. Seven participating countries which arguably reflect different facets of global education in the 21st century were chosen: the USA, Senegal, Mexico, Finland, Russia, Australia and England. The data discussed here is from the English strand in which the author was involved as a researcher; alternative accounts highlighting the international scope of the project are also available (Shear and Moorthy
2010). For the purpose of this paper it is worth reporting at least one finding from the international study, which involved 159 secondary schools and 4,038 teachers (683 of whom were in England). The analysis suggested that “innovation” is still largely a teacher-level phenomenon, with significant variation across classrooms even within schools which had already been identified as being at the forefront of technology integration. Most of the variation in teaching practice lied therefore between teachers within a school, not between schools.
The second project considered here is Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom (iTEC): a large scale, 4-year European intervention with significant political support and financial backing from the European Commission of approximately three million Euros. The project, which started in 2010 and ended in 2014, involved 26 partners including ministries of education, technology providers and research organisations (Lewin and McNicol
2014). The author was employed as researcher in one of several research organisations mainly tasked with running workshops with secondary school teachers from a range of European countries in order to explore meaningful uses of technology in the classroom.
During the course of both projects a great deal of quantitative and qualitative data was collected through surveys, workshops, interviews and classroom observations. Only a subset of these data is considered here.
The overall picture which emerged from both projects was one where a positive view of digital technology “in abstract” – mainly in terms of accessing unspecified knowledge and supporting “21st century skills” - went hand in hand with rather mundane uses of actual tools and devices such as electronic whiteboards, laptop computers and tablets; and with a general confusion or uncertainty about the ability of digital technology and social media to enhance students’ understanding of subject matter. Two more specific findings from ITL are worth highlighting for the purpose of this paper:
a.
Rather than individual characteristics, the social milieu in which schools were immersed influenced the degree to which teachers recognised those “abstract” benefits of digital technology. A survey of 683 teachers found that whilst deep understanding of subject matter was all around the weakest of all benefits associated with digital technology use, teachers in more “challenging” circumstances and less “performing” schools were more likely to think that ICT can benefit student learning (Author, 2013).
b.
An observable pattern whereby individual “innovative” teachers were willing to accept - for reasons that can only be described as “micro-political”- the inconveniences and increased workload associated with far from ideal “technology-enhanced” practices. For example, to enact forms of harmless resistance in an attempt to escape the drudgery of daily teaching with its repetitive routines and restrictions (Author, 2013).
These findings set the stage for the main research questions that underpin this paper. The research questions are as follows: can teachers’ engagement with technology be explained as a non-binary entanglement of rational and non-rational factors? How is such entanglement patterned according to cultural norms and influences?
3 Methods
The data considered in this paper were collected over a period of 5 years and across two projects. The overall methodological framework is consistent with the tenets of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss
1967), as the reflective approach of the author, who was involved as a researcher in both projects, ties together different forms of qualitative and observational data, enabling the emergence of a coherent interpretive picture. More specifically, the analysis and the ensuing discussion draw on interviews, workshops and focus groups conducted at different points in time:
-
four individual in-depth interviews with English teachers in 2011;
-
two consecutive focus groups involving a total of 14 English teachers in 2011;
-
a workshop involving 15 teachers from six European countries (Hungary, Spain, Italy, Turkey, France and Austria) in 2012;
-
Individual in-depth interviews in 2015 with a subset of six European teachers (two from Italy, one from Austria, one from Hungary, two from Spain) who attended the workshop in 2012, which provided an opportunity to look retrospectively at the past experiences as “innovators” in a more critical and self-reflective fashion.
In addition, the interpretation builds on research notes and observations captured in a fairly unstructured manner and then systematised for the purpose of this paper. All interviews were conducted in English face-to-face or via Skype, and recorded using digital voice recorders or VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) recording software with the consent of the participants. Semi-structured interviews were used during the data collection sessions. Sample probing questions to initiate in-depth conversations include the following:
a)
Why do you use technology in your daily practice?
b)
What are the factors that influence when and how you use digital technologies?
c)
Why do you think is important to use digital technologies in the classroom?
d)
Do you see yourself as an “innovative” teacher? What does being more or less innovative mean to you?
The actual analysis was mainly phenomenological in nature (Sokolowski
2000), that is, concerned with descriptions of phenomena which were then clustered in discrete categories through a process of open coding. This process continued until “theoretical saturation” and was then followed by more selective coding in terms of the initial categories. Interviews were individually transcribed. The software for qualitative analysis Nvivo was used to organise the data and facilitate the coding process.
At a broad level, the use of technology in these innovative projects still appeared to be mostly based on individual initiative, and the data confirmed the key role played by “technology champions”: teachers who saw themselves as experts and often acted as “consultants” for other teachers. Often these were ICT teachers, but not always. In one school the technology champion was a RE (Religious Education) teacher, in another school a biology teacher. A more in-depth analysis highlighted interesting cultural differences in the ways English teachers and their fellow “continental” colleagues construed their actions as innovative professionals. Two themes, or interpretive “nodes”, emerged:
1.
English teachers as “self-interested” actors, more pragmatic and well-versed in the politics and the economics of educational technology and actively “playing the game” of innovation to pursue benefits which, however, were largely “non-educational” in nature.
2.
innovation as a form of “emotional activism” enacted by teachers from other parts of Europe, who shared a genuine and emotional “faith” in the power of digital technology as a “force for good”.
These themes will be explored in more detail in the next section. All quotations reported in the next section are verbatim. Longer quotes are attributed using fake names and reproduced as freestanding text.
5 Discussion and conclusion
The interpretive picture that emerges from the interviews is one where pragmatic calculation, irrational beliefs (i.e., not evidence-based), societal hopes and identity projects are wrapped around vaguely defined notions of “innovation” and technological affordances. Across both projects and both groups of teachers, technology was never described in terms of efficiency and standardisation. For all teachers involved, irrespective of cultural differences, innovation referred instead to a specific brand of soft “techno-progressivism” that seemed to be altogether ambivalent, fuzzy and very malleable. The interviews, considered in their entirety, suggest an interesting intermingling of economic rationalism and “silicon valley” aspirational rhetoric: a particular brand of technology-fuelled emotional discourse that celebrates personalisation, empowerment, well-being, and where “the Internet” is reified as a single piece of miraculous “tech” (Hartley
2003). The main differences lied in the degrees of cultural allegiance to this rhetoric. English teachers were more aware of a contradiction between what counts as “effective” in an accountability-based (and very “rational”) school system vis-a-vis the unverified promises of techno-progressivism. Conversely, teachers from mainland Europe were much more resolute and enthusiastic in their “faith”.
Were English teachers inherently more “attuned” to rational choice in their technology-related beliefs than their continental counterparts? It is indeed a possible explanation, one which would align with the established narrative whereby English culture and history are profoundly tied to the development of rationality as a paradigm to make sense of individual and social life – a paradigm dating back to what Green and Shapiro (1994: 18) called the “embryonic rational choice arguments of Hobbes (who assumed that individuals maximise power) and Bentham (who assumed that they maximise pleasure)”. However, this explanation is ultimately unsatisfactory. The data suggested that the overall belief system shared by English teachers was far from emotionless. Instead, discursive manoeuvres created an appearance of objectivity and instrumentality, while emotions were pushed in the background and allowed to emerge when contingent factors caused the relaxation of the relentless economic, transactional demands. The emphasis on efficiency and pragmatism provided therefore a degree of legitimation for these teachers, in a manner consistent with established social conventions, but it concealed an underlying ambivalence (Goodwin et al.
2009). This more ambivalent discourse can perhaps be understood better as a discursive “performance” influenced by a desire to reaffirm the “innovator identity” in the turbulent and politically contested world of English education, where educational policies over a period of approximately 20 years created a culture of self-management, brazen pragmatism and relentless accountability. These traits of English educational culture are also noted by Grek and Ozga (
2009) in their comparative analysis of European education systems. Drawing on the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, they describe it as a form of “calculative rationality” (Bauman
1992). Ozga (
2009) expands on this point arguing that the English educational landscape is closer to that of the USA than to continental Europe, inasmuch as “ideologies of the market” have informed policies emphasising choice, competition, data-based governance and private sector involvement. The data discussed here seems to confirm Ozga’s thesis, but while economic pragmatism provided a “dominant” discursive frame for English teachers’ accounts, emotions still offered an alternative way through which they made sense of their behaviour in relation to technology.
On the other hand, continental teachers espoused in less ambivalent terms the “solutionist” rhetoric associated with digital technology, displaying shared beliefs about innovation as an ill-defined collection of technological affordances and potentials leading to an incredibly broad range of societal benefits. This very emotional and personally invested celebration was never based on rational accounts of how networking technologies and social media platforms operate, nor did they reflect an awareness of their economic costs. Rather, they were underpinned by a utopian faith whereby real and imagined properties were arbitrarily (and emotionally) conflated in an endlessly malleable entity (the “Internet”), whose qualities are universal, freely accessible and undisputedly “good”. Following again Grek and Ozga (
2009) in their sociological analysis, the theme of innovative agency appears here subsumed under the broader narrative of European utopianism. Historically, this narrative recruited education in the emotional and “mythical” process of creating a European “imagined community” (Grek and Ozga
2009, p. 941), and is still reflected in many EU-funded educational interventions such as the Erasmus programme - or the iTEC project under consideration in this paper. While this educational narrative places less emphasis on rationalisation and performativity compared to the English case, it seems more susceptible to the allure of technological solutionism.
To bring to an end this discussion, I would like to argue that the dynamics described in this paper highlight a need for a more complex model of teacher agency in relation to technology- one that can adequately account for the entanglement of educational cultures, policies, rationality and emotional dimensions. In such a model, rationality and emotionality should not be considered at face value, that is, inherent traits somehow correlated with psychological qualities that teachers may or may not possess, but as phenomena to be unpacked: competing (and culturally shaped) strategies enacted to make sense of the world (Geertz
1983; Weick
1995). Technology is integral part of these strategies: a constituting and constituted factor at the same time (Feenberg
1991; Pinch and Bijker
1987; Wajcman
2010), and occupying a symbolic, cultural place straddling rationality and emotions. The fact that its inner workings are often “hidden from view” reinforces a cultural trend whereby real and “imagined” technological affordances are conflated in narratives of progress and social or individual empowerment, sometimes in open conflict with the realities of efficiency and accountability, which in turn have their own powerful technological dimensions. There are therefore several “technological discourses” - some more emotional than others - that need to be accounted for and critiqued when examining the topic of technology adoption in formal school settings.
This paper also argues for a reconsideration of the interplay between emotions and rationality in the complex dynamics that shape behaviour – whether or not technology is involved (Kelchtermans
2005; Sutton and Wheatley
2003; Zembylas
2003). As well as shaping agency, emotions are central to the “routine operations of the structures of social interactions” (Barbalet
2001: 3) and are in turn shaped by expectations, cultural values and cognitive predispositions. As Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta reason when discussing the role of emotions in social movements:
Cognitions typically come bundled with emotions, and are meaningful or powerful to people for precisely this reason. Long-lasting moods and affective ties, for their part, may make people more susceptible to certain beliefs and understandings. Rather than viewing emotions and cognitions in zero-sum terms, then, we need to grapple with their interactions and combinations (200: 16).
Concluding, it is important to highlight some of this paper’s limitations. In the first place, the selection of informants and interviewees was not guided by the research questions outlined in Section Two, but by contingent factors within the two projects. Although very similar, these projects still had a number of specific objectives that informed the data collection activities. Future studies should therefore strive to select participants on the basis of more rigorous theoretical sampling, in which data collection is iterative and informed by the emerging interpretative picture (Glaser and Strauss
1967; Patton
1990). The sample was also relatively small and the interpretation very reliant upon discursive accounts. A more comprehensive qualitative analysis of technology-related agency should therefore include more naturally occurring and observational data, possibly collected over a sustained period. Also largely absent from the analysis is an account of the actual technology and its influence on pedagogic practices and learning outcomes. Although, it should be emphasised, it was not the aim of this paper to provide such an account. Notwithstanding these limitations, this paper still makes an important contribution by disputing the linear and simplistic appropriation of rational choice in educational research, whereby individual behaviour is examined from the perspective of individualist psychology and micro-economic theory without considering models of culturally informed agency beyond self-interest and calculation. A final point about the broader relevance of this contribution. In the global north, the adoption of innovations in formal education is probably less pressing an issue than it used be a decade ago. However, it remains a topic of great concern in the developing world, where many countries have recently implemented strong policy initiatives and programmes for educational technology with high-level governmental support (International Telecommunication Union
2014). The suggestion made in this paper is that research and interventions in these challenging realities have a duty to appreciate the interweaving of cultures, beliefs and emotions which not only lies at the heart of technology adoption, but of educational practice in general.