文章基本信息

标题：Students make a plan: understanding student agency in constraining conditions
本地全文：下载
作者：Laura Czerniewicz ; Kevin Williams ; Cheryl Brown 等
期刊名称：Research in Learning Technology
印刷版ISSN：2156-7077
出版年度：2009
卷号：17
期号：2
DOI：10.3402/rlt.v17i2.10866
语种：English
出版社：Research in Learning Technology
摘要：Drawing on Archer’s perspectives on the agency/structure relationship, this paper explains situations where students in varied, challenging circumstances find ways to negotiate difficult conditions. It reports on a 2007 study undertaken through a survey at three quite different universities in three South African provinces, addressing inter-related questions on access and use. Our findings are that on-campus access is generally reported favourably, and off-campus access is problematic and uneven. There is a cluster of students using their cell phones to access the Internet, and using their cell phones for academic purposes, and this is true across socio-economic groups (SEGs). It is especially striking that students from low SEGs do so. The findings show the choices students are prepared to make and the strategies which they find in order to engage online or access the Internet to support their studies. Archer’s nuanced approach to agency and structure helps us begin to make sense of the way that students exhibit a more complex and nuanced way of engaging with the availability of different kinds of technologies, as well as making considered decisions about using ubiquitous technologies in unexpected ways and for purposes for which they may not have been intended. Her concept of reflexivity provides a way of describing how those choices are made in relation to structural conditions and enables us to explain how students are ‘persons’ showing an inventive capacity to circumvent the constraints imposed by structures.Keywords: students; Archer; agency; higher education; access; use; ICTs; information and communication technologies; South Africa; cell phonesDOI: 10.1080/09687760903033058
关键词：students; Archer; agency; higher education; access; use; ICTs; information and communication technologies; South Africa; cell phones