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Universities globally have been increasingly looking to bring in professionals with expertise in learning and curriculum design to help with educational innovation. The aim of this study was to explore the epistemological views of learning that people in curriculum and learning design roles use to inform their practice. In this study, ten learning and curriculum designers were interviewed in depth. The participants demonstrated wide and deep knowledge of learning and teaching, drawing on both established notions of constructivism but also on emerging theories and evidence. Combined with extensive experience, the interviews revealed that these learning designers demonstrate high levels of epistemic fluency, adapting and using processes and practices in a dynamic way as task requirements demand. The findings make a contribution to the limited understanding of the knowledge base that curriculum learning designers draw on to carry out their work. The implications of these findings for universities are also discussed.

The value of students developing the capacity to accurately judge the quality of their work and that of others has been widely studied and recognized in higher education literature. To date, much of the research and commentary on evaluative judgment has been theoretical and speculative in nature, focusing on perceived benefits and proposing strategies seen to hold the potential to foster evaluative judgment. The efficacy of the strategies remains largely untested. The rise of educational tools and technologies that generate data on learning activities at an unprecedented scale, alongside insights from the learning sciences and learning analytics communities, provides new opportunities for fostering and supporting empirical research on evaluative judgment. Accordingly, this paper offers a conceptual framework and an instantiation of that framework in the form of an educational tool called RiPPLE for data-driven approaches to investigating the enhancement of evaluative judgment. Two case studies, demonstrating how RiPPLE can foster and support empirical research on evaluative judgment, are presented.

It is becoming apparent that generative AI has significant implications for education. However, previous technologies that have had a large impact, such as calculators, do not provide a suitable model for understanding how generative AI can and will be used in learning. Drawing on research on human-computer interactions, we map out a typology of possible student-to-generative AI relationships to afford a more nuanced discussion about what these new technologies can and should be used for in learning. Our contribution in this article is to offer a typology for considering the range of possible interactions across two dimensions of relationships. In doing so, we argue that there is not a single metaphor for the relationship between humans and AI in learning, but many.

The value of technology lies not only with the service or functionality of the tool, but also with its subsequent value to the people who use it. New learning analytics (LA) software and platforms for capturing data and improving student learning are frequently introduced; however, they suffer from issues of adoption and continued usage by stakeholders. Scholars have previously suggested that it is not enough to introduce stakeholders (e.g., teachers and students) to LA technologies; they must also be a part of the LA creation and design process. In this paper, we will continue the ongoing work to clarify and compare different approaches of human-centred design through an overview of participatory frameworks in LA (co-design, co-creation). We will also present a case study using an LA tool used and developed within several Australian universities that was utilized over six years as an example of how LA designers can co-create dynamic platforms with teachers. Implications of participatory design frameworks in LA will also be presented through a discussion of the costs, challenges, and benefits of adopting human-centred design.

Video in education has become pervasive. Globally, educators are recording instructional videos to augment their students' learning and, in many contexts, replace face-to-face lectures. However, the mere act of watching a video is primarily a passive learning experience likely leading to lack of student engagement hindering learning. Active learning strategies such as video annotations and in-video questions have the potential to shift the passive experience of watching an instructional video to a more active one by engaging students with learning strategies designed to promote self-regulated learning and improve content knowledge. This experimental study investigates the impact of in-video questions compared to video annotations on learning and self-efficacy in an experimental setting. Findings revealed that learners who annotated videos had higher self-efficacy than those who completed in-video questions likely due to the immediate feedback received from the in-video questions. The study further concluded that prior knowledge plays a critical role in selecting appropriate active learning strategies, suggesting that video annotations be considered when students have prior knowledge about a topic whereas in-video questions with immediate feedback be interspersed in videos when students do not have prior knowledge about a topic.

Balancing the competing demands of research and teaching has long been lamented by academics. The challenges associated with Covid-19 will make this increasingly difficult. An integrated approach to research and teaching, where students are directly engaged in the production of research, may provide a useful strategy to support ongoing research within the design disciplines whilst befitting student learning. The production of original research requires a willingness to engage in -- and manage -- uncertainty. Contemporary higher education acknowledges that global challenges are increasing in complexity and, thus, students require opportunities to learn to productively manage this complexity. Utilising teacher observations and student feedback, this article reflects critically on a studio model, iteratively refined over two semesters, with the deliberate intent of exacerbating the complexity already present within studio pedagogy for the production of new knowledge. It outlines a set of strategies for making manageable this uncertainty for students to ensure it is beneficial for their learning. It also identifies a number of challenges educators can face when assuming a duel role as teacher and research partner; and provides advice for negotiating these challenges.

Help-seeking is an essential self-regulatory and metacognitive skill. In the online learning environment, much of the learning is self-directed and there are generally less opportunities to receive help in real time. The uses of email and discussion boards are the most common method of seeking help in these environments. The current study explored students' perceptions of the use of live chat technology for online academic help-seeking within higher education, with a focus on comparing online and blended learners' perspectives. Participants were 246 students who were studying psychology online (n = 91) or in blended learning (n = 155) environments. The live chat technology was well received by both groups, especially for its ability to provide instant, real-time, and convenient help. Live chat was particularly well received by online learners, who were more satisfied, felt more cared about by the teaching team, and would be more likely to recommend it to others than blended learners. Further, online learners reported that live chat gave them better access to staff, and felt that this feature was a good approximation for more traditional face-to-face conversations. As an online, synchronous, private help-seeking tool between student and teacher, these findings provide a strong endorsement for the use of live chat in higher education, particularly for online learners.

Background: Emerging technologies and societal changes create new ethical concerns and greater need for cross-disciplinary and cross–stakeholder communication on navigating ethics in research. Scholarly articles are the primary mode of communication for researchers, however there are concerns regarding the expression of research ethics in these outputs. If not in these outputs, where should researchers and stakeholders learn about the ethical considerations of research? Objectives: Drawing on a scoping review, analysis of policy in a specific disciplinary context (learning and technology), and reference group discussion, we address concerns regarding research ethics, in research involving emerging technologies through developing novel policy that aims to foster learning through the expression of ethical concepts in research. Approach: This paper develops new editorial policy for expression of research ethics in scholarly outputs across disciplines. These guidelines, aimed at authors, reviewers, and editors, are underpinned by: a cross-disciplinary scoping review of existing policy and adherence to these policies; a review of emerging policies, and policies in a specific discipline (learning and technology); and, a collective drafting process undertaken by a reference group of journal editors (the authors of this paper). Results: Analysis arising from the scoping review indicates gaps in policy across a wide range of journals (54% have no statement regarding reporting of research ethics), and adherence (51% of papers reviewed did not refer to ethics considerations). Analysis of emerging and discipline-specific policies highlights gaps. Conclusion: Our collective policy development process develops novel materials suitable for cross-disciplinary transfer, to address specific issues of research involving AI, and broader challenges of emerging technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As higher education transitions from an exclusivist to a more accessible endeavour, class sizes are continuously increasing, prompting academics to explore different strategies to facilitate quality learning. In this paper, we explore the current practices of Australian biochemistry and molecular biology academics to understand how academics cope with the mass education context, and whether there are specific blocks to the introduction of active learning into these classrooms. We utilised inductive thematic analysis to identify the themes underpinning the pedagogical practices of a selection of academics in biochemistry and molecular biology. These data indicated that these academics: (1) consider themselves to be, and are, traditional teachers; (2) believe that their students will learn better the way that they were taught at university; (3) are trying to shift their teaching from traditional to non-traditional; and (4) practice reflective teaching. These findings suggest that these pedagogical practices are primarily influenced by the academics' own presumptions and educational beliefs on how the specific discipline should be taught. Engagement in professional development appears to be influencing some academics to shift their teaching towards a more active and student-centred focus, but still, a lack of formal education qualification is holding many academics back from fully engaging with current pedagogical best practice. The findings in this study are broadly applicable to many higher education disciplines.

The first year of university is often considered challenging and difficult for students who are adjusting to different academic and social demands. In this context, teacher-student interactions can play a crucial role in fostering student motivation, engagement in learning, a sense of belonging to the university and academic persistence. Although the benefits of teacher-student interactions have been researched, to date few studies have examined in-depth the characteristics, role and value of these interactions from students' perspectives in the Australian higher education context. Through semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the experiences of 21 undergraduate students who reflected on their interactions with teaching staff (lecturers and tutors) in the first year, particularly the type and frequency of interactions they had with teachers and the influences these interactions had on their learning and engagement in the subject as well as the broader university. Overall, students reported that the majority of interactions were positive and helpful in influencing their engagement in learning. However, the benefits of their interactions with teachers were not perceived to extend beyond the classroom to help them develop a sense of belonging to the university.

Questions such as 'what is value in the student experience?' and 'how do we measure or assess value in higher education?' remain an under-researched area. However, in the context of marketisation and competitive forces in higher education, there is a need to unpack what is value in the student experience. In this article, a conceptualisation of value that can be applied in higher education (known as value-in-use) is introduced and applied to a specific and increasingly important aspect of the student experience -- student-staff partnerships. Qualitative survey data (n = 97) and interviews (n = 35) from ten cases of various manifestations of student-staff partnerships in the Australasian context is presented and assessed in relation to value. The findings highlight that student-staff partnerships may enhance value in the student experience and that value-in-use may be an appropriate lens through which to continue to explore how value is created and measured in the student experience.

Increased marketisation and competition has renewed interest in how universities can partner, or co-create, with students. To address this, and further conceptualise a model of co-creation across inputs, processes, and outcomes, this article summarises the findings from 10 different case studies of student-staff co-creation (e.g., co-producers of learning resources, peer mentors, co-creators of the curriculum) in the Australasian higher education context. Our data include qualitative survey responses (n=97) and interviews (n=35) with students and staff. Based on these data, we present an evidence-informed model of co-creation that elucidates the key considerations in the co-creation process. The model highlights and distinguishes two dual-value creation dimensions that underlie co-creation, co-production, and value-in-use. The result is a model of co-creation in higher education that can help guide administrators, researchers, and higher education stakeholders to better conceptualise, design, implement, and assess co-creation activities.

Recently, the concept of evaluative judgement has gained attention as a pedagogical approach to classroom formative assessment practices. Evaluative judgement is the capacity to be able to judge the work of oneself and that of others, which implies developing knowledge about one's own assessment capability. A focus on evaluative judgement helps us to better understand what is the influence of assessment practices in the regulation of learning. In this paper, we link evaluative judgement to two self-regulated learning models (Zimmerman and Winne) and present a model on the effects on co-regulation of learning. The models help us to understand how students can be self-regulated through developing their evaluative judgement. The co-regulation model visualises how the learner can become more strategic in this process through teacher and peer assessment in which assessment knowledge and regulation strategies are shared with the learner. The connections we make here are crucial to strengthening our understanding of the influence of assessment practices on students' learning.

Tomorrow's professionals will require an enhanced capacity for collaboration, cooperation and creative thinking. Markauskaite and Goodyear (Markauskaite, L., and P. Goodyear. 2016. "Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education: Innovation, Knowledgeable Action and Actionable Knowledge". Springer) have posited "epistemic fluency" as the pedagogical approach necessary to prepare graduates for increasingly complex challenges. They have provided a framework for creating epistemic learning environments but not a clear implementation strategy. This paper draws parallels between epistemic fluency and design thinking to position the design studio as a relevant pedagogical model with an established set of strategies for facilitating epistemic fluency. A series of experiments undertaken to optimise the studio environment for the development of epistemic fluency will be drawn on to illustrate its suitability. The intent is to provide guidance for how studio learning could be adapted for use within other disciplines and to highlight the challenges teachers need to address within this process; particularly, that epistemic environments require the continuous exercise of design thinking by both teacher and learner.

Emotions play a significant part in students' learning experiences within complex educational environments. However, the impact of emotional experiences on effective learning is not straightforward. For example, being confused during learning may be perceived as an adverse event. There is, however, considerable research evidence suggesting that confusion can also be a productive aspect of a student's learning processes. Despite this, research also suggests that when confusion is persistent it can become harmful, promoting learner frustration or boredom. Key challenges for the design of interactive digital learning environments (IDLEs) are to detect and assess students' emotions and to tailor the environment accordingly. In this paper we examine, from a review of the literature, the implications of learners' confusion that can occur in IDLEs. Strategies for managing students' confusion will then be discussed and examples of features enhancing learning in IDLEs will be suggested.

The growing practice of students as partners (SaP) has sparked numerous conversations in higher education about the roles students do and should play in shaping the future. SaP scholars contend that by engaging with students in meaningful partnership, underpinned by values such reciprocity, students can have deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. Similar in this goal, the field of learning analytics also strives to create deeper and more meaningful learning experiences for students, however, the current approach differs. Students and other stakeholders such as teachers are rarely part of the process in learning analytics, and this divide, and lack of communication, between designers and users, has led to several critical issues in the area. Therefore, this paper will discuss three ongoing issues within learning analytics and draw on SaP values and guiding principles, such as reciprocity, emphasis on the process, and shared responsibility to question the current way learning analytics perceives students. By arguing for a change in perspective and the adoption of SaP in learning analytics, we will further add on growing literature about the importance of universities to become transparent and collaborative communities.

Testing can do more than just determine what a student knows; it can aid the learning process, a phenomenon known as the testing effect. There is a growing trend for students to create and share self-assessment questions in their subject, as advocated by the contributing-student pedagogy (CSP). For subjects with large enrolments, this process can be facilitated by educational technology. PeerWise is an example of such technology. It is free, web-based software that allows students to author, share, answer, and provide feedback on multiple-choice quizzes in a collaborative and constructivist fashion. While it is popular, it is unclear to what degree it facilitates student learning. To evaluate its effectiveness, we introduced PeerWise into a second-year psychology subject. We measured the extent to which it increased scores in the final exam. We found that PeerWise did significantly increase exam scores, so was a useful learning aid.

Students have begun to show interest in adopting active and participatory roles that allow them to interact and work collaboratively with educators. One important aspect of students as partners is a process known as value co-creation. Value co-creation is the process of students' feedback, opinions, and other resources such as their intellectual capabilities and personalities, integrated alongside institutional resources, which can offer mutual value to both students and institutions. This paper presents the first conceptual model of value co-creation in higher education using a lens of co-creation cultivated through business and marketing literature. The model includes key components of value co-creation, co-production, and value-in-use as well as links to the anticipated benefits of value co-creation. The model can be used to inform and guide practice for the faculty and administration within higher education as well as to broaden the foundation of value co-creation literature.

Recent scholarly discussions about massive open online courses (MOOCs) highlight pedagogical and practical issues that separate MOOCs from other learning settings, especially how theories of learning translate to MOOC students' motivation, participation, and performance. What is missing from these discussions is the purpose of the MOOC. We report a comparative study of two MOOCs that differ in educational purpose, but are similar in design. Our sample consisted of 983 students in a professional development MOOC, and 648 students in a MOOC focused on general interest. We first report differences between the two MOOCs, in terms of student demographics, achievement motivation, and participation. For each MOOC, we ran a two-stage regression analysis to determine the extent to which motivation variables (stage 1) and participation variables (stage 2) predicted performance. Patterns in demographic background and motivation differed in ways that were consistent with the MOOCs' purposes. Motivation and participation predicted performance, but this relationship differed between the two MOOCs and reflected the patterns of participation. Professional development motivation contributed to final grade in the professional development MOOC, but not the general interest MOOC. The findings have implications for how MOOC designers think about their target audience, and for students who aim for high final grades.

The abstract is a key element of a research article that can enhance the utility, discoverability and impact of the work presented. However, the quality and consistency of abstracts can vary, and the state of abstracts in the educational technology field has received little attention to date. In this editorial, we examine the purpose, structure and future of the abstract in educational technology research to provide advice on how to write a good and impactful abstract. A list of 14 elements derived from the literature was used to analyse the abstracts of the first 10 articles published in 2024 from each of the top 10 educational technology journals ranked by Google Scholar (n = 100). Elements such as background, aim, methods, results and implications were found to be present in most abstracts, although there is room for improvement in clarity in some cases. Other elements, including research questions, hypotheses and future directions, are not often incorporated, indicating these elements may not be necessary in this context. These findings can be used by authors to structure an impactful abstract and also highlight elements (e.g., theoretical framework, sample size and context) that should be included to improve discoverability of published work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of big data in higher education has evolved rapidly with a focus on the practical application of new tools and methods for supporting learning. In this paper, we depart from the core emphasis on application and delve into a mostly neglected aspect of the big data conversation in higher education. Drawing on developments in cognate disciplines, we analyse the inherent difficulties in inferring the complex phenomenon that is learning from big datasets. This forms the basis of a discussion about the possibilities for systematic collaboration across different paradigms and disciplinary backgrounds in interpreting big data for enhancing learning. The aim of this paper is to provide the foundation for a research agenda, where differing conceptualisations of learning become a strength in interpreting patterns in big datasets, rather than a point of contention.

Confusion is an emotion that is likely to occur while learning complex information. This emotion can be beneficial to learners in that it can foster engagement, leading to deeper understanding. However, if learners fail to resolve confusion, its effect can be detrimental to learning. Such detrimental learning experiences are particularly concerning within digital learning environments (DLEs), where a teacher is not physically present to monitor learner engagement and adapt the learning experience accordingly. However, with better information about a learner's emotion and behavior, it is possible to improve the design of interactive DLEs (IDLEs) not only in promoting productive confusion but also in preventing overwhelming confusion. This article reviews different methodological approaches for detecting confusion, such as self-report and behavioral and physiological measures, and discusses their implications within the theoretical framework of a zone of optimal confusion. The specificities of several methodologies and their potential application in IDLEs are discussed.

This commentary is a response to those of Hall (2016) and Winebrenner (2016), which in turn were responses to the article the authors wrote on modality preferences and learning styles (Lodge, Hansen, & Cottrell, 2016). There are several key points the authors wish to address in this reply. Most importantly, and aligned with the aims and focus of "Learning: Research and Practice," the authors would like to take the opportunity to discuss why learning styles provide a key example of what happens when the link between research and practice is corroded. [For the original article on modality preferences and learning styles written by the authors, "Modality Preference and Learning Style Theories: Rethinking the Role of Sensory Modality in Learning," see EJ1186493. For the Hall article, "The Tenacity of Learning Styles: A Response to Lodge, Hansen, and Cottrell," see EJ1186525. For the Winebrenner article, "Teaching Students about Their Own Modality Strengths Can Lead to Positive Learning Outcomes," see EJ1186465.]

"Early career" in academia is typically defined in terms of research capability in the five years following PhD completion, with career progression from post-doctoral appointment to tenure, promotion and beyond. This ideal path assumes steady employment and continuous research development. With academic work increasingly casualised, experiences of "early career" are changing and definitions in use by institutions and research bodies do not reflect the lived experiences of early career academics (ECAs). This paper presents five collective narratives and a thematic analysis of survey data from 522 ECAs in three Australian universities. The results offer insights into the diverse experiences of the early stages of academic careers and provide an opportunity to reconsider current definitions. We argue that the employment context in higher education makes it crucial to consider scholars' self-definitions alongside existing objective indicators to redefine early career in academia.