Abstract

MAKUMANE, M. A.; NKOHLA, M. B.  and  KHOZA, S. B.. Decolonising educational technology in a pragmatic curriculum: a systematic review. S. Afr. J. High. Educ. [online]. 2024, vol.38, n.3, pp.131-149. ISSN 1753-5913.  http://dx.doi.org/10.20853/38-3-6357.

A debate rages amongst educational technologists on keeping educational technology as a field of study, and non-educational technologists on defining educational technology as any usage of a technology in education. Since the emerging of the COVID-19, this debate has caused tension in higher education in terms of technology usage. This is because each of the two sides believes that its position in the debate represents an objective reality of quality educating. This tension has motivated this study to decolonise educational technology in a pragmatic curriculum based on scholarly publications published during or post the COVID-19 revolution. A pragmatic paradigm and the natural identity framework (NIF) were used to encase this study. A systematic review with text analysis and document review were applied in processing data from 15 purposively and conveniently sampled publications for this reported study. The findings indicate that most of the technology usage promoted a performance-based (field of study) and/or competence-based (solely technology usage) curriculum at the expense of the pragmatic or natural curriculum that promotes personal or natural identity. This suggests that higher education was only addressing professional needs in terms of "what" questions, and/or societal "how" questions. A pragmatic curriculum is driven by the importance of actions (educational technology as a field of study), beliefs behind the actions (pragmatic), and their outcomes (usage of a technology). This study therefore recommends the use of a pragmatic curriculum and awareness of natural forces/laws that promote natural actions, thus addressing personal needs through personal "who" questions, and natural needs through "why" questions.

Keywords : curriculum; decolonization; educational technology; natural identity; objective reality.

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