comparison of English first and second language speakers
4.4 Access: staff
4.4.2 Staff access to resources of personal agency
As explained earlier, resources of personal agency refer to aptitude and disposition. A person’s interest in and attitude to using computers (generally and specifically for learning) is termed their disposition. Resources of personal agency also include ability, skills and experience in using a computer – we term this their aptitude. In order to be able to use computers, it can be argued that staff need access to resources of personal agency as much as they need access to technological resources.
4.4.2.1 Staff aptitude
Aptitude resources of personal agency refer to experience, ability and training in using a computer.
As seen in Figure 4.63, staff report a great deal of experience. More than half of the respondents report that they have been using a computer for more than ten years (78%).
Staff, like students, also rate their own abilities highly.
Overall, 74% of respondents rate their computer abilities as good to excellent, with only a small percentage from the two technikons rating their computer experience as poor (9%
and 4% respectively) (Table 4.42).
With regard to training, 49% of the respondents have attended training on using a computer at their institution.
Unfortunately we were not more specific in the survey so this requires further investigation. We would need to ascertain whether they were referring to general ICT training on how to use particular programs or to more focused staff development activities on using ICT for teaching and learning (Table 4.43).
Figure 4.63: Staff-reported experience using a computer
Table 4.42: Staff rating of their own ability : institutional comparison
Institution Poor Average Good Excellent
CTech 9% 27% 32% 32%
PenTech 4% 18% 43% 35%
UCT 2% 30% 43% 26%
SU 0% 17% 46% 37%
UWC 2% 18% 39% 41%
n = 506 3% 24% 41% 33%
Table 4.43: Staff training
Question: Have you ever attended training on using a computer at your institution?
Yes 242 49%
No 258 51%
(n) 500
Table 4.44: Staff methods of addressing problems
Type of support used Percentage of total
Colleagues 3%
IT support 38%
Problem solve oneself 48%
Ask family 3%
Ask friends 7%
(n) 271
0% 0%
5%
17%
78%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
<1 year 3-4 years 5-6 years 7-10 years > 10 years
Given that only half of the staff have attended training, it is interesting to see how they address problems. We find that when respondents have a problem doing something on a computer they tend to problem solve themselves (48%) or ask for assistance from institutional IT support (38%).
Remarkably few staff ask their friends and colleagues for help indicating either a lack of confidence in colleagues’
computer abilities or a working atmosphere not characterised by peer support. We couldn’t find any research in the literature to explain this but it suggests that academic staff are particularly independent in their use of computers.
Additional findings regarding aptitude emerge from the qualitative responses. An analysis of the number of responses by construct show that 28% of the total comments relate to aptitude. The importance of ability can be seen in the range of terms used, including a number of references to “knowing”, “expertise” and “skills” as summarised in Table 4.45.
Table 4.45 provides an overview of the qualitative responses grouped according to our constructs and indicators.
When examining the issues in light of the positive and negative descriptors, issues relating to enabling aspects of skill (e.g. “easy”, “ability”, “competent”, etc.) are mentioned most frequently (69% of overall comments), whereas when referring to their computer experience or the experiences using computers for teaching, the comments are more negative (18% positive:55% negative and 16%
positive:52% negative respectively).
Table 4.45: Staff qualitative responses about personal agency
(% freq. within category + = positive and – = negative)
Ability (28%)
Knowledge (36%) keeping up, know, new method Skills (65%) basic, confidence, expert,
familiar, ignorance, novice, practice, skill, talent,
troubleshooting, experience, train (33%)
easy+, simple+, ability+, able+, competent+ (69%) hard–, difficult–, inability–, unable–, ignorance–, threatened–
(13%) The frequency of codes was calculated in relation
to the total number of responses. There were 412 responses from staff so a percentage of 28% for our construct of ability means that 94 staff mention something about ability in their qualitative responses. This is then examined to see what indicators these related to. In most answers staff mentioned more than one indicator, hence it was possible for a person’s response to occur or be counted in more than one category.
Percentages in the indicators and descriptors column refer to the number of staff who mentioned that concept and therefore do not add up to 100%. The column labelled “general code”
indicates the codes that comprised each indicator.
However, when talking about their experience using a computer for teaching or about personal computer skills and abilities, they note fewer issues that are helpful.
Having the ability is the most enabling factor. However, this is overshadowed by constraints of unavailability and inadequacy of access.
Confidence that problems have solutions, enough technical knowledge to know where to look or who to ask.…
(UCT, Centre for Higher Education Development, lecturer, 3–4 years, male, 41–50, English, South African)
Lack of knowledge about potential uses lack of time to read up learn about use of computers in education – too busy (UCT, Maths & Applied Maths, Science, lecturer, >5 years, male,
>50, English)
I’m a very fast typist and i know how to use the internet effectively and have good systems for filing documents electronically
(UWC, no details)
I simply do not find the time to master computers as our educational tool due to heavy teaching & admin leads and calls for increased research outputs.
(CTech, FET, Education, senior lecturer, >5 years, male, 41–50, Afrikaans)
I am keen to develop some courses accessible to my students using Web-CT or the equivalent. However, I need to be encouraged by ICT leaders on campus to foster this web-based
learning. I would need to be “held-by-the-hand” in developing course work for the web.
(UWC, Library & Information Science, Arts, lecturer, 1–2 years, female, 41– 50, English, South African)
The impression provided from these findings is that of experienced staff in Western Cape higher education institutions with a positive attitude towards the use of computers. More than half have availed themselves of some training, and most have great confidence in their abilities.
With regard to resources of personal agency, staff report having high levels of individual aptitude.
4.4.2.2 Staff disposition
We asked staff the same eight questions we asked students.
These ranged from general questions about technology and learning to specific ones about the role of educational technology for specific tasks.
Table 4.46 demonstrates that respondents are in strong agreement about the value of using computers for learning, and their likelihood of improving communication amongst students and between students and staff. The majority of respondents – 90% – also agree that computers could provide valuable support to courses and help in doing routine administrative tasks more quickly.
The majority – 81% – of respondents could see themselves encouraging their colleagues to use computers for teaching.
However, fewer (70%) see themselves as having a high general level of interest in new technology.
An index of this construct demonstrates that, overall, staff are very positive about and interested in using computers for learning. Within a range of 8 to 32 (where a score of 8 represents “strong disagreement” and a score of 32 represents “strong agreement”), the majority of staff (78%) have a response of greater than 22. The normal curve line shows how positively skewed staff are in their disposition (Table 4.64).
We therefore note that staff are enabled by access to an important resource of personal agency – that of a positive disposition.
4.4.2.3 How differences in personal agency affect specifi c staff groups
An analysis of gender provides interesting results because at the broadest level, there are barely any differences in disposition overall (Figure 4.65) in terms of the combined index.
However, an examination of one particular component of the disposition index, viz. technological interest, reveals that male academics express a higher degree of interest than female academics do. Indeed, 10% more men agree that they have a high level of technological interest (Table 4.47). This is not affected by age, but does show disciplinary differences with the highest percentage of positive respondents being males from Engineering (89%), in contrast with 59% of males from Humanities.
Our findings in relation to the “interest” indicator support generally held beliefs about males’ and females’ engagement
Table 4.46: Questions about staff disposition towards computers
Agree Disagree (n)
The use of computers is likely to result in more valuable
learning experiences 86% 14% 472
The use of computers is likely to improve communication
amongst students 85% 15% 462
The use of computers is likely to improve communication
between students and teachers 87% 13% 470
Computers can give valuable support to my courses 90% 10% 476
Computers will help me do routine tasks more quickly 90% 10% 479 I am a person who likes to try out new ways to carry out
my teaching 90% 10% 480
I can picture myself encouraging colleagues to use
computers for learning 81% 19% 472
I am a person who has a high general level of interest in
new technological developments 70% 30% 489
with technology. There may perhaps be an age dimension, especially given that we found that (older) academics do indeed have differential and gendered interests in computers.
Fewer women (68%) than men (84%) have more than 10 years’ experience using a computer (Figure 4.66). While this echoes findings amongst students internationally8 we were unable to ascertain whether this is an international trend amongst academics.
Women also attend more training than men (Figure 4.67).
We find that 16% more female academic staff attend institutional training (Figure 4.67). Furthermore, this is higher (64%) for older than for younger women (52%). This is not a finding that we saw replicated in the international literature nor was it echoed amongst students in this study.
Men also rate their ability more highly than women, as demonstrated in Figure 4.68 where 38% of men rate their ability as excellent compared to 23% of women.
Despite overall similarities in the findings regarding disposition, gendered differences are to be seen at a more granular level. Male academics express more interest in the use of computers, they report more years of experience using computers and they rate their own abilities more highly than women do. They also report less use of institutional training.
39%
Low disposition High disposition Female Male
Figure 4.65: Comparison of index of disposition across gender groups
Table 4.47: Technological interest in terms of gender
Gender Agree Disagree Grand total
Female 64% 36% 187
Male 74% 26% 290
Grand total 335 142 477
8%
<6 years 7-10 years > 10 years Female Male
Figure 4.66: Comparison of years of experience using a computer and gender
Figure 4.67: Comparison of attendance at training and gender
Disposition index: N=484, Mean=26.7231, StdDv=5.8975, Max=32, Min=8
Figure 4.64: Staff disposition towards
computers
We also analysed the staff data in terms of age and position.
When examining the index of disposition we see that younger staff (below 30 years old) have a slightly higher disposition towards computers than older staff do (Table 4.48). This is the same irrespective of position (Table 4.49).
In other words, younger staff at both junior and senior levels have a higher (above mean) disposition towards using computers than older staff at both junior and senior levels.
In terms of the numbers of years’ experience using a computer, notably fewer staff in the younger (under 30) age group have more than ten years’ experience than older staff.
However, the difference is not marked.