“We will fix the deficit”

Deficit theories in the literature of educational technology adoption

Abstract

Literature that hopes to explain or instruct in the use of educational technologies in universities tends to occur as deficit theories of technology use, implicit in several bodies of literature. This paper addresses the hidden and not so hidden discourses about how to improve use of educational technologies. Five ‘instrumental’ bodies of work are analysed; the lists and instructions that make up ‘cookbooks’ of information on how to use educational technology, information literacy literature that stems from librarianship, the novice/ expert theories which underpin some forms of classroom instruction, Prensky’s ‘digital natives/immigrants’ theory, and that group of theories arising from Roger’s ‘diffusion of innovations model’, including the ‘technological adoption model’ (TAM). I argue that each of them differs in conceptualising user agency, the form that knowledge takes, the nature of social change and the culpability of the user while maintaining an instrumental approach that is ultimately based on techno-utopianism.