Executive Summary

What results from exploratory, interdisciplinary research on innovative uses of technology for teaching and learning? Classic exploratory research looks for patterns in data—or pilots a tentative design for a later large-scale summative study. Such research can be valuable, yet it is limited in scope; the focus either on refining or confirming a hypothesis. Rarely does this research result in the discovery of new ways in which rapidly changing technologies like AI could best be used by students and teachers in the future.

The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s mission focuses on research driven by curiosity and discovery. The future of teaching and learning is one nationally important topic of curiosity and discovery, especially as new and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are now rapidly permeating educational settings at all levels: preK-12, postsecondary and workforce learning. One NSF portfolio of research has provided funding to interdisciplinary teams of scientists who are curious about these technologies and seek to discover how to best use technology to advance teaching and learning. The intent of this portfolio has been to stimulate highly creative, context-driven approaches to strengthening learning for diverse students of all ages across topics that include science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

At the request of NSF, the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences (CIRCLS) analyzed this portfolio, seeking to understand the value of interdisciplinary, exploratory research. CIRCLS both examined the characteristics of the overall portfolio and interviewed principal investigators (PIs) funded by the NSF. We found that this form of research enabled PIs to ask new questions, combine different kinds of expertise, engage collaboratively with practitioners, and design equitable technology-enhanced learning experiences. This report provides details and offers recommendations for the future of the field of interdisciplinary, exploratory research.

About the NSF Exploratory Programs (EXPs)

In this report, we’ll frequently refer to three related NSF programs: Cyberlearning, Research on Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning (RETTL), and Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL). For convenience, we will hereafter refer to these programs as the NSF Exploratory Programs (NSF EXPs) because they all emphasize exploratory, interdisciplinary research on the future of learning with technology. Between 2017 and mid-2024, NSF EXPs funded 208 projects in 32 states across the country. Each project was funded for about three years of initial discovery work on a future-oriented use of technology to improve teaching and learning. The work in this portfolio makes it possible to better understand the value of small-scale exploratory projects within the larger science enterprise.

History of the CIRCLS Community

One particular strength of this NSF EXP portfolio is that it has a history and a community. The community is an interdisciplinary group of learning and computer scientists who are interested in designing and conducting research around innovative learning experiences. This community has been supported for many years by the NSF-funded Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), which later became the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences (CIRCLS).

To provide context, in 2017, several things changed simultaneously. First, NSF decided to focus the grants for this type of work only on modest-scale ($1 million or less), exploratory projects that were required to be interdisciplinary. Second, the nature of emerging technologies for education began to shift, with new forms of artificial intelligence becoming available to educational designers for “ambitious mashups” with other educational technologies and ideas. Third, a pandemic hit, shifting the relationship between technology and education. The time period from 2017 to the present has been particularly interesting for examining the role of exploratory research—for example, when a pandemic hits, exploratory research can more rapidly pivot.

Through a range of events, resources and learning opportunities designed to be collaborative and inclusive of practitioners and researchers, CIRCLS has helped the community grow into one that embraces equity, accessibility, and innovation. Over the years CIRCLS has produced reports on topics of interest within NSF and this research community. This report is the latest in a series of reports about the CIRCLS community, each of which investigates the ways exploratory projects contribute to NSF’s mission of building scientific knowledge and translating research into practice. This report focuses on the character and contributions of exploratory research, as seen through analysis of the portfolio and stories of the investigators who did the work.

Portfolio Analyses

CIRCLS conducts many kinds of analyses of the NSF EXP portfolio. Our analyses have explored how trends in topics have evolved over time, the kinds of expertise PIs and co-PIs have, and social networks among interdisciplinary project team members. For this report, we focused on two questions to help identify PIs for interviews: What topics have been consistently emphasized in the portfolio, and which have received more emphasis most recently? Based on our review of the various portfolio analyses we selected these key topics for this report: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual and Augmented Reality, Collaborative Learning, Accessibility and Learning, and Simulations.

Additionally, we asked: Is there evidence that exploratory projects funded by NSF EXPs are achieving the level of innovation they were designed to achieve? To answer this question, a new preliminary analysis of the portfolio looked at the publications generated by nearly 100 of the funded projects since 2017 to see whether they were more novel than publications in the same database (OpenAlex). Early findings indicated that the publications from projects funded through NSF EXPs had more novel topic pairings than a random sample of publications from the database.

Understanding the Character of Innovative Interdisciplinary Exploratory Research

To explore the nature, value, and impact of engaging in innovative interdisciplinary, exploratory research projects through NSF EXPs, we interviewed PIs, asking what was most valuable about having the opportunity to do exploratory work and what lessons they learned from engaging in this form of research. We then conducted a thematic analysis of the PIs’ responses. Several key ideas emerged:

Exploration and Discovery Across New Frontiers

• Exploratory research created a space for innovative projects in underappreciated and understudied spaces.
• Engaging with data in more open-ended research gave PIs the flexibility to focus on unanswered, novel, and reframed investigations to develop something new.
• The NSF EXP portfolio led to substantive collaborations across disciplines to advance teaching and learning.
• Engaging in exploratory research provided the freedom to re-imagine the future for less-often researched technologies that could have educational applications.

Equitable Co-Designed Learning and Practice

• Researchers used exploratory approaches to seek input from underrepresented voices.
• In particular, researchers employed “co-design” to envision possible futures from the perspectives of researchers, partners, practitioners and youth, and this led to changes of direction in the research and new discoveries.
• To develop equitable emerging technologies for learning, researchers focused on learner variability and user-directed customization.
• Practitioner expertise was important throughout the research process, not just while defining the problem.

Emerging Impact Through Networked Communities

• PIs could not fully anticipate the future impacts of their exploratory work; however, successful transformation of initial ideas to better serve educational needs was seen as an important marker of progress.
• Participation in networked communities such as CIRCLS added capacity to research teams and supported practitioners’ growth by tapping into a national expert group with diverse interdisciplinary knowledge and perspectives.
• Researchers who conduct exploratory projects that don’t fit established research trajectories faced barriers to disseminating novel or unprecedented research findings.
• Feedback from a networked community that included practitioners as well as researchers on the utility of emerging technologies in learning environments increased the impact and reach of exploratory research.

Recommendations

Based on this thematic analysis, we make the following recommendations:

• Create consistent opportunities for the field to engage in future-oriented, exploratory research across directorates and programs in directorates.
• Intentionally nurture interdisciplinary research identities and researcher-practitioner partnerships.
• Continue to uncover processes, methods, and flows that are uniquely important in exploratory, interdisciplinary research.
• Support coordination networks composed of researchers and practitioners to grow the field, synthesize outcomes, and amplify broader impacts.