ELTWeekly Vol. 5 Issue#3 | January 21, 2013 | ISSN 0975-3036
This report is submitted by Dr. Atanu Bhattacharya.
A collaborative project, funded by the British Academy, between School of Education, University of Leeds and H M Patel Institute of English Training and Research and other Higher Education institutions in the state of Gujarat.
The Mobigam project is aimed at studying the use of mobile technologies for language learning in the state of Gujarat, India. There is broad recognition that while mobile use is spreading rapidly across the state of Gujarat (as with other parts of India and indeed globally), there is little understanding of how these technologies are used, what patterns of use exist across which dimensions of variation, and what people’s specific language and literacy practices with mobile technology look like. Empirical research aimed at gaining an understanding of these issues will provide a basis upon which recommendations might be made to policy, in Gujarat and beyond. However, at present neither their use nor the factors that influence their use are well-understood. In particular:
- mobile technologies contribute to digital inclusion in India through their relative cheapness, but how users interact with them is barely researched in the Indian context;
- there is a tension between the autonomy afforded by mobile technologies and their employment in language learning, which is premature until we understand how mobile technologies are actually used;
- the shift to mobile technologies and user-generated online content repositions teachers and learners in the learning environment, with under-explored implications for how language learning might happen.
The aim of the Mobigam project is to address this gap in understanding. In the first phase of the project, we are:
- developing a training programme for research methods appropriate for the context of rural and semi-rural Gujarat;
- developing and piloting research instruments for studying the use of mobile technologies for language learning in the state;
- identifying research sites for carrying out such a study.
With a view to gain an insight into these questions, two workshops were held with research participants at H M Patel Institute of English Training and Research, Vallabh Vidyanagar (7-8 January 2013), and Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad (10-11 January 2013). While the workshops were aimed at disseminating research training methods, they also focussed on the nature of the research questions that we possibly need to ask in the particular context of Gujarat. The following research questions emerged as worthwhile to look at.
Research questions
General descriptive questions about mobile use. These encompass questions about the technologies, tools and devices people own or have access to. The ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of the research belong here – what do people actually use their mobile devices to do, where are they when they do so, and are there any particular patterns relating to when mobiles are used. More specifically, the questions about language use are located here, informed initially by our discussions about multilingualism online and about ‘Gujlish’ and translanguaging in SMS.
Questions about mobile use and specific contextual variables. Geography – the way the patterns of use might differ in the urban/rural/’tribal’ areas of the state – has been a key concern of workshop participants, and has prompted us to move away from our initial position of restricting the focus to the semi-rural areas. Providing an empirically-informed description of mobile use across the range (more to less densely populated; more to less developed infrastructure) could be a very productive part of our project, with the potential to usefully inform policy, particularly education policy. Other demographic details relate mobile use to age, gender, and length of schooled experience, all of which could be pertinent. Questions of barriers to use and access also pertain here: expense, connectivity (a major concern), institutional and familial constraints, and an overall policy landscape that might be more or less benign.
Developmental questions. Finally there have emerged a set of questions which imply a more developmental approach than we had envisaged: how mobiles might be used in formal sites of learning, for language and literacy development, for example, or how teachers might be made aware of the possibilities for their exploitation in learning contexts. We will continue to investigate ways of incorporating these concerns into the research design; it may be that there will be greater scope for such developmental work at a later stage.
Research design
We currently envisage a three-level research design.
General
At the top, most general level we will investigate correlations between mobile use and a range of variables: age; educational background; gender; geographical location (the urban/rural/tribal question). This is in an attempt to gain broad-brush data on general patterns and will involve large-scale survey work. It will take place first and will inform the research carried out at the other scales.
Intermediate
At an intermediate level we will identify a number of sites (perhaps 6-10) where we can locate groups of individuals for more focused study. The choice of these sites will be ratified by a preliminary survey we will carry out as part of this year’s Mobigam activities, separate from the main research initiative: it will explore in a general way patterns of difference and similarity across geographical locations inter alia (see below). The choice of participants might also be driven by this preliminary survey. For instance, if we find that mobile use varies greatly between two distinct categories (e.g. older/younger people or females/males), then those differences will be reflected in our choice of group. Alternatively at each site we will aim for a representative balance across some dimensions (e.g. age, gender), and make geographical location the main point of contrast. Numbers should be large enough to allow the comparison of sub-groups (e.g. all the Vernacular-medium educated people across the different sites; or all the school-age children). Once the sites have been identified and the people there recruited, we can use them to address some of the more focused questions that have emerged, by applying a range of appropriate strategies. Some such questions, together with indicative data sources, are:
What is the nature of peoples’ multilingual language practices using SMS?
[Data: survey/diary study/content of SMS/stimulated recall interview. Could compare urban with rural patterns, or older/younger people]
Gender: Is the use of mobile devices by men different from that by women?
[Data: survey/diary study. Again we could compare urban with rural patterns.]
How does use differ between the city and the countryside?
[Data: survey/diary study, possibly augmented with interview data.]
People as well as their devices are mobile. How does individual mobility relate to mobile use?
[Data: logs from GPS tracking/diary study/interview.]
Does use differ between those with different types of schooled background, e.g. those who attended English-medium vs. Vernacular-medium schools?
[Data: survey/diary study/group interview.]
Etc.
By locating the research at these sites, and by recruiting a certain number of participants at each one, we can carry out focused comparative studies, at a level of detail that the broad survey will not allow, but with larger numbers than the ethnographic case studies can afford. Work will carry on at each site that will contribute to addressing a number of different questions.
Ethnographic case study
Finally, within these sites we can recruit one individual per site for the in-depth ethnographic investigation of mobile use. This will involve the recruitment and training of an ethnographer located in each place, who will track one individual for a certain period of time (or repeatedly, over an extended period), building up a picture of each individual who will become the subject of an in-depth case study. These case studies will involve observation, recording of situated interaction, and collection of mobile data. The focal individuals might range from urban elite to rural and tribal poor, and will also include people who are not expert users of English, and have perhaps attended vernacular-medium schools.
Sites
As for research sites for the intermediate-level and the ethnographic work, we are considering four types of site: urban, ‘semi’ (rural/urban), rural, and ‘tribal’. The precise location is not decided. Ahmedabad would be a clear candidate for one of the ‘urban’ sites, as would Bhavnagar, a somewhat smaller city where we have good contacts. Gandhinagar, just outside Ahmedabad, and Bhavnagar could be the two ‘centres’ of the research. Vallabh Vidyanagar itself, home of HM Patel Institute, falls into the category of ‘semi-rural’, and rural areas abound in the state, within reach of the urban centres with which we are most familiar. HM Patel Institute would be a good place to base the large-scale survey, because of its excellent contacts among students, ex-students and teachers across the state. Ensuring we can recruit researchers who can locate themselves in the different areas will be key to the success of the project.
Literature and database
We will develop an extensive thematic literature review to provide a base for the research. The themes might encompass
- research methods appropriate for our study
- background on Gujarat (demographics; infrastructure; connectivity; coverage)
- Gujarat-specific educational initiatives involving new technology (e.g. EGRAM)
- education in Gujarat
- similar projects in India and in other countries
- mobile use
- digital literacies
Preliminary survey
To provide a rationale for some of our initial decisions – choice of ‘intermediate’ research site being primary – we plan to carry out a survey of mobile use which we will distribute as widely as possible across the state between April and June 2013. This will aim to ascertain patterns of difference (e.g. of aspects of mobile use between urban and rural areas), which in turn will enable us to justify our ‘categories’ of area where we choose to locate the research. Its design will draw on the diary pro forma which we asked participants to complete prior to the research workshops.
Conclusion
We plan to have a series of workshops in the month of June 2013 in four separate locations of Gujarat, keeping the research methods training in mind, but hope to extend our research base by also sharing our preliminary findings from the initial survey that we plan to administer.