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Design-Based Research

Design Process · All design processes
Evidence · 7 claims (7 for) · 6 studies (4 design, 1 qualitative, 1 theoretical), q1–q2 · 0 of 6 report an effect size · 7 claims rest on one study

Description

Design-based research (DBR) develops an educational intervention and a theory together. The designer-researcher builds the intervention in a real teaching and learning setting, tests it, revises it, and tests it again. Each revision is a small experiment, and what is learned is meant to improve the design and contribute to theory about learning. Christensen and West's review trace it to Brown (1992) and Collins (1990, 1992), who took Herbert Simon's call in The Sciences of the Artificial for a rigorous science of designed things and applied it to classrooms.

The literature has not agreed on a single definition. Christensen and West identify three ways it has been characterised:

  • By purpose. DBR develops design principles grounded in theory and validated by research, while contributing directly to practice (van den Akker, 1999). It addresses the tension between locally usable knowledge and generalisable knowledge (Sandoval & Bell, 2004).
  • By characteristics. The seven most often named are that it is design driven, situated, iterative, collaborative, theory building, practical and productive (the design itself must meet its intended outcomes).
  • By steps. Published models differ: Collins's ten design-experiment steps, Brown's example, Bannan-Ritland's (2003) four stages (informed exploration, enactment, evaluation of local impact, evaluation of broad impact), Reeves's (2006) four steps ending in reflection, and Anderson and Shattuck's (2012) eight-step aggregate.

Borrowing from interdisciplinary design research, Christensen and West recommend that each DBR study state which kind of design research it is. Research into design studies the design process from outside. Research for design serves the development of an effective product. Research through design uses the design process itself to test and develop theory.

Implications

Context

Requirements

  • An authentic setting with practitioner partners: teachers and learners who can take part as collaborators in repeated cycles, not only as participants
  • Time and budget for several iterations. A single build-and-test is not DBR
  • An explicit theory the design embodies, so that each revision tests something beyond "did this version work better"
  • Coordination of an interdisciplinary team: researchers, designers, practitioners and developers

Constraints

  • Competing roles. One person is often researcher, project manager, theorist and designer at once. The authors note that researchers can focus on only one role at a time, so over-investing in one puts the others at risk. See the claim on competing roles [~W]
  • Credibility of claims. A researcher who designed, built, implemented and studied an approach is exposed to bias in analysis (Barab & Squire, 2004; Anderson & Shattuck, 2012)
  • Fidelity to theory is suspect. In an iterating, multi-tasking project, the design as built may not embody the theory it claims to test (Hoadley, 2004)
  • Hard to control variables in real settings, and the qualitative data many studies produce are heavy to collect and analyse
  • Hard to recognise and replicate, because the terminology has proliferated and studies are often published in a standard research format that hides the design process

Grain Size

  • Course
  • Unit
  • Programme (a multi-year intervention in a district or network of schools)

Target Goals

  • An intervention that works in the setting it was designed for, and design principles that explain why
  • Local theory about how learning happened in this setting, and transferable theory beyond it

Target Learners

  • Learners in the real setting the intervention is built for, often a context existing research has not reached

Theory

Supporting

  • Situated Learning — learning is studied in the context that shapes it, which is why DBR refuses the laboratory
  • Designerly Stances — design as a way of knowing, which DBR treats as a source of research knowledge

Contradicting / Qualifying

  • The difficulty of isolating variables in authentic settings qualifies how far a DBR finding can support a causal claim. The authors describe researchers as torn between isolating critical variables and studying the design experience as a whole

Claims

Supporting

  • None yet recorded in the wiki from a DBR study's own evidence

Contradicting

Design

Sequence

The literature offers no single sequence. This composite follows the stages Bannan-Ritland (2003) and Reeves (2006) share, which Christensen and West set side by side. 1. Informed exploration: analyse the practical problem with practitioners, review the literature, and name the theory the design will embody (Needs Analysis, Stakeholder Mapping) 2. Enactment: design the intervention and implement it in the real setting 3. Iterate: test, revise and re-test, treating each revision as a small experiment and recording what changed and why 4. Evaluate local impact: does the design meet its intended outcomes here? 5. Evaluate broad impact and reflect: produce design principles and theory, local and transferable

Affordances

  • Formative Assessment — the iteration loop is formative evaluation of the design, run as research

Personalization

  • State the type of design research (into, for or through design), so a study does not try to be all three
  • Report the design process in the paper. Christensen and West suggest methods subheadings for design research type, design process and product, design and learning context, design collaborations, and each iteration with its data. Conclusions would then be split into local theory, transferable theory, and applications for practice

Examples

Key Sources

  • Christensen, K. D. N., & West, R. E. (2018). The development of design-based research. In Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology (1st ed., pp. 323–339). EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/development_of_design-based_research
  • Friedman, K., Benge-Steele, C., & Woods, A.D. (2026). ATS Field Note: Breakthrough Innovation. ATS Hub Field Note Series. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/297
  • Sten Ludvigsen. (2016). CSCL towards the future: The second decade of ijCSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-016-9230-x
Page metadata
Field Value
type process
id design-based-research
title Design-Based Research
description A design process run as research. An intervention is designed and revised over repeated cycles in a real learning setting, in collaboration with practitioners, so that each cycle both improves the design and builds or tests theory about learning.
status review
grain_size course
author Ann Brown and Allan Collins lineage, after Herbert Simon's design science
moved_from research-method/design-based-research, research-method/design-based-research-dbr
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-09-24
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