COLEGIO DE DAGUPAN

Institute of Graduate Studies

Arellano St., Dagupan City

MASTER IN EDUCATION
Major in Educational Leadership

Report

K to 12 Curriculum
EXAM
MED 02- EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
AND DESIGN
Name: DANIEL D. SEGUNDO Subject: _______________________________
Professor: JIMMY LAROYA Ed. D

I - INTRODUCTION:

The need for a research approach that addresses complex problems in educational
practice has been argued by researchers in various ‘corners’ of the domain of education from
the lack of relevance of much educational research for educational practice. For example,the
Design-Based Research Collective (2003:5) argues that educational research is often divorced
from the problems and issues of everyday practice – a split that resulted in a credibility gap
and creates a need for new research approaches that speak directly to problems of practice
and that lead to the development of‘usable knowledge’. From his background in research in
the domain of curriculum development and implementation, Van den Akker (1999: 2) argues
that many ‘traditional’ research approaches such as experiments, surveys, correlational
analyses, with their emphasis on description hardly provide prescriptions that are useful for
design and development problems in education.

II - DISCUSSION:

Before elaborating on the meaning of design research, it is important to position design

research as a research approach next to other research approaches, which is the purpose of
this section. The key focus in all scientific research is the search for‘understanding’ or
for‘knowing’ with the aim of contributing to the body of knowledge or a theory in the domain of
research. Other broad aims of doing educational research are to provide insights and
contributions for improving practice, and to inform decision making and policy development in
the domain of education.
In general, we can distinguish various research functions, each reflecting certain types of
research questions. Examples of research functions (with exemplary research questions fitting
the function) are: 1. to describe: e.g. what is the achievement of Chinese grade 8 pupils in
mathematics; what barriers do students experience in the learning of mathematical modelling
2. to compare: e.g. what are the differences and similarities between the Chinese and the
Netherlands curriculum for primary education; what is the achievement in mathematics of
Chinese grade 8 pupils as compared to that in certain other countries 3. to evaluate: e.g. how
well does a program function in terms of competences of graduates; what are the strengths
and weaknesses of a certain approach; etc 4. to explain or to predict: e.g. what are the causes
of poor performance in mathematics (i.e. in search of a ‘theory’ predicting a phenomenon when
certain conditions or characteristics are met) 5. to design and develop: e.g. what are the
characteristics of an effective teaching and learning strategy aimed at acquiring certain
learning outcomes; how can we improve the motivation of learners. In many research projects
the research questions are such that in fact various research functions do apply. For example,
if the research question pertains to comparing the mathematics achievement of Chinese grade
8 pupils as compared to that in certain other countries,then as part of comparing the
researchers will evaluate the achievement of grade 8 pupils in each of the countries involved.
Or, as another example, if one wants to design and develop a teaching-learning strategy for
acquiring the competency of mathematical modelling (in grade 11 & 12),then researchers may
first want to understand and carefully describe what barriers students experience with
mathematical modelling, whilst also the evaluation function is important in determining whether
the teaching-learning strategy that has been developed is effective. Both examples illustrate
that usually a research project has a primary research function, but that other research
functions are being applied to ‘serve’the primary research function.
At the level of a research project, starting from a research problem or question, we are
supposed to have the following sequence: Research question => (primary) research function
=>choice of research approach.
Most text books on research methodology present and discuss a number of research
approaches or strategies (see e.g. Denscombe, 2007). Usually each research approach can
be 12 an introduction to educational design research used for realizing more than one
research function. Without going into detail here, examples of research approaches and their
possible research functions are: • survey: to describe,to compare,to evaluate • case studies: to
describe,to compare,to explain • experiments: to explain,to compare • action research: to
design/develop a solution to a practical problem • ethnography: to describe,to explain •
correlational research: to describe, to compare • evaluation research: to determine the
effectiveness of a program Textbooks on research methodology usually do not present and
discuss design research: • design research: to design/develop an intervention (such as
programs,teaching-learning strategies and materials, products and systems) with the aim to
solve a complex educational problem and to advance our knowledge about the characteristics
of these interventions and the processes to design and develop them.

III - REFERENCES:

https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/14472302/Introduction_20to_20education_20design_
20research.pdf