First year students’ initial engagement with ICTs in teaching and learning

M.Ed. (ICT in Education)The purpose of this study has been to explore computer-illiterate first year students’ experiences of initial engagement with ICTs in their first weeks of study at the University of Johannesburg, by examining meanings they construct for themselves of these experiences. Pressure on universities to adopt ICTs in educational practice is intensified by South Africa’s legacy of un- and under-prepared first year students. Many factors impacting first year students’ transition to university have a direct bearing on their learning. Students who are able to engage with ICTs during first year orientation seem rapidly to become more confident and motivated to experiment further with these technologies, while students who struggle to engage show signs that may be interpreted as fear or lack of confidence to do so. I have argued that current interventions do not sufficiently support new students in their initial engagement with ICTs. In some modules, academic tasks are due within the first few weeks of study, suggesting possible implications for later academic performance. Eight students without prior experience of ICTs who attended basic computer orientation sessions during 2011 were interviewed immediately after their sessions, in a basic generic qualitative study. Interviews were transcribed and analysed. Elements from the taxonomies of Bloom, Krathwohl, Masia, Anderson and Shulman have been combined into a heuristic to examine to what extent learning and engagement took place during the sessions. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Engeström’s extended mediational triangle have been employed as analytical tools to guide me as researcher in an understanding of student activity, and to help me to interpret students’ stories as they struggled to engage with ICTs. Tensions that were exposed between the students and different components of the activity systems (the orientation sessions) have been exposed, and from this a joint account of students’ experiences has provided a framework for understanding their initial engagement with ICTs