Dissertation research: Toward A Successful Plan for Educational Technology in Low Income Communities: Formative Evaluation of One Laptop Per Child Projects in Nigeria and Ghana

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This doctoral dissertation research improvement grant is to support the study of US-based One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programs in two African communities: Abuja, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana. It is to be undertaken by a professional educator born and raised in Nigeria. The study will use a qualitative research design to examine the planning and implementation phases of the two OLPC projects so as to compare the OLPC goals to the perceived educational needs and expectations of the local populations. Study data will be examined using an analytical framework informed by progressive educational and postcolonial theories, as well as participatory models of communication. The researcher builds on an earlier pilot study, in which the research interviewed executives and examined documents from the OLPC project, headquartered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to establish the company's goals and procedures. Fieldwork in Abuja and Accra will involve conducting interviews with local educational leaders, parents, and students in both communities, and gathering data related to the two respective educational systems.Research shows that projects utilizing educational technologies in low-income communities typically fail to accomplish their objectives when they do not involve local leaders and users affected by them. Such top-down approaches have typically been seen in the activities of Western-based non-governmental or governmental organizations in developing nations since the UN's "development decades" of the 1960s and 1970s. This project comparatively examines two contemporary cases. The research is timely in that the MIT-based OLPC Foundation continues to expand its scope of work within poor communities within the US, as well as other nations. The research will result in a formative evaluation of the OLPC efforts in Accra and Abuja, and that will in turn lead to recommendations for ways to bring local participants more actively into the Accra and Abuja projects and in other efforts the OLPC might pursue. Research findings will be shared with program officials at the OLPC headquarters.