Research Syntheses on Educational Technology and Learning. Approaches and Challenges

Edited by Svenja Bedenlier, Katja Buntins, Annika Wilmers and Michael Kerres

Please submit your abstract until 30 June 2022 at https://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions . Please also find the author guidelines there.
Call for Papers as PDF

Systematic reviews and research syntheses are becoming increasingly important in the area of educational technology and especially in English-language contexts. They represent an approach to summarize existing research, to aggregate results and to be able to make conclusive statements across individual studies. By means of different types of reviews, it is possible to delineate research fields, identify research gaps and depict the state of research at a given point (e.g., Bond et al. 2021).

Research syntheses are also increasingly mentioned in government funding schemes (Federal Ministry of Education and Research 2016; Wilmers et al. 2020; Wilmers et al. 2021). The guiding idea here is to condense existing knowledge, support evidence-based decisions and transfer knowledge more easily into educational practice and policy. Research syntheses, particularly systematic reviews, originated methodologically out of medical and pharmacological research in the 1970s, and started to be used as an approach in the 1990s in the field of public policy (Oakley et al. 2005). This disciplinary location raises questions about the suitability and transferability of this method to the field of educational technology and educational research as a whole. Against this backdrop, contextualization and locally bound preconditions represent special demands and limits for research synthesis in this field (Berliner 2002).

At the same time, the increasing use of research syntheses in the social sciences has already led to in-depth methodological study and development (Ades et al. 2005; Afshari et al. 2017; Bohlin 2012; Borrego et al. 2014; Chen and Tseng 2011; Esteves et al. 2017; Petticrew 2003). It can also be observed that, in addition to quantitative methods, more qualitative and other, more complex approaches are chosen (Grant and Booth 2009).

This also applies to research syntheses exploring learning with educational technology, with a number of reasons for this development: firstly, so-called "gold standards" – such as in medicine – cannot easily be applied to pedagogical and didactic questions. The effects of education-related measures arise in complex interactions, so simple assessments cannot be meaningfully made (Hammersley 2020). Complexity cannot be mapped with all relevant parameters within a baseline study, so that often more far-reaching forms of research synthesis have to be applied (Biondi-Zoccai 2016). After all, the theoretical constructs in educational science are often blurred. They can neither be analytically separated and searched for exhaustively, nor are they based on comparable measuring instruments or operationalization (Buntins et al. 2021; Henrie et al. 2015). Comparable constructs in different disciplines and regions of the world are also considered under different denominations or understandings (Berliner 2002; Buntins et al. 2018; Mayrberger and Kumar 2014). These problems, and other field-specific peculiarities, require solutions in order to realize the potential of research syntheses in educational science contexts – and especially in the field of educational technology.

The proposed issue aims to present research syntheses on educational technology/digital pedagogical issues, and to critically question them from methodological perspectives. Papers reporting results of research syntheses using quantitative or qualitative methods, and highlighting the potentials and limitations of the approaches and their specific challenges, are welcome. This also applies to general papers that deal more fundamentally (independently of a specific review) with research syntheses, with a focus on educational technology/technology-enhanced learning/digital pedagogical issues. Possible questions to explore include:

• How should research syntheses be designed in order to appropriately aggregate research (internationally)?
• To what extent do different approaches to research syntheses differ and how are they to be assessed with regard to digital media pedagogy/didactic research questions?
• To what extent are different kinds of reviews appropriate approaches in a highly context-dependent field, such as education (with educational technology)?
• How can research syntheses contribute to reducing the often times perceived researcher practitioner gap?
• How can reviews contribute to theory development?
• How can different national and international findings be identified and taken into account? Can different research traditions and terminology be identified?

We invite scientists, educational practitioners and media educators, to submit abstracts of up to 800 words in electronic form by 30 Juni 2022:
https://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions.

The editors will inform about the preliminary acceptance of the contribution by 15 July 2022. Full texts must be submitted by 31 Oct 2022 and will then be reviewed in a double-blind peer-review, with Authors taking part in the review process. Contributions must be written according to the instructions for manuscript submission (http://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions#authorGuidelines).

Contributions submitted in English or German must be original and should not be under consideration elsewhere. The total character count should be less than 40.000 characters for articles (including spaces, without abstract, and without references). A narrative abstract of 150–200 words briefly describes the main issues, significant results and conclusions. Contributions must be submitted with an English and German title and abstract.

• Svenja Bedenlier (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
• Katja Buntins (University of Duisburg-Essen)
• Annika Wilmers (DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education)
• Michael Kerres (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Ades, A. E., G. Lu, und J. P. T. Higgins. 2005. «The Interpretation of Random-Effects Meta-Analysis in Decision Models». Medical decision making: an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making 25 (6): 646–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X05282643.

Afshari, A., J. Wetterslev, und A. F. Smith. 2017. «Can Systematic Reviews with Sparse Data Be Trusted?». Anaesthesia 72 (1): 12–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.13730.

Berliner, David C. 2002. «Comment: Educational Research:The Hardest Science of All». Educational Researcher 31 (8): 18–20. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X031008018.

Biondi-Zoccai, Giuseppe, Hrsg. 2016. Umbrella Reviews: Evidence Synthesis with Overviews of Reviews and Meta-Epidemiologic Studies. 1st ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing. http://gbv.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=4390009. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25655-9.

Bohlin, Ingemar. 2012. «Formalizing Syntheses of Medical Knowledge: The Rise of Meta-Analysis and Systematic Reviews». Perspectives on Science 20 (3): 273–309. https://doi.org/10.1162/POSC_a_00075.

Bond, Melissa, Svenja Bedenlier, Victoria I. Marín, und Marion Händel. 2021. «Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education: Mapping the First Global Online Semester». International journal of educational technology in higher education 18 (1): 50. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00282-x.

Borrego, Maura, Margaret J. Foster, und Jeffrey E. Froyd. 2014. «Systematic Literature Reviews in Engineering Education and Other Developing Interdisciplinary Fields». J. Eng. Educ. 103 (1): 45–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20038.

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. 2016. «Bekanntmachung. Richtlinie zur Förderung von Forschung zur digitalen Hochschulbildung – Wirksamkeit und Wirkungen aktueller Ansätze und Formate – Trends und neue Paradigmen in Didaktik und Technik. Bundesanzeiger vom 26.02.2016.». https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/shareddocs/bekanntmachungen/de/2016/02/1152_bekanntmachung.

Buntins, Katja, Svenja Bedenlier, Melissa Bond, Michael Kerres, und Olaf Zawacki-Richter. 2018. «Mediendidaktische Forschung aus Deutschland im Kontext der internationalen Diskussion. Eine Auswertung englischsprachiger Publikationsorgane von 2008 bis 2017». In Digitalisierung und Hochschulentwicklung: Proceedings zur 26. Tagung der Gesellschaft für Medien in der Wissenschaft e.V. Bd. 74, herausgegeben von Barbara Getto, Patrick Hintze, und Michael Kerres, 246–63. Medien in der Wissenschaft 74. Münster, New York: Waxmann.

Buntins, Katja, Michael Kerres, und Anna Heinemann. 2021. «A scoping review of research instruments for measuring student engagement: In need for convergence». International Journal of Educational Research Open 2:100099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2021.100099.

Chen, Chien Chin, und You-De Tseng. 2011. «Quality evaluation of product reviews using an information quality framework». Decision Support Systems 50 (4): 755–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2010.08.023.

Esteves, Sandro C., Ahmad Majzoub, und Ashok Agarwal. 2017. «The Problem of Mixing ‘Apples and Oranges’ in Meta-Analytic Studies». Translational andrology and urology 6 (Suppl 4): 412-413. https://doi.org/10.21037/tau.2017.03.23.

Grant, Maria J., und Andrew Booth. 2009. «A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies». Health information and libraries journal 26 (2): 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Hammersley, Martyn. 2020. «Reflections on the Methodological Approach of Systematic Reviews». In Systematic Reviews in Educational Research: Methodology, Perspectives and Application, herausgegeben von Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Michael Kerres, Svenja Bedenlier, Melissa Bond, und Katja Buntins, 23–39. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27602-7_2.

Henrie, Curtis R., Lisa R. Halverson, und Charles R. Graham. 2015. «Measuring student engagement in technology-mediated learning: A review». Computers & Education 90: 36–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.09.005.

Mayrberger, K., und S. Kumar. 2014. «Mediendidaktik und Educational Technology. Zwei Perspektiven auf die Gestaltung von Lernumgebungen mit digitalen Medien». In Lernräume gestalten - Bildungskontexte vielfältig denken, herausgegeben von Klaus Rummler, 44–55. Münster: Waxmann.

Oakley, Ann, David Gough, Sandy Oliver, und James Thomas. 2005. «The politics of evidence and methodology: lessons from the EPPI-Centre». Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice 1 (1): 5–32. https://doi.org/10.1332/1744264052703168.

Petticrew, Mark. 2003. «Why Certain Systematic Reviews Reach Uncertain Conclusions». BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 326 (7392): 756–58. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7392.756.

Wilmers, Annika, Michaela Achenbach, und Carolin Keller, Hrsg. 2021. Bildung im digitalen Wandel: Organisationsentwicklung in Bildungseinrichtungen. Münster: Waxmann. https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/72870.

Wilmers, Annika, Carolin Keller, Marc Rittberger, und Carolin Anda. 2020. Bildung im digitalen Wandel. Die Bedeutung für das pädagogische Personal und für die Aus- und Fortbildung. Münster: Waxmann. https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/42108.