Profile

Particular strands of Brett’s current work include digital transformation in post-compulsory education; understanding technology in education through an activity-theoretical lens; and research-interventionist methodologies built on activity theory, such as the Change Laboratory.

He is currently

• Director of Teaching for the Department of Educational Research,
• Director of the Doctoral Programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning,
• Communication and Visibility Secretary and Executive Board member of the International Society for Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR),
• Regional Coordinator, UK and Ireland Region, for the International Society for Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR),
• a member of the Scientific Council of the Centre for Activity Theory,
• co-Editor of the open-access journal Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning;
• Editor of the open-access journal Bureau de Change Laboratory;
• a member of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning and the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation.

Additional Information

PhD students completed

• Fiona Redmond – Co-designing a contextualised outreach initiative to attract females into computer science: A Change Laboratory with a school-university partnership (2025 graduation)
• Talal Alqaraini – Exploring faculty perceptions of research motivation in Omani higher education: Institutional and individual influences (2025 graduation)
• Dale Munday – The participative development of blended learning activity across a higher education institution: Navigating potentiality in a Change Laboratory research-intervention (2025 graduation)
• Christopher Tuffnell – Supporting the professional development of educators for blended learning design using TPACK: A design-based research study (2025 graduation)
• Suresh Krishnasamy – Virtual field trips for experiential learning in undergraduate agricultural education: A developmental evaluation study (2024 graduation)
• Dina Mohamed – Instructors' decisions to continue to use blended learning in their courses in higher education institutions: A mixed methods study in the United Arab Emirates (supervised with Murat Oztok) (2024 graduation)
• Abedelaziz Khalil – Qualitative variation in perceptions of Open Educational Practices by educators and academic administrators: A phenomenographic analysis (2024 graduation)
• Reza Estehardi – The provision and experience of an accredited online programme for English language teacher training: An activity systems analysis (2024 graduation)
• Dave Gatrell – Designing and implementing video-based peer feedback tasks to develop communication skills in a Hong Kong higher education institution: An analysis of sociocultural re-mediation through collaborative formative intervention (2024 graduation)
• Vlad Chiriac – The shadow learning landscape of paramedic student experiences: A complexity sensitized exploration of the learning-technology-spaces intersection (2023 graduation)
• John Scahill – Concept development and transformative agency in the forging of a campus sustainability statement: Insights from a Change Laboratory research-intervention (2022 graduation)
• Michael Lower – Communities of inquiry pedagogy and consequential transitions in professional education: An action research project in an undergraduate law course (2021 graduation)
• Salman Usman – Using the Pomodoro Technique® to help undergraduate students better manage technology-based multitasking during independent study: A design-based research investigation (2021 graduation)
• Elaine Pattison – In-service teachers as relational and transformative agents: A study of primary school teachers' professional learning during a Change Laboratory formative intervention (2021 graduation)
• Ioana Hartescu – Project-based learning and the development of students’ professional identity: A case study of an instructional design course with real clients in Romania (2020 graduation)
• Meg Westbury – Academic librarians' Twitter practices and the production of knowledge infrastructures in higher education (2020 graduation)
• Ravindra Prasad – Mobile learning for sales and service personnel: Case studies in the corporate training environment (2020 graduation)
• Catherine Hasted – Humanities doctoral education for a relational future: A Change Laboratory research intervention (2019 graduation)
• Philip Moffitt – Transformative agency for the collaborative and future-oriented redesign of activity in Military Higher Education: Empowering participants to change their boundary-crossing technology enhanced learning (2019 graduation)
• Tan Thinh Nguyen – A study of students' conceptions of networked learning in a developing country setting (2017 graduation)
• Hans Lambrecht – Tackling low learning outcomes in South Africa: The contribution from informal mobile learning (supervised with Don Passey) (2015 graduation)
• Brett Bligh – Formative computer based assessment in diagram based domains (supervised by Colin A. Higgins) (University of Nottingham, 2007 graduation)

Current PhD students (working titles)

• Khaled Alhasan – Design-Based Research on gamification to enhance faculty engagement in higher education
• Somaia Al-Kendi – Curriculum reform in Qatari higher education: An activity systems analysis
• Moza Alkubaisi – Investigating AI chatbots as learning assistants in higher education in Qatar from the perspectives of undergraduates: CHAT analysis
• Simon Allen – Investigating processes of educational development in transnational higher education
• Bushra Baboo Rally – The ethical use of GenAI in academic writing: A modified Change Laboratory approach
• Rushpal Bihal – Technology integration and student engagement in secondary schools: An activity theory study
• Darren Blanch – Participatory action research and the structural transformation of a school careers service
• John Brindle – Inclusion and the space between: Making sense of inclusive practice as a third space professional
• Valentina Cattane – The evolving role of learning designers: The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on design practice
• Lina Daouk – Blended learning pedagogy and networked learning communities in a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates
• Amon Ezike – Student perceptions of self-organisation in online higher education settings
• Jessica Flemming – Navigating intersections: Contextualized and Islamic social work in Qatar
• Kallirroi Giannopoulou – Fostering transformative agency for Open Schooling: A Change Laboratory Approach leveraging Mantle of the Expert and Generative AI
• Irene Hayden – Evaluation of the design and use of applied visual interactive resources for building regulation subjects in higher education Built Environment programmes
• Jessica Humphreys – Better together: Exploring the potentiality for third-space professionals’ collective agency within a co-designed project about SoTL
• Patricia Lanners-Kaminski – Exploring learner autonomy in AI-enhanced language learning
• Julian L'Enfant – Exploring the potentiality of AI as a reflective coach in graduate practicum experiences: A Change Laboratory research-intervention
• Freddrick Logan – Changing corporate sector training provision in remote working scenarios
• Sophia Mavridi – International student uses of AI tools in higher education institutions
• Ian McGowan – Investigation of the effectiveness of a social-interactional constructivist learning model: Knowledge building findings from a higher education networked learning environment
• Maxine Minton – The influences of simulation fidelity and realism upon professional identity formation within medical education
• Pani Nikolaou – Revisiting logistics education: Co-design of a framework for a future-oriented logistics curriculum
• Regina Obexer – Developing transformative agency for integrating sustainability into higher education: A Change Laboratory research-intervention
• Lorena Parra – Automated writing evaluation: The effectiveness of formative feedback in the development of writing skills in English as a Foreign Language undergraduate students
• Nick Rea – Reframing technology adoption in higher education: An actor-network theory analysis
• James Reid – Shifting scholarly habitus in a Japanese university: CLIL principles and transmedia learning strategies for epistemic fluency and academic biculturalism
• Aafreen Sayed – Integrating AI into university teaching practices: Analysis using the Activity Oriented Design Model
• Yurou Song – Using a Change Laboratory intervention to re-imagine interprofessional teaching collaboration in online adult English education using intelligent technologies
• Jeff Stanford – Professionalisation and the development of volunteer teachers of minority languages: A Change Laboratory research-intervention
• Nico D. Smit – Developing the technology expertise of further education teachers: An activity theory intervention
• Mariyam Taskinbayeva – Academic knowledge and professional practice in accounting: Co-designing a curriculum using the Change Laboratory approach
• Surjit Uppal – Understanding collaboration between learning technologists and academics
• Josephine Van-Ess – Innovation and interactivity in higher education teaching and learning: Teacher and student experiences
• Jinchen Wang – Student motivation and experiences on international branch campuses
• Zhu Yiyun – The collaborative re-design of healthcare management education: A Change Laboratory approach

Current teaching

• Module Convenor of ED.S883 Social practice, practitioner and institutional change in technology enhanced learning in the Doctoral Programme E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (January 2024- )

Previous roles

• Director or Co-Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning (August 2017-August 2024)
• Academic Director of the Doctoral Programme in Educational Research (Independent Study) (August 2018-August 2022)
• Academic Director of the Doctoral Programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (August 2017-July 2018) (I have taken up this role again from August 2022 to present)
• Convenor of Traditional Route Research Discussion Group in the Doctoral Programme Educational Research (Independent Study) (October 2018-August 2022)
• Module Convenor of ED.S823 Researching Technology Enhanced/Networked Learning, Teaching and Assessment in the Doctoral Programme E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (January 2014-July 2023)
• Module Convenor of ED.S826 Researching and Reflecting on Technology Enhanced Learning in Educational Settings in the Doctoral Programme E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (January-April 2023)
• Module Convenor of ED.S822 The Development of Professional Practice in the Doctoral Programme E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (June-September 2021)
• Module Convenor of ED.S843 Researching Higher Education in the Doctoral Programme Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement (September 2013-September 2017)
• Module Convenor of Module B: In-practice Learning and Development in the Doctoral Programme Educational Research: Higher Education (September 2013-September 2014)

PhD Supervision Interests

My research concerns post-compulsory education. I wish to deal with PhD proposals focussed on universities, colleges and other sites of post-compulsory education. I have an interest in work-based learning, though my scholarship is less established in that area. I do NOT wish to supervise PhD projects examining compulsory education (K-12) settings and simply will not consider proposals for such projects. I am interested to supervise proposals that use activity theory to frame the work. I am particularly interested in proposals that use the Change Laboratory or other related interventionist research designs. I am fairly unlikely to consider proposals that do not use activity theory at all.