This is a summary presentation of the different reports now available from the EdTech Efficacy Research Academic Symposium that was held in May 2017. This summary is provided to the Asian Conference on Education in October 2017.
Summary of EdTech Symposium EdTech Decision Making in Higher Ed for IAFOR in Kobe, Japan
1. Overview of EdTech Research Practices and
Decision-Making in Higher Education
Summary from May 2017 EdTech Efficacy Research Academic Symposium
Dr. Kristin Palmer
Submission ID 37992
6. What did we do?
Conducted 47 interviews from 43 colleges/universities with 52 decision-
makers representing different types of higher education institutions to
understand EdTech decision-making
Asked about sources and networks and had interviewees describe one
particular EdTech decision in detail
Interviews were recorded or annotated and then coded for themes
7. Why did we do it?
1. Understand what factors and information - including research -
influence EdTech decisions
2. Provide transparency regarding decision making
3. Identify and showcase best practices
8. What is Higher Ed trying to accomplish with EdTech?
41% Support Teaching and Learning
36% Gain Operational Efficiencies/Decrease Costs
30% Increase capacity to serve students online
27% Improve user experience/modernize existing system
9. Unpacking: 41% Support Teaching and Learning
Collaboration
Individualization
Active learning
Virtual reality
Authentic assessments
Competency-based education
Flipped classrooms and blended learning
Feedback
10. “I get bombarded with stuff”
Interviewees reported that their major sources of information include:
11. Where do EdTech decision-makers get their
information?
93% Network Events/Conferences
91% Written Publications
89% Social Media and Online Communications
12. All interviewees stated they conduct research:
38% Review student outcomes after implementing a strategy/product
29% Asked other IHEs for feedback about products
24% Administered own student /faculty/staff surveys
22% Ran Pilots
18% Read scholarly articles and journals
13. Thoughts from the interviewees on research:
78% indicated they do their own research
Studies varied widely in goals and methodological rigor with few resulting in
peer-reviewed publications and most not being shared publicly
Results were often used for:
● continuous improvement of instruction
● deciding whether to continue or scale up pilots
Others lack “bandwidth” to do research
14. Decision Making Processes
At public and non-profit, tends to be protracted and inclusive with
strong faculty voice. Input is gathered in meetings, committees,
and surveys with the final decision most often being made by one
or more administrators.
For-profits tend to have swifter, more centralized decision-making
processes with faculty and student buy-in sought after decision is
made.
15. What criteria mattered for decision making?
Feasibility of implementation
Features and functionality
User experience/usability
Cost/ROI considerations
Vendor capacity and relationship
17. Advice for EdTech Decision Makers:
Talk to people outside of higher education
Focus on functionality that faculty and students use
Consider ancillary costs such as training
Standardize the EdTech procurement process
Involve stakeholders (faculty, staff, students) early in process
Plan change facilitation strategies
18. Advice for Researchers:
Focus on pedagogical strategies the technology supports and how to
use it better to improve student outcomes (What works, how, and in
what conditions)
Use cases and studies of real-world implementations are most useful
to decision-makers
Differentiate findings by context and types of students
19. Advice for Vendors:
Do due diligence for clients and tailor your pitch for their specific needs
Transparency around product and functionality is critical
Aim for mutually beneficial relationships with “partners”
Consider pro bono exchanges with schools - product for research
Be prepared to customize your product
20. Advice for Funders:
Fund a hub for sharing results of EdTech pilots for higher education
Incentivize grantees to build in time and resources to share their internal
study findings with peers
Develop a tiered system of funding to support edtech research at
amounts appropriate to the level of higher education investment in the
product/strategy
23. Thank You!
Dr. Kristin Palmer
kristin@virginia.edu
Director of Online Learning Programs
University of Virginia
Editor's Notes
Fiona
Stephanie - note re: units usually by interview not by interviewee and FYI all but one in USA
Stephanie
Whitney
I’m going to share with you the findings from our interviews related to their goals for the use of edTech, the sources of information that they referenced in making their decisions related to EdTech, and the research they conducted. The number one reason why decision makers are utilizing EdTech is to support teaching and learning with the following coming in close behind that; decreasing cost while gaining operational efficiencies, increasing the capacity to serve online students (including increasing mobile accessibility), and improving their user experience or modernizing existing systems.
FYI - Unit is generally at the interview level (i.e. 44) vs. the interviewee level (i.e. 52 people)
Whitney
Digging deeper to unpack the response “To support teaching and learning” as a reason to make an EdTech decision, we found the following comments related to the goals of making their EdTech product decision. The most common goal identified for EdTech decisions was to support a particular pedagogical or assessment model or strategy. Specifically, these included:
Increasing opportunities for collaboration among students, faculty, and alumni
Increasing interactivity of content
Individualization of instruction, e.g., by establishing data analytics capacity to adjust curriculum, instruction, and supports provided based on student performance; allowing students to accelerate at own pace
Promoting active learning
Experimenting with virtual reality
Increasing student agency
Providing authentic assessments
Implementing competency-based education
Facilitating flipped classrooms and blended learning options
Increasing amount of academic feedback provided to students.
Whitney -
The comment “I get bombarded with stuff” was a common theme when interviewees described BOTH the sources of information and the media through which they obtained the information. Notice the lack of researchers, think tanks and foundations on this list?
Whitney
Eighty unique network events were mentioned as media for gathering information on EdTech products and trends a total of 167 times across 93% of our interviews. The most commonly mentioned network events were EDUCAUSE conferences (identified in 24 interviews), followed by ASU-GSV conferences, (identified in 8 interviews) and Online Learning Consortium (OLC) events
Whitney
Everyone “thinks” they are doing research but what counts as research varies widely as well as the RIGOR of the research.
% is out of 45 interviews
Whitney
In thirty-five interviews (78%), participants indicated that their IHE conducts its own investigations or research into how well EdTech products currently being used work. These studies varied widely in goals and methodological rigor with few resulting in peer-reviewed publications but most not being shared publicly.
Results were often used for continuous improvement of instruction or for deciding whether to continue or scale up use.
For those IHEs who did not undertake such investigations, the reasons were related to costs, time, capacity or “bandwidth.”
Kristin
MIA: Documented improvement in student learning?
Kristin - Few considered total cost of ownership and only 11% considered student outcomes like engagement, completion or retention
Stephanie
Stakeholder involvement comes out in change research over and over again as a reason for success or failure, so involving your stakeholders throughout is a good change facilitation strategy
Good to take a performance support perspective, not just an acquisition perspective - what resources, supports, policies, job descriptions, etc. require attention to make this successful
Stephanie > comments about Bror and applying pedagogical strategies
C.f. Clark & Mayer (2016); Means, Bakia, & Murphy (2016); these are points I hear in discussions and the types of research being conducted at conferences where ed tech research is presented.
Stephanie
Stephanie
FH: The last item will be a significant topic for our group’s last session on Thursday that Bror is running. He has invited Matt Rascoff (who came up with this idea), Edith Gummer, Katrina Stevens, Karl Rectanus to discuss. I will also plan to mention it in our group’s first “lightning update”