Dr. George Veletsianos

Research Agenda

Broadly defined, my research aims to improve teaching, learning, and participation in digital learning environments, through studying learner and faculty experiences with online learning, flexible learning, networked scholarship, and open education. While I aim to develop practical solutions to the many problems facing education and educational institutions, my work also adopts critical perspectives aiming to examine and problematize common assumptions and oft-repeated claims about the use of technology in education.

Two projects my colleagues and I are working on at the moment are the following:

An investigation of student experiences and practices with flexible online learning, to explore the challenges that different groups of people face and develop interventions to support them. Undergirding our understanding of flexibility, is an implicit assumption that all learners benefit from educational innovations in similar ways. My ongoing investigation into this topic indicates that what is flexible for some is inflexible for others, and that some populations in particular (e.g., women) face significant obstacles to taking advantage of flexible learning opportunities. What these obstacles reveal is that flexibility is not just determined by instructional design, but that it is highly dependent on a learner’s subject position and their roles beyond that of student. This work seems to have important implications for inclusion and equity in education. This project is funded by the Canada Research Chairs Program and the Commonwealth of Learning Chair program. In this project I collaborate with my colleague Dr. Shandell Houlden.

A second project I am working on is focused on understanding faculty experiences with social media over time. I am interested in exploring how those experiences have changed and why. I believe that doing so may generate insights into an ecology of factors that shape our digital participation, from career trajectory, to politics, to the actual technology itself. This project is as also future-oriented, aiming to eventually ask: What may online participation look like in the future? This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In this project I collaborate with my colleague Dr. Royce Kimmons.

Research Trajectory

I have been designing, developing, and evaluating digital learning environments since 2004. Having worked on a number of research and development projects since then, one area that has remained constant is my interest in the human experience. I’ve collaborated with colleagues to develop platform to learn geospatial technologies, American Sign Language, and human psychology, as well as studied phenoma such as harassment of faculty on social media and experiences with open courses. In all projects, what drove me is a desire to make sense of what it is like for humans to engage in these platforms or face these phenomena, and to understand why.

Theories

Broadly defined, a variety of theoretical frameworks inform my research. Typically, I am guided by the idea that digital technology is influenced by social, technological, cultural, economic, and political factors. Rather than viewing the presence of technology as deterministic, this perspective recognizes that a wide array of forces encourage, restrict, and shape digital participation overall. This perspective aligns with the social shaping of technology theories. I am also informed by the idea while we might imagine higher education as a site of liberation and as a site of humanist endeavour, the influence and ideologies of neoliberal market logic shape educational practice and educational futures. Finally, I draw on posthumanist and critical theory in order to address one of the problems that I believe our field is facing, and that is the focus on the individual without proper recognition of the broader forces that shape participation, effectiveness, efficiency, and inclusion in education.

Emerging Methodologies

Emerging methodologies that I think RTD members should be aware of (some because of their potential others because they invite us to think differently) are public data mining methods, story completion methods, and speculative methods. I would also add critical discourse analysis and phenomenological inquiry here, partly because they’re established but we haven’t paid enough attention to them. And finally, design-based research because our field has a lot to offer to practice and design-based research offers a venue to have real-world impact. I have learned a lot about this from Dr. Thomas Reeves. I want to end this by saying that this is such a great question, and one that I’d love to know the responses of others. We are fortunate that our colleague Dr. Enilda Romero-Hall is currently editing a book on emerging research methods in our field, and I can’t wait to read it. Personally, I am drawn to the analysis that Dr. Kimmons presents in his article “Navigating Paradigms in Educational Technology” published in Tech Trends where he argues for deep and invested pluralism.