Research axes
Research at the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) is conducted under two axes and five theme areas as presented to the Fonds de recherche du Québec.
Axis 1 – Learning, Affect & PerformanceTheme 1.1: Didactique/Curriculum and Pedagogy
Theme 1.2: Cognitive and Affective Processes in Learning
Theme 1.3: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Learning
Axis 2 – Learning Tools
Theme 2.1: Established Learning Platforms for Literacy, Numeracy and Science
Theme 2.2: Social Pedagogical Tools to Promote Critical Digital Literacy
Axis 1: Learning, Affect and Performance
This axis analyzes broad educational goals, how to create and structure curricula, and how best to draw upon learners’ existing experiences and knowledge. CSLP researchers investigate the way learners acquire knowledge (i.e., their learning processes), what they experience while learning (i.e., their affect during pedagogical encounters), as well as how they perform (i.e., the outcomes of their learning).
This axis is the Centre’s theoretical research base — it captures the multiple ways that we analyze the “What is to be learned?” and “How do we learn?” questions. It brings together a tremendous breadth of perspectives, including specialists from curriculum, pedagogy, instructional remediation (orthodidactique), educational psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, and philosophy. Under the “What” question, our researchers analyse broad educational goals, how to create and structure curricula, and how best to draw upon learners’ existing experiences and knowledge. Under the “How” question, researchers investigate the way learners learn (their learning processes), what they experience while learning (their affect before/during/after their learning), as well as how they perform (the outcomes of their learning). Our theories are built in diverse learning contexts (school, extracurricular, online, community, professional training) at the national as well as the international level.
Axis 1 includes three research themes
- Theme 1.1: Didactique/Curriculum and Pedagogy
- Theme 1.2: Cognitive and Affective Processes in Learning
- Theme 1.3: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Learning
Axis 2: Learning Tools
This axis addresses the design, development, implementation and evaluation of innovative learning tools both in the digital realm and within classroom environments.
Work in the Centre’s second axis addresses the design, implementation, and evaluation of innovative learning tools both in extra-curricular and informal digital environments. Our learning tools are developed and tested in a variety of disciplines, including numeracy, literacy, information literacy, language learning, civic education, and media literacy, and they benefit from insights generated across our three themes in Axis 1. Some of the Centre’s work in this area (particularly the LTK+) consists of mature learning platforms that have been carefully validated and tested. Some of the Centre’s newer work (for example, Project SOMEONE and the UNESCO-PREV Chair) combines well-tested theories with new, experimental technologies and techniques in response to urgent calls from policy-makers to better manage the ways in which our society adapts to problems caused by discriminatory and hateful rhetoric in online environments. The varied methodologies employed — including systematic reviews, action-research, design-based research and research-creation — draw on both psychological insights and interdisciplinary work in civic education to develop critical digital literacy skills and pluralistic dialogue spaces wherein alternative narratives can be magnified.
Axis 2 includes two research themes
- Theme 2.1: Established Learning Platforms for Literacy, Numeracy and Science
- Theme 2.2: Social Pedagogical Tools to Promote Critical Digital Literacy
