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Approaches to ICT-enhanced teaching in technical and vocational education: a phenomenographic perspective

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Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective, which examines teachers’ approaches to information communication technology (ICT)-enhanced teaching in vocational tertiary education. Twenty-three teachers from three Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews about their ways of experiencing the use of ICT in various vocational courses. The findings revealed two strategies with five main orientations to ICT-enhanced teaching distributed along a continuum from teacher-focused approaches: comprising information-oriented, feedback-oriented and practice-oriented to student-focused approaches: consisting of activity-oriented and industry-oriented teaching. The identified strategies and orientations extend the frameworks of teachers’ approaches to ICT-enhanced teaching revealed in the previous phenomenographic studies in tertiary education. The paper discusses theoretical and practical implications of these findings for TAFE sector and tertiary education in general.

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Notes

  1. A code at the end of each quotation refers to a particular participant.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Peter Goodyear for his kind suggestions and Estelle Hoen and Jennifer Gamble for their editorial assistance. This research was conducted through the financial support of an Australian Award (AusAid) scholarship.

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Correspondence to Md. Shahadat Hossain Khan.

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Khan, M.H., Markauskaite, L. Approaches to ICT-enhanced teaching in technical and vocational education: a phenomenographic perspective. High Educ 73, 691–707 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-9990-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-9990-2

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