Chawawa, Margaret and Ashwin, Paul (2024) Digital Technologies and Analytics: An Investigation on University Academic Staff Perceptions of the Role ‘Big Data and Analytics’ might play in Teaching and Learning. PhD thesis, Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning.
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Abstract
Abstract This thesis investigates variation in how academics account for Big Data (BD) in teaching and learning in higher education from a single institution in the United Kingdom (UK). The study adopted a phenomenographic research approach in order to elicit and give a detailed qualitatively different ways in which academic staff experienced Big Data and Analytics in teaching and learning. These phenomenographic results were based on a purposive sample of thirty-six academic staff as participants who ranged from gender, age, academic positions, and careers across the nine schools in the university. Semi structured interviews were used for data gathering in this study and these were subjected to a rigorous phenomenographic analysis. In this study the analysis revealed qualitative differences in academic staff accounts of their experience with Big Data which constituted five hierarchical descriptions of categories in the role that Big Data emerges which included (1) no knowledge, (2) large amount of data, (3) evidence of student support, (4) structured information, (5) evidence of professional development. These findings highlighted the fact that academic staff hold on views about Big Data to an extent that has not always been acknowledged in existing literature in teaching and learning in higher education. This research gives a more comprehensive picture of the way academic staff experience the role that Big Data plays in teaching and learning, however the research also revealed the incompleteness of this world picture and suggests the need to carry out further research on the topic to enhance the existing knowledge.