Academic domains as political battlegrounds

Abstract

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars’ reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political ‘actors’, just like their human counterparts, having ‘agency’ – which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) ‘battlefields’ wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi: 10.1177/0266666915622044.

Examining the Conceptualization of Instructional Technology in Turkey

“… The participants found gaps in the methodological aspects of existing studies by Turkish scholars, including their own. The outcomes of these gaps were described as shallow studies and replication deficiencies, and the lack of longitudinal studies were linked to nature of technology changing rapidly (Al Lily et al, 2016). The study participants pointed out the methodological limitations for current research approaches and suggested the use of more of experimental, cause-effect, longitudinal, and design-based research studies.…”

“…The definition and scope of IT (whether it is a field or a science), its role in professional and vocational contexts, and its relationship with other fields are still unsettled. The diverse characteristics and training processes of IT researchers (Lily et al, 2016;Ross and Morrison 1989) and the very nature of the field (Ely, 2008;Luppicini, 2005) are two reasons. Studies show that Information Technology and Instructional Technology are often confused, by members of the Instructional Technology field and by other educators (Saettler, 2004).…”

“…The major arguments revolve around the nature, rigor, and relevance of methodologies that best suit IT research (Reeves, 2001;Roblyer & Knezek, 2003;Schrum, 2005). Lily et al (2016) argued that the interpretations of research results as well as their methodologies lack rigor. Ross et al (2010) promoted experimental designs and mixed-methods research, while Bulfin et al (2014) argued for a shift to large-scale studies and experimental designs.…”

“…The field was "invented in the United States" (Romiszowski, 1995, p. 275); but IT research is now conducted across the world, including Europe (Dimitriadis, 2012;Ely, 2008), Australia (Hedberg & McNamara, 2002), South Africa (Czerniewicz & Carr, 2005) and the Asia-Pacific region (Jung & Yoo, 2014). The increased interest in some countries was substantiated with the advocacy of a constant push for technology integration into education (Lily et al, 2016). Similarly, Kozma and Vota (2014) mentioned the increasing investments for ICT integration by developing countries with the hope of a better quality teaching and learning in the competitive global economy.…”

Neural Correlates of Visual Perceptual Expertise: Evidence From Cognitive Neuroscience Using Functional Neuroimaging

“…While the benefits of bridging methods of expertise research are clear, methods are always part of a scientific community. These communities have agency as political actors and "defend" their methods against the influences of concurrent academic realms (Al Lily, Foland, Stoloff, Gogus, Erguvan, Awshar, et al, 2017), so it will be an interesting observation to see if and to what extent expertise researchers will (continue to) embrace methodological triangulations and combine cognitive neurosciences with other method approaches in their studies for the purpose of theory development.…”