The complexity of educational design research (original) (raw)
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Publishing and perishing: The critical importance of educational design research
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2011
The outcomes of educational systems continue to lag far behind expectations at all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of educational research published in refereed journals has expanded enormously. There is an obvious disconnect between the educational research papers published in professional journals or presented at academic conferences and any form of beneficial impact on the students, teachers, and other stakeholders in educational systems. This problem can be traced back to those professors and research supervisors engaged in the preparation of educational researchers who fail to convey to novice researchers important distinctions between the goals and methods of educational research. Educational design research provides a potentially viable alternative to the kind of educational research that is commonly conducted in the field of educational technology. Educational design research has the twin objectives of developing creative approaches to s...
2008
Educational design research is a genre of research in which the iterative development of solutions to practical and complex educational problems provides the setting for scientific inquiry. The solutions can be educational products, processes, programs or policies.
Educational design research: Signs of progress
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2015
This special issue of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology includes an introductory article by the guest editors and six papers that illustrate the potential of educational design research (EDR) to address important problems in higher education. In this final paper, reflections on the papers are made. Then the rationale for conducting EDR instead of media comparison studies is described with a concrete example. This paper concludes with a proposal for expanding educational design research through the establishment of consortia of collaborating researchers, practitioners, and funding agencies focused on the most salient challenges faced in education today.
Educational Design Research: A primer
2017
This editorial article introduces the overall conceptualisation of the journal EDeR-Educational Design Research and its review-and workflow model. In addition, it provides an overview of all contributions that made it into Issue 1 of EDeR, before it invites the wider Design-Based Research community to participate in a variety of roles and functions. EDeR is seeking contributions on Design-Based Research within the educational sciences. All kinds of educational contexts can be addressed, such as higher education, adult education & professional training, vocational education, school education, and so forth. We welcome contributions on Design-Based Research from pedagogical, psychological, sociological, economic, information-technological perspectives, and so forth, as long as they focus on educational problems and challenges. Furthermore, we also encourage contributions that focus on methodological and conceptual challenges and the further development of the Design-based Research approach within the educational sciences.
On the Theoretical Breadth of Design-Based Research in Education
Educational Psychologist, 2004
Over the past decade design experimentation has become an increasingly accepted mode of research appropriate for the theoretical and empirical study of learning amidst complex educational interventions as they are enacted in everyday settings. There is still a significant lack of clarity surrounding methodological and epistemological features of this body of work. In fact, there is a broad variety of theory being developed in this mode of research. In contrast to recent efforts to seek a singular definition for design experimentation, I argue that methodological and epistemological issues are significantly more tractable if considered from the perspective of manifold families of theoretically-framed design-based research. After characterizing a range of such families, I suggest that as we deliberate on the nature of design-based research greater attention be given to the pluralistic nature of learning theory, the relationship between theory and method, and working across theoretical and methodological boundaries through the use of mixed methods. Finally, I suggest that design-based research-with its focus on promoting, sustaining, and understanding innovation in the world-should be considered a form of scholarly inquiry that sits alongside the panoply of canonical forms ranging from the experimental, historical, philosophical, sociological, legal, and the interpretive.
Wisconsin Center for Education Research, 2019
How can we see education research as a coherent body of inquiry? The naturally occurring diversity of epistemologies and methods give education research the appearance of discord. In this paper, we propose that all of these various methods, questions, and interpretive frameworks of education research share a common commitment to the idea that education is design for learning. We begin with a discussion of how recent efforts at the global and national policy levels have sought to position scientific inquiry as the premiere version of education research based on the model of social sciences. We then discuss the role of practical inquiry as a necessary complement to both receive and generate positivist knowledge. The iteration between scientific and practical inquiry describes a path for how scientific and practical work can be naturally linked in an iterative inquiry for improving education processes and outcomes. However, without a critical perspective, this iterative process can become detached from valued social concerns and become an exercise in optimization, rather than improvement. We propose that critical inquiry should be systemically integrated into the design process for researchers and educators to reflect on both the intentions and consequences of the scientific-practical cycle. We then describe how integrating these approaches can show the way toward to a coherent model of education research.