Technology enhanced learning in the age of generative AI and post-pandemic higher education : Discourse and practice

Farrell, Shannon and McArthur, Jan (2026) Technology enhanced learning in the age of generative AI and post-pandemic higher education : Discourse and practice. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The pandemic bolstered solutionist conceptualisations of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) within UK higher education. In the post-pandemic period, pandemic narratives operate as a catalyst for change within a sector immersed in uncertainty and precarity, compounded and complicated by the arrival of generative AI. However, these narratives also create ambiguity and conflict in relation to TEL practice. Operating within the Third Space between academic and non-academic domains, TEL professionals—including learning technologists and learning designers—already challenge established domains and structures. Despite higher education institutions (HEIs) ostensibly championing digital solutions to myriad problems, TEL professionals have experienced diminished social capital as Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) ended. Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of HEI strategies combined with semi-structured interviews with TEL professionals, this research identifies how TEL has been conceptualised within institutions during this period, how these conceptualisations have impacted TEL professionals’ practices, and how these conceptualisations of TEL and TEL professionals’ practices intersect or diverge. The research findings reveal that the overarching discourse of change promulgated through institutional strategies positions technology as both a solution and a threat to the sector. Innovation and transformation function as discursive strands which TEL professionals leverage, mediate and subvert. Whilst institutions promote TEL as innovative and transformative, they also position TEL practice as subversive and threatening. Despite these challenges, TEL professionals continue to identify ways in which they can shape teaching and learning with technology, particularly in relation to assessment, generative AI, and digital transformation projects. Framed by a sociomaterial lens, this thesis extends post-pandemic TEL research by focusing on the impact of TEL discourse and the corresponding ways in which TEL practice can and does shape this discourse in kind. The findings have formed the basis for recommendations for institutional leadership as well as academics and TEL professionals.