Practice-Focused, Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology In Higher Education Leadership Research

A growing body of education research considers practices, however there is less focus on a methodology that enables practical analysis of practices. Use of practice theory is growing, particularly in work and organisational studies, but practice focused studies more frequently address theoretical than methodological agenda. This chapter proposes a practice-focused, constructivist grounded theory methodology as one approach which can address this gap. After first considering the ways in which, separately and in combination, practice-theory and constructivist grounded theory can support higher education leadership and management research, the chapter considers implementation of this methodology by drawing on a study into the practice of authority in higher education leadership. It concludes by considering some implications for the ways in which practices can be understood and the affordances and limitations of this methodology.Peer reviewe

Participation Solicitation Design for Learner Engagement with Epistemic Objects and Situated, Collective Learning in Online Discussion Boards

This paper describes research examining how we may design effective affordances for contextually- and socially-situated learning in professional domain courses mediated via digital technology platforms. Online learning affordances do not simply offer technology-related mechanisms for student interaction, but also provide mechanisms that allow situated professional practice and contextual domain knowledge to be incorporated into a digitized version of experiential learning. We distinguish between online learning affordances as technology mechanisms that guide normative actions and affordances as participation solicitations that provide learners with targeted affordances for active engagement in socially-situated learning. Our analysis focuses on the domain-specific pattern sensitization that results from the joint creation of, and collective interactions with epistemic discussion objects and that leads to increased self-efficacy in active, experiential learning. The contribution is to demonstrate how solicitation-affordances complement technology affordances to support student engagement in interactive online learning, through examples of behavior and a framework for affordance configuration

When Policy and Infrastructure Provisions are Exemplary but still Insufficient: Paradoxes Affecting Education for Sustainability (EfS) in a Custom-designed Sustainability School

Schools willing to implement education for sustainability (EfS) commonly find themselves confronted with curricula, school grounds and buildings and teaching practices that do not lend themselves easily to best practice EfS. In this article, we present what we learned about some of the challenges confronted daily by the staff of a purpose-built sustainability primary school situated in a ‘green’ suburb in Western Australia. Over the period of a year, we regularly engaged with the staff of the school through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and classroom observations as part of an interpretive ethnographic study. We identified three key themes—policy infrastructure, physical infrastructure and pedagogical infrastructure—that serve as both affordances and counter-affordances to best practice EfS. Given the paradoxical interplay of the affordances and counter-affordances shaping the school’s implementation of EfS, we suggest that overcoming these paradoxes requires no less than a transformation of school culture

Affordances of Historic Urban Landscapes: an Ecological Understanding of Human Interaction with the Past

Heritage has been defined differently in European contexts. Despite differences, a common challenge for historic urban landscape management is the integration of tangible and intangible heritage. Integration demands an active view of perception and human-landscape interaction where intangible values are linked to specific places and meanings are attached to particular cultural practices and socio-spatial organisation. Tangible and intangible values can be examined as part of a system of affordances (potentialities) a place, artefact or cultural practice has to offer. This paper discusses how an ‘affordance analysis’ may serve as a useful tool for the management of historic urban landscapes

Reinventing the book: exploring the affordances of digital media to (re)tell stories and expand storyworlds

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Professional Doctorate in Journalism, Media, Television and CinemaThe focus of this thesis is on analysing the affordances of new technologies of the book. It looks at the transition between the affordances of the material book and the digital, focusing on the formal aspects of the book and its digital production and consumption. The research uses a coreperiphery model to locate innovation, looking first at a range of practices and then at selected producers and artefacts to identify relevant uses of the affordances of digital media, namely participation, co-creation, online reading communities, and the potential for cross-media extension of stories into other forms. The analyses of selected digital artefacts evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and ask: how have the affordances of the digital medium been used? What do these affordances offer to producers and consumers? And how have certain affordances changed the use value, the pleasures and the suitability of texts for their intended functions? This evaluation takes into account professional publishing contexts and a range of practices, looking at the ways in which producers make, classify and present their works. Affordances theory is used throughout, and ultimately shows that good design practices reinvent the medium, push the boundaries of the book, whilst considering the habits, needs and expectations of readers/users. A practice-led project is subject to analysis and reflection on practice in order to draw further insights and recommend approaches and tools for designers, publishers and other producers. This project experimented with reader engagement and co-creation to adapt the Nature Mage fantasy book series (Duncan Pile, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016) onto enhanced digital book and digital game texts. Media-specificity is used as a framework to look at the ways in which stories can be translated and expanded onto new forms that explore the affordances of digital media. The adaptations are located at the intersection of media, shaped by a range of intertexts from both analogue and digital media, and offering not simply another way of enjoying the narrative but texts that explore the digital affordances also to design features that relate to ludic, creative and social motivations and pleasures. Ultimately the thesis revisits the very definition of the book, its functions, its value and the ways in which emerging digital artefacts are doing the work of books and — thanks to new affordances and their hybrid nature — are not only changing the experience of reading, but also mixing it with the work of other media forms and genres. In doing so, this thesis contributes to furthering professional practice by highlighting a range of uses of the affordances of the digital medium to reinvent the book in the next chapter of its evolution

Boundary objects, power, and learning: The matter of developing sustainable practice in organizations

This article develops an understanding of the agential role of boundary objects in generating and politicizing learning in organizations, as it emerges from the entangled actions of humans and non-humans. We offer two empirical vignettes in which middle managers seek to develop more sustainable ways of working. Informed by Foucault’s writing on power, our work highlights how power relations enable and foreclose the affordances, or possibilities for action, associated with boundary objects. Our data demonstrate how this impacts the learning that emerges as boundary objects are configured and unraveled over time. In so doing, we illustrate how boundary objects are not fixed entities, but are mutable, relational, and politicized in nature. Connecting boundary objects to affordances within a Foucauldian perspective on power offers a more nuanced understanding of how ‘the material’ plays an agential role in consolidating and disrupting understandings in the accomplishment of learning

Dynamics of Affordances and Implications for Design

Affordance is an important concept in HCI. There are various interpretations of affordances but it has been difficult to use this concept for design purposes. Often the treatment of affordances in the current HCI literature has been as a one-to-one relationship between a user and an artefact. According to our views, affordance is a dynamic, always emerging relationship between a human and his environment. We believe that the social and cultural contexts within which an artefact is situated affect the way in which the artefact is used. Using a Structuration Theory approach, we argue that affordances need also be treated at a much broader level, encompassing social and cultural aspects. We suggest that affordances should be seen at three levels: single user, organizational (or work group) and societal. Focusing on the organizational level affordances, we provide details of several important factors that affect the emergence of affordances

In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning

The aim of the paper is to advance understanding of in-service learning and skills sector trainee teachers’ learning and propose ways of improving their learning. A conceptual framework is developed by extending Billett’s (International Journal of Educational Research 47:232–240, 2008) conceptualisation of workplace learning, as a relationally interdependent process between the opportunities workplaces afford for activities and interactions and how individuals engage with these, to a third base of participation, the affordances of the initial teacher education course. Hager and Hodkinson’s (British Educational Research Journal 35:619–638, 2009) metaphor of ‘learning as becoming’ is used to conceptualise the ways trainees reconstruct learning in a continuous transactional process of boundary crossing between course and workplace. The findings of six longitudinal case studies of trainees’ development, and evidence from other studies, illustrate the complex interrelationships between LSS workplace affordances, course affordances and trainee characteristics and the ways in which trainees reconstruct learning in each setting. The experience of teaching and interacting with learners, interactions with colleagues, and access to workplace resources and training are important workplace affordances for learning. However, some trainees have limited access to these affordances. Teaching observations, course activities and experiences as a learner are significant course affordances. Trainees’ beliefs, prior experiences and dispositions vary and significantly influence their engagement with course and workplace affordances. It is proposed that better integration of course and workplace learning through guided participation in an intentional workplace curriculum and attention to the ways trainees choose to engage with this, together with the use of practical theorising has the potential to improve trainee learning

Mapping the technology landscape : linking pedagogy to the affordances of different technologies

This work evaluates the application of different learning technologies and their suitability to support blended learning approaches in Higher Education. Chickering and Gamsons's Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) were used as an underlying pedagogical framework to evaluate the "perceived affordances‟ (Norman, 1999) of learning technologies.Chickering and Gamson‟s principles were selected as a framework due to their "face-validity‟, the accessibility of their language and since they have been derived from numerous years of reflective and effective teaching.Along with the principles we describe and recommend an innovative methodology for evaluation. This methodology can be used in a context of similar evaluation exercises.Final Accepted Versio