McKenney, S. (2012, 4-5 September). What is educational design research? Invited lecture for the Crossfield Graduate School at the University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland.

What is educational design research

The implementation of Mobile Pedestrian Navigation and Augmented Reality in mobile learning contexts shows new forms of interaction when students are taught by means of learning activities in formal settings. This research presents the educational, quantitative, and qualitative evaluation of an Augmented Reality and Mobile Pedestrian Navigation app. The software was designed for mobile learning in an educational context, to evaluate its effectiveness when applied as a teaching tool, in comparison to similar tools such as those present in e-learning. A mixed-method analysis was used, with primary school students from Chile as subjects (n=143). They were split into one control group and one experimental group. The control group worked in an e-learning environment, while the experimental group performed the activity as field work, making use of the app (m-learning). Students were evaluated pretest and posttest using an objective test to measure their level of learning. In parallel, a satisfaction survey was carried out concerning the use of these technologies, in addition to interviews with several students and teachers of the experimental group. Pretest-posttest results indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group in their learning levels. The results of the interviews and the satisfaction survey show that these technologies, combined with fieldwork, increase the effectiveness of the teaching-learning processes. Further, they promote the interaction of students with contents for learning, and they improve students performance in the educational process. The main goal is to provide a methodology for the analysis of an ad-hoc designed app. The app is intended to provide an m-learning process for subjects being taught about cultural heritage. The quantitative and qualitative results obtained show that it can be more effective than using similar technologies in e-learning contexts. It shows a comparison of educational results between m-learning and e-learning.Augmented Reality and Digital maps are shown to produce higher levels of learning.Better scores are achieved in the context of m-learning compared to e-learning.There is a positive perception of both students and teachers when using these tools.

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Augmented reality and pedestrian navigation through its implementation in m-learning and e-learning

This article explores starting points for spatial citizenship education and discusses fields of competence needed for active spatial citizenship. The use of geoinformation (GI) systems at the secondary-school level has been considered mainly as preparation to join the geospatial workforce and as a support tool to encourage spatial thinking. While this approach definitely has benefits in arguing for a wider set of competencies acquired by GI-based learning, it has frequently been linked to instrumental knowledge, and misses out on the societal consequences of GI use. The concept of spatial citizenship attempts to address these shortcomings. Originating from the individual and collective appropriation of social space, it supports learners in acquiring competencies that will enable them to participate more actively in society through the critical use of GI. Spatial citizenship adds an explicitly spatial domain to citizenship education.

Re-centring Geoinformation in Secondary Education: Toward a Spatial Citizenship Approach

This study analyzes the status of GIS in schools in thirty-three countries and proposes recommendations for advancing the implementation and effectiveness of GIS in secondary education from an international perspective. Thirty-three countries have been evaluated in the study to assess the global landscape of educational GIS by analyzing how GIS is recognized, approached, and used across the world with chief challenges, opportunities, and case studies. As the study revealed, the current global landscape of GIS remains small for secondary education; however, the convergence of citizen science, emphasis on spatial thinking, mobile devices, open data, and Web-based map services could cause a significant increase in the numbers of schools, educators, and students teaching and learning with GIS.

The Global Landscape of GIS in Secondary Education

Geospatial technologies offer access to geospatial information via digital representations, such as digital maps, and tools for interaction with those representations. The question is whether geography lessons with geospatial technologies really contribute to the development of students' geospatial thinking, in particular geospatial relational thinking, as is suggested in the literature about geospatial technologies in secondary education. This paper reports about the outcomes of a quasi-experimental research project, in which a geography lesson series with geospatial technologies was compared with a conventional geography lesson series that had the same content. Although the lesson series covered only three lessons, the data showed that the lesson series with geospatial technologies contributed significantly more to the development of students' geospatial relational thinking than the conventional lesson series. The effect size was ‘medium large’.

The effects of geography lessons with geospatial technologies on the development of high school students' relational thinking

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a kind of computer software that allows people to work with digital maps in a fast and flexible way. In the past decade, more and more geography teachers have become interested in the possibilities of using GIS in secondary education. However, teaching with GIS is complex, and little is known about how to do so in an optimal way. Therefore, an Educational Design Research study (EDR) was conducted with the aim to explore the characteristics of an optimal design for GIS-supported geographic inquiry projects. In this EDR study, a project was developed via progressive cycles of designing, testing, and evaluating, together with teachers from different schools. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the EDR study, and presents some design principles for GIS-supported inquiry-based geography education. Teachers could use these design principles to design and conduct GIS-supported geographic inquiry projects, and in such a way raise their geography lessons to a higher level. This paper also shows that although GIS provides many opportunities for enhancing inquiry-based geography projects, it also holds many conditions for its use to be optimal. GIS-supported inquiry-based geography education requires more than providing appropriate software, tasks, and coaching to ensure that students do not get stuck. In order to effectively raise students' geographic thinking to a higher level, the project should offer a considerable amount of guidance: it should include several preparatory and evaluative tasks based on a good domain-specific theory for use in educational settings. In addition, teachers should coach students in structuring, correcting, and expanding their geographic thinking via dialogical teaching.

Exploring the characteristics of an optimal design for inquiry-based geography education with Geographic Information Systems

Learning geography by combining fieldwork with GIS

Geographic information systems (GIS) offer many possibilities for supporting student research projects. This paper deals with the results of the first phase of a design study on student research projects that combine (quantitative) data collection in the field with data visualisation, manipulation and analysis in GIS. In this study, we try to identify the characteristics of a successful design. In the first phase of the study, four student research projects that combine fieldwork with GIS were designed and tested. The design and test rounds were primarily focused at identifying the characteristics of feasible and potentially rich student research projects. On the basis of the design and test rounds, we identified five features of feasible student research projects that combine fieldwork with GIS.

T.T. Favier

Papers

The effects of geography lessons with geospatial technologies on the development of high school students' relational thinking

Exploring the characteristics of an optimal design for inquiry-based geography education with Geographic Information Systems

Exploring the characteristics of an optimal design for inquiry-based geography education with Geographic Information Systems

Learning geography by combining fieldwork with GIS

Learning Geography by Combining Fieldwork with GIS.