Educational Design Research: Overcoming the "No Significant Differences" Problem

Every technology introduced into higher education for the past 50 years has been predicted to revolutionize teaching and learning. However, the vast majority of studies examining the effectiveness of educational technologies can be summed up in three words: "no significant difference." This session presents an alternative approach to traditional educational research that has focused on determining whether technology improves learning. Educational design research (EDR) seeks to find ways of making technology play an appropriate role in the complex realities of higher education by pursuing two goals: developing robust interventions that address practical problems, and developing reusable design principles to guide future innovation.