The ILESE project: Building an evidentiary database about students' use of learning environments

This paper presents the progress of a unique study of significant scope. The industry‐funded innovative Learning Environments and Student Experience (ILESE) study asked two questions: In what ways has more than two decades of learning spaces research culminated in readily used evidence that meets the needs of those involved in providing innovative education infrastructure? Second, based on perceived strengths and gaps, how do we design research to address identified gaps? This paper reports on the findings to these questions. It draws on the results of a large‐scale Scoping Study that sought perspectives from experts equally distributed across (1) industries providing school infrastructure, (2) those in education policy and practice and (3) academics researching in the field. The Scoping Study consisted of both regional workshops held in 19 countries, and a parallel Delphi study with 37 experts from 10 countries. It outlines the priorities for future research identified by these experts and then describes how these priorities informed the planning of a pilot project on students' experiences in learning spaces. It then describes how those results demanded the development of a unique database of student‐informed evidence to be used to assist in evaluation of all types of learning spaces and to inform future decision making in infrastructure development, research and curricular developments. A pilot of the resulting tool (ARGO) tested its efficacy, validated its operations and provided a foundation for a third yet‐to‐be implemented phase of large‐scale data collection. Keeping in line with this special issue, the paper concludes with ‘where to next for ILE research?’