Design phase

The focus of this third phase is to design, develop, build, and finally publish an EfS website, which includes pilot tests of the website, commonly with end-users. This design phase is based on the theoretical considerations presented in Section 2.6.1, and on the information and data collected during the pre-design research phase. The final objective of this phase is to develop a culturally-meaningful and locally-relevant EfS website for the target community. In addition, this phase involves the setup of a design team, which ideally should be constituted of at least web design professionals (i.e. including graphic designers, photographers, and

multimedia developers), members of the local community acting as user-informed consultants as well as local experts, and one or more EfS educators. This design team needs to combine and integrate different types of information (i.e. theoretical and collected information), in order to define a guiding framework for the development of the core structure of the EfS website, and develop website affordances informed by such a framework.

It is expected that web designers and developers and EfS educators take the initiative in the type of structural organization of the EfS website, in terms of ICT affordances and EfS affordances respectively. Once a general structure and backbone pattern has been defined, in terms of the components and content of each section of the EfS website, the web team can move on to retrieve, develop and organise all the necessary information needed for each section of the website. This may include information about local sustainability issues, texts, photos, videos, animations, and all other affordances that can be implemented on an EfS website. This process should receive constant input from local community members of the design team, in terms of achieving local relevance. In addition, as part of the development of such affordances, the design team should evaluate the best way to integrate theoretical considerations, and contextual information, on the development of the EfS website’s affordances.

In regard to the development of Web 2.0 affordances, it is recommended to incorporate a subsidiary system of social media websites into the EfS website. In practical terms this means creating accounts and profiles in the most relevant social media types of Web 2.0 tools and services available in the target community (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube).

The objective of such a system of subsidiary Web 2.0 websites is to support and complement the EfS website in terms of Web 2.0 affordances, and to go where potential users are. Two considerations are: to constantly maintain and update the system of Web 2.0 websites; and related to this,

to avoid repetition of information between the system of Web 2.0 websites and the EfS website.

In addition, as Web 2.0 websites usually can be administered by one or more individuals, it is important to define Web 2.0 administrators of an EfS website whose objective is to keep Web 2.0 websites updated, and to interact with community members. Social media administrators require a good understanding of the objective and purpose of the present theoretical model and associated theoretical background. Similarly, it is crucial that Web 2.0 and social media administrators originally come from the target community, or at least have a sound understanding of the socio-ecological context, in order to promote and enhance the meaningfulness and relevance that can be achieved through such Web 2.0 affordances.

In another aspect, as the target community may include a broad audience, the consideration of a wide range of possible affordances is recommended. This principally includes a diverse range of information and sophistication of information regarding the different topics addressed in the EfS website. The objective of this is to reach as many learners as possible, by offering a range of different affordances to such a broad audience.

In terms of the testing of a pilot version of the EfS website, once the design team has developed a first version of the EfS website, it is important to trial it and assess against the desired outcomes. To achieve this, pilot testing among a group of local community members is necessary, including an evaluation of the input and feedback that members from the testing group can provide. Based on such an evaluation, corrections and improvements can be made to the EfS website in order to enhance its overall affordances through new versions of the EfS website. Finally, when the last version satisfies the design team, the EfS website can be published online for its use by community members.

An important aspect of this final stage of the design and development of an EfS website is that a marketing process of the website is recommended

in order to inform local community members about the existence of the EfS website. One good option for such marketing is to use local news media and publish press releases through local newspapers and radio.

Another option is to organise seminars and/or public events around the local community to present the EfS website to community members and relevant organisations, and to answer questions that the general public may have in regard to the website.

Finally, it is important in EfS practice to always include an evaluation phase of EfS interventions. The impact and outcomes of the use of an EfS website at the community level should regularly be evaluated in order to make corrections and improvements, as well as to adapt the website to new conditions that may appear within the learning context that may influence the operation of the EfS website as an educational facilitator.

Such an adaptive process can be related to the concept of self-nurturing educational systems, in the sense of making educational facilitators always relevant and meaningful to the local conditions of the educational setting.

The issues presented and discussed in this section are guiding principles for the development of community-based EfS websites. At this stage this model is based on theoretical considerations from the literature, and needs to be trialled and tested in a real life context. This is to assess and evaluate its real effectiveness for the design, development, and use of EfS websites for community education for sustainability. Chapter 5 of this thesis provides insights into the application of this theoretical model in a real life context, in relation to the intervention setting of this study.

3.4 Summary

This chapter presented a theoretical model for the design and development of EfS websites for community education. This model is based on theoretical considerations and principles reviewed in the literature review. In terms of the present study, this model was used as part of the intervention of this study, and evaluated in the context of a

real-life socio-ecological sustainability issue affecting the target community of this study. More detail of the trial and evaluation of this theoretical model follow in Chapter 5. Findings and outcomes of the use of an EfS website in the target community are then presented in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. Finally, the conclusions, limitations and implications of this theoretical model are further discussed in Chapter 9.

The next chapter presents the methodology that underpinned the research design of this study and how data was gathered and analysed to respond to the research questions.

CHAPTER 4 - METHODOLOGY 4.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the methodology adopted in this study to investigate the use of ICT for EfS at the community level. In the first part of the chapter, the research questions guiding this study are presented, and the methodology and methods adopted to address such research questions are introduced. Then follows the research design and data collection phases describing the context in which such methodology and methods were applied. Finally, the last part of the chapter focuses on the analytical procedures selected to evaluate the data collected during the intervention of this study. This includes accounts in relation to the trustworthiness of data collected, and the ethical considerations adopted as part of this research.

4.2 Research questions

As indicated in the introductory chapter of this thesis, the aim of the present research was to understand the effective use of ICT to enhance education for sustainability (EfS) at the community level. In particular, the objective was to evaluate the use of EfS websites for the promotion of understanding of sustainability issues and action for socio-ecological sustainability among local community members of the target community in Chile. The research questions are what guided the selection of a study methodology, a set of methods for data collection, and the research design. This study is driven by the following main research question, and set of four related sub-questions supporting the main research question:

Research question:

Can the use of websites assist non-formal education for community understanding of sustainability issues in Chile?

Research sub-questions:

• What ideas could be used to design an EfS website to promote understanding and action for sustainability at the community level?

• How do community members use an EfS website and what for?

• Does the use of an EfS website improve understanding of sustainability issues amongst community members?

• Does the use of an EfS website promote action, and adoption of sustainable living principles among community members?

The principal goal of this study was to address these research questions.

In order to address the main research question, the set of four sub-questions needed to be evaluated first, as they inform the main question.

The first sub-question, related to theoretical considerations and ideas, was addressed through the identification of key considerations present in the literature that informed the theoretical model presented in Chapter 3.

Based on this model, during the intervention of this study an EfS website was designed (see Chapter 5) to serve as the research instrument to address the remaining three sub-questions.

The second sub-question aimed to understand the type of use of an EfS website by community members (i.e. the ‘how’ of the use of an EfS website by community members), and the purpose of use of the website (i.e. the ‘what for’ of the type of use). The last two sub-questions evaluated if the use of such an EfS website can promote understanding, and action, around local sustainability issues affecting the target community. By addressing these research questions, an understanding of the effective use of Internet websites to assist community EfS in Chile was aimed to be achieved, including the characteristics and different aspects associated with such an educational process. In the next section, the methodology adopted in this study is presented.

4.3 Methodology

This section presents a review of different inquiry paradigms and research traditions within the field of educational research. Arguably, four different

main paradigms can be found today in educational research literature:

positivism, naturalism, critical theory, and complexity theory (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). This section presents the key characteristics of each one of these research traditions, with arguments providing the reasons to embrace or dismiss them within the focus of the present research. In the last part of the section the case is made for the adoption of a naturalistic and interpretive paradigm for the investigation of the use of ICT for community EfS. Note that other scholars in the field recognize and group the existing paradigms in different ways, however, the above distinction made by Cohen, Manion & Morrison (2007) is the one guiding this section. Nevertheless, some other views regarding inquiry paradigms for educational research are also indicated.

The first point to address is to define a methodology and a paradigm within educational research are. Somekh and Lewin (2005) define methodology as a collection of principles, theories and rules (or methods) that frame the approach to a particular research study, whereas Mackenzie and Knipe (2006) stress that the most common definitions of methodology focus on the overall approach to research linked to a paradigm or theoretical framework. In turn, a paradigm is often defined within the literature as a collection of basic beliefs or worldviews that guide the researcher by providing the perspective to choose the methods of inquiry, “but in ontologically and epistemologically fundamental ways” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 105; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Patton, 2002). Furthermore, Guba and Lincoln (1994) argue that such a set of basic beliefs can be determined and summarised based on the three fundamental questions related to the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of paradigms (p.

108). These questions are:

1. Ontology: What is the form of nature of reality, and what is there that can be known about it?

2. Epistemology: What is the nature of the relationship between knower and what can be known?

3. Methodology: How can the inquirer go about finding out, whatever he/she believes can be known?

In summary, a research paradigm and methodology work together with the research questions to form a research study, both by influencing the way knowledge is studied and interpreted, and by defining the subsequent choices of methods, literature, and research design underpinning the study (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011; Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006;

Mertens, 2005).

In general terms, historically two main paradigms in educational research were recognized, each one with its own set of assumptions and strategies:

the “classical” or positivistic tradition, and its contrasting counterpart initially called the “social anthropology” paradigm (Parlett & Hamilton, 1972, pp. 2-3), also known as the naturalistic paradigm (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). More recently, a growing number of theoretical paradigms can be found within the educational research literature, such as: positivist (and postpositivist), constructivist, interpretivist, transformative, emancipatory, critical, feminist, pragmatism and deconstructivist paradigms (Mackenzie &

Knipe, 2006; Morrison, 2002). Concerning the proliferation of paradigms, Guba and Lincoln in 1994 argued that, excepting the positivistic paradigm, the other paradigms within educational research were still in a formative phase; and that some of the paradigms listed above could be grouped under what is known today as critical theory (e.g. Marxism, feminism and participatory inquiry) (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). More recently, and as mentioned earlier, Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) have classified four paradigms in educational research, these being:

• Positivism

• Naturalism

• Critical theory

• Complexity theory

In the following sections, a brief presentation of each one of the four paradigms identified by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) follow, with the last section further developing the naturalistic paradigm as the philosophical framework chosen to address the research questions of the present study.

4.3.1 Positivism

The positivistic paradigm, although recurrent in the western tradition from the Ancient Greeks to the present days, is recognized to have its origins in the nineteenth century French Philosopher Auguste Comte; and was further developed by the Vienna Circle in Austria and the Berlin School in Germany during the early 20th century (Cohen et al., 2007; Mackenzie &

Knipe, 2006; Patton, 2002). The positivistic worldview asserts that only direct and verifiable experience constitutes genuine knowledge (Patton, 2002). The ontological position of positivism is that an “apprehendable reality is assumed to exist”, where the researcher and the researched object are assumed to be independent (i.e. dualist and objectivist), and knowledge can be conventionally summarized as being “time-, and context-free” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 109). Positivism is linked to scientific knowledge and scientific method, where the ultimate ‘truth’ of reality is seen to be reached through empirical and manipulative experimental methodology evaluating propositional hypotheses (Guba &

Lincoln, 1994; Mertens, 2005). The view within the positivistic paradigm is that only a rigorous and systematic methodology, based on quantitative and value-free data, can provide reliable and valid knowledge (Denzin, Lincoln & Giardina, 2006).

From a social science point of view, there are many aspects of the positivistic paradigm that lead me to dismiss it for the purpose of the present research study. For example, manipulative experiments of positivism disregard the variables not accounted for empirical research, assuming that such ‘stripped’ variables do not affect the ultimate validity of knowledge attained (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Positivism ignores the contexts of social experience, and excludes the meaning and purposes of human behavior (Denzin et al., 2006; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Similarly, predictability and generalization of positivistic epistemology disregards the particularities of individual cases; as well as assuming it is possible to separate the observer from the observed (Guba & Lincoln, 1994).

In summary, the ontological and epistemological assumptions of positivism, although successful within the natural and biomedical sciences, have been the main points of criticism from anti-positivists. The mechanistic and reductionist view of nature that defines life in an objective and measurable way, excluding notions of “choice, freedom, individuality, and moral responsibility”, are what dismisses positivism in general as a research paradigm from the view of social sciences (Cohen et al., 2007, p.

17); and in particular for the purposes of the present study.

4.3.2 Naturalism

As a contrasting alternative to the objective and dualist nature of positivism, the naturalistic paradigm emerged as an anti-positivistic movement (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Parlett & Hamilton, 1972). The ontological position of naturalism is that “there are multiple constructed realities”, making control and prediction unlikely as inquiries into these different realities may inevitably diverge (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 37). In this sense, anti-positivists would argue that understanding individuals’

behavior is only possible when the researcher shares their frame of reference, making the inquiry subjective, i.e. the knower and the known are inseparable (epistemological view of naturalism) (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Patton, 2002). The term ‘naturalism’ itself represents a contrasting view to positivism, as the principal source of data is the unaltered natural setting of phenomena, compared to positivism where the source of data comes from manipulated and context-free settings (Cohen et al., 2011).

The underlying principle of naturalism is that realities as a whole cannot be understood in isolation of their milieu, making data context-bound (Lincoln

& Guba, 1985). As highlighted by Patton (2002), the context of inquiry is

“critical to understanding” (p. 63).

One of the characteristics of the naturalistic paradigm is its interpretivist aspect. The researcher understands the human and social world based on the accounts and views of participants (subjects of study), making sense of such accounts by interpreting them (Cohen et al., 2007). The interpretive researcher relies on the views of participants, recognizing the

impact of their own background and experiences in this process (Creswell, 2003; Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006). It is precisely such interpretation of participants’ perspectives as the source of knowledge, which is the principal point of critique of this paradigm from positivism. The view of positivists regarding the naturalistic paradigm is that such an approach is inaccurate, incomplete and misleading; does not allow generalization of human behavior; and does not account for false reports and/or others’

influence on participants’ reports (Argyle, 1978; Bernstein, 1974; Cohen et al., 2007). Other criticisms of the naturalistic paradigm, as well as of the positivistic paradigm, come from a range of post-structuralism and postmodernism alternative paradigms grouped under the term critical theory (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). The review of these now follow.