DIGITAL PEDAGOGY AS HUMAN CULTIVATION: A BUDDHIST ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ONLINE ENGLISH INSTRUCTION

Abstract

Background and Objectives: As online English instruction becomes pervasive in contemporary Thailand, existing scholarship primarily focuses on instructional efficiency, leaving the anthropological impact on learner formation underexplored. This study addresses this gap by advancing Buddhist anthropology to examine secular digital education as a contemporary terrain of ethical-epistemic formation. The primary objective is to investigate how digital pedagogy operates as a formative environment where discipline, attention, and discernment are structured and normalized. By reinterpreting the Tri-sikkhā (Sīla, Samādhi, and Paññā) as an analytical grammar rather than a doctrinal schema, this research specifically aims to analyze how technologically mediated learning enacts, approximates, or distorts these three dimensions of cultivation. Through this framework, the study demonstrates how Buddhist categories illuminate the subtle processes through which digital environments produce subjects and shape cognitive dispositions within modern educational life.

Methodology: This study employed a qualitative interpretive design, treating online instructional materials not as neutral tools but as cultural artifacts that reflect broader technological and educational regimes. Data Collection and Analysis Using purposive sampling, ten publicly accessible Thai online English instruction video clips were selected to represent contemporary asynchronous pedagogy. Data corpus includes instructional sequencing, visual organization, narrative framing, and pedagogical pacing. The analysis was systematically aligned with the Tri-sikkhā framework, comprising Sīla (Discipline), Samādhi (Attention), and Paññā (Discernment), utilizing it as an analytical grammar to trace ethical-epistemic formation. The interpretive process was conducted through five explicit stages. First, a detailed transcription of both verbal and non-verbal pedagogical cues was performed. Second, data classification was conducted, where findings were categorized through the heuristic lenses of the three Tri-sikkhā dimensions. Third, thematic reduction was employed to distill complex interactions into core pedagogical themes. Fourth, the synthesis stage utilized these themes to map patterns across cases and identify how digital environments structured learner dispositions. Last, the analysis underwent validation by cross-referencing findings with canonical Buddhist scholarship to ensure interpretive integrity. By documenting these structured procedures, the study explicitly demonstrates how digital pedagogy enacts, approximates, or distorts traditional architectures of human cultivation.

Main Results: Applying the Tri-sikkhā framework revealed an uneven enactment of Buddhist principles in digital English instruction. Sīla exposed how platforms enforced procedural discipline through routinized sequencing, yet rarely cultivated internalized ethical awareness. Samādhi revealed a reliance on engineered attentional strategies, such as short segments and visual stimulation, that produced momentary focus but limited sustained contemplation. Finally, Paññāwas profoundly constrained; Pedagogy privileged mechanized translation and surface comprehension over deep reflexive inquiry. Ultimately, these categories demonstrated how digital environments intensified behavioral order while structurally marginalizing wisdom-centered human cultivation.

Involvement to Buddhadhamma: Classified within Applied Buddhism, this study contributes to the intersection of Buddhism, globalization (Information Technology), and the development of wisdom and morality. By repositioning the Tri-sikkhā as a critical analytical resource for secular practices, the research revealed that online instruction operated as ethical-epistemic training where discipline and attention were amplified, and discernment was limited. This situates digital education within the anthropology of formation, extending applied Buddhist anthropology to analyze how platform infrastructures reshape contemporary modes of conduct and knowing beyond religious domains.

Conclusions: The study concludes that online English instruction functions as a formative environment rather than a mere pedagogical tool. Findings confirmed that digital pedagogy enforced proceduralized discipline and engineered attention while profoundly constraining wisdom. This research offers a conceptual contribution to Buddhist anthropology by extending its analytical scope into secular spaces and to digital education by demonstrating that platforms actively recalibrate how learners perceive experience, intensifying behavioral control while narrowing the conditions for insight.