2 Methodology
A few advanced academic computing organizations have invested in the types of technology
which will be more widely available later this decade. Their investments provided a
unique opportunity to study a "sample of tomorrow" today. The naturalistic inquiry
paradigm was the theoretical framework that guided the development of this study.
In this paradigm, the design emerges as the research progresses.
The investigator started with a very tentative design and developed the design further
as the inquiry progressed, thus adapting the design to explore variables not anticipated
prior to the start of observation. This emphasis was particularly valuable in this study,
because there were gaps between widely published accounts and the actual activities and
realities on site. Therefore, it was best to maintain flexibility at all times rather
than entering with a study dependent upon preconceived ideas based on published accounts.
Beyond this commitment to a naturalistic inquiry paradigm, no existing framework appeared
sufficient to accommodate the multitude of themes and problems associated with emerging
advanced computing environments. Instead, there were many frameworks competing to provide
the needed guidance in the development of courseware in advanced computing environments.
Rather than rigidly adopting a priori single framework to guide this research, the goal
became to use the data to establish the degree to which existing and emerging frameworks
served to communicate the nature of the observed phenomena.