A fundamental element in the Masters in Educational Innovation is the setting of Lines of Knowledge Generation and Application (LKGA). The postgraduate program has set two lines of research related with the field of higher education:

1. Conditions, programs, and institutional policies in educational change
2. Innovation and educational evaluation

The LKGA are coherent with the educational profile of each member of the Core Academic Faculty (CAF), the aims, and objectives of the study program and the inherent direction toward research. The LKGA have a dynamic and developmental component, for these are updated to ensure the pertinence and relevance of the contributions made by scholars and students to the current status of the disciplinary field, but also to affect in the improvement of detected educational conditions or diagnosed as problematic. To reinforce the coherence among the LKGA and the objectives of the program, the result of studies done with graduate students, employers, and feasibility are reviewed and incorporated into the program of study. The students who are admitted to the masters degree, since the beginning or early stages of the program are integrated to research projects derived from the LKGA which are worked by researchers in order to get the mentoring needed to develop his or her research project and thesis with the aim of concluding within the two years which the program lasts and achieve the goal of getting a masters degree in the period of two and a half years. Thus, the MEI’s academic program is closely monitoring to safeguard the coherence among the lines of research, the courses and seminars of the study program, with the research done by the academic faculty and the postgraduate students.

LKGA 1. Conditions, programs, and institutional policies in educational change.

Justification

Since the 1950s decade, higher education records intense growth and diversification processes in almost every country. There are several factors which account for its expansion. On one side, there are expectations from broad social segments that seek higher education instruction and, on the other side, there’s the application of public policies programs and the action of specific groups associated with tertiary education. The outcome of these actions are profound transformations in the higher education systems. If, to the previous, we add new social scenarios characterized by the proliferation of new technologies, globalization, innovative ways of generating and spreading scientific knowledge, the emergence of social agents, along with the old problems such as exclusion and inequality, we get complex higher education institutions, populated by diverse agents, held to governmental action and in the process of transformation. Precisely this LKGA tries to document, analyze and explain the situations with school establishments and their answers before these new diverse demands from their surroundings. In this way, all the efforts from the core academic faculty and the students in this period under study are focused on three aspects:

1. Public policies and their effects on sectors of higher education or the establishments. This is meant to study the process of implementation of public policies and their impact on the substantive functions of higher education institutions from the perspective of students, researchers, and public officials of higher education institutions, because they are the main recipients of the governmental course of action.
2. Actors and higher education. This is meant to analyze some of the traditional actors in higher education, but from different views, for example, scholars, scientists and students from a gender-based view. The results show that gender creates a different condition in higher education.
3. Internationalization in higher education. This is meant to explore the international bilateral or multilateral cooperation through the study of international cases. The inquiries focus the attention on devices of internationalization in higher education and science, fostered by diverse agents who have promoted the deterritorialization supply of degrees, the design of interinstitutional formulas for thematic and multidisciplinary research, and prompt university services abroad and within its own country.

In particular, this line is meant to generate knowledge about diverse processes and actors which give life to higher education institutions, using different conceptual and methodological approaches. During the period 2013-2017, the outcomes from this line (not including those gotten by individual students) rose to 195: 7 books, 45 book chapters, 29 articles, 37 dissertations and 77 presentations.

LKGA Objective

1. To empower the next generation of educational researchers from the region
2. To train researchers capable of producing new knowledge about higher education
3. To study the impact of public policies on educational change produced in higher education institutions
4. To analyze the effect of public policies and institutional programs on student, professors, and researchers trajectories
5. To investigate the influence of public policy programs and institutional programs on the involvement of women on higher education and science

LKGA 2. Innovation and educational evaluation.

Justification

Innovation started to be a part of the pedagogical discourse and school culture on the second half of the last century. Innovation is considered a way of facing social problems since they can be addressed from the educational institution if a series of changes and reforms are applied. The processes of innovation are shaped by global dimensions of technology, politics, personal  and institutional. The research about innovation and educational evaluation is interested on studying the processes of change which arise in the system of education, the conditions in which the processes of innovation take place, and the impact of the strategies implemented.The inquiries on this field have evolved along with the practical and theoretical development, from the merely technological approaches to current proposals which suggest to study them from an inter and transdisciplinary perspective.

In the innovations in education contribute a body of institutions and people united by bonds arisen from their condition of generators, planners, makers, authorities, and users of innovation. The transformations which result from this process are based on certain ideas and resources that transcend in particular resources, habits and strategies aimed to solve problems through actions and coordinated, of contribution or readjustment functions on the system; these seek to satisfy specific needs. The hermeneutic, phenomenological, and socio-critical approaches allow to study some analysis axes of the educational phenomenon with an innovational intent, observing different dimensions of change which happen from the substantive which comprises the processes aimed to alter diverse aspects of educational practice related with specific changes such as goals, teaching strategies, organizational patterns or resources.

The justification for the LKGA lies on analyzing the process of change derived from the planned strategies to modify elements of the educational institutions. As well as to evaluate the mechanisms and processes implemented by the universities to introduce and promote certain changes in the concepts, educational practices, goals, content, and current school devices. The attention in this LKGA points toward four topics:

1. Teacher training processes. The programs and processes of initial training and professional development of teachers in higher education establishments are analyzed, especially in Teacher-Training Schools and State Universities.
2. Teaching-learning processes. The innovations implemented in higher education institutions, related to changes and modifications of teaching-learning processes, are studied.
3. Information and Communication Technologies. The university learning environments mediated by ICTs, with an emphasis on practice, appropriation, beliefs, and the digital gap between teachers and students, are explored.
4. Educational evaluation. This focuses on the diagnoses and analysis of needs, as well as in the evaluation of programs, services and educational outcomes.

Shortly, this line regards an analytical approach (conceptual and methodological) to the problems associated with the implementation of curricular proposals in higher education and the processes and elements linked with their operation. The production in this LKGA (not including those done by individual students) during the 2013-2017 period was of 185 academic outputs: 25 dissertations, 9 books, 45 book chapters, 29 articles, and 77 presentations.

LKGA Objectives

1. To empower the next generation of educational researchers
2. To train researchers capable of producing new knowledge about innovation in higher education
3. To study the innovative use of ICTs by university professors as pedagogical strategies
4. To design strategies to promote educational changes in specific situations.
5. To analyze the implementation of curricular innovations