Digital Technology Education and its Impact on Traditional Academic Roles and Practice
Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice
Digital Technolog y Education and its Impact on Traditional Academic Roles and Practice
Jennifer Sappey Dr 0 1 2
Recommended Citation
0 Sappey , Jennifer Dr and Relf, Stephen , Digital Technology Education and its Impact on Traditional Academic Roles and Practice, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice , 7(1), 2010. Available at:
1 Stephen Relf Charles Sturt University
2 Charles Sturt University
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Abstract
This paper explores the interface between digital technologies and the teaching labour process in Australian
higher education. We develop an adaptation of the seminal Clark (1983, 1994, 2001) and Kozma (1991,
1994) debate about whether technology merely delivers educational content unchanged – technology as the
‘delivery truck’ – or whether education is changed as a result of using different technologies – education as
‘groceries’. Our adaptation is an extension of this metaphor to include the academic teacher as the driver of the
grocery truck. With the implementation of new educational technologies, the human resource management
aspects of job design, motivation, skilling and work identity are often overlooked, with critical debate about
the impact on the teaching labour process seldom considered. In this argument, we will unpack the
ClarkKozma dichotomy of the education/technology interface by looking beyond the embedding of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Australian higher education to examine more broadly the
changes to the traditional academic role as the creator, developer and delivery agent of the educational
groceries. This has been reinforced by the marketisation of the sector and the concomitant reconfiguration of
the traditional teaching process. All this has led to changes in the sense of work identity for academics
(McShane, 2006)
. While we embrace ICT as a potential benefit for both students and academic teachers, we
seek to ensure that the ‘truck driver’s’ evolving role is acknowledged in scholarly debates and included in
models of learning and teaching if long-term sustainable work practices are to be achieved. One such model is
offered.
This journal article is available in Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice: http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol7/iss1/3
Introduction
While there is contention about framing changes to the teaching labour
process in the performative discourse of management
(Barnett and Coate,
2005)
there is nevertheless a need to acknowledge and respond to the
significant impact of ICT on the actual tasks of teaching – the labour process
(Smith, Ling and Hill, 2006; Snyder, Marginson and Lewis, 2007)
. Currently
in many Australian universities there is a rarely challenged assumption that
digital technologies offer ‘win-win’ to institution and student alike, and that
the academic is neutral in the process. As an industrial sociologist and an
educational designer we blend data from two theses, empirically based, one in
the industrial sociology of Australian higher education and the impact of
flexible delivery on teaching (Sappey, 2006), and the other in education design
and l(IT)eracy practices of academics writing online
(Relf, 2007)
. We also
draw on a work journal of our initial engagement with online teaching, and we
reflect upon the impact of digital technologies on the role and identity of
teaching academics.
Our focus is the seminal debate between Clark
(1983, 1994, 2001; Clark &
Salomon, 1986)
and Kozma (1991, 1994) in the early 1980s and throughout
the 1990s, on the role of instructional technology and media in learning and
performance. It still lies at the heart of the development and adoption of new
educational technologies today. Although not definitively resolved one way or
the other, the proposition that media do or do not influence learning has been
embedded in much of the development of digital technology education
(Olusakin, 2008; Bassili and Joordens, 2008; Kong and So, 2008; Bassili,
2008; Robert and Lenz, 2008)
. Using a metaphor of education as groceries and
the grocery truck as the delivery technology, Clark’s position was “that media
are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student
achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes
changes in our nutrition. Basically, the choice of vehicle might influence the
cost or extent of distributing instruction, but only the content of the vehicle
can influence achievement” (Clark 1983, p.446). Kozma (1991, p.179)
strongly refuted Clark’s position, arguing that particular forms of media have
particular affordances and learning benefits which should influence the choice
and use of pedagogy.
In 2010, the debate retains its significance as the platform for evaluation of the
impact of ICT in education. In US educational debates, explicit reference is
made to the Clark-Kozma debate. It is Bassili (...truncated)