The transition ‘from student to researcher’ in the digital age: Exploring the affordances of emerging ecologies of the PhD e-researchers

Author

Esposito, Antonella

Director

Sangrà Morer, Albert

Maina, Marcelo Fabián

Date of defense

2014-12-22

Legal Deposit

B5157-2015

Pages

439 p.



Department/Institute

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. eLearn Center

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation is concerned with an exploratory study on how emerging learning ecologies enabled by Web 2.0 and social web are affecting the self-organized practices and dispositions in the digital settings of individual PhD students. The research endorses a constructivist grounded theory approach, where data collection has been undertaken across three Italian and one UK universities and has included a sequence of online questionnaires, individual interviews and focus groups. The findings being generated provide a repertoire of social media practices for research purposes; a framework conceptualizing the trajectories in the digital, in terms of Space, Time, Socialization, Digital identity, Stance and Tensions; the forms of resilience and the tensions underlying the PhD researchers’ digital engagement. The affordances of PhD e-researchers’ emerging ecologies are therefore understood as multi-dimensional and transitional trajectories intentionally undertaken by the individuals and generating a range of reactions toward the opportunities provided by the open Web.

Keywords

doctoral researchers; digital scholars; learning ecologies; chronotope; digital engagement

Subjects

378 - Higher education. Universities. Academic study

Knowledge Area

e-Learning

Documents

PhDdissertation_EspositoAE_Nov10.pdf

4.254Mb

 

Rights

L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi queda condicionat a l'acceptació de les condicions d'ús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/
L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi queda condicionat a l'acceptació de les condicions d'ús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/

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