Examining the Methodological Properties in Usability Studies of Educational/Learning Technologies: A Systematic Literature Review

• In Event: Systematic Reviews of Advanced Research Methodologies in Education

Abstract

In this paper, we present a systematic literature review that sought to characterize the methodological properties of usability methods used to evaluate educational and learning technologies in the past 20 years. To systematically and explicitly identify, select, review relevant research and report results, the PRISMA guidelines were followed. Findings revealed a range of methodological properties related to usability studies across types of educational/learning technologies, context of uses, methods, instrumentations, etc. Besides fundamental misunderstandings of usability evaluation methods, our findings also uncovered both conceptual and procedural flaws in conducting usability evaluation in various disciplines, which could lead to problematic and unreliable results. Implications of how findings can be leveraged in the field of learning design and technology (LDT) are discussed.

Authors

• Jie Lu, University of Florida

• Minyoung Lee, University of Florida

• Rui Huang

• Matthew Schmidt, University of Florida