Design-Based Research in Technology-Enhanced Learning

Educational research is often divorced from the problems and issues of everyday practice. One of the methodological approaches that aim to address this gap is Design-Based Research (DBR). Much research in Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) is design work. By this, we mean that the research team designs an intervention that is intended to support learning. Interventions of course need to be evaluated to show the extent to which this goal has been reached and to gain additional insights that are sought for. Field studies are a main type of evaluation, as they test an intervention in the field, together with the surrounding learning practice. Field studies, however, are challenging to set up and cannot be easily repeated due to the effort and cost of running a field study.

This webinar will introduce DBR as a research method, presenting the DBR characteristics and models and allowing participants to reflect about their own design contexts. Moreover, the webinar will focus on the principles of evaluating educational interventions in field studies.

In-webinar and post-webinar activities are designed to help doctoral candidates situate the webinar contents with respect to their own research, and to support PhD students to conceptualise and plan a field study for their own doctoral research.

After the course, participant PhD students will…

• … be familiar with Design-Based Research as a research method, including terminology, definitions and characteristics.
• … understand different categories of research questions, research functions and research designs;
• … be introduced to  DBR phases (analysis, development and evaluation); and different models for conducting DBR in technology-enhanced learning
• … be introduced to a hierarchical principle of evaluating learning interventions, based on Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick (2010 – Evaluating Training Programs – The Four Levels): Usage/observable activities – Learning – Impact on task/work performance – Impact on organization (in workplace learning/applicable to settings in which individual learning impacts a wider social entity)

All DETEL webinars are supplied with additional materials in mini-courses on the open Tech4comp platform. Please enroll in the webinar’s Moodle course.