Research:Development of a training program for teachers to use Wikipedia as a resource for collaborative learning and the development of skills for digital citizenship
This page documents a research project in progress.
Information may be incomplete and change as the project progresses.
Please contact the project lead before formally citing or reusing results from this page.
This project aims to develop a teacher training program utilizing Wikipedia and Wikimedia platforms as resources to foster collaborative learning and promote the development of digital citizenship. To conduct our research, we propose a case study in two schools located in Santiago, Chile.
The selected cases are considered representative of the country's socio-educational reality, as the schools correspond to one private paid institution and one public free institution, respectively. Thus, the research development includes the following phases: (1) conducting interviews with participating teachers to learn about their experiences, needs and expectations regarding digital citizenship education; (2) design of a teacher training program based on the findings made during phase 1; (3) implementation of the training program with teachers from the two selected educational centers; (4) collaborative design of a didactic proposal to be implemented in the selected centers by teachers previously trained during the program; and (5) implementation of the teachers' didactic proposal, with the support of Wikimedia Chile's Digital Education and Literacy Program.
Regarding the benefits of this project for the Wikimedia community, these can be summarised as follows: (1) making available a teacher training model that can be used and replicated by other chapters and/or affiliates. In other words, we hope that the project results will materialize in a pedagogical resource for Wikimedia chapters and affiliates; and (2) contributing, based on the data and evidence derived from the research, to the understanding about the needs, challenges and opportunities represented by the integration of Wikimedia technologies in secondary education centers. The latter, through dissemination of results in academic publications, as well as conferences, congresses, and other similar instances.
Methods
[edit]The research is developed through a mixed-methods design (qualitative and quantitative) based on case studies. In this way, each educational center is a case study. On the other hand, given the characteristics of the project, which includes both the inquiry of teachers' and students' perceptions and experiences, the joint development and implementation of a teacher training model and, finally, the evaluation of the initiative, this research can be classified as a quasi-experimental evaluative study of "pre-post" type (Banerjee et al., 2021; Rabbani et al., 2019; Shankar et al., 2020).
Regarding data collection procedures, the following techniques are being used: (1) Qualitative interviews with teachers and students (using an interview guide and audio recording each one); (2) Participant observation of training workshops (using an observation guide and audiovisually recording each session); (3) Classroom observation (based on an observation guide and audiovisually recording each class); (4) Focus groups for students (which will be recorded); and (5) Test on digital citizenship perceptions for students. To carry out these procedures, we deliver informed consents and assents to participants.
In the research process, an alliance has been developed with another local project that develops workshops for the use of Wikipedia as a resource for the development of digital citizenship skills. These workshops have a differentiating aspect in that they are workshops from a Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) perspective. Within the framework of our alliance, students and teachers from those workshops are also being evaluated to explore possible comparisons between the two different workshop models, leading to the development of auxiliary hypotheses around the learning experience using different methodologies around participation and collaborative work.
Timeline
[edit]| Table 1. Timeline | |
| Month | Activity |
|---|---|
| June, 2024 | Project design adjustments |
| June, 2024 | Analysis of the Chilean Curriculum (focused on secondary education) |
| July - September, 2024 | Fieldwork coordination (to define the sample and prepare for subsequent field entry) |
| July - August, 2024 | Preliminary workshop design |
| October - December, 2024 | Development of interview scripts and observation guidelines according to the project objectives |
| April, 2025 | Conducting teacher interviews |
| April, 2025 | Adaptation of the preliminary workshop design based on the needs and expectations identified from the interviews |
| April, 2025 | Implementation of teacher training workshops (includes a final phase where teachers planned pedagogical activities to implement with their students) |
| April, 2025 | Delivery of informed consent and assent forms for students and families |
| May, 2025 | Administration of the Digital Citizenship Perceptions Test to students |
| June-October, 2025 | Implementation of pedagogical activities with students |
| October, 2025 | Interviews and focus groups |
| November, 2025 | Data analysis |
| December, 2025 | Final report and article writing |
Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research
[edit]Although our project involves the design and implementation of pedagogical activities that use Wikimedia platforms (mainly Wikipedia) as tools for teaching digital citizenship, these actions do not pose a risk to Wikipedians' work since all activities will have the support and supervision of Wikimedia Chile's Digital Education and Literacy Program. For this reason, activities involving Wikipedia editing, as well as uploading photographs to Wikimedia Commons, will first undergo review and approval by the Education Officer of said chapter. Regarding ethical considerations, our project has been approved by the Ethics and Safety Committee of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Results
[edit]So far, information has been gathered from teachers for the situated development of workshops. The workshops are currently being conducted, and the preliminary evaluation (digital citizenship test and assessment of Wikipedia as a tool for developing digital citizenship skills) has been completed, pending the post-evaluation once the entire process is concluded. A second wave of workshops will be conducted during the second semester using the study's original methodology, which will run in parallel with the workshops developed by the collaborating program.
Resources
[edit]We have not yet disseminated our work.
References
[edit]Banerjee, A., Mahajan, A., Mathur-Balendra, A., Qureshi, N., Teekah, M., Yogaratnam, S.,& Bajaj, H. S. (2021). Impact of the south asian adolescent diabetes awareness program (saadap) on diabetes knowledge, risk perception and health behaviour. Health Education Journal, 81(1), 96-108. https://doi.org/10.1177/00178969211051054.
Rabbani, S. A., Marzooqi, A. M. S. K. A., Srouji, A. E., Hamad, E. A., & Mahtab, A. (2019). Impact of community-based educational intervention on breast cancer and its screening awareness among arab women in the united arab emirates. Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health, 7(4), 600-605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cegh.2019.01.008.
Shankar, P., Sievers, D., & Sharma, R. A. (2020). Evaluating the impact of a school-based youth-led health education program for adolescent females in Mumbai, India. Annals of Global Health, 86(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2791.