I am feeling a huge sense of accomplishment this morning. I posted my critical analysis task late last night (officially it was Tuesday morning in South Africa). The accomplishment was, to my mind, simply the completion of a task that seven days prior seemed utterly impossible.
I welcome as much constructive criticism as you have the time and energy to provide. I am here to learn, which I have done in spades this week, your feedback will only help me with this process.
Below I have detailed some points that came up in the task that I did not know how to address in the writing.
Choice of words:
Having read (Bayne 2015; Biesta 2013) I found that selecting the correct vocabulary was a matter for great consternation and thus a time consuming task. Using phrases like “education technology” and “online education” interchangeably seemed like a bit of a faux pas. Hamilton and Friesen (Hamilton and Friesen 2013) seemed unconcerned with semantics in this regard and, since this wasn’t a point I was interested in discussing, I adopted the same carefree approach.
Assumption about “truths”:
There were statements made in the article which weren’t particularly well substantiated.
For example:
“Amidst this diversity (of research), a single theme emerges – that the technologies themselves are, indeed, of beneficial value in education.” I used this point in my analysis as a “truth” but the article didn’t offer much to support the credibility of this statement. My own personal experience of technology in education has been that it technology offers the promise of a better education but like any tool it has to used in such a way as to realise that promise. I suppose this is both essentialism and instrumentalism in practice. It didn’t seem helpful to spend time discussing the lack of evidence for that statement but the tiny perfectionist in me was protesting. I do however, think it is very helpful to challenge any preconceived essentialist notions that technology comes with innate pedagogical value and its use in education will be beneficial.
Understanding the criticism of the constructivist approach:
The paper addressed limitations of the current way research is framed in the field of online education and suggested that by using a constructivist approach, future research would achieve more meaningful results. The authors put forward a strong case for taking a social constructivist approach. I didn’t disagree with any points that were made. I have frequently pondered how a particular technology came into being and ultimately whose needs it is serving. That seemed like a “common sense” approach to me which I suppose can be attributed to the quality of the argument put forward to support the idea.
In an attempt to think more critically about the article (on which I was becoming increasingly more “sold”), I did lots of reading about social constructivism and opening the “black box” of technology. In my search I encountered Langdon Winner. That guy totally blew my mind! He articulated concerns of mine that had not yet fully formed into clear ideas. These concerns were still amorphous feelings that I might have categorised as fears or suspicion of technology. Whenever those feelings emerged I would have berated myself for such Luddite tendencies and firmly put a lid on them.
Who wants to be branded a dinosaur in the age of technological innovation?
Winner developed the theory of Technological Politics, he espouses the notion that “today’s technological society is based upon a collection of bad habits inherited from a reckless industrial past”. His article Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology (Winner 1993) prompted me to think about the limitations of a constructivist approach to research in educational technology. His critique which I will summarise brought up all sorts of questions which I discuss below.
Constructivism explains how technologies come into being, but it ignores the consequences of the technologies after the fact.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this. Technological development is an iterative process and constructivists look at the history of a technological artefact as part of that process. At some point the present consequences of a particular technology will woven into the history of that artefact assuming it continues to develop.
Perhaps he is suggesting that the broader consequences of technology are ignored if they do not form part of its future development.
Constructivism unravels the mesh of social groups and interests that contribute to the construction of technology, but ignores those groups who have no voice in the process, yet are affected by it.
This does pose the problem of how we identify all relevant participants in the development process of technology when some parties are excluded from the process and may not even know they have been excluded.
Let me attempt to put this into a real world situation so I can check my understanding. Let’s says that the University of Edinburgh works with commercial developers of technology, perhaps using UK government funding to offer an online Masters in Digital Education. The aforementioned trio, a student in South Africa, her personal technology and access to internet are all actors in that process. Who benefits from this opportunity and who does it impact negatively? What about the South African higher education institutions (not “participant” actors in this process) that are losing out on a student (and her tution fees) and possibly (although not in my case) her intellectual contribution to a field of study. Could this technology simply be another means of reinforcing traditional circles of power, wealth and knowledge?
Constructivism superficially focuses on how the immediate needs, interests, problems and solutions of “relevant” social groups influence technological design. It disregards deeper cultural, intellectual or economic origins of social choices concerning technology.
This point makes me think of “invisible hands” at play when we make choices about adopting technology in our schools. This published article on Winner’s blog got me thinking about the teachers and school management teams (comprised of teachers) who are proponents of using technology in schools. Teachers are regarded as custodians of good pedagogical practice. What happens when their motives serve interests other that the children they teach? How can we be sure that decisions about technology are not made to serve an advancing career or appear competitive in the marketplace?
Constructivists actively avoid taking any kind of moral stance or passing judgment on the relative merits of the alternative interpretations of a technology. This indifference makes it unhelpful in addressing important debates about the place of technology in human affairs.
What I am not clear about with this criticism, is why constructivists take a neutral stance when assessing the arguments put forward by actors in accepting or rejecting technology.
The constructivists use the term “interpretive flexibility” which, put simply, means the technology has different meaning for different groups. Presenting the groups with the problem of how best to reach a compromise in order to meet the needs of all groups.
The “principal of symmetry”employed by constructivists states that one should employ the same kind of investigation into why technology fails as we do to why it succeeds. Analysts should take a neutral stance when assessing the arguments put forward by actors in accepting or rejecting technology. All arguments should be treated equally.
I interpret this to mean that after examining the interests of all actors in the development of technology and observing those influences at play constructivists come to understand how a technology came into being, in that particular format. What they are not able to do is make a value judgement on the technological artefact, i.e. that is is serving an inegalitarian, political agenda. If this is the case, the constructivist approach could, in some situations, bring about more questions than answers.
References:
Hamilton, Edward, and Norm Friesen. 2013. “Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective / Éducation En Ligne: Perspective Des études En Science et Technologie.” Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La Revue Canadienne de L’apprentissage et de La Technologie 39 (2). https://doi.org/10.21432/T2001C.
Winner, Langdon. 1993. “The Philosophy of Technology.” Science, Technology & Human Values 18 (3). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016224399301800306.
A great, and thorough, reflection on your critical analysis task. A few comments in response:
1. Words – a carefree approach works fine here but doesn’t always so take care to identify when semantics *do* matter ?
2. Truths – be careful in correctly attributing truth claims. H&F are claiming that the research literature is assuming that digital technology is of beneficial value to education. They are not claiming this as being their view – and their paper is arguing against this view as an assumption. But you’re correct is stating that H&F are not presenting evidence to support their claim of this assumption being predominate in the research literature.
3. Good to hear you enjoyed Langdon Winner! I would say that the 1993 paper is somewhat dated and that the methods of constructivist research (depending on how you scope that field) have progressed a lot since then – including issues of consequences of technologies and surfacing the ‘excluded’ through problematising this notion of ‘relevant’ actors (see Actor Network Theory (ANT) as an example) – although the point about an ethical stance arguably still stands, especially in the case of ANT.
This is a really good point to follow-up your critical analysis.
1) With regards to choice of vocabulary, I am just beginning to see how often I make sweeping statements. Sweeping in a sense that I’m using terms and not really qualifying the meaning of those terms. Sometimes I’m using terms without actually being clear in my own mind what I mean. This most definitely down to a lack of writing practice but more problematically from a lack of critical engagement. I always perceived myself to be a critical thinker but there are levels of critical engagement. Perhaps healthy political debate at a Friday night braai (standard South African social engagement, officially a just a barbecue but culturally it is a cornerstone of social activity) is not on the same level as a post graduate degree course.
2) Thanks for clarifying that H&F were arguing against the assumption that technology is beneficial. I did pick that up in my reading but perhaps I didn’t communicate that effectively in my writing. It is good to be aware of this.
3) Finally I’m glad to hear that some of constructivist methods critiqued by Winner in his 1993 paper have progressed. I was really drawn to it as an approach.
One question I have though is why can’t ANT take an ethical stance? Please can you recommend some reading that will help me make sense of this question? Thanks