Evaluating ICT for Education in Africa - Royal Holloway, University of ...

The limited emphasis on quantifying assessment demonstrated through theextract from Tilahun was again witnessed in the way teachers in both Malawiand Ethiopia struggled to respond to the question „what is your leastfavourite?‟ Prior to the research I had anticipated drawing heavily on theMost Significant Change technique (Dart and Davies 2003) when designingmethods for interacting with stakeholders as it appeared to be an effectivemeans through which to ascertain the priority impact in the minds ofbeneficiaries. However, repeated experiences with teachers demonstratedthat it was not suitable in these contexts. I noted this in my research diary(16/04/08) following attempts to adopt this technique in interviewing theHeadmaster of Menelik:„It was striking how the MSC questions were irrelevant to theHead. Although to me it seems like a neat tool for expressingsomething, to him it did not make sense. These are often thequestions that I have to rephrase because first time aroundthey are not understood.‟Assessing an ICT for education intervention requires multiple assumptionsregarding the point of causality regarding areas of change (Smutylo 2001).Although such assumptions are unavoidable an awareness of their presencecan facilitate more critical reflection regarding the potential factorsinstigating change. This can be illustrated from the perspective of a ruralMalawian school such as Golgota, where digital technology has never beenpreviously utilised. A technological device may be deposited without anyeducational content installed, the teachers instructed to use it every week andthe pupils told the purpose is to enhance their education. Significanteducational improvement may occur after a few months of usage but theimpact may have been identical if the device had been installed with a suite ofcarefully designed educational content. The improvement in attainment maybe caused as much by the increased enthusiasm of the children and newdetermination of the teachers because the donation is perceived as being avaluable technology. The expectation of the research team would be that it207