Perceptions and research trends in ICT-mediated educational innovation: case studies in the Latin American context

Scientific production has the development of doctoral theses as one of the indicators of regional academic development. Within the educational field, academic production should consider innovations supported by ICTs in order to be in line with scientific progress. The first objective of the study was to identify trends in doctoral theses that have investigated ICT-mediated educational innovations in the Latin American context during the period 2016-2021. For this purpose, a study will be conducted in university repositories. The second objective was to learn about the perceptions of the teachers of a HEI in relation to educational innovation. At the time of the survey, these teachers were pursuing doctoral studies or had completed them. A mixed methodology was used, applying questionnaires to the participating teachers, in this case belonging to the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Guayaquil. In order to determine research trends, 88 doctoral theses from 16 Latin American universities were reviewed. A prevalence of research based on e-learning and a perception of lag between educational innovations and doctoral production topics in the region on the part of teachers were obtained. It is proposed that Latin American doctoral programs linked to education should emphasize the development of proposals for the dissemination of innovations, in order to be in line with global advances.