Platform stabilization: an autoethnographic exploration of the multiple relations and role of data behind the interface of online tutoring software

ABSTRACT

The paper considers digital tutoring platforms as commercial products in the shadow education sector. In particular, it focuses on relatively new platforms which purportedly act as tutors themselves: web-based learning software providing “intelligent tutoring systems.’ The question is not how effective and beneficial these platforms are for learning success. Following science and technology studies, the focus is on product design and its role as an actor in a network of relations. Autoethnographic interaction with a paradigmatic platform is used to show a variety of inscriptions and translations. The classifications, standardizations and quantitative calculations that emerge here are analyzed as practices for generating data, which in turn stabilize the platform as a specific ontological configuration. The data give the impression of being personal. On closer examination, however, they are the product of manifold relations between different actors in the network.

KEYWORDS:

• Online tutoring platforms
• shadow education
• ethnography
• big data
• science and technology studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See https://www.edsurge.com

2. The naming of exemplary (brand) names is omitted in the text.

3. Germany’s 16 federal states each create their own school curricula, which differ considerably in some cases.

4. Big data ‘is an emerging Weltanschauung grounded across multiple domains in the public and private sectors, one that is need of deeper critical engagement’ (Crawford et al., 2014, p. 1664). For the opportunities and challenges for post-positivist analyses in the humanities and social sciences, see also: ‘Big Data, New Epistemologies and Paradigm Shift’ (Kitchin, 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jochen Lange

Jochen Lange is an assistant professor (Juniorprofessur) at the Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Education Freiburg, Germany. He holds a PhD in Education Science (Dr. phil., University of Siegen). His work focuses on the ethnogaphical exploration of schools and education. The investigation of materiality and mediality is as well a focus as the research of the private education economy. He works with analytical references to sociology, such as the Science and Technology Studies (STS) or the Actor Network Theory (ANT). Against this background, his previous research showed how actors from the educational tool industry ‘inscribe’ their specific intentions, concepts, ideas and theories on teaching in their didactic products - which they then sell to schools.