Impact case study database
Search and filter
Filter by
- Cardiff Metropolitan University / Prifysgol Metropolitan Caerdydd
- 23 - Education
- Submitting institution
- Cardiff Metropolitan University / Prifysgol Metropolitan Caerdydd
- Unit of assessment
- 23 - Education
- Summary impact type
- Societal
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Research at Cardiff Met has enhanced the use of technology in teaching modern languages nationally and internationally. Funded by grants totaling €804K, two phases of the Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching (ITiLT) project impacted the communicative language teaching and pedagogical practice of over 9,300 educators benefitting an estimated 50,000 pupils and students across Europe and Eurasia. Course materials were produced in 6 languages and 1,327 teaching practitioners attended ITiLT workshops. ITiLT was designated as a ‘Success Story’ by Erasmus+, a category reserved for projects that have distinguished themselves by their impact, contribution to policy-making, innovative results or creative approach, and that might be a source of inspiration to others. The project’s events website recorded 36,013 hits in addition to more than 82,000 on content curation site Scoop.it.
2. Underpinning research
Background and context
It has been widely acknowledged for some time that technology has the potential to foster better communication and more interactive and effective pedagogical practice. This potential is not often realised, and where teachers have used technology, its use can best be depicted as ‘technical interactivity’, rather than the ‘pedagogical interactivity’ needed to promote effective learning. On joining Cardiff Met in 2007, Beauchamp had recently completed a £114,794 ESRC and British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) -funded research project, examining how technology might best be deployed to develop interactive teaching. Beauchamp subsequently used the findings of this work to develop an analysis framework to assess how effectively teachers use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching practice, with a particular focus on Interactive Whiteboards (IWB). The results revealed considerable variation in the effectiveness of technology use in classrooms and the potential of classroom video recording as a facilitator of reflective dialogue centred on effective practice with teachers. Similar issues around the use of ICT in language teaching classrooms across Europe provided the impetus for Beauchamp’s invitation to join Phase 1 of the Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching (ITiLT) project between 2011 and 2013, facilitated by a €525,945 Erasmus+ programme grant that also funded Abbinett’s appointment as an RA. The success of that work led to an additional EU grant of €278,252 for Phase 2 of ITiLT between 2014 and 2017. The primary aim of Phase 2 was to enhance the effective use of a wider range of technologies in task-based language teaching to improve language educators’ efficacy with technology and its use in their pedagogical practice [R1].
Outcomes
Through its European partnerships in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France, Turkey and Spain, ITiLT research culminated in a range of resources related to use of technology for the professional development of classroom teachers and university lecturers. The research revealed a lack of confidence in using interactive technologies that caused many teachers and lecturers to only use a very limited set of ICT features to support learning. Some were more confident in the technical use of interactive technologies but less confident in developing new pedagogic approaches to exploit ICT’s full potential [R2]. ITiLT underpinned the development of rubrics for participant configuration and orchestration of learning [R3, R4, R5]. The project identified that the predominant patterns of classroom organisation were educator, rather than learner-centred, particularly in the case of younger learners. This insight enabled the development of a video coding framework for analysing IWB-mediated language teaching and the use of technology tools/features [R6]. Beauchamp and Abbinett consequently advocated a shift towards a greater role for lecturers, teachers and learners in schools in orchestrating resources in the classroom and concluded that there is potential for educators and learners to come to shared realisation of the pedagogic potential of interactive technologies in teaching and learning [R1].
3. References to the research
All of the outputs cited below were published in international, double blind peer-reviewed journals. Two of the outputs are included in our REF 2021 submission to UOA23.
Beauchamp, G., Burden, K. and Abbinett, E. (2015). Teachers learning to use the iPad in Scotland and Wales: A new model of professional development. Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 41(2), pp. 161–179 DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2015.1013370
Van Laer, S., Beauchamp, G. and Colpaert, J. (2014). Teacher use of the interactive whiteboards in Flemish secondary education - mapping against a transition framework. Education and Information Technologies, 19(2), June 2014, pp.409-423. DOI: 10.1007/s10639-012–9228–6
Beauchamp, G. and Kennewell, S. (2013). Transition in pedagogical orchestration using the interactive whiteboard. Education and Information Technologies, 18(2), pp.179–191 DOI: 10.1007/s10639–012–9230–z
Beauchamp, G. and Kennewell, S. (2010). Interactivity in the classroom and its impact on learning', Computers and Education, 54(3), pp.759–766 DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.09.033
Beauchamp, G. and Kennewell, S. (2008). The influence of ICT on the interactivity of teaching. Education and Information Technologies, 13(4), pp.305–315 DOI: 10.1007/s10639-008–9071–y
Whyte, S., Beauchamp, G. and Alexander, J. (2014). Researching interactive whiteboard (IWB) use from primary school to university settings across Europe: An analytical framework for foreign language teaching. University of Wales Journal of Education, 17(1), pp. 30–52. http://hdl.handle.net/10369/7660
4. Details of the impact
Beauchamp and Abbinett’s work fundamentally changed the pedagogical use of technology in language teaching in seven countries spanning Europe and Eurasia, reaching well over 9,300 educational practitioners and student teachers [E1]. Resources from the ITiLT project have been produced in six different languages, namely French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Turkish and English. The final Erasmus+ assessment report of ITiLT concluded that “There is substantial evidence of impact on participants and their organisations at local and wider levels” [E2]. ITiLT was independently evaluated at 88/100 and designated as a ‘Success Story’ by Erasmus+, a category reserved for projects that have distinguished themselves by their impact, contribution to policy-making, innovative results or creative approach, and that might be a source of inspiration to others [E3].
The final report for Phase 1 of the project concluded that “the whole team has reached over 9,300 people with their dissemination activities’ over seven countries” [E2]. The Phase 2 final report (2017) concluded that there had been an impact on “a minimum of nearly 1700 students in five countries to date” and “potential for over 500 more each successive year” [E4]. Multiplier events – during which educators trained other teachers in using the technology – increased the research’s reach: “In total, at least 1,327 attended all dissemination events by partners, and online hits were 36,013 for these events, in addition to 82,000 on Scoop.it.Footnote:
Scoop.it is a content engine that monitors global sources to find and curate relevant third-party content. ” [E4]. The Project lead of Phase 1 estimated that, based on an average class size of 25, over a period of 3 to 4 years, the learning of more than 50,000 students had been impacted [E5].
Evaluations of multiplier events completed by classroom teachers internationally showed a series of positive impacts:
95% agreed that ‘I found the event valuable to support my professional development’;
91% agreed that 'The event has given me ideas that I can use in my classroom’;
89% agreed that ‘The event has given me ideas that I can share with my colleagues’;
ITiLT mainly reached educators in higher education, in-service and pre-service classroom language teachers, and teacher educators who needed pedagogical support for the design and implementation of technology-enhanced language lessons. The active involvement of teachers, pupils and lecturers as real collaborators in planning, delivering and recording their lessons, has ensured that ITiLT resources definitively affected teachers’ thinking and pedagogical practice: “This hands-on and yet solid approach was and is still inspiring to me in my teaching practice.” [E6]. The ‘research-based pedagogy’ has proven especially valuable with education researchers who are training the next generation of educators. For example, a Durham University Professor reported: “I have been able to pass on these developments to over 600 initial teacher education students in my teaching at Durham. I have also been able to demonstrate and inform over 400 teachers in Norway through a collaboration with the Norwegian Business School (BI) in Oslo” and “[ITiLT has] altered the way that I have approached the use of IWBs in the classroom, and how I support future teachers in the use of IWBs in the classroom” [E7].
The project’s website [E8] has been made available beyond the end of the project. It has been used by teaching practitioners in Europe, North America, Australia and Turkey. The website hosts:
117 video examples of the use of interactive technologies in second-language teaching;
a comprehensive professional development e-resource, including a series of mini-guides; and
an extensive online library.
These resources continue to be widely used. A Université Côte d’Azur Professor has personally used it in the teaching of between 500 and 800 students: “[I have] used the website in pre- and in-service teacher education with undergraduate classes (25-80 students in third-year English from 2011 onwards) and masters’ classes for pre-service primary and secondary teachers (50-80 students per year since 2011). To my knowledge the ITILT project websites are used by colleagues at other French universities (Université Grenoble-Alpes) and I have also used them in workshops (Ireland2017, Norway 2018, French universities and school authorities from 2011) and webinars (Germany 2013, 2016, Canada 2014, Belgium 2017, UK 2018) attracting an average of around 50 participants.” [E9]
Web resources are also shared through professional bodies and networks such as European Schoolnet, a not-for-profit network of 34 European Ministries of Education which supports schools and teachers to bring innovation in teaching and learning with a particular focus on ICT and digitization [E5] and which features ITiLT prominently on its webpages [E10].
In summary, ITiLT has had a significant impact on language educators across Europe, transforming their teaching practice and promoting enhanced learning for tens of thousands of pupils and students.
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
ITiLT1 Report. Section 4.1 mentions dissemination to over 9,300 people.
EU ERASMUS+, ITiLT Phase 1 report describing types and degree of impact on participants.
Erasmus+ website listing ITiLT as a success story.
EU ERASMUS+ ITiLT Phase 2 report.
Testimonial 1: Senior Consultant, TELLConsult, the Netherlands describing ITiLT (Phases 1 and 2) and their impacts.
Testimonial 2: Lecturer, University of Antwerp, describing ITiLT (Phases 1 and 2) and their impacts on her and her practice.
Testimonial 3: External Evaluator for ITiLT, Phase 1.
ITiLT Phase 2 website, featuring downloadable teaching resources.
Testimonial of Professor of English, Université Côte d’Azur describing ITiLT (Phases 1 and 2) and impacts on her, and her continued use of ITiLT resources.
European Schoolnet website featuring ITiLT.
- Submitting institution
- Cardiff Metropolitan University / Prifysgol Metropolitan Caerdydd
- Unit of assessment
- 23 - Education
- Summary impact type
- Societal
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
In 2022, Wales will implement a completely new curriculum in all its schools, affecting 468,383 pupils and allowing 22,000 teachers to design their own curricula within a national framework. In preparation, Cardiff Met’s research underpinned the upskilling of teachers to be change managing creative enquirers in 33 schools, impacting the professional practice of ~ 1,045 staff and the learning experience of ~ 14,900 pupils. Its success led to more than 300 additional schools embarking on the programme designed to facilitate the new curriculum. Cardiff Met’s original project lead for this programme has now been formally seconded to Welsh Government to develop a national strategy for education research.
2. Underpinning research
Cardiff Met staff positively impacted Welsh education through the National Professional Enquiry Project (NPEP), an all-Wales programme designed to prepare teachers for the launch of a new curriculum in 2022. Cardiff Met successfully tendered to the NPEP in 2018, capturing £310,489 of the NPEP’s £1.1 million with an interdisciplinary underpinning research offering spanning a range of pedagogic specialisms, creativity and design thinking - a major feature of the NPEP’s success. All members brought individual areas of expert knowledge, but for clarity this section focuses on key researchers.
Egan’s research expertise lies within the fields of Welsh education strategy, policy and practice including learning and teaching pedagogy, educational leadership, professional learning and educational equity [R1]. His role in the project was to use that expertise to align the expertise of the team with Welsh Government’s policy drivers and the professional learning needs of teachers.
Health and wellbeing research expertise is critical to Cardiff Met’s impacts because Wales’s ‘Wellbeing of Future Generations Act’ is a national priority that legally enshrines quality of life for Welsh citizens. Bryant’s and Edwards’s research in physical literacy, health physical education and professional enquiry contribute to this field. In 2016 Bryant et al [R2] used child-centred methods to develop a nuanced understanding of children’s participation - and non-participation - in physical activity, via a twelve-month ethnographic study in Welsh secondary schools. Outcomes revealed the success of any initiative to improve participation hinged on understanding children’s perceived image of the type and range of activities offered and the ability of the sport development officer to connect with children. Between 2017 and 2020 Bryant and Edwards worked on a programme of research on the professional learning of teachers around physical literacy in the context of health and well-being [R3]. Recommendations included developing clearly articulated definitions and philosophically aligned approaches. That work resonated with the health and wellbeing ‘Area of Learning and Experience’ within the new Curriculum for Wales and provided a body of knowledge and methods to underpin impact, including prioritising relationships, adopting a collaborative co-constructive approach to individual school need and feedback.
Aldous’s research interests are in developing sociological theory and co-design methodologies to inform advances in the transformation and enactment of health and education policies and professional practice. A 2010 paper with Brown [R4] explored the sociological dynamics of Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) transitioning into their first teaching posts. Findings highlighted the challenges faced by NQTs and the potential for sociological theory to offer a powerful framework to explain and develop mechanisms to support these transitions.
Since 2010, Loudon’s research has focused on the factors and processes affecting creativity. In 2014, he and Deininger [R5] examined the psychological, physiological and environmental factors required to optimise creativity inside organisations. In it they present the ‘Listen, Connect, Do’ (LCD) model, derived from multiple empirical studies and focussing on the ‘State of Being’ required to support sustained creativity. They also highlight how the LCD Model might be implemented in organisations to support and enhance the creativity of individual researchers and the organisation as a whole. In NPEP the approach was used to develop creative approaches in the development of research enquiry projects.
Gordon (now Cardiff Met’s NPEP lead) has longstanding design research expertise. Her focus has been on contextual simulation [R6], where her research has informed guidelines for fidelity levels required in user development scenarios. The development of such design-focussed research inevitably develops design thinking expertise. Together with Loudon’s creativity knowledge, this underpinned the approaches used in the Professional Enquiry workshops delivered by the team during the NPEP and, ultimately, the tools and methods from which teachers developed practical solutions from their research enquiries.
Collectively, these areas of distinct but complimentary expertise underpinned the impacts described here.
3. References to the research
Five of the outputs below were published following rigorous double-blind peer review processes and three of the four journals have international editorial boards.
[R1] Egan, D. and Grigg, R. (2017). ‘Professional Learning for Teachers in Wales’ Wales Journal of Education 19 (1) 1-16. https://doi.org/10.16922/wje.19.1.1
[R2] Bryant, A.S., Bolton, N., Fleming, S. (2016), Extracurricular sport and physical activity in Welsh secondary schools: Leisure lifestyles and young people, Journal of Physical Education and Sports Management, 2(2), 41-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.15640/jpesm.v2n2a4
[R3] Edwards, L. C., Bryant, A. S., Morgan, K., Cooper, S. & Keegan, R. J. (2019) A professional development program to enhance primary school teachers’ knowledge and operationalization of physical literacy, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 38, 126-135. https://doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.2018-0275
[R4] Aldous, D., and Brown, D. (2010) Framing bodies of knowledge within the 'acoustics' of the school: exploring pedagogical transition through newly qualified Physical Education teacher experiences, Sport Education and Society, 15,4,411-429. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2010.514737
[R5] Loudon, G.H. and Deininger, G.M. (2014) A new model for supporting creativity in research organisations, R&D Management Conference, 3rd – 6th June, Stuttgart. http://hdl.handle.net/10369/6658
[R6] Gordon, B., Loudon, G. & Gill, S. (2019) Product user testing: The void between Laboratory testing and field testing, IASDR Conference Proceedings, Manchester, Sept. https://iasdr2019.org/ http://hdl.handle.net/10369/10865
4. Details of the impact
In 2022, Wales will completely replace a centrally-controlled approach with a new ‘Curriculum for Wales’ (CfW) in all its state schools. CfW’s core precept is that teachers are best placed to decide the needs of their pupils. It will empower individual teachers to develop bespoke curricula within a national framework and will affect Wales’s school population of 468,838 pupils and 22,000 teachersFootnote:
BESA: https://www.besa.org.uk/key-uk-education-statistics/ accessed 20 November 2020 . Cardiff Met are a key partner in the NPEP which is developing the Nation’s capacity to launch CfW across Wales in 2022.
Impacts on teachers and pupils
- Cardiff Met’s role in the NPEP was to leverage research expertise to support staff in the two Southeast Wales consortia which together account for ~ 47% of Wales’s school population. Our researchers directly supported ‘Lead Enquirer’ staff in 33 schools to become creative, problem-solving enquirers, capable of leading enquiries into specific areas of pedagogical interest and using the resulting knowledge to change working practices and develop practical curricula within the new CfW framework. Lead Enquirers initially reported the change being ‘daunting’ saying they were ‘sceptical at the start’ and ‘used to being told what to do’. They now report it being ‘(our) daily practice’ and ‘a mind-set’ [E1] “We (now) have a culture of enquiry that is part of everyday practice and is the mechanism that we use to improve teaching and learning. It is embedded into our self-evaluation processes … Having the expertise of the Cardiff Met staff helped us to develop consistency within the system but it was then backed up with a very personal approach that empowered us as professionals in a very supportive way.” - **Teacher – Cadoxton Primary School [E2]
“The Cardiff Met team have ensured the whole research and enquiry process has been robust, focused and beneficial for the individual schools involved.” Headteacher – Stanwell School [E2]
- The 33 Lead Enquirers cascaded the new techniques within their schools, reaching ~ 1,012 other staff and ~ 14,900 pupilsFootnote:
Calculations assume a secondary school complement of 70 staff / 800 pupils and a primary schools complement of 15 staff / 300 pupils. : “We wanted to make sure that they were skilled to the level that I had been by attending the … Lead Enquiry Days with Cardiff Met.” - **Deputy Headteacher, St Gwladys Bargoed Primary School.**[E3]
Loudon and Gordon’s practical creativity and design thinking techniques gave teachers the tools to develop novel concepts based on their research findings and turn them into practical curricula: “The creativity and design thinking tools we learned from the Cardiff Met team empowered us to explore a multitude of ideas for areas of enquiry. They supported and encouraged us to challenge our assumptions by introducing new tools and wider reading. Their input has dramatically and positively impacted on how I approached my professional enquiry.” - **Teacher, Stanwell School [E2]
To aid implementation, the team authored a comprehensive handbook [E4] explaining the tools and techniques in the training programme and available to all teachers in Wales. “I particularly find the handbook useful as a reference guide. This has then positively impacted on the culture of enquiry in the school as we have been able to upskill staff using the same resources that the University used during our Engagement days.” – **Teacher, Glan Usk Primary School [E2]
The training our researchers have delivered has impacted the learning experiences of pupils involved in the NPEP who have experienced curricula designed for their specific needs: “We are starting to experiment with ways in which our pupils can develop and use enquiry questions as a stimulus for pupil/teacher co-construction of curriculum topics and projects.” - Deputy Headteacher, Rhws Primary School [E2]
“The feedback from all our stakeholders is that this approach to learning is bespoke to the child and about real authentic contexts … The children are able to talk about their learning in a much more reflective way.” - **Teacher – Cadoxton Primary School [E2]
Impact on Government Policy
At the end of the NPEP’s first year, a report primarily authored by Egan led the Welsh Government to re-shape the remainder of the programme, switching from a national to a regional approach, with Cardiff Met assigned to partner consortia in the populous Southeast Wales region [E5].
The NPEP’s success led to Welsh Government scaling it up to involve more than 300 schools [E6], while the COVID-19 pandemic saw them broaden the scope of teacher enquiries to include learning and re-imagining schooling and assessment, pedagogy and inclusive learning. In effect this was testimony that the NPEP had given teachers the tools to deal with major disruptive change: “As the Welsh education system attempts to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are empowering our teachers to use professional enquiry as a key feature of learning lessons from the period we are living through, including the impact of distance and blended learning.” – Educational Directorate, Welsh Government [E6]
In summary, Cardiff Met’s interdisciplinary researchers have positively impacted teachers, pupils and government policy, setting the scene for a truly transformative education landscape in Wales. “I have been more inspired to be a good teacher by participating in this scheme than by anything else in my career.” - Teacher, Porthcawl Comprehensive School [E2]
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
[E1] PowerPoint including quotes from Lead Enquiry School on the culture of critical enquiry.
[E2] Testimonials about NPEP from Teachers and Headteachers.Headteachers
[E3] Case study: St Gwladys Bargoed Primary School including video interview about NPEP.
[E4] “Undertaking Professional Enquiry” handbook.
[E5] Proposals for the future development of new Curriculum for Wales pilot.
[E6] Testimonial about NPEP and Cardiff Met’s role from Welsh Government.