Introduction to the topic: How to investigate the new normal? In search of inventive methods for inquiring the datafication of education“
On Thursday, 30 January 2020, a methodology workshop on software studies took place at the premises of the Institute for Information Management Bremen (ifib). Participants were representatives of all participating subprojects as well as Mathias Decuypere, who is an assistant professor at the KU Leuven and researches and teaches in the field of educational science methodology.
The workshop was opened with a presentation of Decuypere’s work on the topic “How to investigate the new normal? In search of inventive methods for inquiring the datafication of education”. The workshop was followed by a fruitful exchange of ideas between the participants. Various approaches from Decuypere’s presentation were taken up and further developed. Many valuable references to interesting literature sources and other projects were exchanged. In the course of this, the influence of the order of the methods used on the results was discussed, among other things.
After a short break, Jasmin Troeger and Irina Zakharova presented the current status of the methods used in subprojects 2 and 3, as well as considerations for further work. A lively exchange of ideas was also fostered on these presentations.
The workshop was guided by the following questions:
- How can we study (learning) software? How can we frame/understand software?
- What are the challenges in studying software?
- What types of methods can be used and what types of knowledge do they produce/what types of knowledge do they privilege?
- How can we study data produced and processed in such systems?
- What are the effects of using certain methods / following certain approaches (e.g. with regard to the performativity of our methods and procedures)
All participants of the joint project would like to thank Mathias Decuypere once again for his interest in the DATAFIED project, his participation in the Software Studies Workshop, and his valuable input.