Theory and Method in Higher Education Research

Jeroen Huisman, Malcolm Tight, Jeroen Huisman, Malcolm Tight

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787692794
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Higher education research is a developing fieldinternationally, which is attracting more and more researchers from a greatvariety of disciplinary backgrounds within and beyond higher educationinstitutions. As such, it is an arena within which a wide range of theories, methods and methodologies are being applied.

This volume of Theory and Method in Higher Education Research contains analysesand discussions of, amongst others, topic modelling, geometric data analysis, creativity and playfulness, longitudinal network analysis, grounded theorymethods and autonetnography.

CASTING THE ‘NET’ IN AUTONETNOGRAPHY: EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL FOR ANALYTIC AUTONETNOGRAPHY AS AN EMERGING E-RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Lyz Howard

ABSTRACT

Opportunities for professional development in online teaching are abundant. However, when the online teacher is geographically and professionally isolated from others with an interest in online teaching, use of insider research to identify areas of good online teaching practice, and those areas that require further development, affords an opportunity for self-directed professional development. Despite a plethora of methodological interpretations of autoethnography, autonetnography has until now remained no more than a methodological ideal. With my background as a registered nurse and teacher of health and social care, shifting from face-to-face teaching towards teaching online, I claim value in developing autonetnography as an insider researcher self-study, to inform my online teacher professional development needs. This chapter has two main aims: (1) to share my theoretical development of analytic autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology and (2) to evaluate my experience of employing analytic autonetnography to research my recent online teaching practice. I will claim that whilst I have found analytic autonetnography methodologically beneficial to research my online teaching practice, I was also the author who laid the foundations, constructed and evaluated an analytic autonetnography model to test its value. Therefore, the relevance of my findings in the context of the value of analytic autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology will remain open to debate until other researchers in the digitally mediated field experience, critique, challenge and enhance analytic autonetnography theoretically.

Keywords: Autonetnography; online teacher professional development; online teaching practice; networked learning; e-research methodology; mixed methods

INTRODUCTION

Professional development as a face-to-face teacher is not something that happens in isolation. Over a number of years, I have participated in mutual peer-review, taken seriously evaluations of my teaching practice from learners, and purposefully developed myself academically. As a lecturer in higher education, geographically and professionally isolated from other colleagues who teach online, I needed to find alternative ways in which to develop professionally as I used digital media to facilitate textual communication between learners and myself, learners and their peers and the digital resources available to us. This chapter explores how my online teacher professional development needs were identified through the progression of analytic autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology and evaluates my experience of applying analytic autonetnography to explore my online teaching practice.

TEACHING ONLINE

Learning to teach online is a logical progression for many lecturers, as the influence of digital technologies permeates their everyday teaching practice. I found myself in a position where the context of my face-to-face teaching was changing to incorporate various forms of digitally mediated technologies, predominantly in the form of networked learning. Networked learning is defined as:

learning in which information and communications technology (ICT) is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources. (Goodyear, Banks, Hodgson, & McConnell, 2004, p. 1)

I developed an online module that gave a master’s cohort of Health and Social Care Professionals an opportunity to develop their understanding of similarities and differences between health and social care practices around the globe. To truly understand the nuances of global health and social care practices, I invited practitioners from New Zealand, Germany, Japan and the United States of America to act as online guest speakers in the module. The purpose was for the students to cross the boundaries of time zone and geography by using a synchronous discussion to determine ways in which their local health and social care practices might profit from considering the benefits and limitations of learning from the mistakes and successes attributed to other global health and social care practices.

I very quickly realised that communicating with students online was different from my experiences of communicating face-to-face. I had never truly considered how much I relied upon the expression on a student’s face to guide my next move in face-to-face teaching. I now recognise that I have learned, over time, to read expressions of confusion, annoyance and tiredness, as well as those beautiful moments of epiphany when a student grasps a concept that has been troubling them. A change in intonation, a student’s body language telling me they are tiring or in need of a break, gives me the clues I need as a face-to-face teacher to change focus, create movement or re-energise my teaching session. Now as I learn to teach online, the arsenal of non-verbal recognition experience I have accumulated over the years feels almost redundant. All I can ‘see’ is whether or not my students are interacting with me, each other and the module learning objectives I have designed to stimulate learning. What I cannot see are those who are ‘lurking’ in the background, less willing/able to participate visibly, yet who may be learning all the same.

ONLINE TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

What is different about my professional development requirements as a neophyte online teacher is that I am geographically and professionally isolated from other online teachers. Whilst one of the benefits of networked learning is the ability to cross geographical borders, this did not apply to me in the context of learning to teach online. I live and work in the Isle of Man, which is a British Crown Dependency with no current higher education institute to call its own; nor do I have colleagues with an interest in networked learning. I needed, therefore, to find a way to develop myself as an online teacher.

Stimulated in my PhD studies by peer discourse and exploration of ethnographic literature comparing differences between teaching face-to-face and teaching online, I discovered the work of Kozinets (2006, 2010, 2015), who introduced the concept of netnography as a way to consider ‘online sociality [as] different enough from its embodied variants to warrant a “new mapping of reality”’ (2015, p. 4). A conversation with a colleague who had focused on autoethnography for his doctoral studies caused me to consider the potential of autonetnography, first alluded to by Kozinets and Kedzior (2009), yet not methodologically or theoretically extended, as a self-directed way to examine and develop my own online teaching practice. My teaching philosophy is guided by my intention to be an online teacher, not do online teaching. In keeping with my philosophy, I sought a research methodology to reflect this stance. After spending some time considering my options, I focused on developing a methodological understanding and theoretical application of analytic autonetnography as a self-directed e-research methodology to explore my online teacher professional development needs.

AUTONETNOGRAPHY

Autonetnography is a new conceptualisation of autoethnography that can be situated in the field of networked learning. Conceived by Kozinets and Kedzior (2009) in the context of examining the insider researcher perspective of interacting in SecondLife^©, and suggested by others to extend its methodological potential (Ferreira, 2012; Kozinets, 2010, 2015; Mkono, Ruhanen, & Markwell, 2015; Persdotter, 2013), autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology remains embryonic in its development. Autonetnography is defined as an approach to online ethnography and described as ‘the mating of the reflexive autobiographical mode of auto-ethnography and the online participant observation approach of netnography’ (Kozinets & Kedzior, 2009, p. 17).

With a philosophical leaning towards pragmatism, social constructivism and post-modernism, my curiosity about the potential for autonetnography began with my own initial conceptualisation. I needed to find a pragmatic way to understand how I could enhance online students’ experiences of communicating asynchronously via written text to learn from and with each other. In the context of the post-modern and thanks to Kozinets’(2006) inception of netnography, and Kozinets and Kedzior (2009) suggesting that autonetnography might form the insider perspective of experiencing online interactions, I had the opportunity to progress autonetnography methodologically through my PhD research. To demonstrate probity, my research focus specifically included Anderson’s (2006) attention to theoretical analysis with the aim of incorporating the theoretical reflexivity required to compare my findings with the evidence base. This inclusion of theoretical reflexivity determined that I favoured the analytic element of autonetnography. The purpose of my thesis was to examine more closely the subjective and reflexive insider researcher perspective of being an experienced face-to-face teacher, learning to teach online. My overarching research question sought to explore: ‘In what way does analytic autonetnography allow me, as a neophyte online teacher, to examine and develop my networked learning teaching praxis?’

I developed research subquestions that more specifically sought to examine my recent online teaching practice with a view to planning my future online teacher professional development:

(1) In what ways does analytic autonetnography afford me the opportunity to situate my networked learning teaching praxis as a neophyte online teacher?

(2) What impact do my online interactions as a neophyte networked learning teacher have on online student interaction and group cohesion?

(3) In what way does reflexive analysis of my current networked learning teaching praxis inform my professional development as a networked learning teacher?

THEORISING ANALYTIC AUTONETNOGRAPHY

I followed the recommendation from Kozinets and Kedzior (2009) to partner the already established autobiographical reflexivity attributed to autoethnography with the online participant observation methodology claimed by netnography (Kozinets, 2006, 2010, 2015) to begin theorising autonetnography. This was achieved by synthesising autoethnographic methodological theories through the process of a seven-phase meta-ethnography (Noblit & Hare, 1988) to inform my understanding of autonetnography. The resultant understanding of autonetnography was later combined with Anderson’s (2006) conceptualisation of the analytic element of autoethnography to theorise analytic autonetnography. Each phase of my meta-ethnography was initially followed in a step-by-step fashion, although the further I navigated my way through each phase, the more iterative I became as new understandings caused me to (re)review an earlier or later phase.

Phase one, getting started, included deciding upon the context of my meta-ethnography: autonetnography as methodology. Phase two called for finding relevant literature pertinent to understanding the potential for autonetnography; thirteen methodological texts relating to autoethnography emerged and were combined in tabular format (Table 1) with the five research papers found to introduce the notion of autonetnography as method. Guided by the work of Aguirre and Whitehill-Bolton (2014), phase three caused me to read and re-read the text until saturation of methodological understanding was reached. To determine how each methodological text was related in phase four, I placed direct quotes from the original ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Editorial Introduction
• Using the Sociology of Basil Bernstein in Higher Education Research
• A Probabilistic Approach to Studies in Higher Education
• Refocusing Threshold Concepts: Surfacing and Attending to Student Misconceptions as a Necessary (and Safer) Form of Liminal Learning
• Creativity and Playfulness in Higher Education Research
• Capturing Hybrid Institutional Logics in Higher Education: Qualitative Document Analysis as Methodological Approach
• Globalisation and Differentiation in Higher Education Systems
• Exploring the Complex Social Spaces of Higher Education: On the Uses and Challenges of Geometric Data Analysis and Topological Approaches
• Methodological Tracks to Study Research Collaboration Networks in Higher Education
• Longitudinal Peer Network Data in Higher Education
• Casting the ‘Net’ in Autonetnography: Exploring the Potential for Analytic Autonetnography as an Emerging e-Research Methodology
• Practice-focused, Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology in Higher Education Leadership Research
• Human and Social Capital and Their Application in Higher Education Research
• The State of the Art of Higher Education Research on Flanders
• Index