{"id":1664,"date":"2019-01-24T20:40:06","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T01:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/?p=1664"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:03:51","slug":"24365-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/24365-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"24:365 | Effects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout my graduate program, we read study after study examining the effects on learning outcomes. Even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jennifermaddrell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/MADDRELL-Dissertation-FINAL-20111102.pdf\">my own dissertation considered the relationship between students&#8217; perceptions of community in an online environment and learning outcomes<\/a> (spoiler: no relationship was suggested in my data). However, the students&#8217; perceptions of community&nbsp;within the class were significantly positively correlated with satisfaction. I reported this in my dissertation and subsequent presentations\/publications, but more of an &#8220;in other news&#8221; afterthought relative to the effects on learning that I was studying. This troubles me, as that finding could point to another important aim in education &#8230; persistence.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to the current course I am teaching that is asking students to dramatically widen their lens to examine other effects\/consequences associated with our design decisions that fall under the umbrella of ethical analysis (e.g., access, accessibility, equity, privacy, security, etc.) This week, I found myself typing the sentence, &#8220;While the impact of our design decisions on learning outcomes is certainly always an important consideration, our ethics lens in this course is broader than &#8216;only&#8217; the effects of our decisions on learning.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In this age of high-stakes tests and standards, this freedom to consider our actions and strategies as designers\/educators beyond the effects on learning outcomes feels extraneous. I fully appreciate that if what we&#8217;re doing isn&#8217;t supporting learning, we need to switch course. However, we need to allow room in our study and practice of education to explore other relevant effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout my graduate program, we read study after study examining the effects on learning outcomes. Even my own dissertation considered the relationship between students&#8217; perceptions of community in an online environment and learning outcomes (spoiler: no relationship was suggested in my data). However, the students&#8217; perceptions of community&nbsp;within the class were significantly positively correlated with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1664"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}