Research

LED members at work.

The Learning & Experience Design (LED) research group pursues four main research goals (Reeves & Oh*, 2017). We share with the authors that the scientific community engaged in educational technology research should take time to reflect on the lack of impact of research on practice and the inability of research to transfer into contexts of practice.


Theory Development/Synthesis Goals

We focus on explaining how education works through the logical analysis and synthesis of theoretical knowledge and principles related to teaching and learning.


Design/Development Goals

We focus on creating and improving effective solutions to education problems and identifying reusable design principles related to teaching and learning.


Action/Evaluation Goals

We focus on studying a particular program, product, or method for the purpose of describing, improving, or estimating its effectiveness and worth.

    • Teachers-Pay-Teachers as a Socialized Knowledge Community. This study looks at how K-12 teachers use Teachers-Pay-Teachers resources on Computational Thinking to teach this topic.
    • Learning in Diverse Educational Contexts. This action-research study intends to understand how culturally rich learning experiences in urban settings can change teachers’ perceptions towards social justice.
    • Evaluating Videoconferencing Systems for Educational Purposes. This study analyzes four widely used videoconferencing systems – Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp – using experiential e-learning as the framework for analysis.

Descriptive/Interpretivist Goals

We focus on portraying how education works by describing and interpreting phenomena related to teaching and learning.

    • Understanding Instructional Design Decisions. Learning designers and developers often support unscientific practices based on debunked theory or anecdotal data. This study explores the complex relationship between professional identity and practice.
    • A Case Study in Designing for Adult Learners. This study examines the opportunities presented and the challenges inherent in deconstructing a face-to-face learning experience and reimagining it as a virtual one.
    • Promoting Engagement in Mobile Learning Applications. This study aims to identify critical factors that promote learners’ engagement in mobile learning applications and to examine effective engagement strategies offered in top-ranked mobile learning applications.
    • Nomophobia and lifestyle. This study explores nomophobia (fear of being away from one’s smartphone) correlation with lifestyles and determines if more active and healthier lifestyles act as a protective factor of nomophobia.
    • Bringing Authenticity to Online Teaching and Learning. Learner-centered design strategies and entrepreneurial thinking are analyzed as ways to elevate online learning experiences through engagement, ownership, and collaboration.
    • Authentic Online Discussions. This study uses narrative inquiry to offer reflections from four graduate students who, for a period of two years, led, created, and facilitated online discussions for graduate-level courses.

    *Reeves, T. C., & Oh, E. (2017). The goals and methods of educational technology research over a quarter century (1989–2014). Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(2), 325–339.