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Digital Entanglement: A Micro Phenomenological Study of Learning with Digital Devices in a New Zealand Secondary School

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Thesis(9.94 MB)

Date

2025

Authors

Rodriguez, Diego Cristian

Supervisor

Aguayo, Claudio
Frielick, Stanley

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Doctor of Philosophy

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Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

For decades now, educators and academics have argued for and against the transformative effect that technology could have on education. However, in spite of the rise of emerging technologies and AI in the classroom, educational theory tends to think of them as a support tool rather than a constitutive component. This study addresses the gap in educational practice and knowledge regarding the description of what happens when students and devices come together. Positioned within a posthuman, postdigital sensibility of relationality, it proposes the metaphor of the Tale of Two Schools as a way to understand how competing paradigms clashing in the classroom are preventing a type of education reform that would integrate digital technologies. The study adopted a qualitative, interpretive approach focused on the first-person perspective of students’ experiences of learning with digital devices. The research is based on data collected primarily from interviews of nine key participants, students of Year 12 and 13 at a secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand. The study is articulated around two methodologies: micro phenomenology (MP) and micro ethnography (ME) and employs an onto-epistemological overarching framework to emphasise the inseparability between ways of knowing, being, and doing. The findings from the MP inquiry show that students engage in a process of progressive entanglement with their devices to accomplish a task. Two overarching moments seem to govern the dynamic of that process: a solo (unassisted) drafting, followed by an (assisted) crafting. This structure seems to be fractal, present both at the level of the moments that constitute the experience, and again at the singular moment of connecting with the device. Contrasting the increasing distribution of agency from solo drafting to assisted crafting with the notion of optimal grip makes evident students’ process of acquisition and application of patterns of body-readiness. The ME findings suggest that Digital Entanglement results in the emergence of an embodied and cognitive resonance in which the digital becomes an overarching structure where the world and the “I” meet. In this digital environment, artefacts have a unique set of properties that define how they come to be and can be manipulated. Namely, digital artifacts are Explorable, Constructible and Nomadic. This study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between learners and digital technologies. By examining the hallmarks of this entangled experience, it provides a description of how participants and digital devices come and stay together. Methodologically, it introduces a unique diffractive dialogue between MP and ME, describing not only the topography of the encounter between students and devices but also its dynamics. Integrating these findings with existing theories, the study refines the concept of the digital as a structure of perception and action, proposing a characterisation of digital artefacts as explorable, constructible and nomadic. It advances the current understanding of learning with technologies by highlighting the impact on secondary students' sense-making processes and critically discussing the role of digital technologies. Moreover, it proposes the notion of Digital Entanglement as a challenge to traditional practices in secondary education.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10292/19670

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Doctoral Theses