Making It Work for Them: A Technology-Enhanced Educational Innovation in Pakistan

Abstract

Millions of dollars are spent every year to plan and introduce educational innovation initiatives in the developing world with the hope of bringing about economic development, social progress, and educational reform (Kozma, 2008; Kombe, 2016). But the challenges with introducing and maintaining any educational innovation are multifold in developing countries, which are plagued by economic instability and a lack of resources. This situation worsens when the innovation involves any form of technology. The end result in most technology enhanced educational innovations (TEEIs) in such contexts is disillusionment -- either because expected outcomes have not been met or the positive impact is not sustainable. This disillusionment is usually caused by multiple gaps in the planning and implementation of the innovation or the unrealistic expectation that technology is the panacea of all ills. Studies on educational innovation endeavors (Vergara & Grazzi, 2008; Jhurree, 2005; Kozma & Vota, 2014) have identified a significant lack of research in developing countries. Building on these concerns, this dissertation is a qualitative introspective case study exploring different perspectives of the various change agents (Fullan, 2016; Rogers, 2003) involved in facilitating a TEEI project in Pakistan, namely Digital Hall Study (DiSH). Combining the experiences of these change agents, the study attempts to improve understanding of the factors that facilitate and/or hinder the process of designing, planning, implementing, adopting, and sustaining a TEEI project in the low resource educational settings of developing countries like Pakistan. Findings have shown four categories of factors that influence TEEI by offering support and posing challenges to the implementers and users: social context-based, institution-based, teacher-based, and innovation project-based factors. This study has also demonstrated that reevaluating the innovation process in TEEI projects is essential to ensure that needs analyses are conducted before those projects are designed.