Computer based learning and changing legal pedagogic orders of discourse in UK higher education : a comparative critical discourse analysis of the TLTP materials for law

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Abstract

This thesis critically examines the discourse of government funded computer based
learning (CBL) materials which have been introduced on undergraduate courses at
UK universities with particular reference to CBL materials from the Teaching and
Learning Technology Programme (TLTP). My study is based on a sample of
pedagogic legal discourse from two undergraduate courses for law, one at
Warwick University and one at the London School of Economics, and it presents a
comparative analysis of the discourse of the TLTP materials for law and the
established pedagogic legal genres which are used on these courses. The critical
perspective on the analysis of the discourse seeks explanations of discursive
change, represented by the introduction of the CBL materials, in the context of
institutional and broader social change.
The introduction of CBL materials in the 1990s has come at a time of extensive
institutional change in UK higher education with large increases in student
numbers at a time of static funding. This study explores the justifications for the
introduction of such materials, academic, pedagogic and administrative and
evaluates these in the light of the analysis of the discourse. The study shows that
the academic justifications and the claims of the producers' of the CBL materials
for a constructivist pedagogy are exaggerated, and that it is the economic and
administrative imperatives of the funding bodies which predominate. The thesis
goes on to argue that the CBL materials in this study both reflect and realise the
marketisation of higher education and a commodification of pedagogic discourse
itself.

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