My main areas of research focus on:

• Teaching and learning outcomes arising from uses of emerging, leading edge technologies, in primary, secondary, further and higher education, with concern for intergenerational and lifelong learning practices.
• How home and out-of-school (formal, non-formal and informal learning) practices can enhance and support 'formal' learning at an individual learner level.
• How technologies support young people who are at risk of learning exclusion or who are hard to reach.
• How evaluation and research can be undertaken to support policy and practice.
• Uses of data and development of data systems through applications of, for example, generative artifical intelligence, to support curriculum and educational practices.

Uses and impacts of technologies and technology-based resources in formal educational environments

Uses and impacts of technologies and technology-based resources across informal and formal learning environments

Specific aspects of learning and how these are impacted by technologies

How technologies are used by and impact young people who find it hard to learn or who are vulnerable

Uses of data management and data handling in school-based and lifelong learning contexts

Don is a Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, and an Honorary Professor in the Institutes of Information Technology and Education at Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India. He has been a long-standing member of the worldwide federation of computer societies (the International Federation of Information Processing - IFIP), and is the current chair of their Technical Committee on Education (TC3), and the vice-chair of their Technical Assembly (TA).

Don has undertaken and continues to undertake studies for international agencies, government departments in the UK, UK government agencies, and, in a number of countries, commercial and non-commercial groups, educational institutions and schools, to inform both policy and practice. His research work always focuses on links to educational policy and practice. 

From 2018 to 2024, Don held the post of Director of International Strategy within the Department. His own research networks have included international organisations (UNESCO, IFIP, I4All), national agencies (Northern Ireland Department of Education Innovation Forum), companies (Squirrel Learning) and individual universities (Sunway University Malaysia, Amity University and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences India, University of the Philippines Open University, University of Waikato New Zealand, Ulster University Northern Ireland, Strathclyde University Scotland, Cardiff Metropolitan University Wales). Across this range of networks, Don has undertaken collaborative research, often leading to joint publication or edited volumes, supporting early years researchers as well as more established researchers. In recent years, Don has engaged with UNESCO (presenting at WSIS 2023), with IFIP (as Chair of the International Programme Committee (IPC) for the IFIP TC3 SAiTE 2016 Conference, Guimarães, Portugal; as Chair of the IPC for the IFIP TC3 WCCE 2017 Conference, Dublin; as Chair of the IPC for the IFIP TC3 OCCE 2020 Conference, Mumbai; as a Member of the IPC for the IFIP TC3 OCCE 2021 Conference; as a Member of the IPC for the IFIP TC3 WCCE 2022 Conference; as a Member of the IPC for the  IFIP TC3 OCCE 2024 Conference), with I4All (as a Member of the Board and Working Group on Informatics in Schools), with the Northern Ireland Department of Education Innovation Forum (as research adviser and judge of the ICT Excellence Awards), with the UK Department of Education (providing evidence to POST and the Innovations Team), with Squirrel Learning, and with SMART Technologies (completing consultative research). Don's policy focus has led to outcomes that have been recognised by the groups involved (including the EU Commission), with specific reports supporting identified policy needs in the case of government departments and companies. For his engagement work with IFIP, Don has been awarded both the IFIP Silver Core Award and the IFIP Outstanding Service Award.

Don publishes regularly through a range of routes that focus on more specific research, policy and practice audiences - through journal articles, book chapters, working documents and reports, and guidelines and recommendations. Across his entire academic career, Don has had published 237 single and co-authored outputs, including 45 journal articles and 30 book chapters. Since 2018, Don's outpuits have included 17 journal articles, 3 edited books and 1 journal special issue, 9 book chapters, and 19 reports and working papers. In preparation, there is a special issue, and in planning, there are 2 books. 

Don's work has focused on a number of main areas:

• How emerging technologies support teaching and learning outcomes, across the age spectrum, in nursery, primary and secondary schools, as well as in further, higher, adult and professional education, focusing on development across the lifespan (lifelong learning).
• Implementation and management of leading edge technologies at international, national, regional, local authority and individual institution levels.
• Uses of data and development of data systems to support curriculum and educational practices.
• How home and out-of-school practices (formal, non-formal and informal learning) can enhance and support learning at an individual learner level.
• How technologies can support inclusion and diversity, including young people who are at risk of learning exlusion or who are 'hard to reach'.
• How evaluation and research can be undertaken to support policy and practice.

Don is an editorial board member of the EAIT journal and the Education Sciences journal, and often acts as a guest editor for special issues. Currently, he is a guest editor for a special issue of the journal STEL on 'Generative Artificial Intelligence and Education'.

Listen to Don Passey talk about his research interests.

Don is involved in:

• Exploring the factors and features that have led to long-term sustained relevant inclusive digital technologies to support young people.
• Investigating how individual nations have sustained long-term digital education practice and innovation, and the implications for future sustainability at national levels.
• Considering the policy and practice implications of emerging technologies that include artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence.
• Exploring the ways that teachers use digital technologies that can support their well-being.
• Examining how uses of digital technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic have shifted and might affect long-term practices in education.
• Assessing the sustainability and influences of digital access at home in socio-economically disadvantaged communities and in developing countries.

Recently completed studies have included:

• Identifying ways that digital technologies are supporting wider engagement of parents and pupils in early years and nursery settings.
• Exploring features and factors that can positively influence practices to support digital inclusion of excluded populations.
• Examining ways that generative artificial intelligence is being developed to address specific and key challenges in education.

Don is a member of:

• International Federation for Information Processing Technical Committee 3 on Education
• British Computer Society

Don currently supervises many postgraduate researchers taking forward studies for their PhD awards. He has regularly convened modules across the Doctoral Programme in e-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning, and was the course director of this programme prior to and during its recent revision. This well-established programme, having run for some 18 years, takes on 25-30 doctoral students each year, all professional people undertaking the programme part-time. Prior to this programme, he was course director of the MRes in Innovation in School Practice (a course developed specifically for the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust - SSAT), and also taught on the MA in Education programme. He convened a new module for a previous undergraduate PinE programme called 'Learning in a Digital Age', and taught in a module on the same programme.

Since 2013, Don has convened modules and taught regularly on the E-research and Technology Enhanced Learning PhD programme. He currently supervises 16 PhD students. In total, Don has supported 32 PhD students in gaining satisfactory completion of their awards. 

Don has supported external postgraduate students studying for their PhD awards, both at Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India and at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.

Don regularly examines PhD and EdD theses in his area of expertise - technology enhanced learning. To date, he has examined 37 theses within his own Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, 25 theses within other UK higher education institutions, and 4 in international higher education institutions.

In his professional academic role, Don has wide contacts with individuals who are concerned with developing educational policy and practice. He has worked with individuals and groups who support the development of national digital education practices, in the Department for Education in England and in the Department of Education in Northern Ireland. At an international level, he has worked with individuals in many universities worldwide, within computer societies worldwide, and within international agencies including UNESCO. He has worked with and advised companies and corporations in a number of countries on digital education developments.

In a professional administrative role, until recently, Don supported the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University as the Director of International Strategy, which led to ranges of international contacts and events for staff and students alike. Don's interests in international perspectives have been long-standing and continue beyond this role.

Don holds a number of external roles that support his interests in enabling research on digital education to be considered by those engaged in policy and practice:

• IFIP Technical Committee 3 on Education Chair
• IFIP Technical Assembly Vice-chair
• IFIP Digital Equity Committee Member
• IFIP Finance Committee Member
• Research Advisor to the Northern Ireland Innovation Forum
• Consultant to the Blackpool and the Fylde PGCE Programme