Brett Bligh is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, and Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning. His research interrogates the nexus of technology mediation, physical environment, and institutional change in higher education. Brett’s work prioritises Activity Theory conceptions of human practice, and interventionist methodologies.

My research mainly concerns the higher education sector. I mainly wish to deal with PhD proposals focussed on universities. I may consider other post-compulsory sectors (further education, workplace learning, etc.) if the project is otherwise very close to my research interests. 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 mainly 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 interventionist research designs. I am fairly unlikely to consider proposals that do not use activity theory at all.

Brett conducts research into the connections between our material surroundings, the technologies that permeate them, and the ways we act, think and learn.

Much of his research concerns adult learners, and particularly the Higher Education sector. Recurring interests include how educational institutions design and evaluate their built environment estate to support opportunities for learning, how Universities attempt to expand and replicate their institutional forms in other countries (for example, by establishing international branch campuses), how Universities might change as a result of initiative 'from below' generating expansive learning, and how technological tools can support learners’ collaboration. More general interests include Activity Theory, the Change Laboratory methodology, and collaborative learning.

He is currently

• Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning,
• Director of the Doctoral Programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning,
• co-Editor of the open-access journal Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning;
• co-ordinator of the CL-SIG group dedicated to discussing uses of the Change Laboratory approach in higher education settings (see the Bureau de Change Laboratory website),
• a member of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation.

In 2012 he co-authored Nesta's Decoding Learning report, and was previously a member of the EU's "STELLAR" Network of Excellence for Technology Enhanced Learning. In 2010, as part of the Visual Learning Lab, he was awarded a Lord Dearing Award for innovation in teaching and learning.

PhD students completed

• 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 (jointly 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)

• Talal Alquraini – Faculty perceptions of motivation to conduct research in colleges of technology in Oman
• Darren Blanch – Participatory action research and the structural transformation of schools in the wake of the Covid crisis
• Jerome Chan – A comparative study of blended learning practices in legal education in the UK and Malaysia
• Lina Daouk – Blended learning pedagogy and networked learning communities in a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates
• Reza Estehardi – Trainee English teachers' experiences in online Cambridge CELTA  courses: An activity systems analysis
• Amon Ezike – Student perceptions of self-organisation in online higher education settings
• Dave Gatrell – Designing and implementing video-annotated peer feedback activities to develop presentation skills: Formative interventions for expansive learning
• Amanda Gorrell – Transformative agency in higher education digital transformation initiatives
• Irene Hayden – Evaluation of the design and use of applied visual interactive resources for building regulation subjects in higher education Built Environment programmes
• Abedelaziz Khalil – Collaboration and the construction of open educational practice in an Open University in Palestine
• Suresh Krishnasamy – Using developmental evaluation to guide a virtual field trip innovation for experiential learning in undergarduate agricultural education
• Al Francis Librero – Community building and student engagement in online undergraduate degrees
• 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
• Creck Buyonge Mirito – Academics' and students' experiences of physical learning spaces in Kenyan higher education institutions
• Dale Munday – The place of the VLE in the digital ecosystem of university teaching and learning
• 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
• Nickanor Owuor – The imperative of non-violent student activism: an activity theory perspective on the student movement in Kenya
• Nick Rea – Reframing technology adoption in higher education: An actor-network theory analysis
• Fiona Redmond – The co-design of an outreach initiative to attract females into higher education computer science
• James Reid – Shifting scholarly habitus in a Japanese university: CLIL principles and transmedia learning strategies for epistemic fluency and academic biculturalism
• Chris Tuffnell – Blended by design: Exploring the role of educator professional development in explicit learning design for the implementation of blended learning
• Josephine Van-Ess – Innovation and interactivity in higher education teaching and learning: Teacher and student experiences

Current teaching

• 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- )
• Convenor of Traditional Route Research Discussion Group in the Doctoral Programme Educational Research (Independent Study) (October 2018- )

Previous teaching

• 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)
• 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)