Researcher Positionality
Researcher Background
After spending seven years as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages, I changed careers and entered the field of technology. Initially, I was hired by the Faculty Resource Center at The University of Alabama to be a web designer, and I spent two years designing and developing web sites. These sites were almost exclusively for University departments for promotional reasons. After these two years, I began to slowly become more involved in educational web sites. It was a perfect fit for me because I could combine my skills as a web designer with my background in education and teaching. During this time, another aspect of my job was to develop and teach faculty technology workshops. My job then became Coordinator for Faculty Development, and I spent almost all of my time working with faculty to incorporate instructional technology, most specifically web-based instructional technology. I began to concentrate more on pedagogy and less on technology. The workshops I organized and conducted reflected this change as well. What I found, however, was that no matter what I did to accommodate the faculty and their needs, nothing seemed to accelerate the incorporation of instructional technology.
Researcher Bias
What I have, then, because of my background as a teacher and educator, and because of my work in the field of technology, is a strong bias toward the incorporation of instructional technology. I believe that instructional technology is a way to improve education by addressing various student learning styles. Technology has the potential to connect the past of Who am I? as a teacher with the future of Who can I become? as a person.
The concept of Who am I? is not limited to my construction as a teacher. Who am I? also influences me as a researcher. Mehra explains,
Scheurich (1994) remarks that one's historical position, one's class (which may or may not include changes over the course of a lifetime), one's race, one's gender, one's religion, and so on - all of these interact and influence, limit and constrain production of knowledge. In other words, who I am determines, to a large extent, what I want to study. (2002, ¦ 17)
I am, as a researcher, a product of who I am as a person, and who I am as a person is a result of my race, class, gender, and sexuality. I am the researcher I am because I have experienced life in a certain manner. Additionally, what I believe about research cannot be separated from who I am (Harding, 1987) . My perspective as a researcher, my beliefs about research, the methodologies I choose, and the questions I ask, have been built on my prior knowledge, experience, and environment. As Denzin explains, "Interpretive research begins and ends with the biography and self of the researcher" (1986, p. 12) .
Since I cannot separate myself as a person from myself as a researcher, and since myself as a person brings with it bias, what I must deal with in my research is how to control this bias so that it does not interfere with the data in a way that corrupts or invalidates. There is no way that I can have the illusion of objectivity in this collection of data, for my ultimate goal is to add to the body of knowledge so that I may do my job better, and as Creswell explains, "Qualitative researchers approach their studies with a certain world view that guides their inquires" (1998, p. 74) . This is not an objective process, even after attempting to bracket out researcher experience and bias. Having tried and failed other methods of increasing instructional technology incorporation has led me to this research. It is in (not only) my best interest that my expectation is correct, as this will allow me to do my job more effectively by focusing on the real issue behind resistance to the incorporation of instructional technology.
An additional area for bias comes from my knowledge of the subjects. This researcher is in the unique position of knowing many of the participants on various levels. I am a member of the University community, I am a member of a service unit at the University that works with departments and faculty, I have taught many of the faculty in some of the workshops discussed in Chapter 2, and I am a student in a doctoral program. Consequently, I knew many of these faculty before I interviewed them for this study. Of the thirty, I knew fourteen professionally as a member of the University community, or as a professional client or workshop participant. I knew four of the participants personally. Nine of the participants I did not know, while seven of those nine I had never met. I also had taken two classes in which one of the participants was also enrolled as a student. Most importantly, I have been a student in the classroom of two of the participants, one from Group B, and one from Group C.
Researcher Expectations
My idea was that the barriers to instructional technology incorporation are not based on extrinsic resource-type issues such as time, energy or money, but rather on intrinsic beliefs about teaching. Meaning, a faculty member's level of technology incorporation and willingness to do so must be internally dependent. I believe that to be successful in assisting faculty in incorporating technology into instruction, faculty developers must shift the focus of their attention from providing extrinsic resources that address barriers, to understanding the faculty member's intrinsic impulse toward or away from technology. This intrinsic impulse is a direct derivative of beliefs about teaching.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to explore how intrinsic fundamental beliefs about teaching, the notion of who a person is as a teacher, not extrinsic resource-based barriers, may influence faculty instructional technology incorporation.
Research Question
How does the way faculty members perceive themselves, meaning their beliefs about themselves as teachers, influence incorporation of instructional technology?
Current Study
This research was a multi-method (Schutz, Chambless, & DeCuir, 2004) study, incorporating data gathered from two quantitative instruments with those gathered from a phenomenological-based qualitative instrument. A multi-method study can have many advantages over a strict single-method qualitative or quantitative study. As deMarrais & Lapan (2004) indicate, "Jick (1983) and Fielding & Fielding (1986) suggest that combining methods provides opportunity for completeness, depth, and breadth or elaboration (Rossman & Wilson, 1985) to the understanding of a phenomenon" (p. 277).
The focus of a phenomenological study is an understanding of a concept or phenomenon. Understanding underlying teacher beliefs and how these beliefs relate to technology use and incorporation is well suited to phenomenological methodology. To achieve this understanding, the lived experiences of the subjects in terms of that phenomenon (Creswell, 1998) must be examined. Creswell goes on to explain that the important aspect of a phenomenological study is to describe meaning developed by a small number of individuals who have experienced the phenomenon. In the case of this study, 30 faculty members will be looking at the phenomena of their own teaching beliefs, teaching methods, and use of instructional technology.
Subjects of Study
The subjects of this study were University of Alabama faculty members, of assistant professor, associate professor and full professor ranks, in or not in tenure-track positions, and tenured and non-tenured. These faculty were full-time permanent only. The faculty represented various colleges and departments across the University.
The faculty were grouped by the researcher into three groups with 10 members each (see Table 2). Each group was given a name based on the level of instructional technology incorporation they already have. The first group are the campus leaders in instructional technology, so they were called the "Leaders." The second group wished to have a greater level of incorporation, so they were called the "Aspirers," as they aspired to a greater level. The final group actively resisted incorporation of instructional technology, so they were called the "Resisters."
Group A, the Leaders, consisted of 10 well-known and officially recognized instructional technology users. To be considered officially recognized in instructional technology use, the faculty member was honored or awarded by his/her college or department; was the recipient of technology grants; or was recognized by an extra-university entity. For example, one faculty member has been recognized and honored by Adobe Corporation for her use of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop in her instructional methods. The faculty in this group were identified through official university publications, from my own personal knowledge having worked with them for the past five years, and from being personally known to University of Alabama Information Technology personnel or from recommendations by their Associate Deans. Therefore, the group was generated non-randomly.
Group B, the Aspirers, was made up of 10 faculty who had volunteered to be participants in a two-week pedagogy-based workshop and were therefore also selected non-randomly. This group had a strong interest in using technology, and indeed their degree of implementation was varied among the members, and in general, the members of this group wanted to incorporate instructional technology, but for assorted reasons had not done so to the extent desired.
The final group, Group C, the Resisters, was made up of 10 faculty who have actively resisted the incorporation of instructional technology. These faculty have been exposed to instructional technology, but have declined to use it in their teaching. In choosing Group C, the snowball method (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Meltzoff, 1999) was used by first consulting college-level associate deans, and then by recommendations from members of Group A and others in Group C.