The yin & yang of digital technologies: a case study exploring the impact of a digital wellbeing intervention on higher education staff
Stone, SuzanneORCID: 0000-0002-1936-2525
(2023)
The yin & yang of digital technologies: a case study exploring the impact of a digital wellbeing intervention on higher education staff.
Doctor of Education thesis, Dublin City University.
A growing focus on the concept of ‘digital wellbeing’, has emerged over the last decade in the literature across a range of sectors including: human-computer interaction; sociology; and education (Calvo & Peters, 2018; Gui, Fasoli & Carradore, 2017; Biggins & Holley, 2020). Across the literature, digital wellbeing is broadly understood as the positive/negative impact of digital technologies on wellbeing and in the author’s context as an academic developer in higher education, the term articulates a key challenge in respect of supporting staff to embed digital technologies in work practices. The author observed staff struggling with balancing the benefits of digital technologies against the challenges that digital technologies can present to workplace wellbeing. To address this concern, a case study was designed to explore the impact of a digital wellbeing intervention on staff in a higher education context. The findings demonstrate the positive impact of the intervention on participants’ capability to manage the challenges presented by digital technologies. The intervention also re-focused participants’ attention on the benefits of digital technologies in the higher education workplace. This study makes several contributions to the literature. The development of a theoretical model of digital wellbeing in the workplace can support future research on digital wellbeing in the workplace. The study offers evidence of the impact of an intervention on behaviour change and analyses the contextual factors impacting digital wellbeing. The study offers insights on remote
working during the specific context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which can inform future support for staff engaging in remote and hybrid working. By including staff in non-teaching roles, the study highlights the need to support all staff in higher education in respect of digital wellbeing. Finally, the digital wellbeing intervention materials are now available through creative commons for use and/or adaptation to support digital wellbeing.
Metadata
Item Type:
Thesis (Doctor of Education)
Date of Award:
November 2023
Refereed:
No
Supervisor(s):
Leahy, Margaret, Tiernan, Peter and Fitzsimons, Sabrina
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Digital Wellbeing; Higher Education; Technology; Wellbeing