Research in Learning Technology

ALT's Open Access Journal

Introduction

The role of technology to enhance the delivery of teaching is one that is acknowledged to have the potential, where its use is well thought out, to transform the learning and teaching experience and support radical change (Keppell, Suddaby, and Hardy 2015). However, despite the affordances and opportunities that exist, as well as huge investments in technology that institutions have put in place to support this (Buabeng-Andoh 2012), barriers towards the adoption of technology are acknowledged throughout the literature. A lack of uniform understanding of key terms such as ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’ (TEL) (Kirkwood and Price 2014) can lead to differences in academic practice (Mirriahi, Alonzo, and Fox 2015). Therefore, it is important that TEL is unambiguously defined. Here, we adopt the U.K.’ s Higher Education Academy (HEA) definition that describes TEL as ‘a synonym for e-learning but can also be used to refer to technology enhanced classrooms and learning with technology, rather than just through technology e-learning’ (HEA 2016). In this context, the term TEL should therefore be considered to encompass terms such as ‘blended’, ‘digital’, ‘online’, and ‘distance learning’.

This paper focuses on TELFest, a Technology Enhanced Learning Festival, which is an approach used at the University of Sheffield to encourage the adoption of educational technologies amongst teaching staff (i.e. academics). It investigates the impact of this approach, alongside barriers that are preventing changes from taking place, whilst further exploring ways in which such an approach can be improved. The paper begins by setting the scene and exploring the barriers to adoption, alongside different adoption strategies.

Barriers to adoption

Birch and Burnett (2009) carried out a literature review into the barriers related to the adoption of TEL and categorised the results into the following three themes: institutional, pedagogical and individual. These categories are further exemplified as follows:

• Institutional barriers can include a lack of institutional direction (Buchanan, Sainter, and Saunders 2013), and it is asserted that institutions should identify their own definitions and develop a clear vision of TEL in order to address the lack of common understanding. Lack of support may include limited access to suitable educational software and ICT equipment (Buabeng-Andoh 2012). Whilst not acknowledged by Birch and Burnett (2009), restrictions due to the curriculum (e.g. rigid structure) are also considered as part of this category; these restrictions may be a result of external factors such as collaborations with professional bodies (Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich 2010).
• Pedagogical barriers can include scepticism or the inability of teaching staff to see the value of technology within learning (Buabeng-Andoh 2012; Buchanan, Sainter, and Saunders 2013; Walker et al. 2016). Arguably, it can be difficult for teaching staff to contextualise the role of technology, as the individual’s own learning experiences are likely to involve learning by ‘traditional’ teaching methods, and this will influence their own teaching methods (Reilly et al. 2012).
• Individual factors can include a perceived lack of time, resistance to change, lack of rewards and recognition, lack of skills and lack of confidence. Every 2 years, the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) surveys UK institutions on their adoption of TEL and for the last six iterations (published between 2005 and 2016) ‘time’ has consistently been cited as the biggest barrier to TEL development (Walker et al. 2016). This is unsurprising considering the assertion of Vaughan (2007) in Alammary, Sheard, and Carbone (2014), who suggests that developing a blended course takes up to three times longer than if the equivalent course were to be delivered in a traditional format.

Adoption strategies

Rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovation theory describes the way in which cultures adopt an innovation, and it is a model commonly used when exploring the adoption of TEL (Wilson and Stacey 2004). Rogers categorises adopters as follows: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority and (5) laggards, where innovators are the first to adopt and laggards the last. Rogers explains, and other research has confirmed (Latif 2011), that innovators and early adopters can act as a positive force to promote and encourage adoption of technologies by the mainstream majority. However, Porter et al. (2016) draw on the work of Moore (2002) who warns that there is a ‘chasm’ between the early adopters and innovators and that the strategies used to engage these groups with an innovation will be different to the mainstream adopters. This outlines the importance of adopting different strategies to engage different groups of adopters (Robinson 2009). The work of Rogers has been contested as having little relevance to the adoption of learning technologies, with arguments suggesting that using this model encourages typecasting and that adoption can and should vary depending on the educational context and the relevance of the technology within that context (Eisenhauer and Keisch 2016).

Communities of Practice is a social learning theory based around the formation of usually informal, non-hierarchical, cross-institutional communities where members have shared learning needs (Lave and Wenger 1991). These communities develop over time; early stages involve members ‘finding others’ whilst more active communities can involve members working on joint activities and developing shared understandings (Wenger 1998). The value of communities of practice and the importance of the peer support that they can offer has been identified as a way of supporting the adoption of TEL within an institution (Austen et al. 2016; Nicolle and Lou 2008; Reilly et al. 2012). Early adopters and innovators can have a fundamental role to play in sharing their practice (Austen et al. 2016) and new expertise will grow from others within the community. However, to prevent a community from becoming too ‘insular’ in its practice, it is important to ensure that there is enough access to activity from ‘outside’ the communities’ ‘boundaries’ to renew learning (Wenger 1998).

Formal staff development is a clear theme that acts as an enabling factor to the adoption of TEL, whether this is one-to-one, online, ad hoc workshops, or part of a structured programme (Alammary, Sheard, and Carbone 2014). The value of this is further supported by the 2016 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s ‘Key Issues in Learning and Teaching’ results, where ‘faculty development’, with a focus on enhancing the ‘strengths and abilities’ of teaching staff, was identified as one of the topics of most interest to universities (EDUCAUSE 2016). There is a strong consensus that it is important to focus on ‘why to’, (i.e. pedagogy and added value as part of staff development) and not just on ‘how to’ (Alammary, Sheard, and Carbone 2014; Johnson et al. 2012; Glover et al. 2012). In fact, some argue that it is more important to focus on the ‘why’, as this is where the real learning gain is with regards to developing a better understanding of TEL pedagogy (Johnson et al. 2012). On the other hand, it is being increasingly recognised that assumptions about the ‘digital skills’ possessed by both the teaching staff and students are frequently ill-founded (JISC 2015), further emphasising the importance of combining the ‘why’ with the ‘how’. As well as this, it is considered important to develop teacher ‘self-efficacy’, that is, teacher confidence in using their skills and knowledge to facilitate student learning (Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich 2010).

Alammary, Sheard, and Carbone (2014) reviewed different blended learning approaches and proposed three distinct design approaches for the implementation of TEL; low impact (adding extra technology-enhanced activities to an existing course), medium impact (replacing existing activities in an existing course with technology-enhanced activities) and high impact (building a course from scratch). They argue that the higher the impact, the larger the potential change will be to a course and to the student learning experience. The model has been adopted as a method to encourage staff to think more deeply about their adoption of TEL (Learning Development Centre 2015), with the ultimate goal being that teaching staff will implement a high impact blend.

The importance of deploying different strategies to support the adoption of innovations is supported by a project to introduce a new virtual learning environment (VLE) integrated with other learning technologies at City University of London, where alternative methods were used depending on the culture and previous exposure to TEL within each of the schools of the university (Glover et al. 2012). Strategies employed included staff development (group workshops, one-to-one, online), student training, employing champions and the introduction of minimum standards for VLE-supported courses. The UCISA 2016 TEL survey’s top three enabling approaches for the adoption and use of TEL tools across institutions are: (1) providing support and training to academic staff, (2) providing platforms for sharing good practice and (3) delivery of accredited programmes for academic staff (Walker et al. 2016). Some institutions have put in place a strategy of offering staff cash incentives, yet it has been argued that such initiatives offer no correlation with motivating teaching staff to adopt TEL (Johnson et al. 2012).

Background to TELFest

As described, it is important for institutions to integrate different strategies in order to encourage and support the adoption of TEL. TELFest is one approach that has been put in place to complement the current TEL support already available across the University of Sheffield, a research-intensive university in Northern England, which has approximately 3500 academic and learning and teaching support staff. This annual, week-long festival, introduced in September 2014, is organised by the institution’s central Technology Enhanced Learning Team in collaboration with other teams that support TEL activity (e.g. library services) and is championed by the institution’s Vice-President for Education, thereby offering institutional support at the highest level. The event was primarily aimed at staff involved in teaching students has also attracted academic support staff (e.g. librarians and TEL support staff such as learning technologists). Collectively, these attendees have the potential to form a community of practice consisting of those who wish to reflect on their own practice or support the practice of others. Prior to its inception, staff development opportunities related to TEL were seen as disjointed, and the festival offered an opportunity to showcase the type of support available across the institution and surface practice already taking place (e.g. from the early adopters and innovators), in order to support the wider scale adoption of TEL. The event is partly inspired by similar initiatives such as Blackboard festival, delivered by NUI Galway to create a sense of ‘excitement and enthusiasm’ around staff development (Flynn 2014).

A deliberately varied agenda allows staff to select the sessions that are of most interest to them, and unlike a conference, it is considered important that staff leave the event with the skills and actionable ideas that will allow them to change their practice immediately. In addition, sessions are devised to encourage staff to generate new ideas that could enhance their delivery of teaching and develop the confidence in expanding these. A variety of adoption strategies, such as those outlined in the previous section, have been employed to achieve this:

• Show and tell sessions comprising of case studies of practice from teaching staff (e.g. early adopters and innovators) across the university, Mobile App Share, Innovation Corner (enabling attendees to consider how cutting edge research taking place within the institution could be valuable to learning).
• Panel discussions and debates, usually consisting of cross-faculty panels, to offer wide perspectives; examples of sessions that have run include: ‘Opportunities and challenges with adopting TEL’ and ‘New opportunities for e-assessment’.
• Workshops (the majority of sessions fell into this category, exploring both ‘how’ and ‘why’); these sessions were designed to offer a place to learn and make mistakes (to develop self-efficacy). These sessions varied from: more basic sessions (introduction to the VLE) through to emerging educational technology areas (e.g. Gamification) in teaching and learning. The sessions were often delivered by a member of the professional staff (e.g. educational developer, learning technologist) or co-delivered with a teaching colleague who is using a technology as part of their practice.

In order to develop the community of practice, networking opportunities are integrated within the agenda and a number of workshops encourage group activities, to further develop ideas and understanding of concepts collaboratively. Alongside this, one-to-one drop-in sessions run throughout the week, to support staff with specific questions or those who want to explore an idea further after they have attended a session. The sessions are delivered via a variety of different methods in order to model the practice being discussed. For instance, sessions on flipped learning and mobile learning use these same techniques to enable attendees to experience the method as students, supporting a situated method of learning (Lave and Wenger 1991). Attending TELFest is entirely voluntary and there is no formal accreditation linked to the sessions. However, digital badges are given to attendees to outline how participation at TELFest relates to the HEA’s Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (HEA 2011).

Approach/methodology

At the time of carrying out this research, TELFest had run in September 2014, January 2015 and September 2016, and there had been a significant increase in the number of people that had attended, such that more than 400 staff within the institution have attended at least one of these festivals. The events now act as a core part of TEL-related staff development at the University of Sheffield. Whilst the events are attracting more people and receiving positive informal feedback, little is known about the impact of TELFest on the implementation of TEL at the university. Therefore, this investigation sought to answer the following questions: (1) What is the perceived impact of TELFest? (with an emphasis on changes to practice), (2) What are the ongoing barriers that are preventing changes to practice?, and (3) How could the long-term impact of TELFest be improved and sustained?

Findings

A total of 58 out of a possible 398 participants completed the initial questionnaire, a 14% response rate. Out of those that responded, 37(64%) of respondents were teaching staff and 21(36%) were professional/administrative/support staff (principally learning technologists and academic developers). This split is typical of the demographic of TELFest attendees. Four focus groups were held, with between 2 and 5 participants in each, and in total there were 17 focus group participants.

Perceived impact of TELFest

1. What is the perceived impact of TELFest? (with an emphasis on changes to practice)

Ongoing barriers/challenges

(2) What are the ongoing barriers that are preventing changes to practice?

Barriers reported by respondents aligned to Birch and Burnett’s (2009) ‘institutional’ and ‘individual’ categories rather than those of a ‘pedagogic’ nature. This shows that the barriers are related more to external factors rather than a lack of knowledge, and are outlined below.

Improving TELFest

(3) How could the long-term impact of TELFest be improved and sustained?

The research has shown that whilst TELFest has resulted in significant change to practice, the potential long-term and ongoing impact can be increased in a number of ways and these are explored.

Research limitations

The research undertaken has helped to provide both a quantitative and qualitative insight into the research questions. However, from the small sample of participants, it is difficult to know whether the participants, who were self-selected, represent a sample of typical TELFest attendees. Excluded from participation were those that were heavily involved in shaping TELFest. In some cases, though, they attended the festival and may have been able to offer a different perspective. Additionally, widening the call for participation to those who had not previously attended could have provided more insight into ways that the long-term impact of TELFest could be improved. On the other hand, TELFest is aimed primarily at teaching staff, it also attracts wider audiences, so some of the questions asked were not applicable to all research participants. Differentiating teaching staff and support staff responses or asking each group different questions would have helped to better understand the different needs of each group. Furthermore, research related to the impact of TELFest could have been further strengthened by asking students about the perceived impact of the changes that teaching staff had made or planned to make.

Conclusion

This research has demonstrated that there have been positive benefits for those that have attended TELFest. These include generating new ideas, changing practice, developing support networks and forming collaborations. The majority of changes made to practice have been described as low and medium impact. However, there is an indication that high impact levels will be attained with time, as teaching staff become more confident and familiar with technology. Therefore there would be value in carrying out research in subsequent years to gauge whether the impact of change develops over time.

Since carrying out this research, a further TELFest ran in June 2016 and July 2017 (and will continue to run for the foreseeable future). These events saw an increase in the number of attendees, and in line with the findings, many changes have been put in place to ensure growth and long-term value. However, this research has highlighted barriers that exist at an institutional level; these issues are complex and lack uniformity. TELFest is just one of the methods used to support the academic adoption of TEL. The findings will feed into wider institutional initiatives that are taking place to address such issues and further support the adoption of TEL within the institution.