Computers in Human Behavior 107 (2020) 106304
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Computers in Human Behavior
journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh
Beyond the ICT- and sustainability hypes: A case for quality education
1. Introduction
Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) bear
a great potential for education with regards to teaching and learning as
well as education administration and management. Education, with its
diverse approaches to emulating knowledge, skills and worldviews, has
always been in the centre of our society’s interest. Today, the role of
education in our societies has to be rethought. This is particularly true
given the increasing velocity of human interaction, unsupervised in­
formation flow, competing and – frequently – unfounded claims to
knowledge and authority. Locke’s empiricism (Nidditch, 1975, p. 2013;
Waldron, 2003) might be the best point to start the conversation. For the
purpose of the discussion here it shall suffice that the contemporary echo
of Locke’s arguments, as captured by the concept of quality education, is
employed.
Quality education, as employed here, is a concept based on the
recognition that a holistic approach to teaching and learning is
employed. In this context, quality education consists of assisting an in­
dividual in the process of growing and excelling both as a person and a
member of a given society; a citizen. Quality education and its multiple
implications for our societies was the implicit theme of this special issue.
To this end, the objective of this special issue was to place ICT-enhanced
approaches to teaching and learning in the spotlight and to see if they
can add to the imperative of quality education. Against this backdrop,
the intention of the Guest Editors was to ignite a debate on diverse as­
pects of the broader question of how learning innovation can contribute
to our societies’ sustainable growth and development. Both ICT and
sustainability, with the latter promoted through the Sustainable Devel­
opment Goals (SDGs), represent the fanciest items in the popular and
academic debates today. A case can be made that a form of ICT- and
sustainability-hypes have emerged.
The essence of the ICT-hype is that the plethora of ICT-enabled-
opportunities is so overwhelming that the final users are either unable
to use those or are unable to think logically through and beyond ICT-
enhanced ways of teaching and learning. The latter issue was beauti­
fully referred to elsewhere as the HAL syndrome (Benghozi & Chevalier,
2019). Benghozi and Chevalier use the metaphor of HAL 9000, the su­
percomputer, from Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, to
explain how in modern societies omnipotence is granted to technology,
at the expense of the individual and the society itself. The thrust of the
sustainability-hype, on the other hand, is that people unthinkingly,
similarly as it was the case with ‘globalization’ in the late 90s, apply
‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’ virtually to anything. The problem is
that devoid of conceptual and normative content, sustainability might
eventually share the fate of so many other buzzwords popular in the
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106304
Available online 11 February 2020
0747-5632/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
past. This special issue sought to avoid that fallacy.
The encounter of ICT and sustainability in education requires a
serious critical reflection if we are to seize opportunities it offers (Visvizi
& Daniela, 2019). The thrust of the challenge consists of the question of
what type of education we want. A sub-question that follows is that of
which values and worldviews should underpin education systems
worldwide? We refute the possibility that a value-neutral educational
system is feasible. The world is ever more interconnected. Harmoniza­
tion of educational systems worldwide, i.e. not just in the developed
countries, will be a necessity at some point. This leads to a very inter­
esting question of whether it will be possible to reach a consensus with
regards to values and principles that underpin education. What role
technology-enhanced learning can play in this context? Can
ICT-enhanced tools and approaches improve the efficiency of teaching
and learning? Can they ease the tension inherent in the provision of
quality education; how? This special issue offers a glimpse into the topic.
2. Key questions addressed
The papers included in this special issue centred around four key
topics and related questions, including (i) Education and the question of
instilling students with worldviews, attitudes and skills; (ii) Data-driven
analytics and quality education; (iii) ICT and questions of (unintended)
exclusion; (iv) the nexus between learning innovation and the business
sector. Together, the collection of papers addresses a variety of inter­
linked issues and problems as well as offers a set of ideas and recom­
mendations on how the challenges could be addressed and best practices
shared.
Specifically, in the first theme addressed in this special issue, ‘Edu­
cation and the question of instilling students with worldviews, attitudes
and skills’ (Mora, Pujol-Lo �pez, Mendoza-Tello, Morales-Morales (2018))
make a compelling case for the centrality of quality, ICT-enhanced ed­
ucation in joint efforts to promote sustainable growth and development.
The authors map the complex implications that education, supported by
innovative approaches to teaching and learning, has on the society at
large. Cathro (2018) continues this thread of research by dwelling on the
question of the long-term advantages of virtual team experiential
learning, especially as regards the development of leadership skills.
Visvizi, Jussila, Lytras, and Ij€
as (2019) explore to what extent and
how Web 2.0-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, including
Web 2.0-tools employed in education, can promote the acquisition not
only of knowledge and understanding of the course material, but also of
critical thinking skills, on the one hand, and news literacy, on the other.
In the next paper Martínez-Cerda�, Torrent-Sellens, and
Gonz� alez-Gonz�alez (2018), examine the ways and tools of boosting the
A. Visvizi et al.
efficiency of adults’ education, especially as regards the acquisition of
skills necessary for their professional re-qualification and prospects of
future employment.
Sunar, Abbasi, Davis, White, and Aljohani (2018) focus on the value
added of MOOCs. The authors delve into the possibility of modelling
certain social behaviours of MOOC learners. As the authors argue, this
might be employed to improve the design, delivery, and the efficiency of
MOOCs. Lv, Liu, Zhou, and Zheng (2019) focus on micro-courses and
their role in education. Here the authors make a case for efficiency of
micro-courses derived from their short duration, multiple teaching
methods, and ease of dissemination. In short, ICT-enabled micro-courses
represent a powerful alternative to traditional forms of teaching and
learning.
The second theme that consolidated in papers submitted to this
special issue revolves around is the question of how data and big data-
driven analytics can be employed to improve the quality of education
in diverse educational settings. In this context, several highly interesting
papers were published in this special issue. For instance, Sedrakyan,
Malmberg, Verbert, Jarvela, and Kirschner (2018) focus on the broader
question of using learning analytics to explore a learner’s behaviour and,
therefore, establish a more targeted process-oriented feedback method.
The authors subsequently focus on dashboards and explore their value
added. Similarly, the following paper, by Guti�errez, Seipp, Ochoa, Chi­
luiza, De Laet, and Verbert (2018) examines dashboards. This time, the
authors focus on their application in academic advising. To this end, the
authors make a case for a Learning Analytics Dashboard for Advisers
(LADA) that would support the decision-making process of academic
advisers through comparative and predictive analysis.
Kurilovas (2019) discusses the intricacies behind the process of
technology adoption in education, both by instructors and students.
Chui, Fung, Lytras, and Lam (2018), basing their study in the context of
virtual learning, investigate the question of whether a specific machine
learning algorithm can be useful in predicting students who are at risk of
failing a given course. Baby and Kannammal (2019) add to the discus­
sion by proposing ways of using Network Path Analysis to expand a
user-centric e-learning experience. From a different angle, Vasconcelos,
Sucupira Furtado, Pinheiro, and Furtado (2019), propose a framework
of criteria to examine and evaluate the configuration of an online course
in a bid to improve the user experience and the overall quality of
e-learning services design.
The third big question that the papers addressed was that of exclu­
sion and inclusion and the role ICT plays in those contexts. Here, Lucas
(2018) employs the case of a 1:1 tablet initiative, implemented in three
Portuguese lower elementary schools to identify and examine barriers in
technology adoption in educational settings. The author identifies 15
barriers that hinder effective integration of technology in a school
context. A positive take on the same issue is embodied by the work of
Pontes, Furlan Duarte, and Pinheiro (2019). In brief, the authors propose
an educational game for hearing-impaired students. The authors
develop and test a digital game that not only facilitates students in
learning the sign language but also fosters the development of skills
necessary for social interaction. In the following paper, Chen (2019)
examines ways of enhancing elementary school teachers’ performance
through online-based, e-services, that would allow them to acquire new
skills and approaches to teaching. The author points nevertheless to ri­
gidity inherent in certain educational settings. That rigidity effectively
hinders the smooth transition to a sustainable global training paradigm
that would ensure that the quality in teaching is maintained.
The fourth theme that emerged from the contributions is related to
the diverse ways in which learning innovation and the business sector
interact. Several layers of this complex relationship have been explored.
Kumar (2018) investigates the correlation between time banking and
the prospect of growth and development at a community level. Wu, Liu,
and Yuan (2018) , examine the issue of public transportation and bar­
riers elderly people and people with disabilities are exposed to in this
context. Accordingly, the authors suggest a social business that connects
2
Computers in Human Behavior 107 (2020) 106304
ICT and transport service providers and government resources to meet
the needs of people with disabilities. Chang, Shu, Wang, Chen, and Ho
(2019) focus on cyber-entrepreneurship and examine whether there is a
relationship between cyber-entrepreneurial self-efficacy and
cyber-entrepreneurial intentions in Non-IT students. Cheng, Wu, and
Chen (2019) examine online brand communities to see to what extent
social networking sites (SNSs) can serve as learning mechanisms by
means of which to develop consumer loyalty to a brand. Abdar and Yen
(2018) examine the value added of shared economy platforms, by
focusing especially on end users’ insights. To this end, focus is directed
on so called Points of Interest (PoI) suggested by users and a correlation
between recommended spots and user preference is established. Last but
not least, Zhang, Liu, Shi, and Chen (2020) offer a spot-on insight into
the ways of managing resource allocation and innovation management
in business settings. This paper offers a nice conceptual touch to all
papers discussing the connection between ICT, business and education
in that it highlights the value of questioning so called false logics and
related apparent contradictions in business settings; an issue all educa­
tors should focus on too.
3. Conclusions and the way forward
The great number of contributions submitted to this special issue and
the specific papers actually published in it, confirm the relevance of
imperatives inherent in the concept of quality education. ICT-enhanced
tools and approaches to education do offer a new range of options and
opportunities to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning, of
boosting individual learner’s performance and this way, in many cases,
avert the challenge of social exclusion and skills deficit-related poverty.
ICT has also been proven to serve as an indispensable tool to monitor,
examine and improve the existing courses, assessment methods,
administrative support systems, etc. applied in higher education in­
stitutions (cf. Visvizi, Lytras, and Sarirete (2019)).
The value added of this special issue is that a considerable effort was
placed on making research findings applicable. If experience, to agree
with Locke, is the key to education, the papers included in this special
issue make a clear case for it. The contributing authors suggest how
digital games, online applications, the use of tablets, MOOCs, micro-
courses can boost learners’ exposure to specific course material
thereby assisting them in the acquisition of knowledge, skills and, atti­
tudes. The authors contributing to this special issue were equally
interested in the less-favoured groups of learners prone to social exclu­
sion on the grounds of disabilities or social background. Here special
focus was directed at hearing-impaired students as well as people with
motoric disabilities. Finally, the papers included in this special issue
highlighted that ICT-based methods of analysis, employing big data and
sentiment analysis, offer invaluable information as regards individual
user’s behaviours in online teaching and learning environments.
That being said, much more work needs to be done to explore and
provide feasible ways of providing quality education to as broad audi­
ence as possible, including diverse geographical locations and learners
with specific disabilities. In other words, digital divide and its diverse
manifestations (cf. Andersen, Nielsen, & Kim, 2019; Khanra & Joseph,
2019) should be taken seriously as the pace of technological advances
accelerates. The papers included in this special issue suggest, that
several obstacles exist in the bid to tackle the problem, including not
only infrastructure and/or financial resources, but also willingness and
imagination to embrace some of the most obvious ICT-enhanced tools
and approaches.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all contributors of the special issue for their
collaboration and contributions. The quality of their research and their
commitment to the field of research and the application of their research
findings are reflected in every paper included in this special issue. We
A. Visvizi et al.
would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Human
Behavior, Professor Matthieu Guitton and the Commissioning Editor,
Professor Paul A. Kirschner for the opportunity to run this special issue
and their guidance throughout the process. We would also like to say
‘thank you’ to the Editorial Team that does the impossible when
handling the day-to-day management of the journal. Without their
support, this special issue would not have been possible. We would also
like to say ‘thank you’ to reviewers who spent countless hours to assess
and provide feedback to all papers submitted to this special issue. We
remain hopeful that this special issue will be well received and that it
will inspire further research and well-founded debate on ICT and the
role of education in our societies.
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Anna Visvizi, Ph.D.*
School of Business & Economics, Deree College – The American College of
Greece & Effat College of Business, Effat University, Saudi Arabia
Linda Daniela, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Sciences and Innovative Pedagogy, University of
Latvia Riga, Latvia
Chien-Wen Chen, Ph.D.
Department of Business Administration National Central University, Taiwan
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: avisvizi@gmail.com (A. Visvizi).