Undergraduate honors education has its roots in the traditions of liberal education. Hallmarks of honors courses include small courses, Socratic dialogue, and active learning. The outcomes include enhancements of written and oral communication skills, the ability to analyze and synthesize information, and further developed critical thinking skills (NCHC, n.d.), all of which are typical outcomes of a liberal education (AAC&U, 2007). Honors educators often see themselves as pioneers in undergraduate education, with their courses serving as laboratories of innovative pedagogy and content (Dennison, 2008; NCNC, n.d.; Otero, 2008).
One essential outcome of liberal education in the 21st century, however, has not quite made its mark in honors education: technological literacy. The National Collegiate Honors Council, the professional association of honors programs and colleges, recently held a technology workshop at the conclusion of the 2009 national conference. One of the themes overheard at the workshop was "I don't need to use technology in my courses because honors courses are small." This concept of technology as a classroom management tool, rather than a method of extending and enhancing learning in the classroom seems to permeate throughout the scant literature on technology in honors. As such, the research question of this study is: How do honors instructors view the role of technology in their honors classroom?
Method:
For the purpose of this study, I am guided by a constructivist theoretical perspective. The aim of such a study is to understand and reconstruct (Lincoln & Guba, 2000). Constructivism falls under a constructionist epistemology, which according to Crotty (2003), indicates that meaning is constructed and not created. Meaning is not objective or subjective; rather, we interpret the information already present in the world through interactions we have with that information.
The setting of this study is the University of Florida Honors Program, home to more than 2500 undergraduate students. Close to 80 honors courses are offered each fall and spring semester, with most limited to 20-25 students. Course topics include honors versions of courses taught elsewhere in the university, e.g. calculus, physics, public speaking, statistics, international relations, and foreign languages. Other course topics are interdisciplinary are unique to the program, e.g. Bible as Literature, City Culture, Lepidoptera Biology, and Visual Language.
Participants in this study are instructors who taught for honors during the 2009-2010 or will teach during the 2010-2011 academic year. Criterion sampling which is a type of purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002) will be utilized to ensure that instructors were teaching during those terms. Approximately 5-10 instructors will be selected to participate in one 60-minute semi-structured individual interview. Such a sample size is appropriate for a qualitative study focused on in-depth study of experiences. Interviews were selected as the primary method of data collection for this study because they provide an understanding of the "lived experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience" (Seidman, 2006, p. 9) which matched the purpose of the study.
The interview questions utilize the following themes:
• Background of their personal and professional use of technology
• Their use (or non-use) of technology in their honors courses.
• Their use (or non-use) of technology in their non-honors courses.
• Is there a difference in the place of technology in an honors vs non-honors course?
• What should be the outcomes of an honors curriculum / program / college?
• Where might technology fit in helping to achieve those outcomes?
• What type of professional development / assistance might they want / need to incorporate more technology into their honors courses?
The interview data will be analyzed using an inductive analysis method closely based on Spradley's domain analysis (Hatch, 2002; Spradley, 1979). After I transcribe the interviews, I will read through the transcriptions to get a sense of the data. Then I will began the process of dividing the data into segments of meaningful units, or codes (Tesch, 1990).
Following the development of open codes, I will create domains or taxonomies of the codes. Spradley (1979) identifies nine different types of domains, including strict inclusion, rationale, function, and attribution. Cover terms will be developed to represent the domains. From there, I will begin the process of "data reduction" (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 10) and eliminate some of the cover terms and combine others. Throughout the process I will utilize a constant comparative analysis to compare data across interviews, looking for similarities and differences (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). I will also use theoretical comparisons when necessary by using personal experiences similar to those described in the data to think about it in terms of its properties (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Finally, I will look both within and across domains to discover themes and relationships (Hatch, 2002).
Results / Conclusions: With qualitative work focused on describing personal experiences, it would be impossible to hypothesize about the results of this study at this time. The interview portion of this study is being conducted during June/July 2010, so results will not be available until later in the summer after the interview data has been analyzed.
The implications of this study include the ability to further understand the perceived place of technology within honors courses. While honors programs and colleges are often seen as places of curricular innovation, pilots even of programs to be implemented later within a broader scope of the university, the use of technology in those courses has not often kept up with technology in non-honors courses. These interviews will help us understand why instructors are or are not using technology in their honors courses. We also can understand what faculty development opportunities might be needed to help faculty better utilize technology in their courses.
