Exploring Technology User Environments in Higher Educational Institutions: A Bioecological Theory Based Framework

Benjamin T.K. Boison^1, and Clement Dzidonu²

¹Department of Computer Science, Koforidua Technical University (KTU), Ghana

²Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), Ghana

Cite this paper:
Benjamin T.K. Boison and Clement Dzidonu. Exploring Technology User Environments in Higher Educational Institutions: A Bioecological Theory Based Framework. American Journal of Educational Research. 2017; 5(2):150-154. doi: 10.12691/education-5-2-7

Abstract

The paper provides a renewed framework for framing technology user environments among higher educational institutions. We propose the need to explore and understand the appropriate technology user environment as a prerequisite to deploying technologies in institutions of higher learning. The proposed framework developed from the perspective of the bioecological theory. The use of technologies for teaching and learning naturally takes place in a bio-ecological environment. It is now acceptable that the academic environments in which technologies are deployed and used have primary features associated with the bioecological theory. Some writers and researchers have therefore related the deployment of technologies in tertiary institutions to the bio-ecological theory. Some of these studies lack emphases on users of technology in an academic environment. Moreover, some individual conceptual studies have failed to recognize some important arms of the natural framework. We also consider the body of evidence on the subject subtle. We, therefore, want to uphold the need to know and understand the appropriate technology user environment as a prerequisite to deploying technologies in higher institutions by revealing a renewed framework for framing it. In this paper, we use conceptual and theoretical studies that employ the bio-ecological theory in forming frameworks relating to technology user environments. The studies used are largely from peer-reviewed journals, but we also used to work and white papers written on the subject. The typical technology user environment has essential features of the bioecological theory. A resounding attribute of this environment is the links or harmony between its subjects (users) and how these relationships extend to choices of technologies, user characteristics and the specific uses of technologies for students, faculty members and institutional management. Management of higher academic institutions can frame their technology user environments by considering the dimensions of the bio-ecological theory (i.e. microsystem factors, mesosystem factors, exosystem factors, and macrosystem factors) along the lines of choices of technologies, user characteristics (such as skills and ability to use technologies) and the specific uses of technologies for students, faculty members and institutional management.

Keywords:
higher education technology user environment ecosystem theory

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