Part way through my thesis research I have stood back to ask what is all this data saying? To this end I have produced a pause for thought document about the emerging findings. This is not the finished output, but in creating it I managed to consolidate my thoughts, and in sharing it I hope for any comments that may help refine further analysis or additional data collection.
Please feel free to leave any questions or comments in response.
And thank you to those who have assisted me in setting up the next round of interviews after a recent plea for help.
Preliminary Research Findings available here.
Lydia Arnold 
I had a lookat the above chapter – good reading with a lot of useful thoughts within a good theoretical reamework.
A few points I’ve come across myself when talking to lecturers.about the use of technology is the followins:
1. Concerns: Organisational expectations; new staff pusing the boundary of technology use
2. Social processes: Social cohesion force within teaching team (team pressure)
3. Psychological/emotional: managing risks (of failure, time input); also one staff mentioned the lack of visual/touchable reward when marking online versus a shrinking pile of exam scripts
4,.Quality guidelines: loss of ‘ownership’ as new guidelines restrict potential use
5. Forcefield: User expectation, often arising from own children’s experiecne of sec. school or HE
The findings all ring true of our attempts to introduce electronic marking and align with many of our anecdotal experiences.
The rumours emerging from the social processes you mention have been a considerable hindrance to improving the uptake on electronic feedback and is definitely an area where the research could make an impact if it can provide potential solutions.
It would be interesting to see if there are clearly delineated practitioner types for those who prefer not to engage with electronic marking as well as those who do. The “anti-practitioners” perhaps?