Rural students-urban schools: Rural students' experiences of computing in their urban post-compulsory education

This research focuses on the origins and nature of one cohort of students' computing experience as they progressed from their isolated rural junior setting to senior schooling in urban locations. The study investigated the influence of parents, teachers, peers and the wider rural community on their development as students in general. The data collection concentrated especially on how their rural upbringing influenced their educational outcomes, but serendipitously revealed the considerable effects of the religious beliefs held by many in their community. This further enhanced the capacity of the thesis to identify strategies needed to address the dilemmas that these students experienced. The study followed those members of a single cohort of students as they ended their compulsory education in a rural school and proceeded to post-compulsory, senior secondary, education in 'their nearest regional city. Some students entered the state schooling system while others opted for a senior education embedded within the religious boundaries of their Christian upbringing. The researcher maintained contact with these students socially, and also by meeting them weekly as they returned to their home town from their forays into the city. The research employed a phenomenographical approach in which regular meetings with the cohort were audio taped and later transcribed using a computer voice recognition package. The transcripts were then returned to the participants for validation and correction. These corrected transcripts were then analysed to reveal students' conceptions of their lived experiences of computing as part of their senior schooling, and these conceptions were then placed within an outcome space which illustrates the inter-relationships between them. The thesis reveals a complex relationship between rural families, how they live, how they interact with each other and how they perceive outsiders from the city. and illuminates the many quandaries they face in both their daily lives and their educational experiences. including communication problems between rural feeder schools and their urban counterparts; depth of curricula; and the impact that religious affiliations have on rural families. It concludes with a range of recommendations regarding the strategies that could be employed to help other teachers/educators who are placed in similar rural situations to understand the physical/developmental and cultural/spiritual inequalities that isolated rural families encounter