Vol. 13 No. 1

Special Issue: Design-Based Research: Clarifying the Terms

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Contents

Guest Editor's Introduction by Sasha Barab and Kurt Squire

Articles

  Design Research: Theoretical and Methodological Issues
 

Creating a Framework for Research on Systemic Technology Innovations
 

Ontological Innovation and the Role of Theory in Design Experiments
 

Commentaries


Abstracts

Design Research: Theoretical and Methodological Issues

Allan Collins, Diana Joseph, and Katerine Bielaczyc

The term "design experiments" was introduced in 1992, in papers by Ann Brown (1992) and Allan Collins (1992). Design experiments were developed as a way to carry out formative research to test and refine educational designs based on principles derived from prior research. More recently the term design research has been applied to this kind of work. In this paper, we outline the goals of design research and how it is related to other methodologies. We illustrate how design research is carried out with two very different examples. And we provide guidelines for how design research can best be carried out in the future.


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Creating a Framework for Research on Systemic Technology Innovations

Barry Fishman, Ronald W. Marx, Phyllis Blumenfeld, and Joseph Krajcik

This paper examines why cognitively-oriented technology innovations, designed to foster deep thinking and learning, have not become widespread in K-12 schools. We argue a key reason is that most design-based research does not explicitly address systemic issues of usability, scalability and sustainability. This limitation must be overcome if research is to create usable knowledge that addresses the challenges confronting technology innovations when implemented in real-world school contexts. This is especially important in an era when political forces push schools away from the cognitively-rich, inquiry-oriented approaches espoused by the Learning Sciences. We suggest expanding our conception of design-based research to include research on innovations in the context of systemic reform as a potential solution to the problem. To that end, we introduce research questions and issues arising from our own experiences with a technology-rich innovation in the context of a systemic reform initiative as a starting point in the creation of an expanded design-based research agenda. These questions and issues have important implications for both the continued viability of research on technologies for learning and on the future of technology use in schools that stems from such research.


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Ontological Innovation and the Role of Theory in Design Experiments

Andrea A. diSessa and Paul Cobb

The motivation for this article is our belief that theory is critically important but currently underplayed in design research studies. We seek to characterize and illustrate a genre of theorizing that seem to us strongly synergistic with design-based research. We begin by drawing contrasts with kinds of theory that are relevant but, we contend, by themselves inadequate. A central element of the type of productive design-based theorizing on which we focus is "ontological innovation," hypothesizing and developing explanatory constructs, new categories of things in the world that help explain how it works. A key criterion to which we adhere when discussing ontological innovations is that theory must do real design work in generating, selecting and validating design alternatives at the level at which they are consequential for learning. Developing and refining an ontological innovation is challenging and requires the kind of extensive, iterative work that characterizes design experiments more generally. However, the pay-off in terms of clarity of focus and explanatory power can be great. We present two case studies that illustrate the development, refinement, extension, and instructional application of ontological innovations.


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Commentaries

  • If Design-Based Research is the Answer, What is the Question?
    Chris Dede

  • Design Research in Education: Yes, but is it Methodological?
    Eamonn Kelly



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