Conflicts Over the Utilities of Teaching Using Educational Technologies: An Interpretive Critical Inquiry

摘要

Public research universities are experiencing a major transformation today as they become more entrepreneurial and engage in academic capitalism (Bok, 2003; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). At the same time, faculty members in higher educational institutions are pushed to integrate educational technology into their teaching (Bennett & Bennett, 2003). These two requirements appear to be conflicting demands and affect, among others, faculty performance and job motivation. An interpretive critical inquiry was conducted to understand the faculty experience of attending to the two apparently conflicting demands. Based on the findings,offered are suggestions and recommendations for organizational change that will serve to alleviate the conflicts faculty may experience as well as implications for HRD in public research universities in terms of addressing academic capitalism and teaching using educational technology. The stakeholders at whom this inquiry is aimed include faculty, administrators, students, HRD scholars and practitioners, as well as the system of the public research university.