Date of Award

12-2022

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (Research)

Department

Business Studies

First Advisor

Dr Breda O Dwyer

Second Advisor

Linda O Loughlin

Abstract

The research done throughout the writing of this Thesis has been in service of understanding the processes behind the use of emergent educational technologies and quantifying the merit of those technologies in the classroom of tomorrow. Emergent technologies exist on the cutting edge of possibilities. The thesis will delve into the correct means of choosing an emergent technology based on the needs of the end-user—the lecturer—through understanding their concerns, abilities, and insights. A framework was developed with the goal of bolstering the academic with the correct cutting-edge technology. Understanding the background of the research—detailed in the literature review—reveals that individual aspects of emergent educational technology are being examined but said aspects rarely come together in more large scale research. A simple statement is either proven or disproven, whereas this research has been constructed to tell more of a narrative. Mixed-method data acquisition was quickly identified as more suitable to the scope of the research where working from the broad to the specific meant quantitative data could be used to inform and assess qualitative data acquisition. In brief a lecturer survey primarily was used to identify problems that educators face in the classroom, from this data a piece of emergent educational Technology, Flipgrid, was identified to suit the needs of the lecturer and mitigate the challenges they face. Flipgrid is a collaborative video-sharing tool, intended to give students an equal voice in their classroom whether face-to-face or online. Flipgrid was unveiled at a workshop where lecturers who expressed interest in further research participation during the survey could come and ask questions while being informed. From the workshop attendees several lecturers agreed to implement Flipgrid in their classroom for a trial period of four-to-six weeks. Upon the conclusion of this implementation stage a semi-structured lecturer survey was conducted and a student survey was circulated. Once the results of the research were gathered and compiled a thematic analysis could be conducted to highlight the changes which were captured during the research. Three key areas were identified here: (i) Pedagogical Evolution, (ii) Classroom Efficiency, and (iii) The EdTech User as all aspects which had change or have great potential for change due to the research. ii A successful research process can be seen in the conclusion where further positive change is stated as possible with policy change, the creation of avenues for listening to the lecturer, and even through expansion of the research topic. A four-step framework – of a lecturer survey, a workshop, an implementation stage, and post implementation interviews – was created for instructing the repetition or expansion of this research. All change was inspired by, caused by, and designed to benefit the lecturer—the classroom guide.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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