Page 193 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

186 11 Design-Based Research
The design-based research is based on the analysis of practical problems by
researchers and practitioners in collaboration. Then, combine with the existing
design principles and technology innovation to develop the solution, test and refine
solutions iteratively in practice. Last, reflect the implementation of design principles
and solutions. Design-based research is not for testing hypotheses, but for refining
of problems, solutions, methods, and design principles.

11.6 Case Study

Different research reports are used here to illustrate the variety of educational
design-based research conducted within the field of educational technology.
The first case is conducted by Thomas et al. (2009), with substantial funding
from the National Science Foundation and other sources. He put his efforts to refine
a theory of transformational play while at the same time seeking to develop
advanced forms of interactive learning games. It contains three qualitative studies
focused on the challenges and successes involved in implementing Quest Atlantis, a
3D multi-player virtual environment (MUVE), which serves as the primary vehicle
for instantiating Barab’s transformational play learning theory and for allowing it to
be refined through iterative design-based research.
The second case is co-led by an at-the-time early career assistant professor,
Klopfer and Squire (2008), with start-up funding from Microsoft and other sources.
It is a multi-year project to enhance student learning related to environmental
science through the development and refinement of learning games that are
accessed with handheld devices such as PDAs and smart phones. In addition to
developing an array of learning games, the project has sought to develop and refine
a theoretical framework called “augmented reality educational gaming” that can be
applied by other game designers. Meanwhile, it focuses on iterative design cycles
based on five case studies conducted in real high school classrooms.
The third case is carried out by Oh (2011), working with one other doctoral
student and a practitioner with no funding beyond a graduate teaching assis-
tantship. It pursued two primary goals: (1) optimizing collaborative group work in
an online graduate-level course focused on “E-Learning Evaluation,” and (2) de-
veloping a refined model of group work in online courses and identifying design
principles for supporting online collaborative group work among adult learners. Oh
use mixed methods to apply across several semester-length iterations of an online
course to yield multiple distinct design principles for supporting group work by
adults.
For each case, the problem addressed, the primary focus of the research, the
intervention that was developed, the theoretical contributions, the methods used,
and the scope of the intervention involved as well as its practical contribution are
summarized in Table 11.2.