Towards theoretical emancipation in Educational ICT studies

Abstract

This article explores how theoretical frameworks are evident in Master's dissertations and doctoral theses in Educational ICT research. These studies (n = 103) were purposively selected from seven South African universities. We argue that theoretical frameworks are epistemological devices that account for the knowledge that is produced in a study. We furthermore argue that they explicitly fimplicitly account for the type of design of an inquiry. The findings of the document analysis conducted reveal that studies that were theoretically developed, yielded data that could be interpreted in more depth, while a substantial number of researchers that employed their theoretical frameworks in a very limited way, presented findings that were no more than descriptive in nature. We argue that the reason for the theoretically impoverished studies is complex; part of it may be due to students' training in methodology, supervision that students received, conditions at the institution and so forth. We argue that theory could lead to epistemological emancipation and express concern about the theoretically impoverished studies in Educational ICT and the impact this might have on the development of scholarship in this area of educational research