New pub: Causal reasoning with causal graphs, published in ETRD

New pub: Causal reasoning with causal graphs, published in ETRD

Journal, Publication, Research Methods, Special Issue, Uncategorized
Educational Technology, like many other empirical research fields, needs to provide evidence for the causal effectiveness of their interventions. This is as important for establishing the efficacy of some novel educational technology as it is for theory-building. However, because educational research, especially field research, can be messy, tightly-controlled randomized experiments are not always the best option. Importantly, as our development paper shows, this does not mean that researchers should abandon all claims of causality. Instead, we highlight the importance of explicit causal reasoning, while equipping researchers with a tool to approach this daunting task systematically. Causal graphs (or Directed Acyclic Graphs = DAGs) are a low-barrier approach to reasoning about causality in all research contexts. Using a few construction rules, the resultant graphs allow researchers to figure out whether a…
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New Pub: Causal Inference and Bias in Learning Analytics

New Pub: Causal Inference and Bias in Learning Analytics

Journal, Learning Analytics, Literature review, Open access, Publication, Research Methods
Learning Analytics is an applied field of research with the goal of producing actionable knowledge to improve student learning. This requires knowledge about cause-and-effect. However, randomized experiments, the usual vehicle for causality, are not always feasible nor desirable. Researchers are then left with observational data, from which they are, understandably, hesitant to draw causal inferences. Fortunately, there has been a lot of progress on the topic of causality in the last two decades. One prominent framework uses Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) to graphically reason about cause-and-effect and/or bias. This primer, authored by Joshua Weidlich, Dragan Gasevic, and Hendrik Drachsler, published in the Journal of Learning Analytics, introduces DAGs to Learning Analytics.  Using fictitious and published examples, we show how DAGs are a principled approach to a) improve causal inferences for…
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DGHD Nachwuchspreis for Joshua Weidlich

DGHD Nachwuchspreis for Joshua Weidlich

Award, Conference, Higher Education, PhD defense
At this year's DGHD2022 in Paderborn, the German Society for Higher Education Pedagogy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hochschuldidaktik: DGHD) awarded Dr. Joshua Weidlich for his dissertation on the topic of social presence in online distance education. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Theo Bastiaens, he conducted his dissertation at FernUniversität in Hagen, the largest distance education provider in Germany. The jury commended the scientific merits of advancing this line of research while also providing ample practical implications for higher education teaching. The dissertation is available online here and further information about the award will be published here.
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EARLI EFG Grant awarded

EARLI EFG Grant awarded

Award
The European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) offers an Emerging Field Group (EFG) funding scheme. The goal of the EFG initiative is to support the development of a research group focused on exploratory, innovative, and risk-taking research. EARLI supports the EFG over the course of a two-year period. See the following video for a short intro about EFG funding: [embed]https://youtu.be/P3ErXQdLU2U[/embed] This year, the EARLI EFG committee awarded funding to the "Social- and Telepresence in Online Social Learning" emerging field group, which consists of Emmy Vrieling Teunter (Open University, Netherlands), Kamakshi Rajagopal (KU Leuven, Belgium), Karel Kreijns (Open University, Netherlands), Maartje Henderikx (Open University, Netherlands), Derya Orhan Göksün (Adiyaman University, Turkey), and Joshua Weidlich (DIPF, Germany). The group will explore how perceptions of social-and telepresence are fostered in…
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New Pub: Extending Social Presence Theory

New Pub: Extending Social Presence Theory

Empirical Study, Higher Education, Journal, Learning Design, Publication
In the area of online learning and distance education, social presence is considered a key concept to understand interpersonal processes that are mediated by technology. At the same time, theory surrounding social presence remains underdeveloped. For example, under which conditions is social presence particularly important? Do students always need high perceptions of social presence in their learning experiences? A strong theory should provide tentative answers to questions like these. Yet, as of now, our knowledge is mostly restricted to correlations coefficients between measures of social presence and outcome variables like satisfaction. Without further nuance, learning designers do not know under which circumstances they should prioritize designing for interpersonal aspects or instead focus on other aspects. To advance a more nuanced understanding of social presence, Joshua Weidlich, Derya Göksün, and Karel…
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Workshop @JTELSS –  Causal Reasoning for TEL researchers

Workshop @JTELSS – Causal Reasoning for TEL researchers

Summer School, Workshop
At this year's JTEL summer school in Halkidiki, Greece (see previous blog post here), Joshua Weidlich presented a workshop on the topic of causal inference and causal graphs. The goal of this workshop was to equip young educational technology researchers with a toolkit for reasoning about causality and improving causal inference in their own research studies. Central to this approach are Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), simple visual structures that encode variables and hypothesized causal effects. The resulting graphs can then be inspected with a few simple rules to learn whether a) causal inference is possible, b) bias is present. After establishing groundwork by laying out why causal inference is central to most research endeavours, information about the unique features of randomized experiments was provided alongside major sources of bias (see…
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EduTec Team @ JTEL Summer School 2022

EduTec Team @ JTEL Summer School 2022

Summer School
JTELSS is the premier event of the European Educational Technology community to support early career researcher and connect them with their peers. Three years after the last summer school of the European Association for Technology-enhanced Learning (EATEL) hosted in Italy, PhD students and Postdocs of the EduTec Team visited this year's summer school in Haldikidi, Greece. More than 140 participants from 27 countries met in the wonderful and sunny area of Halkidiki, Greece to present their research, to network and establish connections. The program consisted of cutting edge topics like Artificial Intelligence in Education, Immersive Technologies (AR, VR), and Robotics, as well as methodological (e.g. qualitative research methods; causal inference) and soft-skills workshops (e.g. project management; how to present your research). The EduTec team contributed to a total of nine…
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New Pub: Measuring Productivity in CSCL groups

New Pub: Measuring Productivity in CSCL groups

Assessment, Conference, Empirical Study, Higher Education, Learning Design, Publication
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a common pedagogical approach, in which groups of students work together digitally to engage in learning activities, solve problems, or create a shared artefact. CSCL is further interesting from a research standpoint, because different disciplines want to understand the processes and circumstances from which productive social interaction in online groups emerge to facilitate learning among group members. As such, group productivity is a central outcome to be considered in CSCL research. At the same time, the current literature does not provide a valid and reliable self-report instrument to measure group productivity.   [caption id="attachment_3914" align="alignleft" width="325"] Wright Map[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3915" align="alignleft" width="323"] Category probability curves with six (top) versus 5 (bottom) rating scale steps[/caption]                      …
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New Pub: Creative students in self-paced learning environments

New Pub: Creative students in self-paced learning environments

Empirical Study, Higher Education, Journal, Learning Design, Publication
Creativity is a 21st century skill that is increasingly seen as an important goal of educational systems. At the same time, not enough research has been done on students that are high on trait creativity, i.e. how to accommodate and foster this important individual difference in learning environments. In educational technology in particular, we know next to nothing about how to design learning environments for creative students vs less creative students. While there is a literature from cognitive psychology suggesting that learning environments should be highly structured and guided to avoid disorientation and overload in *all* students, there is an opposing literature stating that students in creative domains (e.g. art & music education) profit from rich and unorganized stimuli. These students flourish in environments that are complex and afford multiple…
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New Pub: Systematic Analysis of international EduTec Masters programs

New Pub: Systematic Analysis of international EduTec Masters programs

Higher Education, Journal, Publication
Scientific fields share their knowledge and recruit young researchers by offering discipline-specific study programs. Thus, study programs are a reflection of the fields they represent. As technology-enhanced learning is considered to be particularly interdisciplinary and heterogenous, it is important to better understand the landscape of study programs that represents the field. Similar to its broader and longer-established counterpart, educational technology, the research focus of TEL has led to interdisciplinary perspectives integrating theories and methods from education, psychology, and computer science. The term has not only been used to describe a research domain, it has also been the foundation for a number of higher education study programs. At the same time, there is a relative lack of research that has systematically reviewed topics, themes, and trends of curricula in study programs…
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