Looking Out and Looking In: Exploring a Case of Faculty Perceptions during E-Learning Staff Development

This explorative study captured the perceptions of faculty members new to technology enhanced learning and the longitudinal observations of the e-learning manager during dedicated professional development in order to compile a socially transformative emergent learning technology integration framework for open and distance learning at the School of Continuing Teacher Education at North-West University, South Africa. A pragmatic approach guided the bounded case study. The study followed a fully mixed sequential equal status design of mixing sequential qualitative and quantitative findings. Data collection strategies concern a custom-made questionnaire, interviews with faculty members, and longitudinal observations by the e-learning manager. The first phase uncovered 34 qualitative codes. After quantitating of the data, a t-test indicated significant differences for 17 variables between faculty perceptions and observations of the e-learning manager. Ward’s method of Euclidean distances grouped the variables into five clusters according to the researchers’ paradigm of looking in and looking out from the development context. The clusters formed the basis of a model for faculty development towards socially transformative learning technology integration for open distance learning. The five aspects of the model comprise (i) the environment in which faculty members should gain support from the institution; (ii) the environment in which faculty have to address the realities of adopting TEL; (iii) human factors relating to the adoption of TEL; (iv) concerns and reservations about the use of TEL; and (v) continuing professional development needs, expectations, and motivators. The sustainable integration of ICT into higher education institutions remains a major challenge for the adoption of TEL. Looking Out, Looking In : Exploring a Case of Faculty Perceptions During E-Learning Staff Development Esterhuizen, Blignaut, and Ellis Vol 14| No 3 July/13 60


Résumé de l'article
This explorative study captured the perceptions of faculty members new to technology enhanced learning and the longitudinal observations of the e-learning manager during dedicated professional development in order to compile a socially transformative emergent learning technology integration framework for open and distance learning at the School of Continuing Teacher Education at North-West University, South Africa. A pragmatic approach guided the bounded case study. The study followed a fully mixed sequential equal status design of mixing sequential qualitative and quantitative findings. Data collection strategies concern a custom-made questionnaire, interviews with faculty members, and longitudinal observations by the e-learning manager. The first phase uncovered 34 qualitative codes. After quantitating of the data, a t-test indicated significant differences for 17 variables between faculty perceptions and observations of the e-learning manager. Ward's method of Euclidean distances grouped the variables into five clusters according to the researchers' paradigm of looking in and looking out from the development context. The clusters formed the basis of a model for faculty development towards socially transformative learning technology integration for open distance learning. The five aspects of the model comprise (i) the environment in which faculty members should gain support from the institution; (ii) the environment in which faculty have to address the realities of adopting TEL; (iii) human factors relating to the adoption of TEL; (iv) concerns and reservations about the use of TEL; and (v) continuing professional development needs, expectations, and motivators. The sustainable integration of ICT into higher education institutions remains a major challenge for the adoption of TEL. Spotts (1999) identifies five significant e-learning variables, the learner, faculty, technology, environment, and perceived value, in an effort to obtain information beneficial to faculty development of technology enhanced learning (TEL). However, implementing e-Learning could be a highly disruptive technology for education-if we allow it to be...if there is to be innovation and change in university teaching-as the new technology requires, as the knowledge economy requires, and as students demand-someone has to take responsibility for it. Who should that be, other than the university academic community? (Laurillard, 2006, p. 5) These statements indicate that the final successes of implementing TEL at higher education institutions (HEIs) are to a great extent in the hands of faculty members.

Introduction
However, in many cases, faculty members require intensive pedagogical, knowledge, and skills training to make a real difference in the deposition of their learners.
Utilizing the potential of IT in educational practice often implies that the role of the teacher has to change.
Faculty not only has to learn IT basic knowledge and skills, but more importantly, has to learn appropriate pedagogical skills to be able to integrate IT in a sound way into educational practice. (Voogt & Knezek, 2008, p. xxxiii) More than simple knowledge of technology is required to produce good teaching.
Exemplary teaching combines skillful use of technology, embedding key elements into course design (Wilson, 2003). This paper explores the lived experiences of faculty in a developing context while they for the first time engage with TEL.

Context of the Study
This paper forms part of a larger investigation to establish a socially transformative emergent learning technology integration framework for open and distance learning (ODL) at the School of Continuing Teacher Education (SCTE) at North-West University (NWU) (Esterhuizen & Blignaut, 2011;Esterhuizen, Blignaut, Ellis, & Els, 2012). It explores with the aim to understand the lived experiences of faculty at a developing

Literature Review
Distance education endeavours to expand access to education through the mass production of teaching and course materials, often largely based upon one-way transmission of information with little chance for sustained interaction. The face-toface lecture is still viewed as the most efficient and dominant medium of instruction in higher education. However, "communications technology that supports sustained interaction is having a significant impact in higher education-both on-campus and at a distance" (Anderson & Garrison, 1998, p. 97). Wilson (2003) indicates that some of the reasons for using technology in teaching and learning are that it could improve student learning, benefit students in their research and communication, foster independent learning, provide access to worldwide resources, and improve career choices. Schneckenberg, Ehlers, and Adelsberger (2011) indicate that, in many cases, faculty concerns for their students motivate them to walk the extra mile of implementing TEL for the benefit of their students-a concern often more powerful than personal financial considerations.
Faculty unaccustomed to using technology in their teaching and learning-because they should not only focus on the mechanical and technical aspects of TEL, but also place emphasis on appropriate pedagogy, address individual teaching beliefs, provide real life interaction as their online students would, and contextualize the professional development in terms of the local needs of the faculty. It is important to focus first on pedagogy and then on technology when training faculty, as well as when faculty adopt technology for student learning (Simpson, 2002).
As front-line enablers of adoption, faculty should experience the affordances of elearning personally. This will enable them to convincingly adopt technology for teaching and learning of teacher-students at SCTE, and to adopt the concept of personal learning environments (PLEs)-learning environments like learning management systems (LMSs) (Attwell, 2007). To promote development of PLEs for faculty and student benefit, prevailing faculty perceptions on gainful e-learning should be explored.
Faculty pedagogical practices should align with the needs of students. Faculties of inservice settings have to adapt their pedagogical approaches to learn how TEL could be The emerging pedagogical consensus is that constructivism is the most preferred and effective way of using online learning technology in order to support students during collaboration, authentic tasks, reflection, and dialogue (Mayes, 2001). Faculty that employ traditional teaching and learning styles may view learning technology as less appropriate and feel less positive about using TEL than those who believe in studentcentered approaches. In an effort to supplement or replace live contact teaching and learning, technology-mediated distance learning frequently replicates the activities of face-to-face classrooms.
Interactive technologies, like IWBs, are consequently employed to present one-way presentations to students in remote locations, thus furthering instructivist pedagogy. The most valuable activity in a classroom of any kind is the opportunity for students to work and learn together (Jonassen, Davidson, Collins, Campbell, & Haag, 1995). Anderson and Garrison (1998)  Transformation to TEL adoption should therefore be based on professional development with approaches to provide faculty with experience of using technology first hand (Ehlers & Schneckenberg, 2008). Anderson and Van Weert (2002) identify four broad and continuous approaches through which educational systems proceed in their adoption and use of ICT: emerging, applying, infusing, and transforming. In the process of transforming from traditional distance education, adopting constructivist pedagogy to cultivate e-learning methods involves interaction, collaboration, and nurturing the perceptions of faculty on the value of electronic learning technologies and their usefulness for collaboration essential for developing appropriate strategies and training approaches: "Academic development is most likely to succeed when the teacher's own beliefs about teaching and learning provide the starting point" (Errington, 2001).
Implementing TEL is complex, often ill-structured, and requires faculty to adopt alternative ways of grasping and acting on the complexity. At the heart of good TEL lie three core components, content, pedagogy, and technology, as well as the relationships amongst and between them. These three core components form the core of the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). Interacting with these components and the relationships between them, across a variety of diverse contexts, accounts for wide variations in the extent and quality of TEL integration (Hinostroza, Labbé, López, & ost, 2008). Although TPACK is not enough for the integration of TEL, it determines faculty outlook towards educational change (Law, 2008). A learning-by-design approach requires faculty to navigate the complex interface between tools, authentic learning tasks, students, and learning contexts.
Faculty can thereby explore TEL and develop ways of thinking about technology, design learning, and develop TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2005). Traditional methods of TEL training, mainly workshops and face-to-face courses, are ill-suited to produce the deep understanding required for faculty to become knowledgeable users of TEL.
It is not only faculty who should change their attitude towards the integration of TEL in their courses. Institutional organizational structures and contexts should allow faculty to experiment and adopt new pedagogical approaches. Leadership at HEIs should make provision in their strategic planning to integrate TEL across their institutions, providing facilities for faculty to develop a vision on why and how to integrate TEL into teaching and learning, and providing support across all administrative, technical, and pedagogical areas (Elton, 1999;Riel & Becker, 2008). Leadership at HEIs should therefore ...exert some influence over the way in which e-learning is used in universities, and direct its power overtly towards the needs of learners. Change in universities is an aspect of their organisation, and again, the opportunities of the new learning technologies, including all their capabilities for information processing, communications, mass participation, design, and creativity, support the kind of system structure that would enable change to be organic and progressiveadaptive rather than mechanistic. (Laurillard, 2006, p.

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Lastly, the faculty professional development trainer should assist in identifying and defining training problems, obtaining commitment in practice from faculty, simulating positive experiences of ODL students in TEL, designing pedagogically sound course units, identifying learning problem scenarios with faculty members; designing pedagogical objectives that encourage students to make autonomous decisions while engaging with complex context, creating real-world learning tasks for students, and encouraging faculty to take responsibility of their own professional development. In short the role of the professional development trainer is to create scenarios in the learning environment that reflect the complexity and uncertainty of decision-making in real TEL contexts (Ehlers & Schneckenberg, 2008).

Methods
This study stemmed from the pragmatic perspective that is characterised by a concern for providing explanations of the status quo, social order, consensus, social integration, solidarity, needs satisfaction and actuality.
It is a perspective concerned to understand society in a way which generates knowledge which can be put to use.
It is often problem-orientated in approach, concerned to provide practical solutions to practical problems. (Burrell & Morgan, 1979, p. 26) A pragmatic approach guided "an intensive [bounded case] study of a single unit with an aim to generalize across a larger set of units" (Berring, 2004, p. 341)

Qualitative Analysis
The textual documents relating to the four interviews, captured as direct transcripts, the responses to five open-ended questions in the questionnaire, and the reflective document were assigned to Atlas.ti™, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis system, as an integrated dataset (Figure 2). The analysis followed Boeije's (2002) constant comparative process of qualitative content analysis where codes were allocated to sections of data, and subsequently each piece of data was compared with every other piece of relevant data. The content analysis resulted in 34 codes (  (Saldãna, 2009) and captured in Excel™ for further quantitative analysis with Statistica™ data analysis software system (StatSoft Inc., 2011) ( Figure 2).

Quantitative Analysis
The questionnaire prompted the faculty members on their intention to implement elearning at the SCTE and whether they considered it essential to increase the use of e-  (Table I).
The quantitised (Saldãna, 2009) qualitative data were subjected to two statistical procedures: (i) testing for significant differences between the means of the two groups (faculty and e-learning manager) and (ii) cluster analysis of the codes in order to compile a model for faculty development relating to the use of technology enhanced learning in ODL. Cluster membership was assessed by calculating the total sum of squared deviations from the mean of a cluster. The criterion for fusion is that it should produce the smallest possible increase in the error sum of squares (Burns & Burns, 2008  had not been exposed to others. After the introduction of IWBs, while some could only refer to different technologies, others could discuss their use and affordances (Table 1).

Results and Discussion
A t-test calculated significant differences between the means of the perceptions from faculty (looking out) and the e-learning manager's observations (looking in). Table 2 indicates that significant differences occurred in 17 of the 34 variables.     Table 3 depicts the five cluster themes (Figure 2) as a discussion framework for implementing TEL at the SCTE. It lists the five cluster themes (looking up, looking inside, looking at, looking around, and looking ahead), as well as the variables that faculty and the e-learning manager during the statistical analysis agreed upon and those that deferred. Looking ahead Continuing professional development needs expectations and motivators • *computer literacy • *concern for ODL students • *faculty competency • *faculty readiness • *faculty training • *institutional support • *need for instructional design • *quality education • *resources • *technology support * Significant difference p ≤ 0.05 Table 2 indicates that no significant differences occurred in two clusters between the perceptions of faculty members and the observations of the e-learning manager between (i) the variables in cluster 1, looking around, the concerns and reservations about  From the looking-in perspective of the e-learning manager, variables such as the need for instructional design to be freely available to faculty, the improvement of faculty computer literacy and faculty competency in pedagogical application through learning technologies in quality education, concern for ODL students, institutional support, technology support, resources, faculty readiness, and technophobia all relate to themes to be addressed during faculty professional development for the adoption of TEL. From the perceptions of the faculty looking out, perspectives on staff development are dominated by a strong plea for comprehensive practice-based faculty training. Next, the value of e-learning is in high regard, followed by concerns over faculty competency, access of students to the Internet and to ICT technology, reservations about the possibilities of e-learning adoption, concern for ODL students' needs, and need for instructional design to effect e-learning development.    (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), the e-learning manager zoomed out to strategic issues in order to gradually shift the teaching and learning approach from an instructivist towards a more constructivist approach (Jonassen, et al., 1995).
The analysis indicated that faculty perceptions at the onset of a transition process from paper-based distance education to e-learning adoption reflected a need for comprehensive practice-based faculty training. This is motivated by the plight of the SCTE ODL teacher-students-practicing teachers on whom thousands of learners depend for an education. The five aspects of the model (Figure 3) drive the adoption of TEL at the SCTE. Faculty look up for support from management to look inside the institution to provide procedural support in terms of pragmatic approaches to focus on TEL adoption (Schneckenberg, et al., 2011). Faculty request measures to manage their workload and scheduling of pedagogical priorities, interventions to overcome technological unfamiliarity, and TPACK training to use TEL effectively. Interventions that transform faculty require bold decisions to foster creativity and enable learning content and curriculum transformation as "educators' roles are changing from managing content to connecting learners in new ways to other learners, resources, and expertise" (Schwier, 2010, p. 91).
Changes in technology may introduce uncertainty and lead to technophobia (Christensen & Knezek, 2008, p. 352). For example, during this study, the versions of computer operating system, interactive whiteboard software, Microsoft Office™ programs, and logon authentication used by the university changed. Professional development has to focus on holistic coping strategies to build technological confidence, rather than on an overload of detailed information and mechanistic operating procedures (Minovic, Stavljanin, Milovanovic, & Starcevic, 2008). However, faculty hold the key to the successful integration of learning technologies. The SCTE faculty is committed to the integration of learning technologies. Faculty's perceptions show a strong concern for SCTE students, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds with low confidence in using technology, inadequate computer literacy, and limited access to the Internet and to technology. TEL has the potential to enhance flexible learning by providing students with permanent access to learning resources and by widening their learning options independent from place and time; and ICT can help to raise quality standards and to create a culture of excellence in teaching and learning by adding digital communication channels for increased collaboration to the course setting.
At many HEIs the innovative potential of TEL is not being systematically utilized for the macro-level of their strategic options and/or the micro-level of faculty implementation of TEL. The rapid pace of technology development tends to outpace strategic thinking and pedagogical design in higher education. Recent studies show that the diffusion of new technologies threatens TEL integration into universities (Schneckenberg, 2008). Zemsky and Massy (2004) are of the opinion that sustainable integration of ICT into HEIs remains a major challenge and that they should substantially increase efforts to involve and engage faculty, who play a key role in education innovation. Faculty face a growing demand from students to offer a more flexible, technology-enriched course delivery while they themselves increasingly race technology to compete for their Looking Out, Looking In : Exploring a Case of Faculty Perceptions During E-Learning Staff Development Esterhuizen, Blignaut, and Ellis Vol 14| No 3 July/13 76 students' attention. They also face the pedagogical challenges to design innovative learning environments, which respond to the changing needs of technology-able students, and to integrate TEL to further the vision of the HEI (Schneckenberg, et al., 2011).
Faculty require professional development in order to acquire new competences that enable them to know and to judge why, when, and how to use ICT in education. If HEIs want to move forward in an organized way to improve the range and quality of their teaching and learning, they have to define coherent strategic frameworks for e-learning which include the creation of adequate support units and measures which foster the development of ICT-related competences.