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The Development Phase

In 2022 the Scoping Study provided us the 20 most important gaps for ILE research as well as those that are seen to be most urgent. We are now in the Development Phase of the project. Currently we are testing a method of collecting those data. In 2025 onwards we want you to assist building that data set and to apply it to your own needs. 

How are we doing this?

In the initial stages, we planned.

We have built a network and designed a method to gather evidence across multiple countries, focusing on industry, education, and academic priorities. We have data collection tools that will allow the evidence to be attributed to different school levels, student attendance, measures of disability, design types, furniture arrangements, acoustics, perceptions of engagement and inclusion, and so on. All of these will be capable of international benchmarking, for example according to similar schools, similar student cohorts, similar design types. They will allow for correlational analysis to suggest which design approaches best suit particular student capabilities, student engagement and desired learning outcomes, amongst many things. At each stage of the Development Phase, we meet with our member Consortiums for feedback on our approach, the tools, and to ensure we are meeting the needs of those that require the evidence.  

The ‘key’ tool for the study 

Across 2023 and 2024 the ILESE Team have been working with the Healthy Trajectories Team from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in mapping a newly developed learning environment survey to the ‘Family of Participation Related Constructs (fPRC)’ model*. The aim of the tool is to measure inclusive student participation in learning environments through the constructs of involvement, preference, activity competence, sense of self and self-regulation. As part of the mapping process, consultation with our Scientific Committee has ensured that adaptation of the fPRC from the field of health to that of education doesn’t change its developed intent. The outcome from this mapping exercise has been the key tool for this study, the ‘Student and Spaces Survey (S&SS)’.

*Imms, C., Granlund, M., Wilson, P., Steenbergen, B., Rosenbaum, P. & Gordon, A. (2017). Participation, both a means and an end: a conceptual analysis of processes and outcomes in childhood disability. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 59(1), 16-25. DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.13237 

Now, we test

The S&SS, along with a small suite of other measurement tools are currently being tested in a Pilot Phase. The Pilot is being run across 10 countries, delivered in 7 languages and will reach approximately 500 students. This has been achieved through valued collaboration with our partner organisations and an ‘Academic Alliance’ of scholars.  

The Pilot has 3 main outcomes: 

  1. Ensuring the processes for the project work: This includes fulfilling relevant ethics requirements in various jurisdictions internationally, training investigators in the use of the tools and ensuring that the process for collecting those data work. Through feedback received during the Pilot we are able to refine the processes before moving to large scale data collection in the full study.  
  2. Translation for international success: The measurement tools are currently translated into 7 languages. Part of the pilot required embarking on a translation process to ensure that the data could be collected internationally and still be valid. This has required close work with academics in the relevant countries, going through a back translation process before the tools were ready for administration.  
  3. Validation of the S&SS: Through the piloting of the newly developed S&SS we will be collecting enough data to ensure we have a valid tool ready for the full study (beginning in 2025). The ILESE team are currently in the initial phases of running an Exploratory Factor Analysis using the data collected in the first half of 2024. This analysis will be run multiple times as the remainder of the data is collected in Aug/Sep 2024. Finally, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis will complete the process of tool validation before the commencement of the full study.  

Our Partners 

The current success of the Development Phase, like that of the Scoping Study, is due to the cross disciplinary collaboration with our partner consortiums and an ‘Academic Alliance’ of scholars. Our partners come from the following participating countries; Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, South Africa, Scotland, England, Brazil, Iceland, Finland, the USA, Singapore and Hong Kong. The depth of knowledge and expertise shared through this collaboration give significance to the ILESE project.  

What next…

ILESE: The Evidence 

With a plan and the processes to reach our goal in place, we look forward to collecting the evidence. We are now in the recruitment phase, hoping to enlist partners for the full study. Across 2025 and 2026, ‘ILESE: The Evidence’ aims to reach 500 schools, 25 000 students, internationally from which data will be collected to create the database that we are calling ARGO. This database will be used, in the initial years by our partners and then further afield, to mine the findings and answer personalised learning environment research questions.  

Some examples of the kind of questions/scenarios we could see ARGO answering include: 

  • I am an infrastructure manager in an education department. We have a policy of ILE development, but to rationalise costs wish to know what designs are linked to what learning outcomes. 
  • I’m an architect.  I want to know the design characteristics that have high levels of approval from students who experience limited physical mobility.   
  • We are a business providing furniture to secondary schools. To help sales by proving widespread applicability, we want to know which furniture designs are equally useable by early and later-aged secondary students.  
  • I’m an academic partnering an acoustics company and to undertake our research initiative we need to sample sites across a 2×3 matrix. We wish to identify traditional and ILE learning secondary spaces that have good and poor reverberation levels, that rate high and low on decibel levels, and that are considered by students to be a good space and a poor space for studying in.   
  • I’m a principal in a large primary/elementary school that has steadily embraced collaborative teaching practices aimed at increasing our students’ deep learning skills. We are seeking data that informs a corresponding change in the design of our learning spaces.  

How to be involved 

Across the end of 2024, the ILESE team will be seeking those educational bodies, industry partners, schools and academics to be at the forefront of learning environment research by joining us. If this is something you may be interested in, please contact the team at info@ilese.org for more information.