Diversas hipótesis explicativas.

Development research has received a growing interest recently. An example is the January/February 2003 issue of 'Educational Researcher', a publication of the American Educational Research Association, that discusses various aspects of 'the role of design in educational research'. The seminal chapter on 'Developmental Research' of Richey and Nelson (1996) in the Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology and the book 'Design approaches and tools in education and training (Van den Akker, Branch, Gustafson, Nieveen & Plomp, 1999) are representative for writings on development research in the USA and Europe. Design research (e.g. Bereiter, 2002), design experiments (e.g. Brown, 1992), formative research (e.g. Walker, 1992) and other names are used to describe the approach that in this study is labelled: 'Development Research' (cf. Van den Akker, 1999).

Walker and Bresler (1993) introduce development research as a: "…disciplined inquiry conducted in the context of the development of a product or programme for the purpose of improving either the thing being developed or developers'

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capabilities to develop better things of his kinds, or both" (p. 2). Seels and Richey (1994) define 'developmental research' as "the systematic study of designing, developing and evaluating instructional programs, processes and products that must meet the criteria of internal consistency and effectiveness" (p. 127). Obvious in both definitions are the systematic, scientific approach to design and development and the outcomes of the design and development process in the form of physical products (e.g. learning materials) or an intervention (e.g. a curriculum or a training programme). In the school of thought developed at the University of Twente in the Netherlands (cf. Van den Akker & Plomp, 1993; Van den Akker, 1999) development research has been defined as:

"…a problem oriented, interdisciplinary research methodology, aimed at: ƒ reducing uncertainty of design decisions;

ƒ generating concrete recommendations for quality improvement; ƒ testing general design principles;

ƒ stimulating professional development."

(Van den Akker, Van den Berg, Nieveen & Visscher, 1998).

Van den Akker (1999) describes two main types of development research (cf. Richey and Nelson, 1996):

ƒ Formative research. "Research activities are carried out during the entire development process, aiming at optimising the quality of the product as well as generating and testing design principles" (p. 6). Comparable to Type 1 studies (Richey & Nelson, 1996) involving situations in which the product design, development and evaluation in a particular context is described and analysed. Roles of researcher and designer coincide during the major part of the development process (Van den Akker, 1999).

ƒ Reconstructive studies. "Research activities are conducted sometimes during but oftentimes after the development process, aiming at articulating and specifying design principles" (p. 6). Reconstructive studies are comparable to Type 2 developmental studies (Richey & Nelson, 1996). These studies are "..oriented toward general analysis of either design, development, or evaluation process as a whole or any particular component" (Richey & Nelson, 1996, p. 19). Researchers are not involved in the design and development processes but study them in order to come to design and development principles (Van den Akker, 1999).

The author of this thesis was involved in the curriculum development process as designer and as staff member, to different extents and with changing importance of roles (see Section 5.3.2). Nevertheless, the study that is described in this thesis, took place after the researcher-designer had physically withdrawn from the faculty and the curriculum development process and could, therefore, still be labelled 'reconstructive study'.

The 'development process' mentioned in the above description of formative research starts with a 'pre-phase', involving a needs and context analysis. In the main phase cycles of design, development and formative evaluation are taking place while in a 'post-phase' a summative or semi-summative evaluation usually ends the development process (cf. McKenney, 2001; Nieveen, 1997). The term 'semi- summative' refers to the fact that a real summative evaluation or impact evaluation can only be done after some time and is not part of the development process. The design, development and formative evaluation phase involves, certainly when physical products are the outputs of the process, cycles where prototypes of the products are improved in an iterative way. Criteria for the quality of the products are (Van den Akker et al., 1998):

ƒ All components of the educational intervention are properly linked to each other (internal consistency).

ƒ They are reflecting state-of-the-art knowledge ('content-validity'). ƒ They have demonstrable added value.

ƒ They are usable for the target group in real practice ('usability or practicality') ƒ They are effective ('effectiveness').

In the case of educational programmes as 'products', Kessels (1993) mentions internal and external consistency as quality criteria, as explained below in more detail.

Criteria for the quality of the development process in a (formative) development research approach are (Van den Akker et al., 1998):

ƒ Homogeneity of the notions of parties involved on what the problem is and how it can be solved by means of educational interventions (external consistency). ƒ Articulation of rationale and theoretical basis for design decisions.

ƒ Delivery of empirical evidence for usability and effectiveness.

ƒ Systematic reflection on approach and results, contributing toward expansion and specification of design methodology.

The last three quality criteria are characteristic for a development research approach, but are often not taken into account by designers during their normal design and development practice (cf. Van den Akker, 1999).

A number of recent articles forcefully argue for development research as an alternative to existing research paradigms. Berliner (2002) states that next to the view (recently adopted by the US government) that an orthodox 'scientific' approach to educational research is the way to go (cf. Feuer, Towne & Shavelson, 2002), there is a need for 'local knowledge' to deal with particular problems. This

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involves amongst others design experiments, and action research (Berliner, 2002; Sabelli & Dede, 2001). Bereiter (2002) advocates 'design research' as an alternative to 'decision-oriented research,' which deals with the making of educational choices, and 'conclusion-oriented research,' which is concerned with testing hypotheses and developing theory (cf. Cronbach & Suppes,1969). Design research is characterised by 'sustained innovative development' (Bereiter, 2002) or 'disciplined progress' (after Whitehead, 1925/1948, cited in Bereiter, 2002). Other authors take the need for more relevance in educational research as a point of departure to argue for development research (MacIsaac, 1996; Reeves, 2000; Van den Akker, 1999). According to MacIsaac (1996) the irrelevance of science education research is the result from limitations in the two prevalent methodological paradigms (quantitative-causal and qualitative-hermeneutic-natural) because neither fits actual instructional practice in the classroom. Van den Akker (1999) writes: "…'traditional' research approaches (e.g. experiments, surveys, correlational analyses), with their focus on descriptive knowledge, hardly provide solutions for a variety of design and development problems in education" (p. 2).

The term 'design research' (or 'design experiments') is one of the names given to development research (Van den Akker, 1999). It also indicates an approach that is oriented to applied research in a micro-setting, often the classroom. Gravemeijer and Cobb (2001) state in a paper on creating suitable learning environments for mathematics learning: "To develop local instruction theories and prototypical instructional sequences, we conduct design research" (p. 3). It is thus concerned with the cyclical process of design and analysis that eventually leads to a local instructional theory that underpins a prototypical instructional sequence (Gravemeijer, 1994). The University of Twente approach (cf. Van den Akker et al., 1999) is more directed at the macro- and meso-level of curriculum, and not so much aimed at the development of local instruction theories within a subject-area. The University of Twente approach aims at supporting the development of prototypical products and formulating general design principles and characteristics for the design, development and evaluation of educational products and interventions (Van den Akker & Plomp, 1993), thus reducing the uncertainty of decision making in development processes of curriculum programmes and materials (Van den Akker, 1999). Notwithstanding these differences there is a considerable overlap between design experiments, aimed at local instruction theories, and the development research approach of the University of Twente (cf. Armanto, 2002; Fauzan, 2002), as shown by a number of characteristics for design research, extracted from the recent issue of Educational Researcher (Volume 32, no. 1):

1. Design research is carried out by or in close collaboration with designers. It also involves a close collaboration with the practitioners (cf. Bereiter, 2002; Gardner, 2002; Reeves, 2000; Walker, 1992).

2. Design research is inherently interventionist (cf. Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer & Schauble, 2003). This means frequently crossing the boundary between observer and actor (Bereiter, 2002).

3. Design research is guided by some vision of as-yet-unrealised possibilities and is characterised by emergent goals—that is, goals that arise and evolve in the course of cycles of design and research (Bereiter, 2002). Cobb et al. (2003) talk about the prospective and reflective aspects of design experiments.

Typical for design experiments at the level of instruction are the following characteristics:

1. The purpose of design experimentation is to develop a class of theories about the process of learning and the means to support that learning (Cobb et al., 2003). The authors talk about 'learning ecology'.

2. Although design experiments are conducted to develop theories and not to just empirically fine-tuning a development process, the theories are 'relatively humble' and target domain-specific learning processes. Rather than being 'grand theories of learning' these theories are accountable to the activity of design, that is, they have to inform prospective design (Cobb et al., 2003).

One of the aims of this study is to find out what a competence-based curriculum for the Faculty of Education at UEM should look like, how it should be developed and how implemented. A development research approach is most appropriate in dealing with this problem statement because development research provides methodological directions for the design, development and implementation process, reaching quality and consistency in the final product, in this case a competence-based curriculum for the Faculty of Education (see also section 5.5). Another argument in favour of using a development research approach is that it could lead to 'generalisation', that is, characteristics of product (a competence- based curriculum for the Faculty of Education at UEM) and procedural guidelines (for the design, development and implementation of the curriculum) that could be transferred to other contexts. The curriculum characteristics and procedural guidelines obtained from reconstruction and analysis of the design, development and implementation of the curriculum in the Faculty of Education could assist other faculties in- and outside Mozambique in designing and developing their own competence-based curricula.

The following section explains why a mainly reconstructive approach is applied in this study, although formative research also took place during the process.

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