Future coevolution of higher education and technology: case Catalonia

Abstract

It is widely recognized that today the higher education is going through several struc-tural as well as seasonal problems and weaknesses. The Catalan university system is not an exception since there are some relevant issues creating pressures between different actors and systems inside the sector such as an increase of the tuition prices, or a low attendance rate of students. Thus, the main goal of the thesis is to analyse and evaluate how the entrance of different technologies may improve the actual situation of the Cata-lan higher education and provide some worthwhile ideas for decision-makers. The theoretical basis that supports the whole study is the multi-level perspective of technological transitions. The first part of the thesis aims to collect all the information needed to apply the framework, and structure it for the later analysis. The second part constitutes the analysis itself which has been specifically designed for this case since the multi-level perspective does not specify how it has to be done. In the first part of the analysis, the theoretical potential and influence of the technologies over the higher edu-cation system are corroborated matching their features with the needs present in the sector. Then, due to the existence of an important degree of uncertainty, three possible future states of the Catalan higher education are created using scenarios building. The thesis mainly concludes that all the five technologies considered may have influ-ence in the higher education and change the actual teaching and learning paradigm. Hence, all three scenarios are positive in terms of needs fulfilled although they have some downsides like the investment costs required. Overall, it is suggested to decision-makers to give financial and political support to develop MOOCs, more effective virtual learning environments, and make use of multi-touch screens in order to move towards internationalisation, more interaction, and less overhead costs in the long-term.