This research area investigates the various teaching and learning processes that take place in online environments as well as their effects on learner outcomes. Research issues such as how to tailor and fine-tune online teaching to learners’ needs, how learners culturally appropriate knowledge, and the effects of instruction on learners’ performance. Interaction and communication in formal and informal learning scenarios would be the core mechanisms for analysis throughout all kinds of ICT technologies. The results of the teaching and learning processes will search for adaptable decisions and actions that make these processes reliable. The three main areas of research are (but not limited): 1) instructional design of online tasks, materials and tools, 2) e-assessment methods and the provision of effective feedback 3) learning support and efficient student patterns and profiles.
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Thesis Proposals |
Researchers |
Research group |
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Characteristics and nature of feedback and its impact on students' learning
This research line explores the following topics, with a focus on online learning environments or technology-enhanced learning:
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Dr Rosa Mayordomo
Dr Teresa Guasch
Dr Anna Espasa |
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Technology-enhanced second language teaching and learning This research line focuses on second language teaching and learning in blended and virtual environments. Technologies that support language learning are necessary, but they should go hand-in-hand with pedagogical and psycholinguistic considerations. This line of research investigates the effectiveness of different pedagogical interventions on second language learning. Research topics include, but are not limited to:
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Dr Laia Canals
Dr Gisela Grañena
Dr Aleksandra Malicka |
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Second language acquisition outcomes in computer-assisted language learning environments There are increasingly more technologies that support computer-assisted language learning. While these are necessary developments, there is a need for technological options that go hand-in-hand with pedagogical and psycholinguistic considerations. This line of research investigates the effectiveness of different pedagogical interventions on L2 learning in computer-assisted language environments. For example, task design, types of corrective feedback, and instructional methods. The ultimate goal is to identify those variables that have the greatest impacts on L2 learning in computer-assisted language learning environments. |
Dr Gisela Grañena |
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Second language learning and online communication
PhD Research proposals are welcome in any of the following topics:
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Dr Christine Appel |
realTIC-UOC |
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Integrating insights from educational neuroscience, socio-emotional learning and imaginative pedagogies as well as news technologies, such as machine learning, big data or affective chatbots, to support new ways of teaching and learning
This research will investigate the following large-scale research topics (which can be independent PhD topics):
1. The inclusion of psico-pedagogic mechanisms in learning digital resources, basically based on educational regulation and metacognition, mediated by AI to improve the quality of teaching and learning process.
2. The relationship of educational neuroscience with socio-emotional learning, especially emotional intelligence.
3. The relationship of virtual or human teacher cognitive and affective feedback with neurotransmitters and students’ motivation and attention.
4. The development of an intelligent and affective-aware CSCL environment that orchestrates students' interactions and engagement in an effective manner, taking into consideration different affective states.
5. The analysis and interpretation of the relationship between emotion awareness and educational neuroscience, identifying what neurotransmitters have a strong relationship with the emotions that students experience during their online learning processes (conversations, debates, wikis) in context.
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Dr Elena Barberà Gregori
Dr Marta Arguedas |
SMARTLEARN |
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Multilevel analysis of student trajectories in STEM grades: relationships between core subjects, academic results, mentorship, dropout and re-enrollment
Students enrolled in STEM degrees (like Computer Science or Data Science) have to overcome a number of obstacles in the form of core courses during their first semesters, such as math or programming courses. Knowing how students progress in each course in which they are enrolled and the mentoring actions, their academic results and their relationship to dropping out or re-enrollment the next semester, is important to understand which factors contribute to their long-term success. Our goal is to address some well-known problems of online/distance students, such as difficulties in following the planned schedule of activities, learning abstract concepts, how to measure the difficulty of each activity / subject, the impact of the received feedback in their academic results, and the relationship between such results, their enrollment and dropout, among others. In order to do so, we will combine available data from thousands of students taking STEM degrees with questionnaires and interviews, following a learning analytics approach, using multilevel analysis and other advanced statistical and data mining techniques.
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jminguillona@uoc.edu
Dr David García-Solórzano
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LAIKA Research Group |
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Analysing and improving students’ success: Expectations, experience, and satisfaction with online learning at the UOC
This research line focuses on studying undergraduate and postgraduate students’ experiences with online learning in a fully online higher education institution such as the UOC. Drawing on the team’s expertise in designing and assessing educational innovations, the research carried out by the PhD students will contribute to a better understanding of the learners’ expectations, how they manage and engage with the online learning at our university, how the intersection between their expectations and experience influences their satisfaction and, in the end, how it affects their determination to achieve their educational goals. Candidates should be fluent in Catalan or Spanish to be able to carry on the fieldwork and analyse their data, developing a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approach.
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Dr Julio Meneses
Dr Sergi Fàbregues Feijó
Dr Ariadna Angulo Brunet
Dr José Israel Reyes Reyes |
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Learners' identity, agency and learning engagement in blended and online environments
This research proposal is focused on analysing students' learning engagement in relation to their identity and agency development as learners in online and blended environments. We conceive agency and identity as dynamic and socioculturally mediated dispositions through which students build their learning pathways across different environments.
We propose dialogical and reflective learning approaches, including student participation in learning co-design via digital technologies, as means of encouraging students' learning engagement, as well as their identity and agency development by gradually taking control and direction of their own learning.
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Dr Iolanda García González |
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Learning personalization
The proposed line of research has as its objective the personalization of learning actions based on the personal characteristics of the learners. Among others, the following lines of research stand out:
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mmartinezarg@uoc.edu
eserradell@uoc.edu
rferreras@uoc.edu
afitob@uoc.edu
aelasri@uoc.edu
cpagesserra@uoc.edu
cplag@uoc.edu
mpujoljo@uoc.edu
Dr Jordi Sales-Zaguirre
jsales@uoc.edu
Dr David Roman Coy
droman@eada.edu
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Potentialities of Artificial Intelligence in Education
This research line focuses on the rapidly evolving field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its transformative potential impact on education. Technology is shaping the way we learn, teach, and access information. This research line seeks to explore the full range of possibilities AI offers in educational contexts, and in particular, in online higher education through case studies. Four subareas are identified: Personalized Learning; Intelligent Tutoring Systems; AI-Driven Intervention Design and Automation of Assessment and Grading.
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tsancho@uoc.edu
jmartinezcarra@uoc.edu
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Teacher Professional Development in the Digital Era
Beginning from the development of a competency based framework, strategic and training-focused for teaching in blended and online scenarios. We propose strategies and actions that support teacher professional development in the use and application of digital technologies in the context of life-long learning. As well as incorporating tools (learning analytics) for the improvement of teaching (focus: teacher).
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mguitert@uoc.edu
ncabrera@uoc.edu
lguardia@uoc.edu
mmaina@uoc.edu
mromerocar@uoc.edu
tromeu@uoc.edu
asangra@uoc.edu
Dr Josep M. Mominó
jmomino@uoc.edu
jduart@uoc.edu
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Edul@b |
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Teacher identity development in online learning scenarios
This research proposal aims to study primary and secondary school teacher identity development in teacher learning processes in the context of initial and continuing (online) education, thus mostly using virtual learning environments.
The purpose is to promote adequate, healthy professional identities among student-teachers through the design of learning scenarios mediated by digital technologies and based on practices such as self-reflection, the construction of narratives and dialogic practice.
Some other key topics related to this proposal are teacher professionalism, teacher agency and teacher as inquirer.
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abadia@uoc.edu
lbecerril@uoc.edu
igarciago@uoc.edu
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SINTE (Antoni Badia i Lorena Becerril) |
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Collaborative online learning activities in early childhood and primary education
Collaborative Online International Learning is a teaching methodology that began to be applied in higher education in EEUU in 2004. It is an innovative way for students to participate in international educational activities by collaborating with peers from other countries. Research on this innovative approach is scarce and mainly based on case studies, since only a few projects have so far been implemented, usually at the initiative of higher education professors. Prior results suggest that participating in COIL projects enables students to develop several cross-cutting competencies. This project supports innovation in teaching and learning processes by identifying the potential and possible limits of collaborative online international learning (COIL) in early childhood and primary education. It also aims to investigate the learning process in early childhood education settings using traditional vs. COIL classroom teaching methods.
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lcrescenzi@uoc.edu
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Child Tech Lab |