Who cares about open badges? An examination of principals’ perceptions of the usefulness of teacher open badges in the United States

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examined school leaders’ perceptions of open badges for teacher candidates. We emailed one of two forms of a survey to principals and assistant principals in five school districts in the United States. Form A used wording about digital badges while form B used the term microcredentials. Both forms included open-ended questions. We compared the results of the surveys and examined the results of the open-ended questions. We found that using the term microcredential instead of the term digital badge did not have a significant effect on employers’ perceptions on open badges. However, providing a small amount of instruction regarding the affordances of open badges did produce a statistically significant difference in the perceived value of open badges. Employers saw the most value in achievement and capability badges. The evidence link and endorsements from established professional organisations were identified as important tools to employers. Most employers believed badges would be useful in the hiring process, but many worried about the challenge of having too much data.

KEYWORDS:

• Employer perceptions
• digital badges
• credentials
• higher education
• technology integration
• educational technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel L. Randall

Daniel L. Randall has worked in the educational software industry and in higher education as an instructional designer, researcher, and product owner. He received his Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology & Technology from Brigham Young University and is passionate about educational innovations. He has conducted research on collaborative design processes, microcredentials, and gamification. He served on a national microcredentials committee and was a founding board member of a primary school. His research and other work can be viewed at DanRandall.com.

Richard E. West

Richard E. West (@richardewest on twitter) is an Associate Professor in the Instructional Psychology and Technology Department at Brigham Young University. He teaches courses in instructional technology, academic research and writing, creativity and innovation, and product/program evaluation. He has published over 100 academic articles or chapters sharing his research on how to create learning environments that prepare students for the 21st century, including designing learning environments that foster group creativity through design thinking, utilising microcredentials and open badges to promote competency learning, the development and support of online learning communities, and emerging technologies to support effective learning.