Adoption and diffusion of the remote classroom on three campuses of a large university: case study exploring factors that impact further adoption and diffusion from a staff viewpoint

Abstract

Three types of learning spaces were developed and installed at a large, multicampus university during an innovative, two-year pilot project. One of these learning spaces was a remote classroom or a synchronous hybrid learning space that allows for two remote groups of students to be connected for teaching activities. During the pilot, eleven faculty members gave lectures in these classrooms and to remote groups of students at other campuses. The project steering committee assumed that the adoption and diffusion of the remote classroom would progress slowly after the pilot project based on anecdotes from the eleven lecturers. The research study for this master’s thesis aims to gain insight into the factors impacting the rate of adoption and diffusion of the remote classroom. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with ten faculty members. The Diffusion of Innovations Theory by Rogers (2003) was used as a foundation for purposive sampling of interviewees and for data analysis. The ten interviewees were categorized into two groups: innovators, characterized by a fast adoption rate; or the laggards, characterized by a slow adoption rate or non-adoption. The findings show that perceived attributes toward the remote classroom, such as the low relative advantage, the high complexity and the low compatibility of the remote classroom compared to face-to-face teaching, as well as the lack of communication channels used during the pilot and the complexity of the social system were key elements in slowing down the diffusion rate. These factors are named by both innovators and laggards that were interviewed. Strategies, deducted from interview data, that could enhance the diffusion are: persisting in co-creation with faculty members, investing in the technological development of the remote classrooms, installing remote classrooms on other campuses, providing a safe experimenting space for faculty and exploring effective teaching methods in the synchronous hybrid learning space. Although the methodology used for this case study does not allow for generalizing the results to other contexts in HEIs, findings suggest that the added value of the remote classroom is highly questionable in the current status. In addition, these results shed light on how staff members perceive the remote classroom and which approaches could facilitate a faster diffusion rate.