A new generation of researchers is shaping the future of education

On this occasion, two of these pioneering doctoral students, Zhenyu Cai and Kate Shved, as well as Dr. Roland Tormey, co-supervisor and director of EPFL's Teaching Support Center, share their perspectives on the first years of this interdisciplinary program and its impact on education research in Switzerland and beyond.

“I supervise two doctoral students here at EPFL and co-supervise a doctoral student in Zurich. I teach part of the program's curriculum, and I like to think that I was involved in the early discussions about what this program could be and how it would be structured,” says Roland Tormey, a sociologist and educator who specializes in engineering education.

For him, this unique program is characterized by its interdisciplinary nature. “It could have been called Digital Education or STEM Education Research, but ‘Learning Sciences’ is an important distinction and an attempt to capture its interdisciplinary nature.” He points out that it all began in the 1960s at the intersection of computer science and cognitive science, before gradually expanding to encompass anthropology, sociology, and many other disciplines. "The learning sciences as an interdisciplinary space depend on the disciplines that are integrated into it, and it is this aspect that makes them exciting and challenging. Microengineering students sit with architects and elementary school teachers, and everyone participates in the conversation. We don't just study education, we do so while critically reflecting on our own learning."

It is precisely this pluralistic approach that led Zhenyu and Kate to embark on a PhD within this brand-new program. Zhenyu conducts his research under the supervision of Roland Tormey and Pierre Dillenbourg, in the latter’s lab, which specializes in human-computer interaction. His academic path initially led him toward electronic engineering, but his passion for teaching, which he credits to one of his school teachers, quickly caught up with him. He resigned from his job and pursued a master’s degree in educational technologies in Beijing, which confirmed this new direction, ultimately leading him to join the JDPLS.

For Kate who’s conducting her research in Tanja Käser’s Machine Learning for Education Laboratory, it was also a change of course that brought her to Lausanne. A chemistry student, Kate even began a PhD in the field. But she soon realized that she preferred teaching chemistry over studying it. “A PhD is a hard path, and if you don’t really love what you’re doing, it can become very painful. I liked explaining chemistry more than actually doing it. When I found this program, everything just clicked: I thought ‘this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.’”

Zhenyu develops learning analytics dashboards to help university instructors better support students during exercise sessions. Kate works with chemistry apprentices, teaching them inquiry strategies through simulations to help them adapt to lab environments.

Different learners, different disciplines, different approaches, but a shared vision: reflecting the richness and diversity that form the very DNA of this program.

For Tormey, supervising projects that span two institutions and multiple disciplines is all about developing a common language. “We have different disciplines that use different research methods, so what does a PhD look like in this field? It does take work to set up something coherent, and it takes work on behalf of the students to keep making it coherent. We need to align, and in the end, they learn a lot and benefit a lot from it.”

At EPFL, this doctoral program also plays a significant role. By training researchers at the intersection of science and education, it has a real-life impact on teaching practices. “Impact isn’t only measured in citations and publications and at EPFL we need educational research to improve our practices” Tormey emphasizes.