[This blog post has been published during my studies in Digital Education at The University of Edinburgh (2020-2023). As my studies have come to an end, I no longer have access to my blog there, so I transfer some of those posts and reflections to my eduskills site.]
Article by Hamilton, E. C., Friesen, N. (2013) Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective.
Note: In this post I’d like to trace down what Hamilton and Friesen meant by ‘constructivist approach’ as they promote it as an alternative possibility to reformulate research questions which take into account the context of education and technology. I therefore cannot conclude on a certain aspect or question yet. In this sense, this reflection is rather a search for patterns, for a ‘constructvist grid’ on the article mentioned, glasses that only want to see the constructivist side. The post is so to speak work in progress.
Brief recapitulation
Essentialist and instrumentalist approaches to online education
- Essentialism in online education research
- Instrumentalism in online education research
The critique of essentialist and instrumentalist approaches
- The separation of technology and society – the sociotechnical
- The removal of technology from history – the process of stabilisation
The separation of technology and values – the social construction of technology
Conclusion: Reorienting online education research
Notes, thoughts and questions
about the article by Hamilton and Friesen
Hamilton and Friesen show that essentialist and instrumentalist forces dominated the research and discourse about online education. Technology has been separated from its history and from its social factors by declaring value to its existence as such (essentialism) and by reducing it to means (instrumentalism).
In the conclusion of their study the authors criticise that reform of education was lead by university administrators, corporate CEOs and futurologists and not by pedagogues or reserachers themselves. With an eye on the technology market in the spirit of the Silicon Valley we probably should mention also investors who want to harvest their return on investment at companies like Coursera or NovoEd etc. The authors argue that none of these parties were interested in asking uncomfortable questions about technology and education, but rather in attributing an existential value to technology as such and misusing it as a means to an end.
Hamilton and Friesen demand that technology be subjected to the same rigorous questioning that education has always been subjected to in its historical and social development. Technology must be understood in the context of an education that has social and historical references and in turn influences society and intellectual history.
the authors claim that their approach is a constructivist one. I don’t really see that in the article, except their demand of contextualisation of technology.
The core critique of essentialism and insturmentalism by Hamilton and Friesen:
- depictions of technology as an independent force or a set of artefacts
- separation of technology and society
- dehistoricisation of technology
- externalization of human values from technical things
Questions
Essentialism: How can be shown that essentialism, attributing value to education only by technology is not promoting new knowledge?
Instrumentalism: Hypothesis: insturmentalist questions can not lead to new knowledge in research. For example: For a question like “What can I use a Wiki for?” – my answer would be: It depends … the answer of an instrumentalist would be: “Students can write a text collaboratively.”
Constructivism: What is Hamiltons and Friesens understanding of constructivism and what are the research questions they would ask in this matter?
Tracing down constructivism in the text from citations
Technology as an emergent social process:
Constructivist technology studies, in viewing technology as an emergent social process, posits human values not as inalienable to technical essence nor as expressions of consumer preferences but as contingently built into technologies. (p14)
What exactly are “human values” in this context?
I am looking for citations in relation to constructivism in Hamilton and Friesen’s article to trace down the constructivist approach in Hamilton and Friesen’s article.
Critical responses to essentialist and instrumentalist views on technology:
While both essentialism and instrumentalism have maintained a great deal of currency within discourses of technology, both scholarly and popular, they have largely been discredited by historians, philosophers and sociologists who have developed approaches to technology that can be broadly labelled “constructivist.” (p3)
Technological design and development from a constructivist point of view:
The value of constructivist technology studies thus comes from its ability to grasp the mutual imbrication of social and technical factors within processes of technical development. This allows us to bring debates about pedagogy to the level of technological design and development, while also empowering teachers as social subjects whose business as professionals has always been the crafting of learning processes and environments. (p3f.)
They will
outline some common elements within constructivist technology studies as a way of introducing a new set of questions into online education research – ones focusing on the dynamic interaction between pedagogy and technology in online education. (p4)
What are the “common elements within constructivist studies”? And how do they introduce a new set of questions? What questions?
Throughout, we suggest some ways in which empirical research and philosophical reflection on the educational value of new technologies might be enhanced by a turn towards constructivist approaches.
Which ways? The authors refer to other research in their footnote 4:
It should be noted that constructivist approaches in technology studies such as the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) (Bijker, 1993; Pinch & Bijker, 1984) have been referenced previously as potentially valuable sources of insight for online education, specifically by Kerr (2004). And, of course, Feenberg’s work on online education is situated within a constructivist perspective (Feenberg, 2002, 1999b). However, to our knowledge, there has yet been no systematic attempt to outline what constructivist technology studies might contribute to online education research.
Constructivist questions would be
How is the design process organized to include certain people or perspectives? What pedagogical assumptions are mobilized in design and how do these get embodied in technical functions? What choices are not made and for what reasons? What constraints or conditions are active within the design context and in education itself to compel certain technical decisions rather than others? Who is excluded from the design process and how does this influence the decisions and specifications that get made? These are the kinds of questions that constructivist technology studies encourage us to ask. (p11)
Like the development of the bicycle which was invented in many shapes first, one type of bicycle has prevailed with time. The authors compare the emergence of the bicycle with the invention, design and development of educational technology:
Technology is thus not just invented once, applied to a practice and then refined. Rather it and the practice to which it is addressed are constructed in tandem over time. And so constructivist analysis of technology must trace those processes whereby, through the interpretative work of social groups, an area of development is stabilized. (p13)
What would educators want?
educators espousing constructivist pedagogy might require systems that enable student-driven interaction guided by expert facilitators. (p13)
Biases
As a consequence, when technology is tied back to social parameters or history, when the actors are human beings shaped by a certain upbringing, cultural and social parameters, their biography, then they bring in their values. The authors continue:
If thechnological development is guided by social influences then the resulting artefact will be ‘biased’ – that is, it will embody the implicit values of one or ore social groups while excluding the interests or perspectives of others. (ibid.)
That a social group implies their values in a creative process makes sense. Does this mean that ‘bias’ is unavoidable? Does it mean that bias can not be avoided but that one must be aware of?
It makes sense that different social groups incorporate diverse views into their own design of technology, unconsciously or consciously. But is this something that we have to accept? Or can we overcome in order to achieve, for example, a more equitable or fair use of technology?
The authors close on their constructivist approaches they outlined in the article and express their goal to initiate further research from a constructivist point of view.
[…] we believe that this movement can only progress if it begins to subject technology to the same rigorous questioning to which it has subjected education. We hope that the brief outline of constructivist approaches to understanding technology that we have provided here can act as a starting point for the development of roadmaps through the convergence of education and technology to enliven future research in educational technology. (p14)
Comment by James Lamb on Feb 2, 2020
‘Note: In this post I’d like to trace down what Hamilton and Friesen meant by ‘constructivist approach’ as they promote it as an alternative possibility to reformulate research questions which take into account the context of education and technology.’
As it happens, I have just this morning been having a conversation with one of my colleagues here about the range of concepts, theories and philosophies that students encounter within IDEL. I made the point that from a really early stage of the course students will be looking at readings where authors refer to some BIG ideas such as constructivism and posthumanism that give us a particular way of examining the relationship between technology and education. It’s great then, Miriam, to see you picking up this considerable challenge!
‘It makes sense that different social groups incorporate diverse views into their own design of technology, unconsciously or consciously. But is this something that we have to accept? Or can we overcome in order to achieve, for example, a more equitable or fair use of technology?’
These are really fascinating questions and I think you might find yourself returning to them within the Open Everything block (Weeks 8 and 9) where we question some of the claims that exist the open education movement. On the face of it, open educational resources would immediately seem to be democratic, however we need to question who has the power to design and share these resources, and to whom do they provide a voice on what education and knowledge should look like? It’s a really, really interesting subject. Much more to be said about this later in the course!
More generally, what your blog post here reminds us is how power relations are implicated in the design of educational technologies in subtle but potentially profound ways. To what extent are educational technologies shaped by pedagogy and the interests of the learner and teacher, compared with profit motive or the particular biases or designers? And, realistically, how can we hope to unpick and change this (assuming we want to)?