4 RED DE RIEGO

This study follows a Design Based Research (DBR) approach. Often referred to as educational design research, or design based experiments, DBR is an iterative process in which learning is studied in the context in which it happens. Thus DBR has a strong link with practice, and is suited to the aims of this research, which is to inform and bring about improvement in classroom practice.

Ann Brown (1992) was one of the first to use the term “design experiments”. Design experiments were developed so that researchers could “carry out formative research to test and refine educational designs, based on principles derived from prior research” (Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2004, p. 15). Brown (1992) expected that researchers would systematically adjust various aspects of the designed context so that these adjustments would be a type of experiment that would allow researchers to generate theory in naturalistic contexts (Barab & Squire, 2004). diSessa & Cobb (2004) claimed that design based studies should make significant contributions by addressing the gap between theory and practice. They also suggest that design research may offer new

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constructs for explaining educational phenomena. Gravemeijer & Cobb (2006) outlined a core philosophy of design experiments:

“The underlying philosophy of design research is that you have to understand the innovative forms of education that you might want to bring about in order to be able to produce them.” (p. 45).

This was the case with this study. One of the overall goals was to redevelop and

enhance a module designed to a) introduce PTs to IBSE, and b) help them develop their Professional Vision of IBSE. However, in order to do this, it was first necessary to understand what their initial views of IBSE were, and to see how incremental changes to the module might change these.

McKenney & Reeves (2014) outlined the characteristics of Educational Design Research under a number of headings. Table 2.2 applies these headings to the present study.

Table 2.2 Educational Design Research overview, adapted from McKenney & Reeves (2014). Descriptions adapted to apply to this study.

Educational Design Research Overview

Problem IBSE has been identified as a way to help improve student

achievement in second level science. Teachers must be supported to teach in this way. While modules have been designed to aid PTs, they still seem reluctant to teach in a way that supports IBSE.

Main Focus Investigating how examining the PV of PTs can help inform changes to a module designed to support PTs in teaching through IBSE

Intervention Developed A move from just analyses of IBSE activities to a combination of IBSE activities and video analysis

Knowledge Created Alternative ways of looking at PV. Theory of how different elements of module contribute to PTs’ PV. Can PTs’ educational background also contribute? (US v Ireland)

Research Methods Used Interviews

Analysis of critiques

Analysis of highlighting and coding data

Research Scope Three year study

4 separate groups of PTs (3 IRL, 1 US) 1 of above groups studied over a 3 year period

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Primary Practical Contribution Information for teacher educators about how PTs’ PV is shaped

through a PCK module

Contribution to theory on discourse and argumentation in teacher education

Before explaining how a DBR approach was used in this study, it is useful to look at its background, and how design experiments are used in educational research. The Design Based Research Collective (2003), a group of researchers founded to examine, improve and practice design based research methods in education tried to provide a

comprehensive definition of DBR. They described DBR as an emerging paradigm for studying learning in context.

They proposed that good DBR is characterised by five features. The first of these is that the goals of designing learning environments and developing theories are “intertwined”. Secondly, they shared the ideas of Cobb (2001) and Collins (1992) that research takes place through “continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis and redesign”. Thirdly, research must be sharable. It must lead to theories that have relevant implications for other practitioners. Fourth, the research must “account for how designs function in authentic settings”. Finally, these accounts must rely on methods that “can document and connect processes of enactment to outcomes of interest”.

The collective also point out that DBR goes further than just designing and testing interventions. When relating DBR to other methodologies, they indicated that they

“do not claim that there is a single design-based research method, but the overarching, explicit concern in design-based research for using methods that link processes of enactment to outcomes has power to generate knowledge that directly applies to educational practice.”

Key to all design based experiments are design cycles. Gravemeijer & Cobb (2006) discussed these cycles in the context of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) in the Netherlands. They describe design experiments as a cyclical process of designing and

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redesigning instructional activities. The first step in this cyclical process is usually a “thought experiment” (Cobb, 2001). The purpose of a thought experiment is to envision how the proposed structural activities might be realised. According to Cobb (2001) a thought experiment “synthesizes the pertinent theories and models in a series of theoretical conjectures”.

The outcomes of these theoretical conjectures are learning and research cycles. A learning trajectory is useful to describe the potential means and tools to support

meaningful learning, while a research trajectory monitors the enactment of the learning trajectory. During the enactment of the instructional activities, and also through

retrospective analysis, the students’ participation and learning are analysed. On the basis of this analysis further decisions are made about the validity of the conjectures, and on possible revisions to the design.

Figure 2.1 shows the cyclical nature of Design Based Research, and how it comprises a series of thought and instructional experiments.

Figure 2.1 The cyclical nature of DBR (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006).

Both learning and research cycles take place sequentially, and students typically only experience one iteration of a cycle. It is therefore worthwhile to take a linear view of each the process of first designing a thought experiment and how this develops into a local instruction theory. We can look at one end of the thought experiment as being the

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instructional starting point, with the potential endpoints at the other end. What is developed then is the local instruction theory. This is shown in Figure 2.2. Such a local instruction theory consists of conjectures about a possible learning process, together with conjectures about possible means of supporting that learning process (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006).

Figure 2.2 A linear view of a cycle of a thought experiment.

Over the course of the design experiment this local instruction theory is integrated through all of the cycles, as shown in Figure 2.3. Gravemeijer & Cobb (2006) explain how there is a reflexive relation between both the thought and instructional experiments, and the local instruction theory being developed, indicating how

“On one hand, the conjectured local instruction theory guides the thought and instruction experiments, and on the other, the microcycles of design and analysis shape the local instruction theory”. (p. 28)

Instructional Start Point

Local

Instruction

Theory

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Figure 2.3 The nature of DBR including a conjectured local instruction theory (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006).