Transcript: Psychological research informing Ed Tech

00:00:02 Female voiceover 

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00:00:11 Dr Emma Sumner 

Welcome to the podcast Psyched about Education. This series celebrates the academic excellence of the work carried out at the Department of Psychology and Human Development and the impact this work has on policy and practice. In other words, how can psychology make a difference? 

I'm Dr Emma Sumner, Associate Professor at IOE. My research is on how to identify and support the needs of children with literacy difficulties, and I am your host for today. With me I have Dr Zachary Walker, Associate Professor and Head of Department in the Department of Psychology and Human Development. Zachary has written a book and multiple chapters on mobile technology and innovative pedagogies. We also have Liz Herbert, Lecturer and Programme Leader of the MA in Dyslexia. Liz was a co-investigator on the EU-funded iRead project, which developed personalized learning technologies to support reading skills for different learner groups. And, last but not least, Dr Laura Outhwaite, Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Educational Policy and Equalising Opportunities. Laura is currently Principal Investigator on the Nuffield-funded project, Can maths apps add value to learning?, a project that involves a systematic review and content analysis of apps currently available for teachers and children to use. 

In this podcast, we're going to be focusing on educational technologies, frequently referred to as ed tech, and the future of education. OK, so first of all I would like to welcome our expert panel. Thank you so much for joining me today. I want to start by asking you all what exactly do we mean by educational technologies and why is there such a buzz about technology in education? Liz, perhaps you'd like to respond first. 

00:01:53 Elisabeth Herbert 

Educational technology, also often known as ed tech; there are lots of different definitions. Ed tech focuses on the development and the application of technological tools, including software, hardware, and processes and media that assist in the promotion of education and the communication and development of knowledge. All this impacts on learning, so ed tech, basically, is technology that facilitates learning. And we know that technologies are continually evolving and not restricted to hi-tech materials. And people have got really excited about what technology can achieve and the benefits that can include things like personalization of learning and adaptivity. We also have something we call assistive technology, and this is technologies which can improve the lives of individuals, including those with disabilities, to communicate, to live life independently, and can be genuinely transformative. 

Possibly one of the reasons for the current buzz around ed tech can be attributed to the pandemic and the resulting school closures. We have schools, pupils and teachers and they were forced to rapidly learn and adopt new technologies, and they may not have ever considered engaging with some of these in the past. Through this process many, many people learned new skills. They saw the positive benefits technology can bring to education in various contexts. For instance, the accessibility of online tools such as Teams, Google Classroom, Zoom, all of these provided communication hubs with organizational features, which allowed the operation of virtual classrooms and continued connection with learners, most importantly. And we've got things like hardware such as laptops, tablets and this meant that pupils could learn anywhere, and software such as apps meant that classroom learning could be supplemented with these educational apps to practice skills and learning. 

00:04:04 Dr Emma Sumner 

Thanks Liz. Certainly in many ways technology has enabled children and young people to continue with their education during the pandemic, so I think that's a really important point to raise. 

00:04:12 Dr Zachary Walker 

I think what Liz said is very true. All of it, for both parts of the question. I think the one thing that I would point out is, at one point a simple pencil was educational technology. Our phones are not necessarily made for education, but they're a massive technology that we can use appropriately and responsibly within the classroom. I think it's important to recognize when we talk about ed tech there are certain things that are made for education, but for the most part technology is made for the masses because the masses are where you're going to get money. You're not necessarily going to make a lot of money off an ed tech product. However, the best teachers, the best innovators, the best school leaders are repurposing what is made for the masses and saying ‘OK, how can I use that in my classroom?’ So I think Liz is absolutely right: there's a buzz about it right now because of the pandemic – and I'll try to maybe come back to this later, depending on where the conversation goes – but I think there are also some things that we can point out around ed tech that say, OK, there's a buzz now, however, let's not make this bigger than it is; we can use almost any technology for the classroom if we're thoughtful and considerate about how we do it. 

00:05:26 Dr Laura Outhwaite 

Just touching again on some of the things that Liz and Zach have highlighted already: the promise of ed tech is that children can be both consumers and creators of their learning content, so it can be a very active process of learning rather than necessarily passive. And so it can be suitable for children maybe when they need extra practice, and when conventional classrooms may not be accessible, whether that's because of things like the pandemic or because of things like special needs and disabilities. And so I think there is a growing popularity around the use of ed tech and this was coming in even before the pandemic. The Department for Education promoted their ed tech policy in 2018, and schools have picked up on ed tech, but obviously there are inevitably challenges and barriers along the way. It's really important that when we do implement ed tech within the classroom that, as the others have said, it's appropriate, it's accessible, but also that it's evidence based, and I think that’s sometimes where there are quite a few gaps. 

00:06:31 Dr Emma Sumner 

Thanks. In what way can psychology inform the development of educational technologies? Zachary, perhaps you'd like to take this one first. 

00:06:38 Dr Zachary Walker 

Yes, actually we have a book coming out next year on this. I think one of the things that is important to understand is that while educational technology itself is not really in a nascent phase, the mass use of it is. There's lots that we don't know yet about long term impacts. Obviously, we see some short-term things around social media and things like that, but again, to separate that from educational technology is important in this particular conversation. To go back to what we mentioned earlier, I think this idea of how we use technology appropriately and responsibly is really, really important for students and for young children especially. But when we think about, again thinking about some of the ways that we can use technology as a whole and how we think about what we do, there are so many things that are coming out from mental health; there are so many things that are coming out around fitness and sleep. Some of those are just really good principles for life, right? We know that that your physical wellness, if you take care of some of those basics, can make you more mentally stable and emotionally resilient, and all those things that do lead to better outcomes in schools. And so, while it's hard to say at this point, because a lot of the research is still so new and we don't know longer term impacts, how psychology informs the development, what we can say is that there are lots of really good uses. Sometimes it's easy to get caught in the negative, but it's important to understand that, again, if we're appropriately using them and we're teaching our students to use them responsibly, there's lots of good things we can do with educational technologies as well. 

00:08:20 Dr Emma Sumner 

Yes, absolutely. So, really, psychology may underpin the content as well as the approach to using these new technologies. Laura, did you have anything to add to that point? 

00:08:30 Dr Laura Outhwaite 

Yes, for sure. Like I said earlier, one of the biggest gaps that we have within the space of ed tech is an evidence-based knowledge gap, and it's really important that ed tech is grounded in evidence and developmental psychology in education, which can help both app designers, parents, teachers, and policymakers in a number of different ways. I think that also then links back to what Zachary just said and yourself about the contributions that psychology can make in terms of the content of the apps and technologies more broadly. For example, there are over 200,000 apps on the App Store, and they're marketed as educational for young children. But these apps often don't reflect best practices of how we know children learn effectively. Apps may not always explain why a child’s response is right or wrong  rather, it will just say ‘good job, well done’ or ‘keep going’. It won't necessarily expand on that explanatory feedback. So ii our current maths app project we've highlighted the importance of that elaborative feedback, as well as programmatic levelling – when the app is able to adaptively take the child through the learning content in a more scaffolded way, rather than them going through it in a freeform, as and when kind of progression. So, psychology can really help us to understand how educational technology works, but also who it works for best and, importantly, under what circumstances. I think this is really vital, because technology alone in and of itself will not automatically create success. In terms of some of the themes that are emerging from our systematic review on maths apps: we found that younger children, so children around four years old, don't always do as well in terms of their engagement and learning with the apps compared to some of the older children. Now, it could be that the math content is too hard, but it could also be that they haven't necessarily got the language or the vocabulary skills in order to access some of the app-based learning content. Some of the findings from my PhD showed that children’s proficiency in the language of instruction was associated with their progress, and so this may suggest that for some children app-based learning may not always be best suited, or they may need additional support in order to access this content. These kind of research findings are really helpful for app designers to identify ways in which to improve their software so that it's beneficial and improves the outcomes for all children. As part of this, it's really vital to have collaborations and genuine knowledge exchange that goes both ways between researchers and app developers as well as the users of the technology itself. 

00:11:18 Dr Emma Sumner 

I think there are some really important points there that you've raised about psychology providing insight into how children learn, and that can inform them how apps are being developed or other technologies are being developed. And you also really emphasized the benefit of a multidisciplinary team combining both researchers and industry when developing these new technologies. Really valuable points there. 

What are some exciting developments in ed tech at the moment? 

00:11:41 Dr Zachary Walker 

If I can be completely honest, it's just the fact that people are finally using technology in the classroom. IBM in 1986, that's nearly 40 years ago, basically came out and said that technology allows people with disabilities access to content; it allows people to learn in ways that they'd never learned before. This was 1986. The first online classes were offered in the late 90s. I taught my first online class in 2005. Now here we are 15 years after that, and people are like, oh, you can teach online and it is actually good for students, and it can help be accessible for kids. So, I think just the fact that people are actually doing that now-. My favorite definition of innovation is changing before you have to. And, unfortunately, we're not innovative in schools. We're not innovative in education as a sector. But that being said, I think what we will see is more innovation will happen now, quicker than ever, because we've got to this point because of the pandemic that people had to change, right? And so I think that just the fact that people are actually using technology is really important. Now, when you look at some of the stuff that's out there right now: you look at augmented reality and virtual reality. Those things have been around for 20 years; we're just now starting to see them work their way into the classroom with some really, really interesting stuff. 

I did my dissertation 10 years ago on mixed reality, which is a combination of augmented reality and real life and virtual reality, and some of the things that we saw with students with disabilities and their individual social skills were just off the charts good. But it's just the fact that people weren't ready to hear that quite yet. So, the big thing for me that's exciting at this time is just the fact that people are now using technology and seeing that it can actually be quite good for all students – not just for kids with disabilities or not just kids who are trying remote learning, it can actually be really, really powerful for all of our students. 

00:13:48 Dr Emma Sumner 

It's true about the pace. New technologies are always being added, aren't they? But it's actually then translating that into the classroom, and that can actually take time. 

So Liz from your work in this area, are there any barriers that you see in using technology in education? How do we overcome those? 

00:14:04 Elisabeth Herbert 

I totally agree with what Laura and Zachary have been saying; it's not just the technology, it's how we use it. And as Zachary said, agree with that point, I now know how to use a QR code, whereas a year ago I had been quite frightened by one, even though they're all over the Tube. I'd say one of the key barriers for schools in using ed tech, though I'd probably reframe that positively as potential areas for development, would be that we need a clear vision and a coherent school plan for ed tech. Schools really need to know what ed tech resources are available to them and to be aware of any evidence which can inform the choice and the use of resources in practice, in order to most effectively impact on pupil and student learning. I think that's touching on what Laura said earlier. 

And I think another issue is related to equity. For instance, some schools have got a lovely bank of iPads that they can use, and then other schools have got very limited resources. Then I think you know the fast pace of development of technology can be a barrier here. Although some schools may have lots of iPads, sometimes they're not the latest versions, and as we know hardware can as well as software become really quickly outdated. This has got a significant financial implications for schools, so we need to bear that in mind. 

Also, lack of access to ed tech, that could be another barrier. Again, we saw this during a pandemic where access to technology was hugely varied. A positive response would be the need to provide support and continuing professional development, known as CPD, to schools to ensure that they're making the best use of the resources that they do have. And scaffolding the support to schools to develop those skills and knowledge and the confidence across staff teams in the using of ed tech. 

The key element of the iRead project that I worked on focused on CPD for teachers and we saw this is really essential – how we integrate technology into schools. We did find that teachers lacked confidence, well some teachers lacked confidence in using technologies in the classroom, and we found that it is important to provide additional support. We created a series of over 100 CPD events in schools across Europe to support the use of the technologies we'd created. We develop things like bite-sized videos to support teachers to use ed tech in the classroom, so that was really key to the success of some of our work with schools. As an outcome of the iRead project, we're establishing a consultancy service now to address this need, and this is available via – quick plug here – via our iRead website, which is now looking beyond the iRead project, so this provides some links and some key contact details. 

00:17:14 Dr Zachary Walker 

I want to come back to something that Liz said because I think this is really important. I think one of the things we often find as teachers is ‘I have to know everything’, you know what I mean? I think that's really, really dangerous in the sense that if you have a question with technology, ask the students; ask the kids, they'll figure it out; they'll help you understand it. It can be a bit scary at times to think, ‘oh, there's all these things coming into our classrooms and what do we do?’ If we feel like we constantly have to be in control, there's no chance we can do this. Some of the best schools that I've worked with actually have a team of students who are the tech support. The students, starting at age 10, are going around helping teachers figure things out and problem solve. And again, that goes back to the appropriate, responsible use of technology. I would just encourage, if there are practitioners out there not to feel like they have to understand everything. There's just too much. What you can understand is the basic principles of using it and allowing your students to participate in the process and be co-producers. 

00:18:20 Dr Emma Sumner 

I like that point. It's about using your resources that you've got within the schools, such as the children, who are really keen to use this technology in many cases. So, I really like that, thank you. 

I'm now thinking about just some more practical advice for educators and parents. There are lots of technologies and apps to choose from; what can educators do to ensure that those that they're selecting are high quality and fit for purpose? Liz, perhaps you'd like to add based on your work here. 

00:18:46 Elisabeth Herbert 

Yes, I think at present there is a lack of systematic guidance on how to choose technologies and use technologies, and in particular things like apps, which I'll use as an example, because we want to ensure they're of good quality and we want to check that they've got a sound theoretical and research base. Ease of downloading and accessibility as well as the low cost can lead to apps, for instance, being used to support learning and often with little thought. Content, that can be variable – it's not always evidence-based, yet there is little accountability, and users may not always be aware of this. So, choosing an app, I think, can be overwhelming for educators, and by educators I am talking about both teachers and parents. Often faced with the plethora available it can become a little bit like a child in a sleek shop experience. So, there's a danger of leaving parents or teachers at the risk of what we might call the butterfly or smorgasbord approach, meaning that you might flip from one app to another, not knowing which one’s best, or we’re overwhelmed by too much choice, simply too much out there. There are millions of apps out there: digital Wild West, really. 

As part of our work on the iRead project we did write an article for TES Online – sorry that's the Times Educational Supplement Online – which considered this issue. The project developed a diverse set of learning apps and teaching tools that included a personalized and adaptive literacy game, the Navigo game – also Amigo reader. Through this work we created an evaluation framework tool which could be used to evaluate the quality of reading apps and guide design and feedback types within learning games to children more generally. Our tool places an emphasis on feedback design as it is recognized as a key pedagogical dimension of games, particularly in early learning. But there's been little research on how commercial reading games embody existing feedback theories – I know Laura was talking a little bit about elaborated feedback earlier, which is something that we also worked on in our research. But we believe this could be a really big help to teachers, and it's critical we continue to systematically scrutinize the design of digital learning games and apps and software given the increasing use in classrooms. And this hopefully will be reflected in future policy guidance, which is obviously developing at the moment. 

00:21:28 Dr Emma Sumner 

Thanks Liz. I'm bringing Laura into this conversation now again, because your work is really in this area, too. 

00:21:33 Dr Laura Outhwaite 

In our Nuffield-funded project, Can maths apps add value to learning? we're also addressing this need. Liz has touched on the great work that she's been doing within the space of literacy. But I'd argue we also need it for maths, as well as other areas of education. And again, I think that's where our Nuffield project comes in. We've systematically reviewed the current evidence base that brings together both quantitative and qualitative studies that have evaluated a range of math apps with children in the first three years of school. This review identified 50 studies and there were 76 apps that had been evaluated. There are very mixed findings, and I think in comparison to literacy it's a much more emerging field of research, and the quality is definitely emerging, shall we say. We've then taken it a step further and we did a content analysis of the 76 apps in which we developed an evidence-based framework which examined both the content of the mathematical learning content as well as the app design features within these apps and then we then applied that to some of the most popular maths apps available. So essentially our research findings were not just restricted to those that had gone through that process, we tried to generalize it across to other apps that are available on the market. Because obviously, to evaluate an app takes time, it takes money and it takes collaboration between both the app developers and researchers; sometimes that isn't necessarily in place because there may not necessarily be the opportunities for that. I think it's really important that there is that generalizability. To try and disseminate some of these findings we're currently developing a website resource that will show all this information and hopefully provide useful signposts for both parents and teachers, and policymakers, too, so that they can make informed decisions about whether they wish to use apps with their children, and, if they do, which ones may be best suited for their children. 

00:23:43 Dr Emma Sumner 

Excellent, we'll keep a lookout for that website then, Laura, thank you. 

So now I'm to my final question for you all. How has your work or psychology research in this area made a contribution to policy or practice? Zachary, perhaps you'd like to tackle this one first. 

00:23:59 Dr Zachary Walker 

Yes, I'll keep it pretty simple. I think I started looking at technology because of the accessibility and and some of those things, but what I've personally learned, and I think what we can really do from psychology, which was touched on a little bit earlier, is look at how students learn and how we can integrate that into technology. And then my particular focus is really motivation. We know that technology is really just a tool, but it's a really powerful tool for kids who want to use technology anyway, so what are the best ways that we can actually integrate technology into the learning experience so it isn't seen as something fancy, it's just seen as a means to learning? I think that's really important. I think that's what we'll continue to focus our research on. 

00:24:44 Dr Emma Sumner 

Excellent, thanks, Zachary. Laura. 

00:24:47 Dr Laura Outhwaite 

Yes, my main research area is focused on educational maths apps. In particular, addressing questions, not just does it work, but delving deeper into who does it work for? How do they work, and under what circumstances? And so, some of our current research, which I've already mentioned, so the maths app project [is relevant]. We've also got a number of blogs and other resources that are available on the child development and learning difficulties webpage, which is hosted at UCL. I also wrote a piece for the Chartered College of Teaching special issue on ed tech a few years ago, which summarized some of those key questions relevant from my PhD research. We've had a number of projects over the years since I moved to UCL, and I think one of the most rewarding so far was working with some of the ed tech companies as part of the Educate project. I was a research mentor and I helped some ed tech companies that were part of the programme  to understand some of the research principles and research methods and best practices, which helped to enable them to do some of the research studies themselves and help ensure that their products were grounded in research evidence. Research doesn't need to necessarily be in a high impact journal. It can be these internal projects where app developers are, as part of an iterative design process, taking on board interviews or focus groups with their users. Maybe it's looking at the back-end data and making adjustments. Yes, the academic research in terms of, say, some of the work that Liz and I have done around feedback, yes, that can inform the app designers, but how do they then take that and then adapt that to their needs? In order to do that, I think it's really important that app developers and entrepreneurs do have an appreciation for research methods. So, like I say, being part of the Educate project was a really rewarding experience for me in that sense. 

00:26:50 Dr Emma Sumner 

And Liz. 

00:26:51 Elisabeth Herbert 

Yes, my work on the iRead project – I want to say that Emma was part of the team as well – this is led by Professor Mina Vassalou from the Knowledge Lab at UCL. The project contributed to the research base around the use of feedback in digital learning games and designing for challenge and contributed a set of design recommendations to guide researchers and designers in taking a multi-dimensional view of challenge. Some of the articles written by the team were recently published in a special edition of the British Journal of Educational Technology which focused on technology-mediated personalized learning for younger learners. Our award-winning Navigo game is available via the Google Play Store for free. The linguistic infrastructure that we created is available to use via the European learning grids for education, and that has got a lot of potential to be used for creating new digital literacy games, so it's well worth checking that out. Also, my role leading the Masters in Specific Learning Difficulties - Dyslexia here at UCL. We have a focus there on ed tech and we try and encourage our participants, who are training to be specialist teachers, to reflect on their use of ed tech and develop evidence-informed knowledge of assistive technologies for supporting those learners that may have specific learning difficulties. It's great, teachers tend to translate this knowledge to their practice and they often return to their workplace with a lot more confidence to encourage schools to make informed decisions on technology uptake and using ed tech, particularly when supporting pupils with special needs and disabilities.

00:28:49 Dr Emma Sumner

Well, I would like to thank you all, Zachary, Liz and Laura, for sharing your expertise on educational technologies. It's been really great to hear from you about the benefits and developments in educational technologies and how they can be integrated in the classroom or home learning. And it's also been fantastic to hear about the exciting projects that have been conducted and are to be continued, so we will definitely have to stay tuned for future findings.

So that's it from us today. You've been listening to Psyched about Education. For further details or other podcasts from the Department of Psychology and Human Development, please see the links at the end of this podcast.

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