Change is Coming | W12 Q1 | Discussion

Educational psychology will need to change considerably as a result of advances in technology and the greater integration of media into formal and informal learning environments. Educational psychology is equipped with theory and research design to study traditional (and usually formal) learning environments. However, advances in technology and its integration into both formal and informal learning environments have resulted in new domains (e.g., social media) in need of study. These new domains are sometimes fundamentally different from traditional learning environments, which creates problems for research. For example, Spiro & DeSchryver (2009) distinguish between well-structured domains (in which there exists a clear learning structure and content progression) and ill-structured domains (in which there is no one clear learning path). Often, ill-structured domains are those that involve technology.
Studying ill-structured domains in the same way educational psychologists have studied structured domains may lead to incorrect conclusions. For example, Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark’s (2006) concluded that minimally guided instruction is ineffective. However, Spiro and DeSchryver (2009) argued this conclusion was incorrect for ill-structured domains. Thus, what educational psychologists know about learning in structured, formal environments may not hold in other learning environments. As a result, educational psychology will need to change in terms of theory and research design in order to study learning in these new environments both involving technology and resulting from technology.