Fostering Ethical Collaborations Between Academia and EdTech

The debate over whether academics should collaborate with the industry and the ethical dilemmas it presents have long been subjects of discussion. Increasingly, universities advocate for finding the "sweet spot," often termed applied or translational research, which can foster robust and mutually beneficial partnerships. What does this sweet spot look like in the context of Educational Technologies (EdTech)?

Defining the Terrain

Before discussing academia-industry collaborations in EdTech, it is essential to establish a clear distinction between digital media developed for children with the intention to entertain or monetize and digital media specifically designed for educational purposes. The latter falls under the category of educational technology. Although there are EdTech solutions primarily designed for entertainment or monetary goals, emphasizing engagement over educational outcomes, for the sake of this discussion, let's centre our focus on EdTech that aligns with its name and aims to be genuinely educational.

For EdTech to fulfill its educational purpose, it must integrate learning principles into its design, incorporating theories, insights, and findings from empirical studies conducted with users in school or home settings, as well as published literature and ongoing research findings. Yet, several reports (e.g. UNESCO, 2023) claim that the vast majority of current EdTech lacks a research-based foundation, often failing to align with key principles of learning sciences. Compared to other industry areas, EdTech experiences a disproportionately wide usage despite the absence of rigorously designed efficacy and effectiveness studies.

The immediate question emerges: to address this situation, who should conduct and fund the necessary research?

Funding for EdTech research

EdTech research that is focused on basic research can uncover patterns across the industry or translate innovative ideas into new prototypes. However, academically produced EdTech products often struggle to scale due to the longstanding mismatch between funding for scale and funding for impact in the EdTech industry.

Existing philantropic and government schemes are limited to cover the multitude of EdTech solutions required to address the diverse skill and knowledge needs of children. In addition, government investment in evaluating commercial companies poses challenges, as it may take a long time to translate into a product improvement and may represent direct benefit or direct financial risk to a company, depending on the nature of the results.

And yet, there is a critical need for high-quality research by qualified scholars to ensure comprehensive and reliable research in the field of EdTech. Funding or co-funding from the industry of such research was called for, to ensure the research produced is sustainable and actionable.

Several university-based research partnerships already advance collaborative models involving several universities, philanthropic funders and private investors to engage with EdTech companies and EdTech investor, with the aim to foster the development of evidence-based practices within the sector. For example, the Reach Every Reader project at Harvard Graduate School of Education involved the development and testing of screening tools for reading difficulties, as well as a suite of early literacy apps for children. The EdTech were developed through a partnership between Harvard researchers, the public media producer GBH and educational media developer FableVision Studios, supported by a grant from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

In the UK, the Learning for Families through Technology (LiFT) project is a joint effort involving the game producer Gameloft, and research groups within the Department of Education, funded by Ferrero International. LiFT's objective is to develop and assess the educational value of app-based interactive activities designed for children and families.The HP Cambridge Partnership for Education EdTech Fellowship is a program empowering leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa to drive impactful EdTech transformations in education systems. The collaboration is between the University of Cambridge and HP, with the aim to address challenges in EdTech connectivity, device access, digital content creation, and learner skill development.

Best practices in industry-sponsored EdTech research

To mitigate potential biases in industry-sponsored research, there are two straightforward quality assurance mechanisms to implement in EdTech academia-industry partnerships. Firstly, contracts should stipulate that companies commit to publishing positive, neutral, and negative findings, and secondly, studies should be pre-registered to ensure transparency and integrity in the research process.

Transparency

When a commitment is made to publish positive, negative, and neutral findings, it ensures that all outcomes are accessible to the public. Even if a company chooses not to feature the research on their main website, the study is available in the public domain, allowing others to access and utilize it to understand its overall impact.

Teamwork Essential Reads

Workplace Psychological Safety Is Critical—But Often Lacking

We Are Not Born to Cooperate

Furthermore, the studies should be published either in openly available accessible reports or in peer-reviewed research papers with a clear declaration of sponsorship of the study and potential conflict of interest.

Pre-registration of studies

Pre-registration of studies is a crucial ethical quality assurance mechanism in research aimed at preventing biases. It distinguishes between hypothesis-generating (exploratory) and hypothesis-testing (confirmatory) research, preventing the use of the same data for both generating and testing hypotheses. This enhances the credibility of research results. Addressing this issue through pre-registration improves the quality and transparency of research.

Conclusion

Recognizing the imperative of addressing the dearth of research in EdTech, it is clear that industry collaboration with a range of stakeholders, including researchers, educators and other educational professionals, primary users (children and their families), is crucial. As investor concern with impact and evidence of EdTech's effectiveness grows, the likelihood of scalable and impactful solutions increases. The trend substantiates the need to establish more partnerships between the EdTech industry and various academic groups, in order to collectively elevate research quality through diverse case studies and examples of how to ethically advance the field.