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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Educational Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1565591

This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative ICT Strategies for Inclusive Education: Enhancing Teacher Competencies and Student EngagementView all 12 articles

Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Logical Framework, Practical Dilemmas, and Implementation Approaches

Provisionally accepted
  • China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

The digital age comes with new demands and challenges for talent cultivation within the higher education system. The digital transformation in higher education has emerged as a critical element in addressing these challenges. This paper aims to develop an integrated qualitative model that advocates how digital transformation as a propelling force could be applied by university faculty and students during teaching and learning progress within the higher education institutions. We performed an analysis of literature to have a grasp of conceptual basis of digital transformation in higher education. We also engage in a qualitative, in-depth case studies from Havard University, Tsinghua University, and the University of Melbourne to explore the transformation framework for university faculty and students. Our study: 1) Proposes a triple logical framework comprising value logic, technological logic, and practical logic; 2) Examines four practical dilemmas encountered in advancing digital transformation within higher education teaching and learning environments based on logical framework, including both psychological and objective challenge for university teachers and students; 3) Outlines six implementation approaches to digital transformation in higher education, addressing aspects such as teaching concepts, teaching models, teaching resources, teaching scenarios, and evaluation systems. Finally, an illustrative digital SECI-based multimodal teaching model is suggested.

Keywords: digital transformation1, higher education2, digital transformation in education3, digital transformation in higher education4, transformation models5

Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Huang and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Shuangsheng Yan, yss@cpu.edu.cn

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