PROBLEM STATEMENT
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has progressed over time into an influential part of almost all realms in our daily lives (Johnson & Smith, 2011:5). The evidence of this influence in the education sector can be seen by the continued transformation of ICT tools into educational tools in order to overcome the demands for maintaining quality, improving standards of education, and improving the learning and teaching experience (Johnson & Smith, 2011:5).
Higher education in South Africa is looking at ICT to play a supportive role in improving the access to quality education and developing quality 21st century graduates. DHET has a vested interest in ensuring that HEIs adopt an ICT integration (Ngandu, 2015:4).
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Ontology is the study of being and is concerned with the nature of existence and what constitutes reality (Gray, 2014:19). Effingham (2013:17) states that ontology is “the study of what things exist”. Furthermore, ontology assumes that reality exists independently from the knowing subject and reality is deterministic in nature (Fard, 2012:61). Blaikie (2000: 8) posits that ontology is all about the world that we live in; its social nature, its reality and what we believe about the constituents of this reality. Objectivism and constructivism are popular ontological position towards social reality (Assali, 2014:72). The ontological position which will be adopted in this study is objectivism.
Objectivism
Objectivism is an ontological position that asserts that social phenomenon and their meanings have existence that is independent of social factors (Bryman, 2012:32; Bryman, Bell, Hirschsohn, Dos Sontos, Du Toit, Masenge, Van Aardt & Wagner, 2014:17). Researchers with this position will attempt to establish causes, effects, and explanations of LMS of academic staff. For the purposes of this study, an objective ontological positioning recognises the fact that academic staffs’ beliefs, values, and knowledge are socially constructed, and that they exist independent of the