Understandings of Design in Design-Based Research

The project addresses the growing trend of trying to implement design methods in other disciplines by focusing on the field of educational research, and more specifically Design-based research (DBR). The initial focus was on conducting so called design experiments in order to engineer innovative educational environments and simultaneously conduct experimental studies of those innovations. The approach has seen a steady rise in interest since the beginning of the millennium and has evolved from being primarily an American phenomenon to being picked up by educational researchers in Germany, Singapore and the Nordic countries to name a few. I look into the questions of how this research approach is connected to design. What is designerly about it? What happens when educational researchers adopt designerly ways of working? What are the challenges and what are the potentials? The empirical material stems from interviews with and observations of researchers within the field framed by literature reviews concentrating on four key characteristics of DBR: the intervention, the collaboration with practitioners, the iterative approach and the generation of design principles.