Network on Intrapersonal Research in Education (NIRE)

Modern technology allows researchers to collect vast amounts of data through self-reports and automated applications. Data and analytic methodologies are complex. Although society is interspersed by a Zeitgeist of the "quantified self", there is not yet a coherent view of how we can enhance and understand learning processes through the innovative use of technology. The primary concern of the seminar is to analyse key methodological advances and challenges to study learning processes, to consider the potential of rapidly advancing technology in multiple disciplines, and to explore the implications for policy and practice of the conclusion.

Learning in defined as a process that takes place in a series of situations linked together over time. Our focus is on an intrapersonal approach to research on educational processes, meaning that we concentrate on sequences of learning situations, states of mind, and events in real-time. Students do experience the learning process in real-time, not in average situations. There is evidence that effective formative feedback (i.e., teacher feedback aimed at the forwarding students' learning) and enhancement of children's meta-cognition (i.e., the learners' understanding of their own ways of learning) are linked with academic performance. As the forthcoming change in curricula for primary and secondary schools in the UK, starting autumn 2014, places increased responsibility of formative assessment with the teacher and the school, the development and implementation of technological tools which enhance learning processes appear timely.

Our network is grounded in existing research collaborations (co-authorships, academic visits, workshops and presentations at conferences), particularly between researchers in the UK (University of Oxford and York), Finland (Universities of Jyväskylä and Helsinki) and Germany (University of Darmstadt, Munich and Konstanz). We propose a series of six seminars to which we will invite international experts from various backgrounds, early career researchers, educational practitioners and policy makers to share knowledge with each other. We will invite 30 participants to each seminar. We will arrange seminars in four locations chosen for existing links with educational practitioners (Oxford and York), and for their centrality and easy access for policy makers (London and Helsinki, Finland). The themes of the seminars are:

Seminar 1 Oxford, February 2015: Educational processes: theoretical and conceptual models

Seminar 2 York, May/June 2015: Technology enhanced data collection

Seminar 3 Helsinki, October 2015: Intensive longitudinal data and statistical methods

Seminar 4 Oxford, February 2016: Process data in different disciplines

Seminar 5 Oxford, May/June 2016: Diaries and intensive longitudinal data in intervention designs

Seminar 6 London, October 2016: Implications for policy and practice

We invite practitioners: teachers, teacher educators and representatives of parent groups; and policy makers through existing and well-developed networks at our institutions. We will prepare podcasts of all talks in the seminar series, a user-friendly end-of-project report on best research practice and a summary of evidence of effective teaching practice that has emerged in this rapidly developing innovative field of research.

In order to maximise impact of the seminar series six groups of beneficiaries are identified: (1) teachers at all levels, with an emphasis on teachers in primary and secondary schools, (2) school leaders and heads, (3) teacher educators, (4) school providers, (5) Third Sector think tanks, and (6) policy makers. We will invite members of all these groups to the seminars.

The teacher is the key person to provide formative feedback on students' learning processes and learning outcomes. The ways in which innovative use of technology could be used for optimising such feedback, and to promote students' self-monitoring through automated feedback, would be valuable to disseminate. Such dissemination would be through existing networks of the Teacher Education departments at Oxford and York, and by providing the end of project report to teacher education department's nationally through UCET and the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCSL), as well as through teacher education departments in Jyväskylä and Helsinki.

The seminars will build incrementally on each other in order to form a cumulative body of knowledge. Edited digital recordings of the seminars will be uploaded on the seminar series' website. In order to integrate end-user points of view rapporteurs will follow group discussions during seminars and record participants' comments. Examples of good practice and their pros and cons will be collated into a user-friendly end-of-series report. A draft version of this report will be disseminated prior to the final (sixth) seminar. The final seminar will be based in London in order to maximise participation of policy officials. At this seminar the draft-end-of-project report will be scrutinised and commented on by policy makers, third sector think tanks (e.g., Institute of Public Policy Research, IPPR, and Centre for Marketing and Public Organisations, CMP).

The policy contexts in the three countries share communalities, distinct current key issues are evident. The UK appears to be moving towards an increase in testing of academic performance while placing the responsibility of formative feedback on the teacher (Dfe, 2013a, 2013b). As the forthcoming change in curricula for primary and secondary schools in the UK, starting autumn 2014, places increased responsibility of formative assessment with the teacher and the school, the development and implementation of technological tools which enhance learning processes appear timely. Finland has had decentralised educational system since the 1980s, but is currently concerned with low student motivation despite high performance in international comparisons (PISA). Germany has after its "PISA shock" (i.e., relatively low mathematics) moved towards establishing federal standards on quality of teaching, and some decentralisation of responsibilities from Ministries to schools.

The ultimate beneficiaries of innovative technology in schools are naturally the students. Plausible future uses of innovative technology that enhances various forms of student-teacher interaction, students self-monitoring, and self-assessment through interactive or solo use, can equip the growing generation with optimal abilities and skills needed in their future lives.