The dynamic balance of technology adoption and educational transition: a case study in higher education (original) (raw)

Abstract

Over the past two decades, technology has provided new pedagogical opportunities for knowledge accessing and information sharing with greater student-centeredness (Gordon, 2014; Lai & Bower, 2019). Most Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), however, are very cautious of technology adoption, suspicious of the potential educational transition (e.g. teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness, face-to-face to online/blended learning), and thus lack of systematic understanding of the ongoing educational revolution (Brown, 2015; Collins & Halverson, 2008; Salmon, 2019). The emerging digital education keeps disrupting traditional education with an increasingly nontraditional student population (Brown et al., 2020). Under the high pressure of the forced, rapid educational transitions during the current pandemic, lots of unexpected challenges and problems (e.g. digital inequality, technology constraints and pedagogical chaos) shocked the unprepared HEIs (Sandars et al., 2020; Watermeyer et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020). The worldwide crisis brought extra pressures to the HEIs stakeholders in different countries; nevertheless, it exposed the underlying contradictions and discrepancies in a short period, and thus provides great opportunities to accelerate the context-based investigation towards the better management of technology adoption and educational transition in gaining HEIs’ competence in the changing world. From the institutional perspective, both technology adoption and the educational transition could lead to the creation of the new educational institutions, which include new rules, understanding and associated practices (Scott, 2008). As Greif (2006, p. 17) argued: “Beliefs, norms, and organizations inherited from the past will constitute part of the initial conditions in the processes leading to new institutions.” Institutionalization, as the central focus of institutional theory, assimilates the innovations into the organizational structure in a stable manner (Miles et al., 1987), thus making innovative educational practices available to a broader community and more widespread within the university (Nworie, 2015; Surry & Ely, 2002). In Tolbert and Zucker’s (1996) institutionalization model, technological change is one of the predictors (Anderson & Tushman, 1990) to the diffusion of innovations and the start point of a better understanding of the institutionalization process. However, although the prevailing institutional scholars used this theoretical model to successfully examine and illuminate social practices in different areas, the research attention in higher education is very limited (Meyer & Rowan, 2006; Miles et al., 1987; Reay et al., 2013). On the other hand, the emerging technology adoption theories (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh et al., 2003) focused on variance-based theorizing more than process-based theorizing, and paid little attention to the connection between technology adoption and educational transition (Kirkwood, 2014; Marangunić & Granić, 2014; Mortenson, 2016; Salas, 2016; Turner et al., 2010). The above phenomenon and literature address the importance of complementing the substantive theories by investigating the underlying mechanisms of technology-enhanced educational change and to provide more effective strategical implications to educators, policymakers and practitioners. This paper adopted grounded strategy (Charmaz, 2014; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991) with mixed methods in a longitudinal case study (Eisenhardt, 1989; Langley, 1999; Yin, 2018) to a Sino-British joint venture international university. The main purpose of this study is to explore the theoretical structure grounding from the original cultural and historical context-based data and to seek new theoretical relationships (Creswell, 2012; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994) concerning the research question: how does technology adoption interact with the educational transition in the process of institutionalization? Specifically, this study collected data from three data sources: 14 years’ archival documents, 13 years’ Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) user behaviour logs and over 200 hours’ interviews with 50 faculty members in various roles, including the Executive President of the University, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Director of Centre for Academic Affairs, Dean of Institute of Leadership & Education Advanced Development, Director of Centre for Knowledge and Information and Head of Centre for Educational Technology. As a result of the grounded data analysis, the research team inferences the process of institutionalization with a sustainable dynamic cycle, transforming endogenous contradictions to exogenous opportunity: (1) technology adoptions disrupt current education practices while enabling the online/blended learning innovations; (2) online/blended learning innovations debilitate the teacher-centredness while enhancing the student-centred instructional design and the cultural-cognitive habitualization; (3) Student-centredness decentralize the technology adoption while enriching the face-to-face learning experiences; (4) Face-to-face teaching practices dampen the online/blended learning innovations while embedding teacher-centredness; (5) Teacher-centredness discourage student-centredness while empowering technology adoptions. This paper bridged and expanded the extant research by integrating the institutional theory and technology adoption theory in the Higher Education setting. Practical implications were provided to assist other HEIs to advance their technology adoption and educational transition in gaining organizational competence.