Education PhD Abstract Samples

Written by Dr. Sandra K

Topic: Key Barriers to Increasing the Effectiveness of Online Learning for Adults: Expert Opinions from 5 EdTech Companies

With online learning quickly becoming a lifelong necessity for the majority of modern workforce members, many company owners and human resource management specialists still possess highly diverse opinions regarding its perceived effectiveness with many of them voicing substantiated doubts in this sphere. This study sought to explore this problem from the standpoint of EdTech companies to summarise their experience regarding the barriers to success in adult education. This aim was addressed by the analysis of qualitative interviews with experts from 5 companies providing this type of service. As found during the analysis, key barriers hindering the effectiveness of online learning included learner motivation, time availability, managerial support, and technical problems. Additional moderating factors were age, type of learning strategy, and personal beliefs and prejudices towards remote education. These results informed practical recommendations to companies on how they can motivate their workforce members to engage in online learning more effectively. With that being said, some qualitative statements suggested that the lack of support from employers could be seen as one of the main barriers in both individual and group education scenarios. In this aspect, the formulated recommendations may help more practitioners recognise the advantages of online learning and pay greater attention to the elimination of key barriers to its effectiveness.

Topic: Gamification in Education: Moving Towards a Holistic Conceptual Model for High School Learners

While gamification has been a popular topic in recent research, the existing models mainly focus on individual elements such as task design or achievements in specific subjects of the curriculum. At the moment of this study’s beginning, no holistic frameworks applicable to all high school learning scenarios were identified by the author, which informed the need to develop such a system. To achieve this aim, a new model based on existing secondary evidence from different contexts as well as the opinions of interviewed experts was created and presented to five participating organisations. Following a 5-month application, four of them reported positive and consistent improvements in both student engagement and performance levels across several subjects, which may be seen as an indicator of its good generalisability to all high school institutions. The remaining organisation achieved good results in student engagement in all subjects with some performance enhancements being registered in several subjects of the curriculum, which may be characterised as a mildly positive result. These findings suggest that the proposed model demonstrates good flexibility and can be utilised for different contexts and challenges of high school institutions. With that being said, additional projects utilising student surveys may provide additional insights into its possible areas for further improvement.

Topic: The Impact of Early Childhood Education on Long-Term Academic Success: A Survey of European Learners

Multiple studies in recent years suggested a positive relationship between early childhood education (EAE) and the development of social, mental, and emotional capabilities in children. While these projects presumed that these factors could contribute to further success in life, no clear evidence was collected to conceptualise the clear impact of such programmes on long-term academic success. This thesis aimed to identify how early childhood education may facilitate the development of diverse capabilities including mental readiness for complex educational tasks, emotional and social skills, learning discipline, self-confidence based on developed problem-solving proficiency, and several others. The analysis included the revision of quantitative data collected from 407 young adult respondents from different countries of Europe via online surveys exploring their EAE experiences and their consequent academic performance. As implied by the findings, there exists a strong positive relationship between early childhood education and long-term academic success with the readiness for complex tasks and learning discipline acting as mediators in this relationship. These results suggest that such programmes may benefit European learners in the case of their widespread provision by national education systems. With that being said, further studies in this sphere utilising larger samples of census data and larger target populations could bring a better understanding of the role of additional factors in this relationship including gender, demographics background, and country of studies.

Topic: Key Implementation Barriers to Inclusive Education: The Perspectives of Different Stakeholders from 5 UK Schools

This study aimed to identify the key barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in UK schools. While such programmes are deemed essential for eliminating inequalities in modern societies and giving every child an opportunity to get equal chances in life, they are associated with a wide variety of additional requirements that may be difficult to meet in real practice. This thesis presents the results of a qualitative analysis involving 5 UK schools that undertook inclusive education implementation initiatives in recent years. The analysis incorporates interviews with different stakeholders including parents, teachers, principals, and other staff members. This approach was deemed necessary to explore all possible limitations beyond the most common barriers such as the lack of funding or specialised training. The performed analysis revealed several unique barriers to inclusive education implementation that may provide valuable insights for other schools willing to undergo the same transformational changes. With that being said, the findings also suggest that the success or failure of such endeavours depends on the institution’s readiness for them. The lack thereof may lead to adverse consequences such as the dissatisfaction of multiple involved stakeholders including parents. At the same time, the generalisability of the findings may be limited due to the difference in inclusive education standards between the UK and other countries.

Topic: Teacher Burnout Prevention in Remote Learning Contexts: Moving Towards a New Conceptual Model

As indicated by multiple past projects exploring teacher burnout during COVID-19, the remote learning context created a lot of unique stressors ranging from technostress to social isolation and emotional exhaustion. While some of them may be absent in traditional learning, the changing background of modern education strongly implies that the remote format may become highly demanded in both school and adult education. This thesis sought to explore the factors leading to teacher burnout in remote education to create a new conceptual model that helps practitioners avoid these highly adverse outcomes. The analysis was based on the online surveys of 472 school teachers and utilised a number of established frameworks including the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory to test the relevance of different factors identified based on secondary literature including student-related, personal, and work-related issues. As shown by the findings, self-efficacy could be seen as the main element preventing adverse results with technostress and lack of external support being other major contributors. The proposed conceptual model incorporates these insights and suggests a holistic strategy for fighting teacher burnout that may be advised to the majority of schools. With that being said, the composition of the sample may suggest that the findings may have limited generalisability for other contexts such as university education and/or private remote education in online schools.

Topic: The Impact of Gamification on Student Engagement and Learning Outcomes in Estonian ICT and Engineering Higher Education Programmes

Gamification has been extensively used by education practitioners in recent years as a way of increasing student motivation in a variety of subjects. With that being said, past research in this sphere has been mainly limited to the school context or specific subjects within the curriculum. This thesis explores the impact of gamification on student engagement and learning outcomes in Estonian information and communications technology (ICT) and engineering programmes in the higher education setting. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach was utilised to explore student opinions of such instruments presently introduced by several universities in this country. Initial insights were collected via 207 structured surveys with follow-up interviews with 15 participants providing additional insights into their experiences related to these programmes. As shown by the findings, gamification has a generally positive impact on student engagement but a much smaller impact on learning outcomes within the scope of the conducted statistical analyses. This suggests that this tool has a primarily supporting role in the education process as a factor in increasing students’ willingness to commit to learning activities. With that being said, the results suggest that its impact on learning outcomes in ICT and engineering spheres may be limited, which requires the use of other instruments to enhance learners’ academic performance.

Topic: Exploring the Efficacy of Online Learning Platforms in Promoting Lifelong Learning among Airline Employees

With modern knowledge and skills in most spheres becoming obsolete within 5-10 years, lifelong learning becomes a necessity rather than an option. However, many organisations experience problems with the implementation of this concept among their workforce members and overcoming their potential resistance in this sphere. This study aimed to explore the efficacy of online learning platforms in promoting lifelong learning among airline employees. The nature of this industry is characterised by changing work schedules and other factors potentially making it highly compatible with the analysed technologies providing ‘education on demand’ available to workers on a 24/7 basis. However, motivation may be seen as a crucial barrier, which informed the focus of this thesis. The analysis included in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 staff members of a major airline that utilises online learning platforms as a crucial part of its internal training and development. As implied by their responses, the efficacy of online learning in promoting lifelong learning was substantially hindered by such factors as the lack of support from managers, time constraints, and technological barriers including personal digital skills and the ability to learn remotely from home. With that being said, engagement in these activities was reported to have a strong positive effect on job satisfaction and the willingness to acquire new competencies, which suggests that such initiatives should be offered by most airline companies to retain their staff members and make them more productive.

Topic: Assessing the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Teacher-Student Relationships and Academic Success: The Mediating Role of Students’ Extraversion and Neuroticism

As found by multiple previous studies, the quality of teacher-student relationships largely determines the outcomes of the teaching process and academic success in general. With that being said, earlier projects assessing the role of emotional intelligence in these relationships were primarily focused on the characteristics of educators rather than learners. This thesis addresses this gap by exploring the mediating role of students’ extraversion and neuroticism within the scope of emotional intelligence application in teacher-student relationships. The initial conceptual framework was based on established models such as Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale and was pilot-tested prior to the start of the main quantitative survey to ensure its good statistical validity. The final sample included 238 respondents from higher education institutions sharing their insights via online survey forms. Structural equation modelling was used to identify key relationships between the variables within this sample of quantitative data. As shown by the results, students of teachers with greater emotional intelligence had better academic outcomes with extraversion being a statistically significant mediator in this relationship. With that being said, the hypothesis that neuroticism could influence this relationship was not supported by the findings. While the formulated recommendations can be generalised to university education in general, it may be necessary to consider the cultural implications and other factors potentially influencing teacher-student communication and relationships.

Topic: The Effect of Cultural Competence Training on Educators’ Teaching Practices in Multicultural Classrooms: Evidence from Five UK Universities

The increasing diversity of university students has informed the need for educators to adjust their practices in a manner recognising the needs of multicultural classrooms. With that being said, the influence of such adjustments on teaching practices has not been extensively studied in the UK context. This gap is addressed by this thesis seeking to explore the benefits offered by this form of training from the standpoint of educators in 5 universities from this region introducing these initiatives. From a methodological standpoint, the study adhered to the qualitative design and relied upon 15 semi-structured interviews with practitioners organised pre- and post-training with the time period between these two points being six months on average. This decision was substantiated by the need for teachers to incorporate newly acquired knowledge and skills into their teaching practices and develop their personal appraisals of the resulting improvements or the lack thereof. The majority of the interviewees noted clear improvements in such areas as student engagement, behavioural problems prevention, and inclusive learning environment creation. The highly positive results may suggest the need to introduce similar programmes in other UK universities despite the relatively small sample of this thesis, which may limit the generalisability of its findings and recommendations.

Topic: The Role of Technology in Facilitating Collaborative Learning among Remote Learners: A Case Study of an Online Education Platform

Collaborative learning remains one of the instruments that have been largely missing from online platforms in comparison with traditional classrooms. The concept of remote learning implies 24/7 accessibility of materials and ‘learning whenever possible’ as a part of inherent asymmetries in communication. Hence, these factors make it difficult to perform group tasks or stimulate other forms of collaborative activities that are well-studied in the traditional classroom context and are widely considered crucial parts of the education process. This thesis seeks to address this gap by exploring the utilisation of such instruments within the scope of a specialised online learning platform. The case study involved 207 remote learners surveyed via online forms as a part of the regular feedback collection initiated by this institution. They were asked to appraise their experiences of collaborative learning exercises facilitated by several technologies including video conferencing, group chats, social media communities, and other similar tools. Afterwards, 15 interviews were conducted as a part of the mixed-methods explanatory sequential design to gain a deeper understanding of the ‘grey areas’ related to some patterns identified by the online survey. The findings suggest that group chats and other text-based tools receive more positive appraisals from students who perceive them as less intrusive due to their ability to engage in group activities without establishing visual contact. With that being said, the case study design could limit the generalisability of this study’s findings to all online learning platforms.

Topic: Exploring the Relationship between Teacher Burnout and Student Outcomes in Online Learning Environments: The Moderating Role of Environmental Factors

Teacher burnout is a relatively well-studied concept explored by a number of established academic theories and frameworks including the 21-item Teacher Burnout Scale (TBS). It was repeatedly linked with such adverse student outcomes as decreased well-being and motivation as well as poor academic performance. With that being said, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated several unique patterns characteristic of teacher burnout in online learning environments. Moreover, remote education generally made it more difficult to promptly identify such issues and offer help to educators whenever necessary on the part of institutions. This study explores the relationship between teacher burnout and student outcomes in online learning environments to identify what environmental factors can moderate such relationships. From a methodological standpoint, the analysis was based on structural equation modelling used to explore the created conceptual model. The collected quantitative information included teachers’ perceptions of burnout, student outcomes, and moderating factors and incorporated elements from multiple established frameworks including the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The findings suggest that digital skill levels, lack of socialisation, and insufficient managerial support were the strongest environmental factors mediating the analysed relationships. With that being said, the sample of the study included 197 teachers and could be seen as a limitation to the findings’ generalisability to all educational contexts.