Designing Pedagogical Infrastructures in University Courses for Technology-Enhanced Collaborative Inquiry

In the present article, a specified Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework, including technical, social, epistemological and cognitive components, is introduced as a conceptual tool for design-based research to examine the design of complex learning settings. The applicability of the framework was assessed by retrospectively exploring an evolving design effort in four, consecutive, undergraduate courses in cognitive psychology. The development of the course design was driven by the principles of the Progressive Inquiry model, such as grounding the inquiry process on students’ authentic knowledge problems, sustained engagement in the elaboration of explanations, the promotion of collaborative activity, or the use of appropriate technological tools to mediate collaborative knowledge creation. The Web-based software system that was utilized in the courses evolved in parallel with the pedagogical development. The results provide insights into the critical aspects of the pedagogical organization of the courses influencing the characteristics of the students’ collaborative inquiry. The most important benefit of the framework was that it helped structure an overview of various design features in a concise form that facilitates the examination of the interplay between the critical components. In order to serve as a practical design tool for educators, the components of the framework need to be further specified and concretized.