A Systematic Review of Idiographic Research in Education: Trends, Gaps and Future Directions

Abstract

The past decade’s data surge has spurred interest in precision education, aiming to tailor educational interventions to individual learners based on robust evidence. Precision education is powered by the increasing availability of educational data and advancements in computational analytics, promising personalised learning experiences that can enhance learning outcomes and promote equity. However, traditional methods, which rely on group-level nomothetic approaches, have faced significant challenges in generalisability, as they often fail to capture individual learning processes and diverse contexts in which learning occurs. We argue that these limitations necessitate a shift towards idiographic approaches that focus on person-specific insights through longitudinal data collection from a single individual learner. The idiographic methodology also holds the potential to promote inclusion as it enables deep, fine-grained and learner-centric personalisation. This paper systematically reviews the existing application of idiographic approaches in educational research to address the gap in understanding how these methods have been used and their potential for future research. This review included 34 peer-reviewed articles that employed idiographic methods, revealing that idiographic approaches have been traditionally used to incorporate contextual factors and psychological dispositions unique to each learner. While idiographic research remains relatively scarce in education, the findings illustrate a growing trend that idiographic research is enriched by the increasingly available data and advanced computational techniques. Additionally, the findings highlight the need for future research to consider longitudinal within-person temporal processes, extend idiographic methodologies to K-12 education, and develop person-centred theories within educational psychology. These methods could also address inclusion by focusing on underrepresented populations such as learners with disabilities. In conclusion, idiographic approaches offer a promising complement to nomothetic approaches, providing personalisation that can enhance precision education and inclusion. Future research should explore the potential of idiographic methods to advance inclusive, personalised learning environments in the digital age.