Day 4

The role of theory in research in DBR

• Drawing on the readings, discuss the role of theory in educational technology research more generally and in research that uses a DBR approach specifically.'

From the Phillips reading, I now gather that the role of theory in Ed tech needs to be viewed with a critical lens as there seems to be some general problems with theory in research. Phillips mentions that theory-based research in learning technology has been difficult for three reasons.

"First, as an emerging field, e-learning or learning technology has attracted a diverse set of individual scholars who seek to apply research approaches from their own ‘discipline-of-origin’ to the field of learning technology. Second, learning technology is a multifaceted phenomenon involving design, development, practice and research; and academics and scholars have often focused on developing and implementing technologies for their teaching practice rather than conducting theory-based research. Third, scholarly inquiry in learning technology has often concerned itself with a theoretical evaluations in local learning and teaching contexts – did it work? At the expense of theory-based research. In this paper we contend that these form barriers to robust, theory-based learning technology research. We address these issues in subsequent sections, before presenting an approach to research in learning technology that we feel is both scholarly and pragmatic." It must also be mentioned that the term ‘research’ is used in a variety of ways in academic discourse but, despite this, its meaning is rarely questioned and often it is regarded as universally or even implicitly understood. Unfortunately, one of the consistent criticisms of educational research generally, and elearning in particular, has been that it is often conducted without a strong theoretical basis (Reeves, 1993).

From this we also need to understand that the role of research can provide a lens or guideline that strong theory provides an explanation of what is behind an array of observations. It must also be mentioned that useful research is often preceded by practical development, especially in emerging fields like Ed Tech. When considering research that includes DBR we need to consider how design plays a critical role in the development of theories” (Edelson, 2002, p. 106). This research can predict what will happen in a given context. In education, theory tries to come up with (testable) explanations of some aspect of learning. It seems that their central purpose is usually to expose, describe, categorise and make order of some phenomenon which we need to consider in our implementation and iteration cycles when considering DBR.

• What theory did Dorothy draw on?

Dorothy used the Hans Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy to draw on her work and Salmon's model.

• How did it help her to understand her research issue/ problem?

It seems that understanding Gadamer's theory helped her with the dialogue to elaborate on her problem. Things like a didactic transmission in history education is one way she made use of the constructs of this theory revealing how she linked the past to the present, and truthfulness etc. She then used Salmon's five stage model as guidance in mediating conversations on Wiki.