TY - BOOK

T1 - Beyond the ‘user’

T2 - Socio-material storylines of the learning management system and lecturer professional identities

AU - Howard, Natalie-Jane

PY - 2023/11/14

Y1 - 2023/11/14

N2 - This study examines the socio-material interplay between the learningmanagement system (LMS) and lecturer professional identities. Increasinglyprominent in higher education institutions, LMSs were especially foregroundedduring the swift transition to remote learning in the wake of the pandemic. Therehas been an abundance of international scholarship related to the LMS, includingresearch into implementation strategies, adoption patterns and online teaching,yet less empirical attention has been paid to lecturers’ additional pedagogical and administrative LMS practices. Even rarer are studies which incorporate a sociomaterial sensibility to trace not only the discursive renderings of identitypositioning, but to simultaneously explore how materiality is implicated inproducing lecturer selves. Responding to this gap in the literature, the studyharnesses a novel theoretical approach, integrating positioning theory, themetaphor of imbrication and the mangle of practice. The social constructionistethno-case study design permits the research to zoom in on a specific platform,Blackboard, and its contextualised use in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) college.The UAE is a particularly insightful location to study lecturer professionalidentities given its unique, yet unstable, occupational environment for educators.Blackboard is one of the most prevalent LMSs worldwide, consequently providinga relevant, rich and informative instantiation for a socio-material analysis of anLMS in practice. Visual elicitation interviews with lecturers, interviews withspecialists and managers, observations and a document review provide anuanced account of how lecturer positioning is negotiated through theimbrications of discursive resources, material agencies and power relationsresultant to the mandated use of Blackboard. As these socio-materialimbrications rewrite narratives of lecturer professional identities, three keystorylines are constructed from the data. The first illuminates the LMS as apervasive force through its ubiquitous availability across time and space, and inits enrolment in the monitoring of lecturers. Secondly, the LMS as a conduit ofself-image discusses how the desired self may be projected through coursecustomisation and reveals the identity tensions that lecturers navigate when enacting pre-packaged course materials. Finally, the LMS as a digitalinterference compels lecturers to perform as technical stewards withunpredictable material breakdowns subverting lecturer intentions in the mangleof Blackboard practice. The thesis presents some original terms derived from theanalysis and a range of subject positions, including the obsessive workaholic, the humanised creator and the expelled social actor. Evidencing a much morecomplex framing of the lecturer than a mere ‘user’ of a neutral technology,identities are negotiated through a myriad of tensions, albeit with someopportunities for empowering identity work. The thesis concludes by addressingsome limitations and proposing potentially fruitful avenues of further research.

AB - This study examines the socio-material interplay between the learningmanagement system (LMS) and lecturer professional identities. Increasinglyprominent in higher education institutions, LMSs were especially foregroundedduring the swift transition to remote learning in the wake of the pandemic. Therehas been an abundance of international scholarship related to the LMS, includingresearch into implementation strategies, adoption patterns and online teaching,yet less empirical attention has been paid to lecturers’ additional pedagogical and administrative LMS practices. Even rarer are studies which incorporate a sociomaterial sensibility to trace not only the discursive renderings of identitypositioning, but to simultaneously explore how materiality is implicated inproducing lecturer selves. Responding to this gap in the literature, the studyharnesses a novel theoretical approach, integrating positioning theory, themetaphor of imbrication and the mangle of practice. The social constructionistethno-case study design permits the research to zoom in on a specific platform,Blackboard, and its contextualised use in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) college.The UAE is a particularly insightful location to study lecturer professionalidentities given its unique, yet unstable, occupational environment for educators.Blackboard is one of the most prevalent LMSs worldwide, consequently providinga relevant, rich and informative instantiation for a socio-material analysis of anLMS in practice. Visual elicitation interviews with lecturers, interviews withspecialists and managers, observations and a document review provide anuanced account of how lecturer positioning is negotiated through theimbrications of discursive resources, material agencies and power relationsresultant to the mandated use of Blackboard. As these socio-materialimbrications rewrite narratives of lecturer professional identities, three keystorylines are constructed from the data. The first illuminates the LMS as apervasive force through its ubiquitous availability across time and space, and inits enrolment in the monitoring of lecturers. Secondly, the LMS as a conduit ofself-image discusses how the desired self may be projected through coursecustomisation and reveals the identity tensions that lecturers navigate when enacting pre-packaged course materials. Finally, the LMS as a digitalinterference compels lecturers to perform as technical stewards withunpredictable material breakdowns subverting lecturer intentions in the mangleof Blackboard practice. The thesis presents some original terms derived from theanalysis and a range of subject positions, including the obsessive workaholic, the humanised creator and the expelled social actor. Evidencing a much morecomplex framing of the lecturer than a mere ‘user’ of a neutral technology,identities are negotiated through a myriad of tensions, albeit with someopportunities for empowering identity work. The thesis concludes by addressingsome limitations and proposing potentially fruitful avenues of further research.

U2 - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/2186

DO - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/2186

M3 - Doctoral Thesis

PB - Lancaster University

ER -