A set of slides used in a teaching session of an MA course. Topic: "Approaches to researching Educational innovation and reform".

1. The Role of ICT in Education, Core
Module Contemporary Issues in
Education, MA IE Programme 20 - 13,
Dr Palitha Edirisingha
Approaches to
researching
Educational
innovation and
reform
Innovation and Reform
Specialist module:
Sessions 3 and 4
Dr Palitha Edirisingha
Institute of Learning Innovation
University of Leicester
105, Princess Road East
Leicester LE1 7LG
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3753
Mobile: +44 (0)7525 246592
Email: pe27@le.ac.uk
(Background image from Geralt on http://pixabay.com)
First used in Feb 2014
in an MA course

2. Three linked
sessions
Session 3:
18 Feb 2014
10am – 12pm
Session 4:
18 Feb 2014
2pm – 4pm
Session 6:
25 Feb 2014
10am – 12pm
Input on a number of approaches Working on a case study

3. Introduction
A range of approaches to researching innovations in
education. Some examples are programme evaluation, action
research, participatory action research, design-based
research, and case studies.
We will also look at the role of internet in supporting our
research in innovation and reform.
Some key questions to consider are:
 What is the relationship between the researcher(s) and the
research participant(s) in a research process, and
 What are the implications of this for the nature of
knowledge generated from such research and implications
for policy and practice.
We will look at a number of practical examples of research in
innovation and reform and their outcomes in terms of reforms
of curriculum and improving both the quality of learning and
access to education.

4. Educational
innovation(s)?
What does it mean?
Why do we consider it an
innovation?
What are the underlying
assumptions?
What are the aims? whose
interests are we catering to?
Researching
educational
innovation(s)?
What are the issues with
regard to claims to
knowledge?

5. Examples of innovation and
reforms in education?
???

6. About educational innovations
“A generation ago, a series of innovations
entered the world of education. Depending
on your age or your powers of
recollections, you may recognize some of
them. They include team teaching, career
education, values clarification, multicultural
education, human relations training, open
schools, competency-based education,
peace education, back to the basics,
bilingual education, and a few others”
(Ellis, 2005, pp. 13 – 14).

7. About educational innovations
“Where are they now? The answers vary.
Some disappeared without a trace. Some
are the forerunners of present day reform
efforts. Some are still around in one form
or another. This will always be the case.
Today’s trend is often tomorrow’s forgotten
dream. Some of the innovations that
sweep through the school scene are
nothing more than fads. Some have
greater staying power” (Ellis, 2005, p. 14.
Italics added).

8. A framework for thinking about educational innovations
• Education for All, Millennium Development Goals
• Unesco, World Bank, Commonwealth of Learning
• Learners with no access to conventional schools
Global,
International
• New political climate, failing school standards, teachers’ CPD
• “Building Schools for Future”, “mega-schools”, “open schools”
National,
country level
• Migration to urban areas, left-behind children
• ????
Regional,
provincial level
• After-school initiatives, private sector involvement,
• ????School
• PISA (Policy makers’ and educators’ interests?)
• Creativity, assessment and feedback, critical thinkingCurriculum
• Learners with special needs
• ????Learners

9. Research
approaches

10. What are the differences
and similarities (if any)
between research that you
have undertaken and
researching an innovative
educational approach?
[5 minutes]

11. Responses
 Asking past experience, vs expectations, present time experience
 Stats – analysis of data in the past vs different sort of statistics?
 Specif methods – future. Delphi methods for future. Past data – for
prediction. [future dimension of an innovation]
 Eg., BSF programme – traditional methods
 Both – used to enhance current situation
 Future methods built on past / regular research

12. Major types of
social research
Basic
Applied
- Evaluation
- Action
- Social impact
Use and
audience
Explore
Describe
Explain
Purpose
(Neuman, 2011)
Reading material:
Neuman, 2011, Chapter 2:
“What are the Major Types of
Social Research?”

13. Use and audience of
research
Basic research / academic
research / pure research
Applied research
“Scientific” / “academic” “Activist, practical, action-
oriented”
 To develop / advance / contribute
to ‘fundamental knowledge of
the world’
 For the scientific community
 To ‘support or refute theories about
how the social world operate and
changes, what makes things
happen, and why social relations
or events are a certain way’
 Addressing a specific concern
(e.g., to offer a solution to a
question raised by an employer, a
local community, or a social issue)
 Link to theory – limited
 Short term, small scale
 Useful practical results … in the
short term
 Audience – practitioners (teachers,
managers)
Arguments for and against?
(Neuman, 2011)

14. Use and audience of
research
Basic research / academic
research / pure research
Applied research
“Scientific” / “academic” “Activist, practical, action-
oriented”
 To develop / advance / contribute
to ‘fundamental knowledge of
the world’
 For the scientific community
 To ‘support or refute theories about
how the social world operate and
changes, what makes things
happen, and why social relations
or events are a certain way’
 Addressing a specific concern
(e.g., to offer a solution to a
question raised by an employer, a
local community, or a social issue)
 Link to theory – limited
 Short term, small scale
 Useful practical results … in the
short term
 Audience – practitioners (teachers,
managers)
Arguments for and against?
(Neuman, 2011)

15. Types of applied research
(Neuman, 2011; Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005; Newby, 201

16. Evaluatio
n
research
1. Examples of evaluation of educational
innovations?
2. What sort of research questions?
Research designs? Data collection
methods / techniques?
3. Who is best to conduct evaluation
research? Insiders or outsiders? What
are the pros and cons?
4. What are the ethical issues and
political tensions that might arise in
evaluation research?
5. What are the limitations / weaknesses
of evaluation research?
“Applied research in which one tries to
determine how well a program or policy is
working or reaching its goals and objectives”
(Neuman, 2011, p. 28)
[Group activity – 5 minutes]
Measuring the effectiveness of an intervention / a programme.
(Image from Geralt on

17. Action
research
 ‘… knowledge as a form of power.
… acquiring new knowledge with
using the knowledge to achieve a
specific purpose.’
 Active involvement of the research
participants / respondents
“Applied research in which the primary
goal is to facilitate social change or bring
about a value-oriented political-social
goal”
(Neuman, 2011, p. 30)
Attributed to Kurt Lewin -1940s in
the USA. (Reading material:
Newby, 2010, pp. 61-64).
(Image from pixabay.com)

18. Action
research
 ‘a powerful tool for change and improvement at the local level’
 ‘combination of action and research’
 Applicable in … ‘a problem involving people, tasks and procedures
cries out for solution’
 Some example of areas, see Cohen et al., 2011, p. 344.
 Action + reflection for improving and reforming practice, ‘based on a
rigorous evidential trail of data and research’
 Different from everyday actions of teachers (for improving teaching)
(Kemmis and McTaggart, 1992, p. 21-2)
 Not always a group / collective activity; can be done by an individual
teacher. ‘teacher-as-researcher’ (Stenhouse, 1975).
“A small-scale intervention in the
functioning of the real world and a close
examination of the effects of such an
intervention”
(Cohen and Manion, 1994, p. 186).
(Cohen et al, 2011, p. 344 – 361)

19. Action
research
 ‘to develop and implement
change’ (p. 61).
 ‘uses research findings to
inform and shape personal and
organisational action’ (p. 61).
 Knowledge is not generated for
its own sake (but not so clear
cut!)
 Action is part of the research
process; a cyclical procedure
 Used in business, as part of
management practice.
 In education – to improve their
(e.g., teachers’) own practice
“A cyclical research and development
proceddure that moves form problem to goal,
through action to reflection on the result in
relation to the goal, and then moves forward by
revising action or goal or both.”
(Newby, 2010, p. 115).
(Newby, 2010)

20. Action
research
1. What is the researcher’s stance?
2. What kind of research designs?
Data collection methods /
techniques?
3. Who might be the key players /
stake-holders in an Action
Research project?
4. What are the ethical issues and
political tensions that might arise
in Action Research?
5. What are the limitations /
weaknesses of Action Research
?
Reading material:
1. Newby, 2010, p. 62. Teaching statistics.
2. Newby, 2010, pp. 623-24. Christina’s
innovative approach to laboratory teaching.
[Group activity – 10 minutes]

21. Participatory
Action
Research
‘A fourth generation of
action research’ (Kemmis
and McTaggart, 2005, pp.
559 - 603).
“Action research in which
the research participants
actively help design and
conduct the research
study. It emphazises
democratizing knowledge-
creation and engaging in
collective action … .”
(Neuman, 2011, p. 30)
Image from Nemo on pixabay.com

22. Participatory
Action
Research
‘the development of
theoretical arguments for
more “actionist” approaches
to action research’
‘the need for participatory
action researchers to make
links with broad social
movements.’
(Kemmis and McTaggart,
2005, pp. 559 - 603)
‘… developed in the context of
social movements in the
developing world, championed
by people such as Paulo
Freire, [and others] in adult
education and literacy,
community development, and
development studies … .’
Image from Nemo on pixabay.com

23. Participatory
Action
Research
Key features
 Planning a change
 Acting and observing the
process and consequences of
the change
 Reflecting on these
processes and consequences
 Replanning
 Acting and observing again
 Reflecting again, and so on . .
.
“The criterion of success is not whether
participants have followed the steps faithfully
but rather whether they have a strong and
authentic sense of development and evolution in
their practices, their understandings of their
practices, and the situations in which they
practice..”
(Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005, pp. 563)
Plan
Revise &
plan
Act &
observe
Act &
observe
Revise &
plan
Reflect
Reflect
(Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005)

24. Participatory
Action
Research
1. Researcher(s) stance?
2. What kind of research designs?
Data collection methods /
techniques?
3. Who might be involved in a
Participatory Action Research
project?
4. What are the ethical issues and
political tensions that might arise in
evaluation research?
5. What are the limitations /
weaknesses of participatory action
research?
“Action research in which the research
participants actively help design and
conduct the research study. It emphazises
democratizing knowledge-creation and
engaging in collective action … .”
(Neuman, 2011, p. 30)
Image from pixabay.com

25. Design-Based
Research
Recent in Education. Ann Brown
(1992), an American researcher.
“… evolved near the beginning of
the 21st century …. a practical
research methodology that could
effectively bridge the chasm
between research and practice in
formal education” (Anderson and
Shattuck, 2012, p. 16)
Design Research
“In my current work, I conduct … design
experiments, modelled on the
procedures of design sciences such as
aeronautics and artificial intelligence. As
a design scientist in my field, I attempt to
engineer innovative educational
environments and simultaneously
conduct experimental studies of those
innovations. … .” (Brown, 1992, p. 142).
Image from WikiImages on pixabay.com

26. “… blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven
design of learning environments, … an important methodology
for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations
work in practice. Design-based researchers’ innovations
embody specific theoretical claims about teaching and learning,
and help us understand the relationships among educational
theory, designed artifact, and practice. Design is central in
efforts to foster learning, create usable knowledge, and advance
theories of learning and teaching in complex settings. Design-
based research also may contribute to the growth of human
capacity for subsequent educational reform” (The Design-Based
Research Collective, 2003, p. 5).
Design-Based
Research

27. “… focus on designing and exploring the whole range of designed
innovations: artifacts as well as less concrete aspects such as activity
structures, institutions, scaffolds, and curricula. Importantly, design-
based research goes beyond merely designing and testing particular
interventions. Interventions embody specific theoretical claims about
teaching and learning, and reflect a commitment to understanding the
relationships among theory, designed artifacts, and practice. At the
same time, research on specific interventions can contribute to theories
of learning and teaching. (The Design-Based Research Collective,
2003, pp. 5- 6).
The Role of ICT in Education, Core
Module Contemporary Issues in
Education, MA IE Programme 20 - 13,
Dr Palitha Edirisingha
Design-Based
Research

28. Areas where
design-based
research methods
provide promise
1. To explore possibilities for
creating novel learning
and teaching
environments
2. To develop theories of
learning and teaching that
are contextually based
3. To advance and
consolidate design
knowledge, and
4. To increase our capacity
for educational innovation.
(The Design-Based Research Collective, 2003,
Design-Based
Research
(Background image from Nemo on pixabay.com)

29. Quality features
 Being situated in a real
educational context
 Focusing on the design and
testing of a significant
intervention
 Using mixed methods
 Involving multiple iterations
 Involving a collaborative
partnership between
researchers and practitioners
 Evolution of design principles
 Comparison to action
research
(Anderson and Shattuck, 2012, p. 17)
Design-Based
Research
(Background image: Openclips on pixabay.co

30. “Reeves (2000) … noted that the issue of
implementation and adoption is of critical
importance and one in which education
research in general has had a very poor
record.”
“We often challenge participants to think of one
research result that has made a difference in
their educational practice. It is both surprising
and depressing that many educators cannot
think of a single research output or can think
only of trivial outputs that meet this most
practical and important outcome of research.”
(Anderson and Shattuck, 2012, p. 18).

31. “One could contrast this with the many results
of medical research and the way that
treatments and practice have evolved and
continue to evolve as a result of medical
research. This necessity for impact in real
education settings was succinctly captured by
Barab and Squire (2004), who argued that
“designbased research that advances theory
but does not demonstrate the value of the
design in creating an impact on learning in the
local context of study has not adequately
justified the value of the theory” (Barab and
Squire, 2004, p. 6 in Anderson and Shattuck,
2012, p. 18).

32. Design-Based
Research Vs.
Action Research
“Both practitioners and
researchers often have trouble
differentiating between action
research and DBR … because
they share many
epistemological, ontological,
and methodological
underpinnings” (Anderson and
Shattuck, 2012, p. 16).

33. Design-Based
Research Vs.
Action Research
“In action research, the educator is both researcher and teacher
(Kuhn & Quigley, 1997). The partnership in a design-based study
recognizes that teachers are usually too busy and often ill trained to
conduct rigorous research. Likewise, the researcher often is not
knowledgeable of the complexities of the culture, technology,
objectives, and politics of an operating educational system to
effectively create and measure the impact of an intervention. Thus,
a partnership is developed that negotiates the study from initial
problem identification, through literature review, to intervention
design and construction, implementation, assessment, and to the
creation and publication of theoretical and design principles”
(Anderson and Shattuck, 2012, p. 16)”
“the design is conceived not just to meet local needs, but to
advance a theoretical agenda, to uncover, explore, and confirm
theoretical relationships” (Barab & Squire, 2004, p. 5, in
Anderson and Shattuck, 2012, p. 17).

34. “… we conclude that DBR has a
number of significant characteristics
that resonate with the calls for
educational reform and for
improvements in education research”
(Anderson and Shattuck, 2012, p. 18).
DBR seems have been used to make
a difference - but mostly at the level of
small-scale interventions and in the
lives of individual teachers and
schools. It is interesting to speculate if
the methodology could and will be
used by researchers to investigate
today’s disruptive innovations such as
massive open online courses, tuition-
free universities (e.g., People’s
University), open educational
resources, and other networked
learning innovations. (Anderson and
Shattuck, 2012, p. 24).
Design-Based
Research
Based on a
review of 47
journal articles
on design-based
research…

35. Group activity for
Session 6:
25 Feb 2014
1. The characteristics of the research designs?
2. The research questions? Data collection
methods / techniques?
3. Who might have been involved in the research
process? What were their roles?
4. What might have been the ethical issues and
political tensions that might have occurred
during the research process?
5. What were / are the limitations / weaknesses of
this approach to conducting research?
Resources for this activity.
Research projects carried out at
Leicester on:
• Mobile learning
• Learning in Virtual Worlds
• Podcasting
Image from pixabay.com

36. Technology-
based innovations
Web 2.0
Open
and
distance
learning
Massive
Open
Online
Courses
(MOOCs)
3-D
virtual
words
Children
learning
with
computers
OERs
Mobile
learning Podcastin
g

37. References and additional resources
Anderson, T., and Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-
Based Research: A Decade of Progress in
Education Research? Educational Researcher,
Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 16–25.
Brown, A. (1992). Design experiments:
Theoretical and methodological challenges in
creating complex interventions in classroom
settings. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2),
141–178.
Cohen, L., and Manion, L. (1994). Research
Methods in Education. 4th Edn. London:
Routledge.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., and Morrison, K. (2011).
Research Methods in Education. 7th Edn.
London: Routledge.
Ellis, A. K. (2005). Research on Educational
Innovations, 4th Edn., Larchmont, NY: Eye on
Education.
Kemmis, S., and McTaggart, R. (2005)
Participatory Action Research: Communicative
Action and the Public Sphere. In Denzin, N. K.,
and Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). The Sage Handbook
of Qualitative Research, London: Sage.
Kindon, S. L. (2007) Participatory action
research approaches and methods: connecting
people, participation, and place. London:
Routledge.
based Innovation and Reform: Singapore
schooling in transition, Asia Pacific Journal of
Education, 25(1), 5-28.
Neuman, W. L. (2011) Social Research
Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative
approaches, 7th Edn. London: Pearson.
Newby, P. (2010). Research Methods for
Education, London: Pearson.
OECD (n.d.) 21st Century Learning: Research,
Innovation and Policy, Directions from recent
OECD analyses. OECD.
www.oecd.org/site/educeri21st/40554299.pdf
[Accessed on 06.12.2013].
Stenhouse, L. (1975). An Introduction to
Curriculum Research and Development.
London: Heinemann.
The Design-Based Research Collective (2003)
Design-Based Research: An Emerging
Paradigm for Educational Inquiry. Educational
Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 5–8.
Relevant journals:
The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 13,
Issue 1, 2004. Special Issue: Design-based
Research: Clarifying the Terms.
Educational Researcher, 2003, Vol. 32, No. 1.

38. Thank you!
hope you have enjoyed the class

If you have any questions or suggestions to
improve / contribute to this session /
presentation, please contact me at:
pe27@le.ac.uk
@palithaed
+44 (0)116 252 3753
+44 (0)7525 246 592
Office:
No. 105, Institute of Learning Innovation, University of Leicester, Princess Road East, LE1 7LG