During the past decade, design-based research has demonstrated its potential as a methodology suitable to both research and design of technology-enhanced learning environments (TELEs). In this paper, we define and identify characteristics of design-based research, describe the importance of design-based research for the development of TELEs, propose principles for implementing design-based research with TELEs, and discuss future challenges of using this methodology. read more... > see the resource
posted by Nicolas Balacheff on Thursday 25th, March 2010 (19:41)
Design-based research is a rather interesting framework for TEL research project,which although not new (the seminal papers go back to the early 90s) does not seem to have deserved all the attention it should in the European research area. Taking as an indicator the references of the EduTech wiki from TECFA (*), one may conjecture that it reached us in the early 2000, but since then I have not the feeling that it has spread very much within our research community. I don't see clear reasons for that. In my opinion we must spend some efforts, especially in a network like Stellar to consider this approach. From the presentation of Wang and Hannafin, design-based research seems to be especially adapted to multidisciplinary research as well as to research which must be carried out in close connection to the field it explores. It may be the case that some researchers think that they are working in this paradigm while actually they do not, since there are at least two occasions of misunderstanding. The first source of misunderstanding is the emphasis of design-based research on iteration, an emphasis which is reminiscent of the life cycle of technology design. But here iteration is not only aiming at the improvement of the design, but also at critically revisiting theories to develop or refine them. What is valued is the practical use of theories (p..13), and the fact that theoretical and practical issues are tightly related. The second source of misunderstanding is that because of its close relationship to the field, design-based research may be confounded with action-research. This is missing the priority of design-based research, while acknowledging its situatedness, to transcend the particularities of the context in which the experiment is been carried out. This difficulty is very well identified in this paper, and addresses directly the main concern of our field which is of understanding what results we produce which could be of a general value beyond the specific project in which it has been obtained: "Generalizability […] must be verified according to the theory goals of the design and discipline requirements of the research. Researchers need to optimize a local design without decreasing its generalizability […]" (p.19). So design-based research is not a sophisticated conceptualisation of the life cycle of a technology, and it is of a different nature and objective than action-research. To some extend it can be seen as a proposal for a new discipline with original problems of methods and rigour.
posted by Rosamund on Tuesday 13th, April 2010 (09:48)
This is an interesting discussion. In Bristol we consider that we used a design-based approach to research within the InterActive Education Project. The project centred around developing research partnerships between teachers and researchers in order to design researchable learning environments which were supported by research on teaching and learning. The project focused upon a multi-level set of overlapping communities of practice. At the meso-level, the project was organised around Subject Design Teams (SDTs). Within these teams teachers, teacher educators, researchers and research students worked together to develop learning initiatives, designated as Subject Design Initiatives. Whereas the meso-level was the starting point for the Subject Design Initiative, much of the working through of the initiative took place at a micro-level where a teacher and researcher worked intensively together on the design, realisation and evaluation of the Subject Design Initiative. At the macro level the core team of University researchers, teacher educators and research students worked together to develop the theoretical and methodological coherence of the project. The project was predicated on the view that teachers would need support to begin the process of integrating ICT into teaching and learning. This support was organised around Subject Design Teams (SDTs) within the following subject areas: English, history, geography, modern foreign languages, science, music and mathematics. The SDT consisted of teachers from the project partner schools, researchers, teacher educators and research students.. Each Subject Design Team (coordinated by a member of the University research team ) constituted the core of the professional development which was central to the project. These teams developed Subject Design Initiatives (SDIs): these were sequences of work and research involving the use of ICT, which were designed, implemented and researched in individual teachers’ classes. SDIs were planned to address key learning areas within a particular subject domain and to incorporate both digital and non-digital technologies as appropriate. Design was informed by theory, research-based evidence on the use of ICT for learning, teacher’s craft knowledge, curriculum knowledge, policy and management constraints and possibilities and the research team’s expertise. The focus was on iterative design and evaluation of SDIs, and initiatives were piloted before substantive evaluation. These classroom specific, collaboratively designed and progressively adapted initiatives gave the project theoretical and methodological versatility. The aim was to develop understanding and change practice through a long term shift in conceptions. In focusing on ‘designs for learning’ we took as a starting point the idea that all activity is a creative application and combination of ‘available designs’ (New London Group, 1996). Through accessing ‘available designs’ a person can begin a design process, which involves re-presentation and re-contextualisation. The outcome of this process can be called the ‘re-designed’, where “the re-designed may be variously creative or reproductive in relation to the resources for meaning-making available in available designs. But it is neither a simple reproduction (as the myth of standards and transmission pedagogy would have us believe) nor is it simply creative (as the myths of individual originality and personal voice would have us believe)” (ibid, p 75).
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