A model for digital literacy enhancement through technology adoption in resource-constrained environments

ion and Generalization Relates to the researcher providing idiographic details of data interpretation leading to a theory describing human understanding and social action to Abstraction focused on the context of the study, as well as theories of digital literacy and technology adoption with the aim of informing future studies in a similar context. A single location was used in the 178 facilitate understanding on the part of the reader. research. For generalization to be a possibility, multiple locations and how the deviations between these locations impact on the study will have to be investigated. Such a study may facilitate generalization. However, for the purposes of the current study, no such generalizations were attempted. Diagonal Reasoning Relates to addressing possible theoretical preconceptions from the research design to the actual research findings. In the analysis phase undertaken in Section 7.3, the interpretations were done in line with the theoretical underpinnings of digital literacy and technology adoption. Any deviations due to context sensitivity are noted in that section. Multiple Interpretations Openness to the fact that participants can provide different interpretations of the same sequence of events. It was noted that, despite the participants experiencing similar challenges related to resource-constraints, their attitude and interpretations impacted their interaction with the learners differently. This led them to view digital literacy needs and challenges in the area differently. However, the collaboration undertaken by the participants enabled them to be informed about the views their peers had, and potentially cross-pollinated their view and interpretations of the phenomena they were experiencing. Suspicion Being aware of biases and distortions in narratives from participants The researcher anticipated differing accounts of similar experiences. A tool that was used extensively to counter this challenge was the semi-structure one-onone interviews. These semi-structured interviews were adapted slightly based on the responses of the participant interviewed. However, the main structure remained, sp as to capture as many of the attributes related to concepts being investigated as possible. The principles of hermeneutics clearly align with the empirical data and the associated findings. The significance of hermeneutics in explaining phenomena related to ICT was succinctly articulated by Boland (2002) and Cohen et al. (2007). As previously pointed out, Cohen et al. (2007) focused hermeneutics on the interaction of the researcher and the 179 participants, and the interpretations provided by researchers on the activities of the participants in relation to the phenomena under study. However, according to Boland (2002), the view of ICT as a hermeneutic process deviates from seeing ICT as a tool to achieve user objectives, socio-economic or otherwise, to seeing ICT as facilitating an environment of acting out interpretations, that is, actively appropriating meaning about our situations and ourselves. In the context of the current research, this would mean that ICT would extend beyond simple pedagogy to information dissemination and sharing between learners and teachers, between teachers, and among both learners and teachers. These aspirations may potentially be achieved through enhanced levels of digital literacy from both teachers and learners, which will clearly be facilitated by technology adoption. Having aligned the principles of hermeneutics to the findings and data of the current research, the next section undertakes the integration process in line with the sequential explanatory mixed method research. 7-4-2. Integration Each of the survey results will be combined with observation results as well as the interview results, where applicable. This will be complemented by literature or references to literature in order to support or contradict the empirical results. The integration process will use results from Tables 6.7, 6.8, and 6.11. For the participant observations in Table 6.8, ideas with no impact are excluded. Table 7-6 illustrates the integration process: Table 7-6: Integration of quantitative and qualitative results Quantitative Qualitative Survey Observation Interview