Improving the efficiency of technologically disadvantaged students' use of computer applications: An Activity Theory-based case study

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Higher Education institutions have to deal with the challenge of globalisation and internationalisation and the resultant demand for a computer literate workforce. Information and Communication Technology courses are thus required to teach students the knowledge and skills to ensure that they make efficient use of computer applications and are computer literate upon graduating. Research by Bhavnani shows that the efficient use of computers requires strategies that exploit the capabilities offered by computer applications. Bhavnani has developed and successfully implemented a framework for teaching general strategies to freshman students in a limited time without distorting command knowledge. Bhavnani found that such an instructional framework not only enables students to efficiently use computer applications but also has the potential for students to transfer their knowledge and skills across different applications. Bhavnani's work was replicated with technologically disadvantaged Engineering students in order to ascertain whether the instructional framework was effective for South African students with different backgrounds to the freshmen in the United States who were involved in Bhavnani's original study, and to ascertain whether it was sufficiently robust to be successfully implemented at a distance from the original designers. Transfer of strategic knowledge across computer applications was also investigated. The findings of this experimental study are reported elsewhere (Marsh, 2007). This paper reports on a parallel study that was designed and conducted to investigate the learning environment within which Bhavnani's instructional framework was implemented. During the delivery of the computer literacy course, several unexpected factors hampered the effectiveness of the implementation of the Bhavnani framework. The findings suggest that language issues, time pressures, the lack of access to computers, and the students' under-preparedness impacted on the implementation of Bhavnani's instructional approach. This paper reports on these factors, using Activity Theory, particularly the notion of contradiction, to frame and describe them.