Dilemmas of development research in addressing complex problems in educational practice

Prof. Francisco Januário (MSc, PhD)Department of Science and Mathematics Education

Faculty of Education, UEMfrancisco.januario@uem.mz

Structure of the presentation

• Introduction• Examples & characteristics of development

research studies• Outputs of development research• Dilemmas of development research• Conclusion

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Introduction

• What is the problem in educational research?– The complexity of educational problems where no

ready-made solutions are available

• Why is this happening?– (i) the insufficient quality of much educational

research and– (ii) the lack of relevance of much educational

research for educational practice

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…Introduction

• What can we do?– Development Research (DR): a systematic study of

designing, developing and evaluating educational interventions towards solutions to educational problems (McKenney, 2001; Plomp, 2006; Van den Akker, 1999).

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Examples and characteristics of DR studies

• Examples of intervention studies at institutional level:– Tecle (2006): The potential of a professional development scenario for

supporting biology teachers in Eritrea– Motswiri (2004): Supporting chemistry teachers in implementing

formative assessment of investigative practical work in Botswana– Mafumiko (2006): Micro-scale experimentation as a catalyst for

improving the chemistry curriculum in Tanzania– Januario (2008): Investigating and improving assessment practices in

Physics in secondary schools in Mozambique– Fringe (s/d) in an ongoing study is undertaking a critical reflection as

the essential principle for professional development of academic staff of Higher Education in Mozambique.

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…Examples and characteristics of DR studies

• The research process in DR is usually cyclical where analysis, design, evaluation and revision activities are iterated until a satisfying balance between ideals (‘the intended’) and realization (‘the achieved’) has been met.

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Identify and analyse

problems by researchers & practitioners in

collaboration

Development of prototype solutions: informed by state-of-art theory, existing design principles & techn. innovations

Iterative cycles of testing & refinement

of solutions in practice

Reflection to produce ‘design

principles’ & enhance solution implementation in

practice

Outputs of development research • a. Interventions

– Educational design researchers aim at developing programs, products, and processes (interventions) that can be used in practice and are empirically underpinned solutions to the problems identified.

• b. Design principles– Development research aims at producing knowledge about whether and why

an intervention works in a certain context. This type of output is called design principles or intervention theory.

• c. Professional development– One of the features of DR is the collaboration of researchers and practitioners,

which increases the chance of the intervention to become practical and relevant for the context and the probability for a successful implementation.

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Dilemmas of development research

• The researcher is designer and often also evaluator and implementer Measures to compensate for this potential conflict of interest:

– make research open to professional scrutiny and critique; e.g. use practitioners and other researchers as ‘critical friends’

– shift from a dominance perspective of ‘creative designer’ in the early stage, to a ‘critical researcher’ perspective in later stages

– have a good quality of research design; e.g. apply triangulation to increase the quality of data and of analysis, employ empirical testing of both the usability and the effectiveness of the intervention, and carry out a systematic documentation, analysis and reflection of the design, development, evaluation and implementation process and their results

– have attention for validity and reliability of data and instruments

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…Dilemmas of development research

• b. Real-world settings bring real-world problems. To tackle this:- use collaboration and mutual beneficial to gain participants’ trust- understand the context in which the research is taking place (i.e. consider an

insider perspective).

• c. Adaptability. Van den Akker (2005) suggests that the synergy between research and practice can be maximized by: – being prepared, where desirable, to take on the additional role of designer,

advisor, and facilitator, without losing sight of his/her role as researcher.– being tolerant with regard to the often unavoidably blurred role distinctions

and remaining open to adjustments in the research design if research process so requires.

– allowing the study to be influenced, in part, by the needs and wishes of the partners, during what is usually a long-term collaborative relationship.

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Conclusion • Development research projects at system level

are still scarce.

• The IAPRCB community, through DR, can be a vehicle for tackling their complex educational problems in their respective institutions and countries.

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• K a n i m a m b o

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