Current research projects

Accompany

The Accompany project presents a serious game designed to support caregivers of adolescents with anorexia. The game offers interactive scenarios using dialogues generated by large language models (LLMs), allowing close caregivers to better immerse themselves through the simulation of everyday life scenes. The design of the game aims to improve communication and understanding between caregivers and patients, potentially contributing to facilitating the healing process.

Funding: Fonds National Suisse (FNS) – grant n° 212661
Projects leaders: Nicolas Szilas, Frédéric Ehrler (HUG), Nadia Micali (Danemark)
Project members: Halit Mislimi, Alexandre De Masi, Dorthe Waage

COVIQUITY

The first part of this project aims to update our knowledge on the representations that French and Swiss teachers have of digital technology, following the pandemic. The second part aims to build authentic learning situations, based on various school disciplines, capable of motivating girls in the acquisition of knowledge and skills in science or digital humanities.

Funding: Fondation Dauphine, Chaire Femmes et Science.
Project leaders: Isabelle Collet (Unige), Gaëlle Molinari (TECFA, Unige & UniDistance, TEPEE group).
Project members and collaborators: Yann Secq (EPFL, Lausanne), Yong Xin Lam (Master student).

DEEP – Space: Virtual Learning Environments to Foster Spatial Thinking and Perspective Taking

This project employs a design-based research approach to explore how to promote spatial thinking by means of collaborative game-based learning in elementary school. It aims to design and evaluate learning environments combining virtual reality and tangible elements.

Collaboration: PH St. Gallen, Département de l'instruction publique (Genève), Ecole Geisendorf (Genève)

Funding: Jacobs Foundation

Project leaders: Mireille Bétrancourt, Michael Kickmeier-Rust (PHSG), Gaëlle Molinari, Eric Sanchez

Team: Martina Conti (PHSG), Fatou-Maty Diouf, Katharina Richter (PHSG), Alain Sénécail

ESCOFE - Evolution of the Sense of Digital Competence from Teacher Training to schools (Leading House: HEP Bejune)

Digital education has recently been introduced as a new subject in the curriculum starting from primary school. However, research shows that novice teachers use little or no technology in their teaching practice, despite having been trained in the field. This research uses a mixed longitudinal methodology (questionnaire and group or individual interviews) to identify the internal and external factors explaining the evolution of novice teachers’ sense of digital competence. The results can be used by training institutions to improve training programs and by school principals to support teachers in digital education.

FNS funding – subside n° 100019_205155
Project leaders: Stéphanie Boéchat-Heer, HEP Bejune; Denise Sutter Widmer, HEP Vaud & UNIGE; Mireille Bétrancourt
Team: Hana Bida (PhD student); Cécile Vassaux (Research assistant)

LAVIA: A Living Lab on Innovative Learning Technologies in Higher Education

This research partnership is led by Prof. B. Poellhuber (Université de Montréal). The topics addressed include Extended Reality (XR), video games, serious games and gamification, digital creation and fabrication, and artificial intelligence applied to learning.

Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

People involved: Eric Sanchez (co-direction), Mireille Bétrancourt, Gaëlle Molinari

LM-ados

The LM-ados project aims to develop and validate tools to assess adolescents' media literacy levels in the areas of information retrieval and media creation. Its objective is to evaluate these levels in schools in the four participating regions: French-speaking Belgium, Quebec, Normandy, and the Canton of Geneva. The methodological framework combines a self-reported survey on perceived competence levels and media practices of the young participants, with an assessment system based on a so-called "complex" task and several "simplified" tasks.

People involved in the project: Pierre Fastrez (Université Catholique de Louvain); Nathalie Lacelle (Université du Québec à Montréal); Julia Bihl (Université Catholique de Louvain); Eve Gladu (Université du Québec à Montréal); Eric Delamott (Université de Rouen-Normandie); Catherine Delarue-Breton (Université de Rouen-Normandie); Christophe Ronveaux (University of Geneva); Denise Sutter Widmer (University of Geneva, TECFA)

NACl – the Narrative Acts Classification

Several Interactive Narrative engines, including IDtension and Generact developed at TECFA, make use of the concept of narrative acts, generic types of actions that agents can undertake in a story. In this project, we aim at theorizing this concept and more practically to provide a classification of narrative acts. Such a classification draws data from existing narrative theories but also extends them in a more formal way. It constitutes an instance of computational narratology. Practically, it can be also useful in designing interactive narrative works. A first version of the classification has been made available here.

Project leader: Nicolas Szilas

SPAGEO

Nowadays, children are surrounded by three-dimensional (3D) technologies, which have considerably modified their relationship to space and some of their spatial behaviors. Few studies have examined the influence of virtual environments on the learning of mathematics, and there are none on the influence of these technologies on the learning of geometry in primary school. The richness of the SPAGEO project “Rethinking the links between spatial knowledge and geometry in primary education through virtual environments” is linked to the complementarity of three scientific fields, psychology, didactics of mathematics, and educational technologies. Combining these points of view makes it possible to enrich the understanding and links between the teaching of geometry, the learning of spatial knowledge, and their representations through the design of a virtual environment..

Project leader : Mireille Bétrancourt (UNIGE, TECFA, FPSE),Jean-Luc Dorier (UNIGE, DiMage), Roland Maurer (UNIGE, FPSE)
Project partners: Emmanuel Sanders (UNIGE, FPSE)
Project members and collaborators: Sophie Bénard Linh Quan (UNIGE, FPSE, TECFA), Sandra Berney (UNIGE, FPSE, TECFA), Sylvia Coutat-Gousseau (UNIGE, FPSE, DiMage), Fatou-Maty Diouf (UNIGE, FPSE, TECFA), Sabrina Matri (UNIGE, FPSE, DiMage)

Teachers’ Well-Being in Digital Learning Environments

The aim of this doctoral research is to investigate the Swiss secondary school teachers' perceptions of the positive and negative impacts of the increase in the use of digital technologies on their psychological well-being. The research also aims to provide recommendations for the future policies in face-to-face and remote education at national and European levels.

Project leaders: Gaëlle Molinari (TECFA, Unige & UniDistance, TEPEE group), Joris Felder (University of Fribourg).
Project members and collaborators: Cécile Vassaux (PhD student).

TEPEE (TEchnologies for Positive LEarning Environments)

TEPEE is a research team within the TECFA Lab, led by Pr. Gaëlle Molinari. TEPEE focuses on developing educational technologies that promote individual growth and optimal group functioning across formal, informal, and hybrid learning environments. By integrating frameworks such as well-being supportive design and value-sensitive design, the team places particular emphasis on the affective dimensions of learning, addressing the role of emotions and well-being in fostering meaningful and engaging educational experiences.

TEPEE's projects are as follows:

• Teachers' well-being in digital learning environments. Cécile Vassaux (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari, Joris Felder (University of Fribourg).
• Phygital continuity of hybrid collaborative making activities in FabLabs. Nathalie Borgognon (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari, Laurent Moccozet (Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, University of Geneva).
• Training researchers to collaborate optimally: A team flow approach. Priçulla Trouillefou (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari.
• Teacher orchestration load in collaborative learning activities for the development of computational thinking. Emma Schenkenberg van Mierop (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari, Morgane Chevalier (HEP Vaud).
• Generative artificial intelligence for formal and informal learning. Djamileh Aminian (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari.
• How do adults learn in the postdigital age? Maud Aspart (PhD), Gaëlle Molinari, James Lamb (University of Edinburgh).