Enacting the potential of digital personalized learning

Personalized learning is a regular part of research studies, educational policies and public/private educational technology development efforts. The combination of adaptive technology and personalized learning has yielded a new popular subject of interest: digital personalized learning (DPL). DPL is often seen as key for prevalent educational challenges and demands, e.g., increasing inclusive education in large classes with great diversity in background knowledge, interests or abilities (Redding, 2013; Tetzlaff et al., 2020).  Studies on DPL are proliferating in educational research, with various topics being scrutinized. Four gaps within the field of DPL form the basis for this doctoral thesis. First, there is a need for thorough understanding of DPL conceptualization. Many authors use a wide variety of different conceptualizations, leaving the definition enigmatic and not centrally agreed (Bray & McClaskey, 2013; Bulger, 2016; Holmes et al., 2018). Second, the operationalization of DPL-tools is complex since many categorizations of DPL-tools emerged (Vandewaetere & Clarebout, 2014). Third, many authors emphasize benefits of DPL, including the impact on learning gains, although empirical evidence supporting this claim is sometimes ambiguous and might vary as a result of the way in which DPL-tools are implemented in the classroom (FitzGerald et al., 2018). Fourth, the implementation of DPL-tools in the classroom is under-examined. Given that the implementation of new technology in education is often a challenge in which perceptions of teachers play an important role (Vanderlinde & Van Braak, 2010), it is crucial to examine how DPL and DPL-tools are understood and received by teachers.