Software design for supporting school teachers' educational resource search

Abstract

School teachers around the world use online resources in their teaching. Their information-seeking strategies are strongly shaped by the flexibility (or rigidity) of the education system in which they work. Rigid education systems prescribe resources while flexible systems allow teachers the freedom to choose or make their own resources. This can help to better adapt to pupils' learning needs but potentially makes lesson preparation more difficult and time-consuming. This thesis explores how teachers in Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence -- an education system with flexible and rigid components -- search for, use, and share online educational resources, and identifies software design guidelines for supporting teachers' lesson and resource preparation workflows.

Interviews with 15 teachers and discussions with 30 experts informed the development of a school education domain specific Teacher Educational Resource Search process model. A review of existing tools clarified commonalities and shortcomings in supporting teachers' needs. Building on these insights, three rounds of iterative user-centred design were conducted with 12 teachers, 14 education experts, and 2 user experience designers. Initial prototypes were refined or discarded based on feedback, culminating in a browser plug-in enhancing Google search results with crowdsourced and AI generated educational metadata. The plug-in served as a research tool to conduct a validation and evaluation study with 20 teachers trying simulated work tasks. The study supports the validity of the Teacher Educational Resource Search process model, including new scenarios when teachers used generative AI tools instead of traditional search, and expands on the strategies teachers commonly use. Teacher feedback on the tools used, including the prototype browser plug-in, led to a set of refined software design guidelines for supporting educational resource search.

Overall, the thesis contributes to greater understanding of school teachers' educational resource search, use, and sharing practices in education system context by proposing a validated process model. The research findings are grounded in the experiences of over 40 teachers and 40 experts and help inform the design of software tools supporting educational resource search.