In this dissertation, the creation and iterative improvement of an open badge system for an undergraduate preservice educational technology course is examined through 3 journal-ready articles. In article 1, we detail the design, development and implementation of the badge system and demonstrate how an open badge system could help meet the challenges facing the course. Several future design implications are identified, including how to scale the badge system while maintaining quality control and how to achieve financial sustainability. Future research implications include determining if awarding badges provide students with additional motivation and what employers perceptions of badges might be. Article 2 examines how undergraduate instructional design assistants (IDAs) could be used to affordably scale our badge system. External reviews determined that IDAs can create badge rubrics at a similar level as instructors, allowing us to create far more badges than we could without their help. IDAs also reported that the experience benefitted them by giving them increased technology skills and room for professional growth. While most of the IDAs were excited about the benefits of open badges, none chose to share their badges with prospective employers, largely due to concerns about how to display them or about whether principals would understand their value. In article 3, we look at employers perceptions of open badges. We emailed 1 of 2 forms of a survey to 577 principals and assistant principals in 5 school districts. Form A used wording about digital badges while form B used the term microcredentials. We compared the results of the surveys using the Mann-Whitney U test and the sign test. We also qualitatively examined the results of the open-ended questions using constant comparison analysis. We found that using the term microcredential instead of the term digital badge does not have a significant effect on employers perceptions on open badges. However, providing a small amount of instruction regarding the affordances of open badges does produce a statistically significant difference in the perceived value of open badges. Employers see the most value in achievement and capability badges. Most employers believed badges would be useful in the hiring process, but many worried about the challenge of having too much data. Finally, we found that many employers think that badges could be useful in professional development.

Competency-based education (CBE) has become well-accepted as a powerful way to personalize learning. Today's advanced technologies have enhanced CBE even further. Practitioners in the field are seeking means to take advantage of technology to increase CBE's effectiveness and efficiency, especially for adult learners. Microlearning and digital open badges are two examples. This dissertation, which consists of three articles, aimed to provide more in-depth insights into the two innovative approaches. The first article is a literature review of the current understanding of microlearning. While microlearning is commonly defined as breaking down learning into manageable bite-size chunks, the review of the existing literature identified key principles for effective microlearning while also suggesting gaps in the research. Because of the limited number of peer-reviewed and research-based articles about microlearning, this literature review justified microlearning as a practical approach for workplace learning through CBE and digital open badges, which were relatively more well-studied. The article concluded with suggestions on how to design and facilitate effective microlearning experiences. The second and third articles from this dissertation resulted from an ongoing design-based research (DBR) project began in 2018. The study aims to contribute theories and practices about developing microcredentials and microlearning experiences to support self-directed learning (SDL) in educational settings. The project started with implementing competency-based microcredentials to train student instructors to teach software workshops at the Brigham Young University multimedia lab (Clement et al. 2020). It is in the second iteration to offer microcredentials to all students on campus through project-based assessments. Following the timeline of this project, the second article presents a case study that discusses microcredential use for student instructor training at the multimedia lab. We collected surveys and interviews from the current and former employees to determine if the badge-assisted training design has been meeting its intended goals for tracking skills. The result shows that while the badge-assisted training is effective for tracking skills and progression. It also provides insights to inform the next iteration's design. The third article is a product from the second iteration of this DBR project. The objective was to understand if and how microcredentials could promote continuous SDL. We collected 104 survey responses and 7 interviews from students who attended the software training workshops. Our findings suggest that marketing digital open badges as individual skills identification may be insignificant for supporting continuous SDL, but their stackable feature is. We aim to provide insights for practitioners to avoid similar pitfalls when implementing digital open badges through our reflections and suggestions.

College students seek degrees to obtain employment in their field of interest, however, as the 21st century progresses, employers are often requiring specific skills in addition to degrees and transcripts. As students graduate with their Associates, Bachelors, and Graduate degrees, they plan to present these degrees as sufficient evidence of their qualifications. However, there is recent criticism of college degrees as evidence of qualifications. A beneficial alternative for students would be digital badges. A digital badge is a visual representation that signifies a specific achievement with detailed metadata attached. Digital badges in first-year writing courses would benefit students as they develop specific writing and critical thinking skills as prompted by the curriculum. First-year writing digital badges can include: researching, synthesizing, writing process, constructing authority, etc. as deemed appropriate by the instructor. Ultimately, students will display their badges on their resumes, CVs, or any other document verifying their achievements.

<p>Innovations in technology are changing not only everyday life for many individuals around the world but are also influencing the expansion of online learning opportunities at an accelerated rate (Collins & Halverson, 2<a></a>018; Mah, 2016). Online learning platforms allow for scalability, flexibility, greater global access, and innovative and new ways to deliver education (Goodman, Melkers, & Pallais, 2019; Kizilcec et al., 2019). Enrollments in online learning programs and opportunities have seen significant growth in recent years (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018; U.S. Department of Education, 2018) with continued and steady growth expected into the future. The ubiquity and newness of new online learning formats present a challenge in linking research and practice. Through three separate academic papers, the following dissertation discusses and considers key questions and topics with regards to the use of digital badges and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), two types of emerging online innovations and platforms, and aspects of their efficacy. The three papers respectively 1) identify and discuss the theoretical and empirical foundations digital badges use in specific learners groups by reviewing current literature; 2) highlight the application of a use case in which digital badges have been implemented as a means to offer training; and 3) explore the perceptions of MOOC instructors toward quality learning in their courses in a case study. Conclusions are drawn and solutions as well as potential future directions for research and practice of discussed. </p>