Personalisation in educational technology: the absence of underlying pedagogies

Abstract

Personalization is one of the recurring themes in education and has occupied a large amount of specialised literature, since its appearance in the 1960s. A systematic exploration of the literature of the last 55 years (1960-2015) is presented and is intended to analyse which educational perspective underlies the customized environments or experiences proposed in the educational technology that is addressed in the literature. It is important to understand that this analysis is a very relevant challenge, if we want to understand what pedagogical approaches have been continuously developed and how and why we should consider their future. The results show a complete centralisation of experiences in technological developments, the majority of them focussed in Higher Education, as well as a lack of an explicit pedagogical perspective in the experiences analysed, especially those with greater impact. It also shows a shortage of in-house pedagogical materialdeveloped in the light of this research, that evolves and makes an impact on the educational landscape.

Technology and Higher Education: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…In this line of research on technology in the field of education, there have been quite a few studies that focus both on the perceptions of teachers and learners, such as those carried out by [11,13]. In all articles on this subject, there is usually a common pattern: teachers are generally reluctant to implement technologies in the classroom, while students are more positive and interested in employing technology.…”

“…In the higher education stage, especially if the focus is on those degrees that train future teachers, the presence of technology should be constant, since innovation-as the engine of quality education-includes such technology. On the other hand, studies indicate that even today many teachers are reluctant to implement technology in the classroom [13,14]. This, therefore, exposes the need to further research the causes behind or reasons why there is still such resistance.…”

Technology‐enhanced learning: Rethinking the term, the concept and its theoretical background

“…So, while technological advances continue to provide opportunities for teaching and learning, the absence of consistently considered and applied theoretical underpinnings to research in educational technologies has been recognised to persist. Bartolomé, Castañeda and Adell () asked in their paper: “do we understand educational technology as an issue independent of the pedagogical assumptions that underpin educational action?” (n.p. ), and stated that reported studies they reviewed showed: “a lack of an explicit pedagogical perspective in the experiences analysed, especially those with greater impact” (n.p.).…”

More than tools? Making sense of the ongoing digitizations of higher education

“…What role do the other pedagogic agents play and under what conditions do they operate? All of these are fundamental questions when it comes to understanding any educational process (Bartolomé, Castañeda, & Adell, 2018).…”