Researchware, Inc.

For Robyn L. Seglem's 2009 dissertation for her Doctor of Philosophy from Kansas State University, she turned to HyperRESEARCH for the qualitative research essential to her work. Her dissertation, "'It's Like Having a Library, and You Don't Get To Go': Educators Negotiating Boundaries When Working With New Literacies" explores aspects of the resistance of educators to technology use in classrooms.

As the author notes in her abstract, "Historically, advances in technology have impacted education, particularly in the field of literacy. Often, educators initially resist these changes. Today, this is the case with the new literacies. Although students increasingly turn to technology to communicate, school practices still largely ignore this cultural phenomenon. This qualitative study explores the roots of this resistance by examining how teachers negotiate the use of digital literacies in the classroom, particularly in respect to the rhetorical boundaries imposed upon schools by their local culture."

As she states in her dissertation, HyperRESEARCH "better enabled me to identify the common themes that are central to grounded theory." But HyperRESEARCH didn't just help with the coding of her data. The author notes: "Upon completion of coding, HyperRESEARCH allowed me to examine the data by theme where I could begin to see the similarities and differences between districts in regard to each of the themes."

See the full abstract here. The PDF of the dissertation can be downloaded here.