Researcher Spotlight
Educational Technology's Role in Equity
Date: November 2021
Review Author: Julie Sill, M.DEHS, Ph.D. Candidate – Curriculum & Instruction
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a gaping digital divide worldwide, with issues, such as an acute lack of technology, and minimal to no access of high-speed internet services (Istenic, 2021). However, this did not come as a surprise to ICT researchers, many of whom have been studying this problem in education for some time. With political instability, teacher strikes, and/or lack of physical resources, researchers have been consistently studying the effects of this divide in many developing countries (Kizilcec et al, 2021) Government organizations, educational institutions of higher learning, and other key stakeholders are seeking information that will enable them to adjust or create policies and increase funding to improve the physical and educational digital infrastructure for students around the globe (Hadjeris, 2020).
From the mEducation Alliance researcher database three researchers stood out as having conducted work in this area and are currently attempting to prepare the next generation of computer programmers and educators to better meet the needs of students during online learning contexts. These researchers are highlighted in the table below:
Name of Researcher | University/Organization | Research Topic |
|---|---|---|
Sharifullah Kahn | PAMS-Arid Agriculture University, Pakistan | |
Amy Ogan | Carnegie Mellon University, USA | |
Judith Uchidiuno | Carnegie Mellon University, USA |
Sharifullah Kahn, Ph.D.(IT) and Assistant Professor at Institute of Information Technology has a research interest in tutoring systems and semantic web applications. He and his colleagues recently completed a study on the problem of educational inequalities that occur in urban and rural areas. They investigated whether a computer application/game-type program could improve language learning (i.e., Urdu for young students. Findings showed a positive influence on a student’s motivation & knowledge of grammar after using the computer application for both groups; however, the students from rural areas gained higher scores than those in urban environments. The authors suggested that access to this mobile content can make rural areas skills more accessible to women, creating more equitable opportunities for all.
Amy Ogan, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Learning Science in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute has researched the benefits of using educational technology in a more personal and culturally relevant manner for years, to provide more equitable opportunities for students around the globe (for more see Educational Technology Across Cultures at Carnegie Mellon University, ETAC). Most recently, she and her colleagues have begun networking with others at the University of California, Irvine on a project that was funded by the Jacobs Foundation to improve computer science education for girls of color (for more see November 2021 article). In conjunction with her colleagues, she investigated whether help-seeking behaviors increased with intelligent tutoring systems in three different countries. Findings showed that while there was some carryover across cultures for these behaviors, programmers should be aware that the overall mindset of learning (i.e., independent vs. group mentality) can affect the ways in which students seek help.
You can learn more about Ogan & Uchidiuno’s work in this video.
Finally, Judith Uchidiuno, postdoctoral research associate at the National Robotics Engineering Center, recently investigated how tablet-based educational technologies could supplement literacy education in Tanzania, Africa. Findings supported that class observations added to a better understanding of student engagement when using early literacy speech & handwriting recognition tablet-based systems.
For more details, or to contact the researchers directly, click on the embedded links (listed in the table above).
If you have research focused on the use of technology for learning in developing countries and would like the opportunity to be featured in one of the researcher spotlights, please submit your details using the button below!
Khan, S., Hwang, G. J., Azeem Abbas, M., & Rehman, A. (2019). Mitigating the urban–rural educational gap in developing countries through mobile technology‐supported learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(2), 735-749.
Ogan, A., Walker, E., Baker, R., Rodrigo, M. M. T., Soriano, J. C., & Castro, M. J. (2015). Towards understanding how to assess help-seeking behavior across cultures. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 25(2), 229-248.
Uchidiuno, J., Yarzebinski, E., Keebler, E., Koedinger, K., & Ogan, A. (2019, July). Learning from African classroom pedagogy to increase student engagement in education technologies. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (pp. 99-110).
