ITLS & TEAL Professors Receive Award from AERA

Utah State University’s David Feldon, of the Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Department, and Colby Tofel-Grehl, from the School of Teacher Education and Leadership, both from the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services were presented the Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology Award at the AERA Annual Meeting in Toronto in early April. 

According to the American Educational Research Association’s website, “This annual award recognizes published research judged to represent a significant advancement in theory and practice of educational measurement and/or educational research methodology.” This is the first time this recognition will be awarded for an article about mixed methods research.

They received the award for their article titled, “Phenomenography as a Foundation for Mixed Models Research.” They were nominated by three different researchers, each from different institutions: Elizabeth G. Creamer (Virginia Tech), John Hitchcock (Abt Associates) and Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie (Sam Houston State University).

“In my opinion, this article is one of the most original high-quality articles published this year on mixed methods research,” Onwuegbuzie said. “The authors offer a clear, concisely written and organized article that seeks to provide a meaningful contextualization of the use of phenomenography within mixed methods research.”

Phenomenography deals with the differing ways people perceive the world. 

“Phenomenography can be thought of as an approach for identifying different ways in which people conceptualize, perceive and experience phenomena,” said Hitchcock. “Learning is an important construct when it comes to understanding phenomenography because the framework holds that how people structure and make sense of phenomena is dynamic.”

The article was published in the American Behavioral Scientist. 

“The purpose of the special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist,” Creamer, an editor of the journal, said. “It was to demonstrate the versatility of mixed methods approaches to empirical research by illustrating how they can be used in synergistic ways with a variety of methods traditionally housed with the family of qualitative traditions.”

A list of all ITLS faculty and student participation at AERA is on the ITLS news page. According to the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting website, "The American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting is the world’s largest gathering of education researchers and a showcase for groundbreaking, innovative studies in an array of areas."