Researching IT in education - Wiley Online Library

Special issue doi: 10.1111/jcal.12035

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Researching IT in education M.J. Cox,* D.S. Niederhauser,† N. Castillo,‡ A.B. McDougall,§ T. Sakamoto¶ & S. Roesvik** *King’s College, London, UK †Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA ‡Universidad del Bio-Bio, Biobio Region, Chile §The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ¶Recently deceased (2012). Past president of Tokyo Future University and of the Japan Association for Promotion of Educational Technology, Tokyo, Japan **Volda University College, Volda, Norway

Abstract

Many regions around the world are experiencing a gradual paradigm shift away from information technology (IT) use that complements traditional teaching and towards embedded IT use in E-learning that is ubiquitous and pervasive. This has been conceptualized in this article using a framework depicting the affects of these shifts on learning environments that may change schooling and impact society. These trends provide new challenges for educational researchers at national and international levels, requiring attention to the interrelationships among the various components in an educational system. New evidence, which builds on earlier claims of an increasing digital divide between developing and developed countries, has shown that this phenomenon is much more complex than was previously thought. We suggest that a promising way to maximize the knowledge and impact of researching IT in education is to establish longitudinal programmatic research sustained through the establishment of E-learning observatories, which can bring together expertise across a range of disciplines. A major challenge in forming a clear and coherent strategy for researching IT in education lies in the fact that there are multiple stakeholders with differing aims, goals and objectives. Therefore, reciprocal relationships are needed in which practice informs research and research informs practice with support and guidance from policymakers.

Keywords

digital divide, methods, policies, researching information technology (IT).

Introduction

This article is the outcome from (a) an earlier position paper on the current development and penetration of E-learning and the implications for research (Cox & Sakamoto, 2011); (b) development of ideas presented

Accepted: 3 June 2013 Correspondence: Margaret J. Cox, HapTEL Laboratory, Floor 18, Tower Wing, Guy’s Hospital, London SE1 9RT, UK. Email: mj.cox @kcl.ac.uk NB. The terms IT and E-learning [synonymous with ICT in education and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL)] are used throughout this paper to avoid ambiguity. The widely used term digital divide is used here to mean how society and countries are considered to be divided between those that have regular access to IT-technologies and those who do not.

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therein by working group members at EDUsummIT 2011 in Paris (Cox et al., 2011); and (c) further analysis of the research literature since EDUsummIT 2011. The purpose of the article is to consider how effective previous educational research results have been on influencing policy and practice at national and international levels, and to propose ways in which educational research into information technology (IT) can be consolidated and made more accessible, thereby increasing influence on policy. Research on IT in Education has been the focus of JCAL since its establishment in the 1980s and the diverse nature of IT in different educational settings has been reflected in studies which include: specific approaches to teaching (e.g., Passey, 2010; Voogt,

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Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (2013), 29, 474–486

EDUsummIT 2011: Researching IT in educ

2010); IT integration within the curriculum (e.g., Tondeur, Cooper, & Newhouse 2010); effects of informal uses of IT on students’ learning in formal and informal settings (e.g., Clough, Jones, McAndrew, & Scanlon, 2008; Cox, 2013); and the digital divide (e.g., Cooper, 2006; Jones & Czerniewicz, 2010). However, rapidly changing technologies within a vast and complex field make it difficult for an established and accepted body of research evidence to become dispersed across research communities. This also hampers practitioners and policymakers, who do not have ready access to an easily comprehensible and agreed-upon body of evidence, from developing effective implementation strategies. An important contribution to the review presented in this article has been the specific calls to action from EDUsummIT 2009 (Voogt, Knezek, Cox, Knezek, & Ten Brummelhuis, 2013) and the goals of the EDUsummIT 2011 research Working Group (Cox et al., 2011) which identified the following aims: • To establish a conceptual framework for E-learning based on IT trends in society at national and international levels. • To consider past and current trends in researching IT in education, building on established evidence and how best research practices can be shared across research communities. • To identify ways that research can be consolidated and thereby affect policy and practice and vice versa. • To articulate methods that can be used to inform policymakers and influence change in education. • To provide recommendations to guide future research and to identify some of the current gaps in research that need to be addressed. Conceptual framework for E-learning

In order to identify significant trends in IT in education, and implications for research and government policies, the working group considered a conceptual framework for E-learning, which would depict the different stages of the uptake and integration of E-learning achieved by different nations, and the extent to which these were likely to affect policy and practice (Moonen, 2008). The initial conceptual framework for E-learning considered (see Figure 1) was based on a previous model developed by Sakamoto (2002) which identified © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Present Stage Supplemental Transaction

Traditional face-to-face learning

E-learning

Future Stage

face-to-face learning

E-learning E

Figure 1 Transitional Conceptual Framework for E-Learning (Sakamoto, 2002, p. 3)

changes taking place between current educational practices, which are still true today, to future educational practices. The present stage in this framework is grounded in a traditional face-to-face instructional model with E-Learning serving a minor role as a supplemental transaction (e.g., an enhancement or optional extra). The future stage depicts a learning context in which the primary instructional mode is E-learning with face-to-face interactions serving the more minor supplemental role. Figure 2 shows the detailed relationships among components of learning relevant both to the present and future stages of the model shown in Figure 1. However, it also depicts the paradigm shift in which educational processes might move away from traditional schooling towards a more informal and flexible socially mediated E-learning experience. Three primary components in the component structure framework, developed by Sakamoto (2002), have been identified by the working group as common across nations and for different educational structures as shown in Figure 2: (1) the learning process; (2) learning support mechanisms; and (3) research and development (R&D educational development). The learning process can be considered as consisting of three interacting elements: the learner, learning resources and learning activity. The learner, who brings with him or her prior learning experiences, is involved in accessing learning resources to engage in various learning activities to meet specific goal achievements. In contrast to more traditional learning contexts, learners in E-learning environments may

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Figure 2 Component Structure of Educational and Learning Processes (Sakamoto, 2002, p. 4)

have more flexibility in setting their own competency enhancement goals. The educational development, or progress toward goals, has been shown to be dependent on factors like age, previous exposure to using IT, knowledge of the subject and, of course, the experience and competencies of the teacher (Passey, 2010). In addition, development is influenced by the learner’s level of maturity and previous E-learning experiences, as well as his or her prior knowledge, specific skills, motivation levels, problem-solving abilities, communication abilities, IT literacies, ethical attitudes, and so on (Sakamoto, 2002). Learning resources include the instructional leader, who is involved in the design and utilization of media and real-world activity, who creates a productive learning environment that supports the learner in goal achievement. In the E-learning environment, leaders are typically designers, teachers and facilitators (see Harms, Niederhauser, Davis, Roblyer, & Gilbert, 2010)

who design, develop and/or select media that, coupled with real-world experience, enhance learning activities and help learners engage in deeper, more robust learning. Learning activity provides the link between the learner and learning resources. Learners engage in activity that involves collecting and accepting knowledge that is grounded in the learning resources; this knowledge is transformed and reflected back to the instructional leader in the form of answers or responses that demonstrate both intellectual and affective knowledge gains. The second primary component, shown in Figure 2, the learning support mechanism, includes two elements: supporting activity and supporting body. These two elements show the interplay among supporting activities (high-quality training, educational services and quality assurance) and a group of supporting bodies (academic organizations, government entities © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


and industry partners). With collaborative supporting bodies, support mechanisms can contribute to E-learning through: • Training and education that draws on best practices in leadership, instruction, instructional design, IT use, class management, and so on; • Leadership and guidance from national and international agencies and professional organizations; • Funding, coordination and quality monitoring; • Developing and providing resources. Through these collaborative interactions, the supporting bodies provide the means of support for the supporting activities, and the supporting activities propose and demand support from the supporting bodies, creating an integrated system that constitutes the learning support mechanism. Further, learning support mechanisms interact with the learning process when needs identified in the learning process serve as a request to the learning support mechanisms, and the learning support mechanisms provide support for the learning process. Finally, R&D and educational development provide a mediating function between and among components and elements in the model. R&D and educational development include functions like accreditation of educational entities and evaluation of learning outcomes relative to both teacher training (producing effective leaders), and to the ultimate target in the system, the student learner. There is also a reciprocal relationship between R&D and educational development and learning support mechanisms. That is, R&D and educational development are inherent in many of the learning support mechanisms described previously, and also mediate the relationships between learning support mechanisms and learning processes. This framework shows how agencies involved in research, and in policy and practice, interact in the contribution and influence of educational provision and those engaged in learning. In moving towards the new paradigm, networks of E-learning, researchers will need to share knowledge, research results and effective practices more effectively, and overcome cultural and national boundaries (Sakamoto, 2002). Therefore, research practices will necessarily become intertwined with cultural uniqueness, national priorities and global agendas. Researching the impact of IT in education © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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requires us to have a clear understanding of the relationships among learners and resources and studying these relationships has become increasingly challenging in more informal E-learning contexts when compared with researching more traditional formal learning contexts. Academic and government agencies should therefore be able to work collaboratively to identify and promote best practices through funding and conducting high-quality educational research, and by providing pre-service and in-service training for leaders, who are integral to the learning process. Furthermore, pedagogical and curricular reform and establishment of rigorous standards can be best accomplished when professional organizations (typically grounded in the academic milieu) work with government policymaking agencies and representatives from industry to establish norms and mandates that have a solid foundation in the most current literature on best practice and the needs of the workplace. These coordinated efforts provide opportunities for all three elements to monitor quality from their unique perspectives and shape the process in meaningful ways. Finally, academics and industry can work together to develop and produce high-quality educational resources to serve as media in the learning process. Large-scale international studies (Voogt & Knezek, 2008) have shown that the educational services supporting the learning resources shown in Figure 2 will vary across regions and countries and need active participation by supporting bodies. These, in turn, may be supported by a variety of stakeholders including: individuals, teachers, academics, governments, government agencies and industry. However, such educational support/services are influenced by specific national/ regional budgets, which often also determine the level of R&D (Pelgrum & Plomp, 2008) and consequent evaluation of the effectiveness of policies and educational services. Finally, quality assurance in an educational system, which involves evaluation and accreditation, is often conducted by the government agencies who deliver the educational services. This may happen directly through boards of educational examiners, or indirectly through academic researchers who are funded to investigate the impact of support services on specific competencies, competency analysis and learning technologies in their broadest sense. In order to understand how researching

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IT in education needs to develop and change to take account of this evolving conceptual framework, we present here a brief synthesis of trends with regard to research focus and methods, and the consequent potential for influencing policy and practice. The paradigm proposed here is that E-Learning represents the true nature of future education and traditional face-to-face instructional norms in universities and schools are, so to speak, exceptional practices. Put simply, the spread of E-Learning is causing a major, if somewhat, belated shift in educational philosophy. However, adopting this new paradigm will take considerable time, as there is a great deal of inertia in educational communities that have always practiced traditional face-to-face education. Concerning the balance between formal (traditional face-to-face) and informal learning (which can be more in line with E-learning practices), these two forms are not contradictory concepts; rather, as seen in Figure 1, formal learning experiences should be included in informal learning opportunities as essential components of all learning activities. Various and flexible combinations of formal and informal learning options are necessary and required (Cox, 2013). Of course, it goes without saying that traditional face-to-face education is still important at universities and schools and, as such, offers certain advantages including a number of principles and basic understandings which can be applied effectively to education that reflects an E-Learning perspective. Although a few scholars have made direct connections between research-based traditional instructional practices and E-Learning contexts (e.g., Hacker & Niederhauser, 2000), previous research on IT in education has often overlooked the contributions which traditional instructional techniques can make to students’ learning within an IT environment (Cox & Marshall, 2007). Past and current trends in researching IT in education

Past evidence from research into IT in education has shown that the effectiveness of national and international policies and strategies for integrating IT in schools and colleges has been dependent upon knowing what has influenced the uptake, impact and sustainability of IT in education, and what has been the scope of the research and findings which make it acces-

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sible to policymakers. As was discussed in the previous section, in order to take account of the integration of IT across society and networked communities, policymakers, researchers and practitioners need to reconstruct the conceptual framework of IT in education and E-learning, rethinking the potential for IT in education and the interaction between formal and informal uses. Although formal educational settings (e.g., classrooms) are still the main priority for national policymakers regarding policies and funding, actual IT use by many learners in developed and developing countries also permeates their wider informal learning experiences (Cox, 2013). Across different countries and regions, E-learning educational settings range from hi-tech classrooms with extensive resources to schools in developing countries with no IT access (Resta, 2011). Future shifts in these diverse settings will therefore entirely change the role and contribution of IT in education and profoundly affect research agendas and methods. If we consider the types of E-learning resources available to learners, then earlier research into the impact of IT resources such as simulations and modeling on students’ learning (Johnson, Cox, & Watson, 1994) has now been replaced by similar research investigations but addressing more powerful recent technologies now available in formal educational settings. For example, eight recent large-scale national Teaching and Learning Research-Technology Enhanced Learning Programme (TLRP-TEL) projects in the UK (TLRP-TEL; 2007–2012) all involved the innovative development of an IT resource in an educational setting and the measurement of its impact on teaching and learning. However, the ‘Media’ in our conceptual framework has changed; the IT technologies used were extremely innovative, including merging video analysis with Web 2.0 technologies to create a semantic network, large-scale multi-touch screen table surfaces that can be used by a whole classroom, and a hapticbased virtual dental chair enabling students to practise treating virtual dental problems before working on the real patient (TLRP-TEL, 2011) The E-learning media used in education has not only changed in terms of power and applicability but in terms of accessibility. Research trends concerning students who are studying in formal educational settings are now reflecting movement from fairly widespread low-level uses of technology that support drill and practice, word © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


processing and presentations (Niederhauser & Lindstrom, 2006) to increase mobility and ubiquitous access to technology. We are therefore increasingly seeing the use of small portable devices (e.g., Looi et al., 2011) and connected online learning opportunities that enable students to engage in learning activities anytime and anywhere. For example, referring to the paradigm shift discussed above, one of the most ubiquitous IT resources, which is impacting on the learner, the learning resource and the support mechanisms, is the mobile (cell) phone. Recent research has shown that many children and young people in developing countries (as well as in the developed world) have access to mobile devices such as mobile phones. For example in a study in South America, 90% of 10- to 18-year-old teenagers in Argentina, Venezuela and Chile reported having a mobile device and 82% of Chilean youngsters of similar ages reported having used this technology for sending messages (Fundación telefónica, 2008). This is an example in which researchers may need to account for the impact which this kind of activity (e.g., text messaging) might have on young persons’ formal or informal learning and how findings in this context compare with research carried out in developed countries. Research into the effects of other learning resources used in the learning process such as the impact of the teacher (leader), and the teachers’ pedagogies (Law, 2008), has shown how the relationship between the teacher and the media will directly determine the effectiveness of E-learning on the learning process. Furthermore, the effects of the learning support mechanisms, that is, the training of teachers (Voogt, 2010) and collaboration among teachers (De Koster, Kulpert, & Volman, 2012), are also important influences of the impact of IT in education on the learning process. In spite of 50 years of researching the effects of IT in education and how these are changing the ways in which students learn, and where that learning occurs, there are still many issues that are made more complex by the differing needs and priorities of the international community. Some of those regarded as most important to the international working group are discussed in the following section. Issues in researching IT in education

In spite of a substantial knowledge base developed through researching IT in education, it is clear from © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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previous research (e.g., Moonen, 2008), and many of the EDUsummIT 2011 delegate’s examples, that there is still a disturbing lack of clarity from nation to nation and among different researchers regarding what is meant by such fundamental terms as IT, ICT and TEL, as well as definitions of commonly used terms like formal and informal learning (Knezek, Lai, Khaddage, & Baker, 2011). While we have attempted to be clear in our use of terminology here, what often limits the value of research evidence is that the actual IT resource being investigated is either not clearly specified or not understood by the researchers themselves (Cox & Marshall, 2007). Although defining the lexicon for IT in education is well beyond the scope of this article, our experience with discussing key issues within the working group clearly pointed out the need for clarification of the terms we use. This lack of shared, agreed-upon conventions within the IT community is also apparent in the research methods and practices we use. Previous research in E-learning shows that some research methods ignore the learning conditions which might promote changes in cognitive structures and, therefore, how the IT environment will impact the learner (Marshall & Cox, 2008). Furthermore, the ways in which new technologies have changed the representation and codifying of knowledge, and how this relates to learners’ mental models, have shown that learners develop new ways of reasoning and hypothesizing about existing and newly developed knowledge. Therefore, measuring the effect of IT on students’ learning needs to address student literacy in the IT medium as well as learning outcomes related to the aims of the curriculum. As evidenced in JCAL and discussed in detail in the International Handbook of IT in Primary and Secondary Education (Cox, 2008), research methodologies can be broadly classified as quantitative, typically involving surveys or experimental studies that include statistical analyses, or qualitative, such as case studies, or those involving collection and analysis of observational or interview data (Marshall & Cox, 2008). Twining (2010) outlines published criticisms of each approach: experimental studies in educational contexts raise both practical and ethical problems as they rely on the control of variables and ignore differences between people, while qualitative approaches have been criticized for lacking validity due to the subjective nature of the data collection and analysis.

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The huge range of IT resources in educational settings outlined earlier makes it clear that a range of research approaches and methodologies will be needed to investigate the roles and contribution of IT in education. Vincent, McDougall, and Azinian (2010) describe a research project exploring the role of the computer’s multi-modal text tools in supporting and scaffolding students for whom verbal literacies were not performing their communicative function. They used the technology itself to play a major role in data collection, having the children regularly save drafts of their multimedia narratives as they developed them. These files then provided data, along with post-lesson interviews and the researcher’s log of observations for analysis of the processes of development of the narratives. Jones (2010) argues against the use of experimental methods in classroom-based research because there are so many different variables at play that one can only focus on a few, losing the value of the methodological approach by attempting to keep some necessarily limited subset of factors constant while examining the variable of interest. His solution to this problem for educational IT research draws on the pioneering work of Clarke, Emanuelsson, Jablonka, and Mok (2006) who used multiple-camera video data collection and analysis, enabling case study-like approaches to be used in research into interactions within classrooms. Research studies of specific uses of modern IT communications are examples of many studies that show the lack of agreement among researchers about the reliability and effectiveness of different research methods, and hence outcomes, which may explain why policymakers often find it difficult to draw any clear conclusions from the published research which can inform policy and future funding strategies. It is also clear from the educational components structure discussed in the Conceptual Framework section above that many research goals and agendas pose challenges for researching IT in education in the future. Such goals may therefore include investigating independently any item in the component structure, for example, the impact of using an IT resource on the knowledge of the learner; or any interaction between various different items in terms of inter-effectiveness; for example, the impact of the leadership strategies of the teacher on the creativity skills of the learner.

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In spite of the massive expansion of IT in society, E-learning has not yet been extensively integrated into the education sector. Many still believe that mainstream education must be school based using traditional face-to-face lessons as a matter of course. E-Learning is, at most, seen as one of many tools that support classroom lessons (Cox & Sakamoto, 2011; Passey, 2010). In the past, lack of advanced communication networks meant, aside from distance education by post, traditional face-to-face lessons were the only teaching and learning method available. This is still the case in many classrooms around the world (Resta, Searson, Patru, Knezek, & Voogt, 2012). For this reason, the traditional face-to-face lesson was considered the bedrock of education, a belief which has now been rocked by the advent of E-Learning and the impact of IT on society as a whole. This is resulting in new challenges for educational research and the use of appropriate methodologies which include: • The analysis and enhancement of network-related competencies. • Evaluating E-learning experienced through computer-supported collaborative learning. • Measuring network-related support and collaboration. • R&D of 䊊 E-educational methodology. 䊊 E-competency analysis. 䊊 E-assessment, accreditation. 䊊 E-portfolios, and so on. This range of interrelated factors identified from the development of this conceptual framework and emerging from unanswered questions in previous research (Cox & Marshall, 2007) shows that researching IT in education will increasingly require a range of research expertise. In order to devise appropriate studies that take account of the complexity of the technology itself, the impact of a range of psychological and sociological factors, and the impact across different subjects and contexts, research teams will need to have diverse discipline expertise as is often the case with scientific and health sciences research. More effort has also been made in recent years to identify theories that will underpin research methods and scope (e.g., Cox, 2008; McDougall, Murnane, Jones, & Reynolds, 2010). The challenge for the international research community is therefore to know © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


enough about the technology to be able to: (1) identify a range of effective research methods; (2) underpin the research with appropriate theories; (3) build on and consolidate past evidence and practices; and (4) report, share and distribute the research outcomes in a manner that will enable policymakers and practitioners to benefit from the findings (McDougall et al., 2010; OECD/CERI, 2001; Wilson, Bejar, Scalise, & Templin, 2010; Zenios, 2011). An important issue identified by the working group was determining how access to IT in different educational settings, and from one nation or region to another, would affect the research issues and priorities across the world of IT and the global networked society. The components of the model presented in Figure 2 and their interrelationships will be specific to local and national contexts, and a growing issue is the divergence between regions, countries and schools regarding access and uptake of IT in society and education, often referred to as the digital divide. This digital divide has huge implications for educational research and the ability to generalize research findings from one study for future practice in another region in which IT access and use might be significantly different. The digital divide

Opportunities to participate in the digital culture, including access to E-learning between developing and developed countries, or within regions (in some countries), can show large differences. However, our research agenda for examining the digital divide needs to be updated to include attitudes, culture, abilities, cognition and literacy. Although there is clearly a divide between the haves and the have-nots, there are clear cultural and individual differences and interpretations concerning the value and use of technology, as well as a divide in utilization and productive application of IT for learning even among those who have IT skills. Researchers and policymakers need to consider what communities can and are doing to overcome digital divides, and respect differing learning cultures related to digital resources. During working group discussions, it became clear that digital difference or digital diversity has fewer negative connotations and may be preferable to the term digital divide. As a research community, we need to become more clear and consistent in our use of terminology. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Considering the use of E-learning in specific schools and classrooms in different countries across the globe, working group discussions centred on the following challenges that still remain: • It is often impossible to distinguish between global and regional uses of E-learning or how policy-based solutions might improve its use. • There is a lack of homogeneity in different research contexts: countries, regions, communities and classrooms. For example, for many years students have continued their learning outside of formal school settings without access to IT. If we use ‘digital divide’ (as defined earlier) as some having and using access to IT in education and some not, evidence suggests that there is also a digital divide among students in the same school due to uneven availability of resources, different levels of IT literacy skills among students, and different abilities and pedagogical content knowledge of teachers to use IT (Plomp, Andersen, Law, & Quale, 2009). Therefore, it can be misleading to assume that there is consistent use even within a particular region of the world or a specific school. The digital divide, in terms of IT access and skills between developed and developing countries, requires diverse approaches to researching IT at the learner, institution, national and global levels. For example, does the same IT resource used in a secondary science classroom in which most pupils have mobile phones have the same impact on the students’ learning as in one where electricity supplies are intermittent and a mobile phone costs as much as a teacher’s annual salary? These questions raise issues about the types and approaches to research that we can adopt and rely on in the future, and limitations to research approaches and methods that have been used in the past. We therefore propose replacing the use of ‘digital divide’ with ‘digital differences’ which more accurately represents the range of IT resources and use across different contexts, regions and countries. Roles and interactions among researchers, policymakers and practitioners

To date, researching IT in education has primarily been conducted either by university academics working

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Figure 3 Roles and Interactions Among Researchers, Policymakers and Practitioners

singly or in teams, or by government or international agencies commissioned to conduct specific investigations. In many other areas of research, governments have recognized the need to help researchers collaborate and consolidate previous methodological approaches and findings, and to support the wider research community (e.g., the recently established UK Innovation Research Centre, set up to host a strategic research and capacity building programme together with a knowledge exchange hub; and the Swiss National Centres of Competence in Research to promote long-term research projects in areas of vital strategic importance for the development of science in Switzerland). In order to enable IT education researchers and policymakers to improve upon past methods and evidence, an international centre would facilitate the sharing of methods, data and research expertise across regions and countries as is achieved in other research sectors. One research centre model, which has been successfully used in the field of astronomy over many years, is the scientific observatory, for example, The Royal Greenwich Observatory, founded in 1675, which has enabled storage and consolidation of an international body of knowledge and allowed researchers from many nations to collaborate. Such an institution for research-

ing IT in education would help address the rapidly changing field of IT and the consequent change in education discussed above. A major challenge in forming a clear and coherent strategy for researching IT in education lies in the fact that there are multiple stakeholders with differing aims, goals and objectives. Some of the myriad relationships among stakeholders, included in the conceptual frameworks above, are represented in Figure 3. The central triangle shows elements that are foundational to supporting relationships among practitioners, researchers and policymakers. One key to success involves cooperation and collaboration among stakeholders. In many cases, stakeholders have seemed to be at odds with each other, with policymakers viewed as imposing mandates and regulations on practitioners, practitioners viewing researchers’ work as too theoretical and removed from the real world of teachers, and researchers questioning the effectiveness of teaching practices and challenging the wisdom of mandated policies. A shift towards a more cooperative and collaborative environment, which recognizes and honours multiple voices and perspectives, would provide opportunities for the development of a networked discourse community which would enable a more focused and efficient approach to addressing IT in education issues. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


Partnering with the commercial sector would be important for broadening the funding base to create the kinds of successful mutually beneficial partnerships represented by initiatives like the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project from the 1980s and the current Best Buy Technology Inspired Teaching Grants. Further, collaboration in the development of education-specific technologies and applications would benefit from industry expertise that draws on key principles developed in gaming, social networking and Web2.0 applications. Arrayed around the ring of Figure 3 above are the stakeholders: practitioners, policymakers and researchers; some key concepts that link the stakeholders: mandates and initiatives, applied research, and funding and support; and some concrete ways that stakeholders and key concepts interact with each other. For example, applied research provides a link between researchers and practitioners. Practitioners engage in applied research, or action research, by systematically examining their own practices in situ. This kind of work is increasingly gaining visibility as practitioners begin to share it in accepted scholarly outlets (like journals) and, perhaps more importantly, through blogs, social networking and other Web2.0-based outlets like TeacherTube. Furthermore, many IT researchers do theoretically grounded empirical work that has direct implications for teaching and learning, and this work has dispersed into classrooms as educators and policymakers have embraced the idea of evidence-based practice. Healthy interactions in this context involve a reciprocal relationship in which practice informs research and research informs practice with policymakers helping to guide and support the process. These kinds of interactions among researchers, practitioners and policymakers have evolved over time. As policymakers have increasingly moved towards mandating standards and accountability as a driving force for policy decisions; practitioners and researchers have led curricular and pedagogical reform initiatives designed to improve teaching and student learning. Previous work (e.g., Voogt & Knezek, 2008) has shown that there is tremendous potential for synergy when these goals align. Policymakers who are committed to a thoughtful, planned and reflective approach to improving the role of IT in worldwide education are more likely to make informed and forward-looking policy decisions by working col© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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laboratively with practitioners and researchers to: (a) improve student access to technology; (b) enhance teachers’ ability to use technology effectively with their students; and (c) provide researchers with necessary funding and support. Policymakers who understand their role as making decisions that affect the common good recognize the critical contribution that theoretically grounded research plays in informing that decision-making process. In considering the paradigm shift in Elearning, and the consequent complexity of how this phenomenon plays out in the educational contexts discussed here, and accounting for the rising uses of IT outside of formal settings, established and current approaches to researching IT in education will no longer meet the needs of policymakers and practitioners in the future. There is a pressing need to establish the kinds of research centres, such as observatories proposed above, that can ensure a long-term dynamic foundation of research approaches and methods which will keep up with rapidly changing educational structures and the ever changing IT world. Discussion

As we are becoming an increasingly connected (but in many ways still divided) international community, researching IT in education faces specific issues and unresolved questions that go well beyond oversimplified conceptualizations of challenges like the digital divide issue discussed above. In this final section, we reflect on what we conclude as the key issues from previous evidence interpreted in relation to the paradigm shift explained through the conceptual framework for E-learning. The paradigm shift in education

The paradigm shift required in schools to account for the pervasiveness of IT in society, which has resulted in a local and global networked society, shows that for a research agenda to address the interrelationships among the different stakeholders in formal and informal educational settings, research teams will need to have diverse discipline expertise, perhaps accomplished through forming interdisciplinary teams. This implies not only the need for establishing stronger communication links between different disciplines, as

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has been achieved with the TLRP-TEL projects (TLRP-TEL, 2011), but also developing support networks for sharing research results among research teams in different countries and between researchers and policymakers through the organization of observatories. Lessons from past and current trends in researching IT in education

The review of past research, and the changing types of methods used, has shown that current methodologies will no longer cover the complex factors that impinge upon the teacher and the learner as IT resources impact both formal and informal education. IT provides new knowledge representations that are dynamic and unstable as the technology evolves. This means that research methods are needed which can accommodate this ‘uncertain’ learning experience and which can address the problems identified above where, for example, learners are restricted from free and personalized use of IT in formal settings which stands in direct conflict with their informal use outside of schools. Research teams need to be sufficiently skilled and literate in the medium that they are researching to avoid misinterpretation of the learning processes they are trying to measure. Researchers should move beyond a reliance on highly controlled confirmatory methods, which are not well suited to examining the complex and messy classroom context, to adopt more varied explorative methods that have the potential to provide richer information about the learning that is taking place. This also highlights the dilemma for researchers who are sometimes themselves outsiders in the innovative medium in which the learners they are studying are native. As a consequence, researchers need to immerse themselves more fully in the context and consider new more integrated approaches to investigating the impact of IT which draws on methods and theoretical orientations that have been shown to be successful in the past. Current gaps in research and future priorities

Examining the effects of IT on formal and informal learning environments is nebulous and often difficult to measure. It would therefore seem desirable to isolate the effects of the technology itself relative to learning,

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and how learning outcomes are the result of an integrated process. However, as we have discussed above, this is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The complexity of the relationships among learners, learning resources and learning mechanisms discussed here shows the myriad of possible relationships which impact upon the learning process. The frameworks we have presented here provide a basis to help researchers identify some of the important topics for study in their own contexts and provide insights into how their findings might translate into other contexts. Researching IT in education often occurs across subjects and contexts, and necessarily draws on a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics and many others. This article shows that we now need to move away from the isolated disciplinary nature of much of the earlier IT research because of the transitional nature of formal and informal education resulting from the pervasion of IT in all aspects of society. Furthermore, new literacies (perceptions and understandings linked to new modes of presentation and representations) are changing the emphasis and balance in terms of the production, content and meaning of educational resources, which is often not understood by teachers. The widely varying complexity of educational communities across nations as discussed above and the multiple facets of the digital divide show that researchers need to work towards a common international taxonomy of learner interactions to form some common basis for educational evaluation. More communication among researchers at international levels would help achieve this. International collaborations among policymakers, researchers and practitioners that reach across disciplines and contexts, that can be achieved through the establishment of observatories for IT in education, as proposed by working group member Passey (2010) and discussed above, would provide a mechanism for addressing these concerns while making IT in education research more functional, adaptable and relevant as we move forward. Strategies to influence policymakers

Rapid growth and changes in technology leave researchers, teachers and learners struggling to keep up © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


with functionality and educational potential. The observatories, which we propose, would enable research teams to research and monitor what is happening in the longer term and would enable communication mechanisms to be established between researchers, practitioners and policymakers. This would support studies looking into long-term developments of learning environments and their uptake and impact in education. Technology changes society and thereby changes the goals of education. Therefore, important considerations for policymakers include: how technology is changing the ways we learn, and the educational institutions that support that learning, how research practices can be intertwined with cultural differences, national priorities and global agendas; and what is the nature of technology use that improves education and will be likely to support its transformation? Success will require cooperation, collaboration and a shared vision with all stakeholders contributing to the greater effort.

Acknowledgements

The authors dedicate this article to our co-author Professor Takashi Sakamoto who made a major contribution to the group’s work prior to their first meeting and, subsequently, to various drafts of the article until his sad death on 22 March 2012. This article reports on the efforts of the EDUsummIT 2011 Working Group 8 to address the current integration of IT in education, consequent trends in E-learning and implications for researching IT in education. We also acknowledge contributions from the remaining working group members: Victor Jose Afanou (Belgium), Alain Breuleux (Canada), Nith Bunlay (Cambodia), Barbara Combes (Australia), Paul Drijvers (the Netherlands), Shiyama Edirisinghi (Sri Lanka), Sally Essuman (Ghana), Marcel Lebrun (Belgium), Kathryn Moyle (Australia), Don Passey (United Kingdom), Linda Shear (USA), Arthur Tatnall (Australia) and Nicolaos Valanides (Cyprus).

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