ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

DAY TWO of a three-day seminar on Design-Based Research (DBR) by Asst Professor Christopher Hoadley. Intriguing, mind-boggling, relevant, complex, and “aren’t we already doing this in the industry?” (albeit with less rigor). Not surprising perhaps.

DBR subscribes to the sociotechnical systems theory and the activity theory. It studies learning in context, taking into account the impact of contextual factors on the measured outcomes of specific interventions (which in turn are based on certain theories, hypotheses or methodologies). It integrates design practices and academic research, so as to make the outcomes both relevant and rigorous for all stakeholders — teachers, students, researchers, designers and policy makers. Somewhat like Action Research (Lewin, 1946) with a contextual and design focus, as well as a longitudinal and multi-party view.

“The conjunction of problematic and determinate characters in nature renders every existence, as well as every idea and human act, an experiment in fact (reality), even though not in design (intention). To be intelligently experimental is but to be conscious of this intersection of natural conditions so as to profit by it instead of being at its mercy.” — John Dewey

REVISITED the tensions between ‘Industry’ and ‘Academia’, this time with more sophisticated (or distinguished) vocabulary.

For example, ‘Research-Based Design (RBD)’ vs. ‘Design-Based Research (DBR)’, ‘practice’ vs. ‘research’, ‘relevance’ vs. ‘rigor’, ’short/quick vs. long/slow’, ‘high/low theory vs. high/low applicability (Stokes, 1997, see diagram on the right), ‘awful reputation of ed research (Kaestle, 1993), ‘methodology and the research practice gap’ (Robinson), ‘problems and possibilities’ (Shulman, 1999), ‘usable knowledge’ (Lagemann) and finally, ‘Aristotle’s three types of knowledge: episteme, techne and phronesis’ (Flyvbjerg, 2001).

And like design methods, DBR is purposeful, creative, open-ended, iterative (continuous, on-going), robust (incomplete predictability, e.g. see-move-see [Schon], participatory co-construction of meaning [Ehn]), inherently empirical in epistemology, and involves local science/wisdom (diSessa).

Will the gap between ‘Industry’ and ‘Academia’ be closed with DBR? After 100 years of educational research, have research findings been of great relevance to teaching practices yet? Perhaps we need another 15 years more, A/P H. said.