The Development of the Participatory Approach to Digital Learning: Research Findings from Poland

This paper will present research findings on implementing a course for higher education pedagogy students using participatory approaches (PA) to digital learning. The ‘Participatory Approaches’ course was designed at the University of Lodz and started for the first time during the social lockdown restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the course was planned as fully digital. This article will present the experiences of 140 students who selected the course called Participatory Approaches—Research and Practice in 2020/2021 and 2021/2022. This qualitative study utilized in-depth, semi-structured group interviews to explore the subjective experiences and perspectives of students on working using PA to digital learning. Student response notes were analyzed according to the classical variant of grounded theory. In addition, the lecturers used their observation notes, which were collected throughout the course. The observations had a supporting function and were used to supplement the data from the recordings. The analysis of empirical material identified the challenges, difficulties and limitations of using PA to learn digitally. The analysis of the empirical material allowed us to generate three main categories that had been identified by analyzing students’ experiences. These areas are perceived as significant when PA is used for digital learning, namely, participatory digital learning environment, blurring the boundaries, and digital inequality. Analysis of the material allowed Building a Small-Scale Theory on Using the PA in DL.