Useful lines of inquiry—what is worth investigating and how?

Almost 2 years since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessment of its impacts on the educational landscape leaves behind an indomitable sense of déjà vu. The impacts of this pandemic on the education sector globally have been obviously considerable and far-reaching but they are not new (see Aguilar & Ratamal, 1998). We have experienced many such disruptions before, and several in recent memory. These include those caused by similar sorts of pandemics and other global phenomena, including the emergence of new and game-changing technologies such as the Internet and the World Wide Web as well as erstwhile revolutionary educational practices such as homeschooling and distance education.

Preliminary assessment of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education sector globally reveals a familiar pattern—one that is pretty much universally characterized by chaos, panic, misguided assumptions and questions, and then hasty decision-making for the short-term emergency. We have seen this pattern of behavior unfold in a recently published article, “A Multi-institutional Assessment of Changes in Higher Education Teaching and Learning in the Face of COVID-19” (Bartolic et al., 2021).

One of the first of such investigations, this study of 280 academic staff across eight institutions in six countries around the world looked at their initial responses to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study began with the premise that several factors may have influenced the early rounds of pivot away from physical campus-based educational operations. These comprised the natural resort to information and communications technologies in the face of widespread school closures, a variable response to the pandemic by the academic community based on wide-ranging perceptions of approaches to teaching and learning, and the diversity of challenges posed by the pandemic to student learning. None of these factors was found to have any significant impact on the response of the educators and their institutions to teaching and learning. Although, the investigators are quick to point out that this finding is probably an outcome of their limited sample. Noticeably, of the eight educational institutions canvassed in this study—except for one of them—none possessed any significant background or track record in open, flexible, and distance learning. In the absence of any such experience, it is not surprising that their pivot toward nontraditional approaches was marked by chaos and confusion.

A different sample of educators and institutions segmented along the lines of their background orientation, and levels of preparedness for open, flexible, and distance learning, or experience with technology-enhanced learning would have perhaps produced a different set of findings—in favor of those with this kind of experience. We know, anecdotally, that open universities and similar institutions that were already using online distance learning were far better prepared for the disruptions to their business models than their counterparts who were not as well prepared or were not on that path before the pandemic struck. There is some suggestion to this effect in the article “Home Broadband and Student Engagement during COVID-19 Emergency Remote Teaching” by Ciarán Mac Domhnaill, Gretta Mohan, and Selina McCoy. This study explored the perceived impacts on student engagement of access to high-speed broadband and information and communications technology in students’ homes in Ireland. The authors report a large-scale negative impact of school closures on student engagement as a result of lack of access to high-speed broadband information and communications technology in students’ homes. Schools with prior access to and experience with technology in teaching and learning reported much less negative impact, as it seems that they may have been better equipped to move onto online learning than those without experience and access to information and communications technology infrastructure. From the data presented in this study, it isn’t clear to what extent access to and the use of broadband technology or the educational design of the learning experience may have affected student engagement in learning online. It is important, therefore, not to interpret the negative perceptions of the pivot to online learning as suggesting that it is any less effective than classroom-based learning for secondary school student engagement.

The large-scale adoption of online distance learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has nevertheless attracted the unremarkable research question “Is online education as effective as campus-based education?”—a question reminiscent of those that were asked about distance education half a century ago, when it was emerging as a viable option to campus-based teaching and learning. The article “Research Trends in Online Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic” by Sanjaya Mishra, Sidhartha Sahoo, and Shriram Pandey offers an early insight into this phenomenon. Using bibliometric techniques, these researchers analyzed a selection of publications—mostly journal articles—addressing the emergency response to the widespread closure of campus-based educational operations. They found in a lot of this research a noticeable lack of methodological rigor or any substantial awareness of the existing large body of literature on open, flexible, and distance learning methods, and a focus on the typical questions that have previously been raised in relation to nontraditional approaches when they first appeared to become popular—“Is there a difference between online and campus-based education; and if so, then what are the differences? What needs to be done so they can be treated equally? Do, and should, institutions specify the mode of learning on the award of certification? And what is the perception among industry and academia of online qualifications?”

At first glance, these look like interesting questions and relevant lines of inquiry, but on closer look it will become apparent that they are fundamentally flawed. Modes of learning and teaching are never the same across the board and will differ along various dimensions. Comparing one with another is not only difficult because iterations of a mode are likely to differ but also not very useful unless the conditions of learning and teaching are exactly the same in the contexts that are being compared—which is rarely the case.

A more useful line of inquiry is to look for insights on particular attributes or affordances of different modes of learning. One of these affordances is digitally augmented learning experiences and how these can help promote learner-content interaction. This is the subject of the article “Measuring Learner–Content Interaction in Digitally Augmented Learning Experiences” by Sandra Thatcher Powell and Heather Leary. They suggest that the interaction between learners and the subject matter content is less clearly understood than the interaction between and among learners as well as between learners and their teachers. Even more contentious is the measurement of the interaction between learners and the subject matter content. A review of measures reported in 107 studies produced 113 measurement tools. Most of these were designed for specific uses and therefore not easily adaptable. For a more universal approach, these authors suggest that the measurement of learner–content interaction should have a stronger pedagogical base; consider learner agency, motivation, and engagement as critical attributes; and also be able to measure outcomes in a wide variety of learning experiences.

Another interesting line of inquiry is the role of the teacher and teacher agency in supporting cognitive conflict and learner engagement, which is the subject of the article “Effects of Online Teaching Presence on Students’ Cognitive Conflict and Engagement” by Yang Wang and David Stein. Teacher agency is about the presence of the teacher and the teaching function in the learning environment. Regardless of the learning mode, this involves the scaffolding of student learning to support and promote the construction of knowledge. In the face-to-face educational setting, much of this function is caried out by the teacher in person, whereas in online and distance education settings, these functions are often mediated by technology and the design of the students’ learning experiences. Teacher agency does not mean direct instruction or teacher-centeredness. Actually, far from it—it means careful design of the student learning experience to promote and support learner agency. This is the focus of the article “Becoming Scholarly Practitioners: Creating Community in Online Professional Doctoral Education” by Veselina Lambrev and Bárbara Cruz. These authors explored the role of purposeful teaching presence in establishing and supporting learner agency in the context of building learning communities. Highly rated and beneficial strategies for achieving critical discourse included the professional authenticity of instructors, informal check-ins, the pursuit of purposeful discourse in whole-group discussions, and the provision of rich and consistent feedback.

The role of the teacher and teacher agency is clearly pivotal in supporting cognitive conflict and learner engagement and the importance of understanding the role of both in the construction of knowledge cannot be overstated. As reported in the article “Latent Class Analysis of K-12 Teachers’ Barriers to Implementing OER,” Hengtao Tang and Yu Bao looked at barriers that teachers need to overcome in the adoption and implementation of educational innovations such as OER (open educational resources). These authors suggest that since in many educational contexts, these barriers are closely related to the particular educational culture and context, a person-centered approach to its understanding is recommended.

The role of the learner and learner agency is just as important in learning engagement. Optimizing learner agency is the focus of the article “Validation of The Online Learning Readiness Self-Check Survey” by Jongpil Cheon, Jiaming Cheng, and Moon-Heum Cho. This article reports on the development and validation of the Online Learning Readiness Self-Check, which is a self-report survey designed to examine nontraditional students’ readiness for online learning. Different learner profiles view educational innovations differently and as such require different approaches for overcoming those barriers. One size does not fit all, and instruments and initiatives such as these are valuable for diagnosing learner profiles for the purposes of designing learning experiences that are best suited for them.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to question and rethink many of our assumptions about learning and teaching, and especially online learning, it is critical that we are pursuing useful lines of inquiry in the development of productive learning environments regardless of the context. I hope you find these articles and their insights beneficial in your own explorations of the implications of this, or any other phenomenon, and in the framing and pursuit of worthwhile research questions and meaningful lines of inquiry. Enjoy!