Productivist education vs. contextual learning: Evaluation and the place of 'flexibility' in discourses of online education systems

Owen with Rogers (1999) views evaluation as a type of enquiry that is research based and that uses systematic methods and procedures derived from the scientific method to obtain knowledge that can be useful in ‘improving’ the program evaluated. The purpose of formal evaluation is most often specific, and it may be undertaken for ascertaining accountability, for organisational development or for the generation of knowledge (Kavanagh & Henry, 2002). In essence, however, evaluation is specifically about making value judgements which are based on data collected through observations and descriptions (Huitt, 1999), and this means that evaluation is at least in part a political process. Therefore, as a political process, evaluation may not recognise the value-pluralism (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p. 34) which is often characteristic of the complex milieu which the evaluated program (the evaluand) affects – such as, for example, the social contexts of learners and their dynamics. As a political exercise, the evaluation process can become simply a “ritual of verification” (Power, 1997), which focuses on audit-type research that is used essentially for certification purposes and to comfort those stakeholders who control the program and have commissioned the evaluation. Evaluation can thus becomes subject to what Bishop (1994, p. 182) has called “…the ideological power of agenda setting”. Within the settings offered by contemporary education systems, this “ideological power” is also discernible in the difference between the use of online educational environments to continue to control and direct the learners’ contexts (i.e., to ‘educate’), and the use of these environments to complement better and to accommodate learners’ needs, learning styles and contexts. This paper provides a largely conceptual discussion which focuses on how productivist education systems can be perpetuated through online educational technologies. Because the whole of this topical theme cannot be covered in detail here, we specifically focus on the notion of ‘flexibility’, which is a highly contested concept, but which is routinely used inappropriately within education systems that employ online learning environments. This is especially relevant to evaluations of online learning contexts and their effectiveness because an understanding of the discourses which underpin contemporary education is likely to promote a more holistic perspective when engaging with the evaluation process. Not grasping the meaning of flexibility within the perpetuation of productivist education will lead the evaluator to a less than holistic understanding of the worth of an online course for stakeholders, and especially for learners.