Share Paper: Understanding the Term 'Access' in Education and Technology

  1. Daisy Magnus-Aryitey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
  2. Todd Cherner, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States
Wednesday, April 8 2:15-2:30 PM Room 6 - https://tinyurl.com/siteroom6

Abstract: There is a continued push to address issues of inequality that arise from different levels of access to educational technology. Yet, despite these efforts, there is no agreed-upon definition of the meaning of the term 'access'. For this study, we conducted interviews with both instructional technology administrators in school districts and software developers who build edtech applications. We implemented an open-coding technique to analyze the qualitative data, using the in vivo codes to extract categories and subsequent themes. We found that one's understanding of access varies depending on their industry and present occupation. We found that while there is no ...