Finnish Education Professionals’ Thoughts on Adaptive Learning Technologies

Abstract

With the rapidly increased use of digital technologies in education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to discuss these technologies’ impact on the teaching profession. Using thematic analysis and epistemic network analysis (ENA), we analyzed 114 social media posts by Finnish education professionals commenting on an opinion piece about technology partly taking responsibilities usually attributed to a teacher. Out of the analyzed posts, 32 were supportive, 30 ambivalent, and 52 critical towards the presented scenario. The epistemic network analysis graphs showed some differences between posts with a different attitude. Supportive posts, on average emphasized technological capabilities and their connections with teacher workload and self-directed/self-regulated learning. In comparison, the critical posts on average emphasized human presence and its connections with pupil diversity and technological capability. Our findings both reveal the relevant themes in the discussion about technologies’ impact on the teaching profession and underline the differences in supportive and critical argumentation.