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- Bolldén, Karin, 1980-
(författare)
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Online teaching practices : Sociomaterial matters in higher education settings
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study was to describe and analyse online teaching practices in the Swedish higher education context. The study had an online ethnographic approach and was based on empirical data on the teaching in two university courses. The study rested primarily on observational data but interviews and available documents also formed the basis for analysis. Empirical data were analysed with a perspective of practice theory – a perspective within a sociomaterial account. The results showed that online teaching was characterised by an embodied sociomaterial practice. The teacher’s body could be understood as both multiple and closely interwoven with technology. Furthermore, the teacher’s body was used in the teaching situation to reduce technological complexity but also, along with other forms of materiality, to prefigure what kind of teaching would take place. Teacher interventions in online environments could furthermore be understood as relational to both technology (that is the virtual material arrangement) and teachers’ doings and sayings (that is the teaching practice). Teacher interventions were aimed at making the arrangement intelligible for the students. The study showed that teacher interventions arranged both students and information and communication technology (ICT) in order to make them work as a teaching practice. The teaching practice that emerged was characterised as an interplay between virtual materiality and social practice, where asymmetricrelations between teachers and the ICT prevailed.
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| 2. |
- Lögdlund, Ulrik
(författare)
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Networks and Nodes : The Practices of Local Learning Centres
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on the practice of local learning centres in Sweden. The aim is to describe and to establish an understanding of relations and the actor-networks that surround the practice. The thesis is based on four different studies. The first two studies focus on the organisation of the local learning centres and scrutinises the relation between the local learning centres, municipal administration and business in the region. What types of relations exist and what strategies are used by the local learning centres to enrol actors into the actor-network? The two latter studies investigate videoconference in the context of local learning centres. Videoconference is described as a socio-technical environment. The studies focus on interaction and communications asking what kind of relations are created between environment, material design and people? The theoretical framework consists of actor-network theory and the notions of space and spatial relations. The methods used in the four studies are interviews and observations. Informants that have contributed to the study are headmasters, teachers and students as well as project managers, politicians and businessmen. The results of the studies show how the local learning centres fails as brokers on an educational market. The reasons are many. The main results of the studies stress a number of obstacles of involvement and shed light on different strategies of enrolment. The results connected to videoconference show how material design and technology impacts the practice. Different strategies are developed by participants to manoeuvre in the videoconferencing classrooms. In conclusion the four studies show how actor-networks influence the practice of local learning centres by representations.
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| 3. |
- Nyström, Sofia, 1977-
(författare)
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Becoming a professional : A longitudinal study of graduates' professional trajectories from higher education to working life
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study has a longitudinal design where Political Science and Psychology graduates’ have been interviewed on three consecutive occasions; the last semester before graduation, the first year and then, in the third year of professional work. The theoretical frame of reference comprises a situated and social learning theory and a gender perspective. These theories were chosen since they elaborate on concepts such as identity, practice, participation and learning.The results indicate that becoming a professional is not an isolated phenomenon merely learned and nurtured in higher education and/or in working life. It is emphasised as a dynamic learning process between a reflective individual, the interaction with a professional practice as well as a relationship between other spheres of life, e.g. the personal and the private. The graduates’ professional trajectories can be characterised by a movement from appropriating new knowledge to a need to change direction, e.g. new work tasks or professional fields. This is also a process of professional identity formation. The graduates’ professional identity is emphasised as being both closely related to a gender identity and influenced by the individuals’ belonging to and participation in other practices. The results thus indicate that professional identity formation is an interplay between different spheres of life that changes over time. By using a longitudinal design, it can be claimed that becoming a professional requires balancing one’s whole life situation.
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