LeaDS – Learning in a Digitalised Society

Digitalisation transforms our everyday life and society as a whole. Digital tools affect how citizens of all ages work, study, consume and maintain social connections. This places new demands on how teaching and learning should be organised.

Three young persons with VR-glasses. Photo.

The research program addresses questions about how digitalisation changes the conditions for teaching and learning, as well as the competence of people and organisations to handle digital environments. Various methods are used to describe, analyse and understand how digitalisation affects learning at the individual, group and organizational level. Among other things, the research programme adresses how digital technology and media change processes for learning and knowledge development in society, and what consequences this development has on learning.

A starting point in the research programme is critical, ethical and sustainable development and use of information and communication technology and how it can add value to learning. LeaDS has three central themes: digitalisation and learning in school and preschool; digitalisationand learning in higher education as well as digitalisation and lifelong learning. The programme also links to the focus area Smart Cities and Communities and its area of strength The Smart Resident in Small and Medium-sized Cities.

Research questions and themes

In the programme, following broadly formulated questions are addressed:

How is the digitalisation of society changing the conditions for teaching and learning in schools, in higher education and in workplaces (industry and public sector)?
How can digital technology be developed and used in educational environments and in other contexts to support learning, communication, and skills development?
What processes and skills are required to manage a digitalised school, working life and society and how can these skills be described, analysed, and understood?
What new learning opportunities are offered through the development and use of modern digital forms of interaction and automated systems based on artificial intelligence and machine learning?

Three central themes

Digitalisation and learning in school and preschool
Contact: Emma Edstrand
Digitalisation and learning in higher education
Contact: Jeanette Sjöberg
Digitalisation and lifelong learning
Contact: Lars-Olof Johansson

Ongoing projects

Generative AI in Upper Secondary School STEM Education: Exploring Students’ Interactions with LMMs and AI Literacy among Students and Teachers

Guidance for digital automation and a good work environment

MOLiS – co-creative leadership in schools

RECDACT – Research on Critical Thinking, Disinformation and Conspiracy Theories

Ship crew safety training for Resilience

The use of adaptive VR environments to support students learning in multilingual study guidance (VRiS)

Participating researchers

School of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences

PhD students

School of Information Technology

PhD students

School of Health and Welfare

PhD student

Julia Törn External link.

School of Business, Innovation and Sustainability

Three circles with the text "Environment", "People", "Living"

Multidisciplinary research

The research program is multidisciplinary involving scholars from all academies at Halmstad university:

Researchers from educational sciences (including subject didactics), pedagogy, media and communication sciences and sociology have specific expertise in how digitalisation affects teaching and learning (the use and evaluation of technology).
Researchers from informatics, computer science and engineering have specific expertise in the development of new digital technologies, about evaluating and comparing existing methods and tools.
Researchers from innovation management have specific expertise in knowledge management (individual and digitalisation), flexible developments and enhancing learning using technology involving academic and business audiences.
Digital transformation and ethical consequences of digitalisation.
From information technology and robotics, researchers have also expertise in applied artificial intelligence, simulation and modelling, data mining and social robots.