Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

A step-by-step guide on how NOT to get published in a high impact educational technology journal

Jason Lodge — 2024-04-10

Many elements come together to make for a good, publishable manuscript in a high-impact educational technology journal. There are also some fatal errors and omissions that will doom a paper to be immediately declined. In this editorial, we focus on the latter. Checking the aims and scope of a journal is a simple step to ensure that the publication of an article is not delayed and time is not wasted. Unfortunately, it seems this step is neglected by many aspiring authors. Beyond a misalignment with the aims and scope of the journal, we will discuss some of the other main reasons why manuscripts have recently been declined by AJET. We hope that this editorial will assist authors to ensure that they do not make the same mistakes.

It is like a friend to me: Critical usage of automated feedback systems by self-regulating English learners in higher education

Long Li — 2024-01-18

This paper explores international students’ engagement with educational technology for self-regulated English learning at an Australian university. Despite the increased use of automated feedback systems (AFSs) for language assessment, students’ critical engagement with them for independent learning remains under-researched. The study primarily employed a qualitative approach to understand the students’ preferred AFS tools and critical engagement throughout their personalised learning journeys but it also included a small-scale quantitative component. Data were gathered from seven students’ e-portfolios, focus group interviews as well as a survey among 32 participants. Results highlight positive perceptions and successful use of AFSs, with students leveraging these tools to identify improvement areas, track progress and gain confidence. The study emphasises the importance of course structure, teacher guidance and a combination of human and automated feedback, in fostering learner autonomy and emotional self-regulation. The paper underscores the potential for sustained use of AFSs beyond the cours, and the significance of guiding learners to critically use these tools for ongoing learning and growth rather than dependence. These findings have significant implications, as readily available artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT hold great pedagogical potential for self-regulated learning within and beyond the language learning field.

Implications for practice or policy

Instructors can use AFSs as effective tools to help English learners in higher education when scaffolding critical engagement with automated feedback and emotional self-regulation and providing adaptability, as such scaffolding and flexibility are essential for mitigating the limitations of AFSs.
Course leaders and universities should consider investing in AFSs as they can elevate the availability and sustainability of feedback for language enhancement and potentially any other type of learning.

Differences in student-AI interaction process on a drawing task: Focusing on students’ attitude towards AI and the level of drawing skills

Jinhee Kim — 2024-02-01

Recent advances and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) have increased the opportunities for students to interact with AI in their learning tasks. Although various fields of scholarly research have investigated human-AI collaboration, the underlying processes of how students collaborate with AI in a student-AI teaming scenario have been scarcely investigated. To develop effective AI applications in education, it is necessary to understand differences in the student-AI interaction (SAI) process depending on students' characteristics. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the differences in the SAI process amongst students with varying drawing proficiencies and attitudes towards AI in performing a public advertisement drawing task. Based on the empirical evidence obtained from the think-aloud protocols of 20 Korean undergraduate students, the study first conducted a lag sequential analysis to identify statistically significant linear patterns of each group and then chronologically incorporated them into the SAI duration via coded activity alignment series to distinguish the overall SAI process of each group. The study revealed the distinctive differences in SAI processes of students with different attitudes towards AI and drawing skills. To better facilitate student-AI teams for learning, a range of implications of educational AI development and instructional design is discussed.

Implications for practice or policy:

Educational AI should not be limited to performing a specific task and solving well-defined problems. It should be designed with a holistic view of the end-to-end student-AI process, interconnected to different learning activities in the learning process.
Educational AI should be capable of increasing students’ metacognition and emotional engagement.
An educational AI system architect team inclusive of diverse stakeholders should be formed to collaboratively design the AI system.

Digital fluency – a dynamic capability continuum

Kat Cain — 2024-02-04

The impact of digital technologies on the ways people work, learn and live has been debated and researched for half a century. Digital literacy approaches have recurrently been the focus of educational and industry learning; however, current framings of digital literacy are not sufficient to support students’ digital capability development, nor do static digital literacies reflect the dynamic and contextual nature of digital capabilities. A digital capability continuum that fluidly moves between digital foundation skills, digital literacies and digital fluency is a more robust model for education. By unpacking the digital capability continuum and responding to both learning and curriculum paradigms, this paper expands on an earlier framework (Coldwell-Neilson, 2020), the decoding digital literacy framework, as well as building on our research and academic experiences, to inform higher education. A key agenda is that the higher education sector frames digital fluency as a mindset and an attitude. The model and framework underscore that capabilities need to be flexible and transferable across technologies, disciplines and the world of work.

Implications for practice or policy:

Curriculum development and learning support can be informed by the digital capability continuum model and framework.
Institutional and educator expectations can be informed by understanding the dynamism of students’ digital capabilities.
Approaches to designing achievable learning outcomes can be informed by the digital capability continuum model and framework.

Students got mail: Do students read semi-tailored emails and what is the impact?

Madison Reynolds — 2024-03-13

This paper examines the effectiveness of providing personalised email feedback via an automated email application in a large undergraduate introductory accounting course. Over 1,200 students received feedback via emails sent weekly, semi-tailored to each student based on their results in online self-test learning quizzes. We first found that students read the majority of emails distributed. Second, through tracking, using regression analysis, we found that reading emails is related to significantly higher final examination performance in some cases. However, this is moderated by factors relating to diversity in a large cohort exceeding 1,000 students. The results indicate that feedback needs to be readily actionable and aligned with assessed learning outcomes to realise significant impacts on exam performance. This study is relevant to educators who teach large and diverse cohorts and need time-efficient solutions to tailor the learning experience to each student.

Implications for practice or policy:

Undergraduate students read the majority of weekly emails distributed, indicating emails can be used as an instructor communication device.
Emails should specifically encourage activity completion aligning with learning objectives to improve grades.
Students who achieve lower grades in tertiary studies, from English-speaking backgrounds and medium to high socio-economic status, high performers at high school and younger students aged 20 or less are positively impacted. Therefore, emails should be used by instructors teaching cohorts with these characteristics.

The effects of visualisation literacy and data storytelling dashboards on teachers’ cognitive load

Yuchen Liu — 2024-03-14

Learning analytics (LA) dashboards are becoming increasingly available in various learning settings. However, teachers may face challenges in understanding and interpreting the data visualisations presented on those dashboards. In response to this, some LA researchers are incorporating visual cueing techniques, like data storytelling (DS), into LA dashboard design to reduce the data visualisation skills – often referred to as visualisation literacy (VL) – and cognitive effort required by teachers to effectively use dashboards. However, despite the potential of DS principles in simplifying data visualisations, there is limited evidence supporting their effectiveness in actually reducing teachers’ cognitive load. The study presented in this paper addresses this gap by investigating the potential impact of LA dashboards, with and without DS elements, on teachers with varying VL levels. Through a quasi-experimental study involving 23 teachers, we analysed changes in pupil dilation – a proxy for cognitive load – as they examined LA dashboards featuring student data captured while participating in synchronous, online collaborative learning tasks. Our findings suggest DS can reduce cognitive load, particularly for teachers with lower VL. These results provide insight into the effects of DS and VL on teachers’ cognitive load, thereby informing the design of LA dashboards.

Implications for practice or policy:
• Developers of LA dashboards need to pay more attention to incorporating visual and narrative elements that are easily comprehensible and target-oriented, based on users’ visualisation literacy levels.
• Educational providers and LA designers can recommend dashboards with DS elements to teachers with low VL to enhance their work efficiency.

Access and participation: The use of technologies as tools for inclusion by Spanish university lecturers

Maria de las Nieves Sanchez Diaz — 2024-03-15

Spanish face-to-face universities experience constant challenges that threaten the inclusion of students with disabilities. Adopting inclusive pedagogies can support universities to develop a more inclusive approach. This paper explores the extent to which the use of technology influences the inclusive pedagogies of Spanish university lecturers. In particular, we focus on how lecturers use technologies to promote student participation and accessibility in Spanish institution. A qualitative methodology involving semi-structured in-depth interviews with 42 Spanish face-to-face universities experience constant challenges that threaten the inclusion of students with disabilities. Adopting inclusive pedagogies can support universities to develop a more inclusive approach. This paper explores the extent to which the use of technology influences the inclusive pedagogies of Spanish university lecturers. In particular, we focus on how lecturers use technologies to promote student participation and accessibility in Spanish institution. A qualitative methodology involving semi-structured in-depth interviews with 42 Spanish university lecturers regarding their inclusive practices and use of technology was employed. The results contribute four fundamental findings: (a) Lecturers who practise inclusive pedagogy can be differentiated as proactive or reactive; (b) University lecturers place greater emphasis on the use of technology as a promoter of accessibility rather than as a tool to promote participation; (c) There is a disconnect between knowledge of universal design for learning and the use of the technologies; and (d) The full transformative potential of technologies to facilitate the inclusion of learners with disabilities is not being harnessed. All these results allow us to highlight some key points about the use of technological tools in the application of inclusive pedagogy in university classrooms.

Implications for practice or policy:
• Spanish face-to-face universities still need to harness the full transformative potential of technologies to facilitate student inclusion.
• There is a need for more professional development programmes within higher education institutions that focus on the potential of technologies to promote inclusion.
• Universities have an important role to play in promoting the use of technological tools to ensure accessibility and participation of all students, especially students with disabilities.