The Schreyer Institute is typically involved with many research projects at any given time, both internal to the Institute and external.  Below you will find various types of research projects undertaken by members of the Institute to enhance teaching and learning at Penn State.  If you have any questions or comments, please email Bart Pursel (pursel@psu.edu).

Penn State’s Technology Ecosystem
In the summer of 2010, in collaboration with Education Technology Services and Emerging Technologies, the Schreyer Institute analyzed the use of the Penn State blog platform and Wikispaces across the university.  This involved combining data exported from these two platforms, combined with institutional data from Penn State’s data warehouse.  This is the first draft of the report; this report will continue to evolve and iterate over time, representing a rolling document.

For version .2

• Inclusion of faculty examples, illustrating different pedagogies

For future versions

• Inclusion of a third platform, iTunesU
• New blog section, examining the blog itself as the level of analysis (as opposed to the user)

Teaching Support Grant Research Starter Kits
Each year, the Institute provides a group of faculty with Teaching Support Grants (read more about our grant process on our grants page).  In fall 2010, we are piloting an extension of this program we are tentatively calling “Research Starter Kits”.  The idea is to provide our grant recipients with information that will jumpstart possible research projects around a specific topic.  This kit includes things like references to current research, identification of applicable variables, identification of survey instruments used to measure applicable variables, applicable PSU resources, relevant journals and professional organizations and other valuable information to help a faculty member begin the research process.

2010 Research Starter Kits

• Educational gaming and Simulation: Current Research and Efforts in Assessment
• Mobile Learning: Current Research and Assessment Methods

Penn State Online Coordinating Council, Assessment Subcommittee
The Schreyer Institute’s Bart Pursel and Angela Linse assisted in a report for the PSOCC examining trends in online learning from the fall 2008 semester through spring 2010. Included in the report:

• Types of courses offered (blended, online, eLearning cooperative)
• Enrollment data
• Instructor data

One of the key findings of this report was that data for blended courses and eLearning cooperative courses are not being tracked consistently and accurately across College and Campus locations.