To Örebro University

The rich stream of research focusing on employee non-/compliance with information security policies (ISPs) suffers from inconsistent results. Attempts to explain such inconsistencies have included investigation of possible contextual moderating factors. Another promising, yet not systematically investigated, explanation concerns conceptual inconsistencies in variable definitions and in questionnaire measurement items. Based on a systematic literature review covering 36 ISP non-/compliance articles using Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and/or Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we found four major types of conceptual inconsistencies and unclarities within and across studies; (i) inconsistencies in variable definitions; (ii) inconsistencies between variable measurement items; (iii) inconsistencies between variable definitions and measurement items; and (iv) unclearly/vaguely worded measurement items. The review contributes to the field by demonstrating that the inconsistent results in the field may not only be due to unknown contextual moderators, but also to conceptual incongruences within and across studies.

Purpose: Research on employee non-/compliance to information security policies suffers from inconsistent results and there is an ongoing discussion about the dominating survey research methodology and its potential effect on these results. This study aims to add to this discussion by investigating discrepancies between what the authors claim to measure (theoretical properties of variables) and what they actually measure (respondents' interpretations of the operationalized variables). This study asks: How well do respondents' interpretations of variables correspond to their theoretical definitions? What are the characteristics of any discrepancies between variable definitions and respondent interpretations?

Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on in-depth interviews with 17 respondents from the Swedish public sector to understand how they interpret questionnaire measurement items operationalizing the variables Perceived Severity from Protection Motivation Theory and Attitude from Theory of Planned Behavior.

Findings: The authors found that respondents' interpretations in many cases differ substantially from the theoretical definitions. Overall, the authors found four principal ways in which respondents interpreted measurement items - referred to as property contextualization, extension, alteration and oscillation - each implying more or less (dis)alignment with the intended theoretical properties of the two variables examined.

Originality/value: The qualitative method used proved vital to better understand respondents' interpretations which, in turn, is key for improving self-reporting measurement instruments. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is a first step toward understanding how precise and uniform definitions of variables' theoretical properties can be operationalized into effective measurement items.

The 2017 Swedish national strategy for school digitalization (NDS) assigns the responsibility for digitalization to school management. It requires them to provide the necessary preconditions, means, and resources, for an education built on 'scientific ground and proven experience' and conducive to increased student learning and equivalence. To that end, national resources have been developed to support schools in connecting with research, responsibilities have been distributed strategically across the levels of the management hierarchy, and the School Inspectorate (SI) has developed new evaluation to monitor how principals and school organizers organize and lead a sustainable development work to pursue digitalization in education. The Swedish school is operated by a large number of organizers, public and private, and schools work in disparate environments and under very disparate conditions. Hence, implementation of the new policy across the country requires cooperation among multiple actors. The NDS was operational for years 2017-2022, and a successor for 2023-2027 is proposed but not yet decided. Based mainly on SI reports, this chapter discusses the impact of the new policy on school practice so far and raises some issues regarding the sustainability of the quite comprehensive change the policy envisions.

Integrating digital technology in education is challenging. This study reports on three high school mathematics classes where teachers attempted to improve their teaching and student learning by using a digital tool. For analysis we use the Information System Artifact model Lee et al. (2015) which distinguishes between three integrated sub-artifacts, the technological, the informational and the social and the Structurational Practice Lens to educational technology Halperin (2017). Using interviews and observations we find the major obstacle for student learning is a less developed social artifact. Students have difficulties using the tool effectively when teachers do not work to develop shared practices in technology use. When teachers do not themselves use the tool actively, they do not fully understand how students can learn from it, neither can they help them in synthesizing teacher- and tool instructions. Students end up having "two masters" competing rather than integrated teacher instruction and technology assistance.

Digitalizing school is a process that comes with challenges. It requires strategic leadership and transformational change to work processes. Nevertheless, some succeed, and it is useful to understand what makes for success. This paper studies the challenges of leading digitalization of education in a city which decided to implement an IT-supported method for teaching literacy in primary schools. The method required transformational change; teachers not only had to learn to use technologies, they also had to review their pedagogy. This study is guided by the Diffusion of Innovation theory and draws on interviews with school principals. We find that the critical factors relate to the communication channel, the social system within and across schools, and the time perspective.

This book is about practicable learning analytics, that is able to become a successful part of practice, ultimately leading to improved learning and teaching. The aim of the book is to shift our perspective on learning analytics creation and implementation from that of “designing of” technology to that of “designing for” a system of practice. That is, any successful implementation of learning analytics requires a systematic approach, which the book explains through the lens of the Information Systems Artefact, constituting of the three interdependent artefacts: “technical”, “information” and “social”.The contributions of this book go beyond a consideration of particular humans such as teachers and students, and their individual activities to consider the larger systems of activity of which analytics become part of. The chapters included in this book present different cases of learning analytics implementation across countries, and the related opportunities and challenges related to generalizability of the results.

The credibility of research on information system security is challenged by inconsistent results and there is an ongoing discussion about research methodology and its effect on results within the employee non-/compliance to information security policies literature. We add to this discussion by investigating discrepancies between what we cl/aim to measure (theoretical properties of variables) and what we actually measure (respondents’ interpretations of our operationalized variables). The study asks: (1) How well do respondents’ interpretations of variables correspond to their theoretical definitions? (2) What are the characteristics and causes of any discrepancies between variable definitions and respondent interpretations? We report a pilot study including interviews with seven respondents to understand their interpretations of the variable Perceived severity from the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT).

We found that respondents’ interpretations differ substantially from the theoretical definitions which introduces error in measurement. There were not only individual differences in interpretations but also, and more importantly, systematic ones; When questions are not well specified, or do not cover respondents’ practice, respondents make interpretations based on their practice. Our results indicate three types of ambiguities, namely (i) Vagueness in part/s of the measurement item causing inconsistencies in interpretation between respondents, (ii) Envision/Interpret ‘new’ properties not related to the theory, (iii) ‘Misses the mark’ measurements whereby respondents misinterpret the fundamentals of the item. The qualitative method used proved conducive to understanding respondents’ thinking, which is a key to improving research instruments.

Protection of student privacy is critical for scaling up the use of learning analytics (LA) in education. Poorly implemented frameworks for privacy protection may negatively impact LA outcomes and undermine trust in the discipline. To design and implement models and tools for privacy protection, we need to understand privacy itself. To develop better understanding and build ground for developing tools and models for privacy protection, this paper examines how privacy hitherto has been defined by LA scholars, and how those definitions relate to the established approaches to define privacy. We conducted a scoping review of 59 articles focused on privacy in LA. In most of these studies (74%), privacy was not defined at all; 6% defined privacy as a right, 11% as a state, 15% as control, and 16% used other approaches to explain privacy in LA. The results suggest a need to define privacy in LA to be able to enact a responsible approach to the use of student data for analysis and decision-making.

Technology is universal, but use contexts differ widely. Technology develops rapidly but social contexts are slow to change, hence digitalization efforts must go hand in hand with process innovation. This research aims at designing an improved process for evaluating e-government services in Rwanda, a least developed country pursuing ambitious digitalization. The research draws on the information systems artifact (ISA) model, which considers alignment between technology, information, and social context as the key to successful technology-based innovation, and all three aspects as artifacts, subject to design. We build a prototype technical artifact and suggest information and a social one. The ambition is to make the currently control-based summative evaluation process more cooperative and inclusive of both service providers and users. The new design uses feedback from users to allow service providers and monitoring organizations to conduct also formative evaluations in order to be able to better align service processes with user needs and behavior and thereby make them more attractive and more used. The prototype “Rwanda Online Service Evaluation”(ROSE) was tested through semi-structured interviews with senior managers in six Rwandan organizations, and through an online user survey (n= 60). The findings can guide decision-makers and practitioners involved with e-government design and evaluation. As a contribution to research, the research shows the usefulness of the ISA model for communicating the design of technology aiming at comprehensive process change