Lost in Transition: The Dissemination of Digitization and the Challenges of Leading in the Military Educational Organization

Abstract

Leading change in adult educational organizations is not frequently described in the leadership literature. The education sector in the Norwegian Armed Forces (NAF) is in the middle of an educational reform that requires major changes. More students, fewer teachers and new organization of the studies as well as requirements for an increasingly updated technological expertise may mean that it will be necessary to increase the use of digital teaching aids. However, this is not systematically communicated as part of the reform in the same way as new topics of study. From a teacher’s perspective, the most important thing is to safeguard the quality of the education and ensure that important topics do not disappear in a reform. Therefore, one can well imagine that the focus on the purpose of change and the need for active participation is overlooked or not prioritized. Our focus in the process was largely the study content and some concern about the increase in the number of cadets. After completing the first courses in the new education, we were therefore quite surprised that the cadets were asked in the course evaluation whether digital aids had been used in the teaching, As a result, we were inspired to look more closely at what requirements were set and whether more exact plans had been prepared for the introduction of digitization of education as part of the reform process. Since the education reform in the NAF results in such a fundamental change, our perspectives may possibly benefit staffs at other colleges who are going to carry out major change processes. The main goal of this study was to investigate if or how the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research’s intention of digitization and its specific primary goals of learning and teaching trickle down through the hierarchies and into the study programs at the Norwegian Military Academy (NMA). To see if the Ministry’s intentions were actually understood and realized, as our second aim we investigated whether we found the concepts of digitization or digital tools mentioned in any of the Norwegian Defence University College’s (NDUC) study programs and subject plans for teaching. These intentions cannot be implemented unless they are enshrined in the study programs. As a third aim we also tried to find out whether digitization and digital tools actually had been used in the teaching in the new NAF Basic Officer Education, as this would reflect how the Ministry’s intention of digitization and specific primary goals of learning and teaching had been realized. We used a mixed methods approach in the study as we first investigated documents compiled from the government issued for the university and college sector in Norway, the NAF and the NDUC to see if the overall plan for digitization from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research could be traced. In addition, we investigated the answers that officer cadets had given to questions in three course evaluations related to the use of digital tools in their education. Our three hypotheses were the following: H...

Fostering Digital Transformations in Military Engineering Education: Introduction of a Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment

“…At the same time, digitalization introduces the mechanisms and strategies of modernization of an educational institution to update the existing infrastructure and to improve the efficiency of the learning environment. In the context of military engineering education, digitalization has been implemented through the principles of accessibility (Spridzāns, 2023), flexibility (Holth & Boe, 2019), interactivity (Silfverskiöld et al, 2011), collaboration (Davidson-Shivers & Rand, 2023), data-driven culture and innovation (Barreiros dos Santos et al, 2019). Apparently, digital transformations provide access to the educational process, overcome geographical barriers, create customized learning paths, offer collaborative tools and software, and suggest using innovative and creative approaches to teaching.…”

“…At the same time, digitalization in military engineering education brings several challenges. Above all, there are concerns about the privacy and security of cadets' data since some information used at the HMEIs has limited access (Holth & Boe, 2019). Urych (2018) and Fernández-Sánchez et al (2022) considered that integration of new digital tools into the existing curricula can be challenging.…”

Ukrainian Language Competence of a Higher Military Education Seeker

“…The analysis of scientific literature on the issue under study allows us to conclude that, taking into account the trends in the development of modern theory and methods of professional military training, the need arises to build a qualitatively new system of cultural education of future military servants. This system will provide for the creation of relevant conditions for the Ukrainian language competence formation, which is an important feature of the personality -the specialist in military affairs (Uvarkina, 2022), (Holth & Boe, 2019).…”

Construction and Improvement of Process Evaluation Platform in Volleyball Teacher Education Reform Based on Big Data

“…Volleyball teachers in the teaching process, mainly around the final examination content to teach students knowledge and skills, resulting in students learning volleyball initiative interest is not high, little interest in physical exercise, volleyball teaching activities carried out by the significance is ignored [3][4]. Based on the current situation of volleyball teaching, colleges and universities will carry out classroom teaching reform, no longer define everything based on the final examination results, but to exercise students' physical quality, improve students' interest in learning, cultivate students' interest in volleyball teaching, and cultivate all-round development of morality, intelligence, sports, beauty and labor [5][6]. In recent years, the reform of the evaluation system of universities has been widely discussed by all walks of life, and actively explored in order to solve the limitations of the current traditional evaluation system, on the contrary, it ignores the function of teaching improvement and incentive, ignores the overall development and individual differences of students, only pays attention to the results and ignores the process, and has not yet formed a sound teaching evaluation system [7][8].…”