Reeves, T. C., & Oh, E. G. (2016). The goals and methods of educational technology research over a quarter century (1989–2014). Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(2), 325–339. 

Reeves and Oh compiled this literature review to provide some insight on the fure direction of educational technology research and its role in resolving controversies such as the debate about whether educational technology is the savior or the bane of successful learning. Their analysis examined both goals and methods of research articles published in Educational Technology Research and Development. Their findings showed that over 25 years, the number of articles synthesizing the research through literature review decreased more than 20% (even though literature reviews were the most often cited studies). Studies that collected data increased by over 15%, as did the number of articles who used descriptive research methods. Research dedicated to critical/postmodern studies was nonexistent, and design-related research (focused on solving education problems) went up 1%. The authors concluded that even though educational technology is often believed to be the savior for all things wrong with education, the research evidence to support this is lukewarm at best–no significant findings. They found that most of the research focused on emerging technologies, rather than those that are well-established. They also found that research focused on technology created by others, rather than on problems in education that might be solved using technology.

Because the authors believe that setting a research goal before choosing a method is necessary, they organized their study around these two factors. They read every word of every article from the first six years (1989-1994) and the last six years (2009-2014) of a 25 year period for the Educational Technology Research and Development journal, and sorted them into six goal-related categories, which were subdivided into five different methodologies. Because only two researchers were involved in reading and classifying the articles, they analyzed their sorting results using an inter-rater reliability test, and recalibrated their findings to ensure consistency. They did not use the abstracts to sort the articles because of the lack of standards in the writing of abstracts which causes their contents to be unreliable for literature review purposes (it is easier and faster, not better).

The authors’ opinions regarding choosing a goal before choosing a method seemed sound; you wouldn’t pick up a spatula to use as a tool if you wanted to peel an apple.  It makes perfect sense to me that you have to have a target first. I also appreciated the irony that only six percent of the studies in this literature review actually examined the problems of education, even though educational technology itself is supposedly designed to improve educational outcomes. The article described a couple of intriguing ideas that could help shape my research. First, if the research really does reveal “no significant findings,” then maybe a critical/postmodern approach is a possibility. Another option would be to use a design-oriented approach that focuses on the creation and improvement of effective solutions to problems in education. Finally, if the questions researchers are asking are providing “no significant findings,” I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that they are asking the wrong questions.