Educational Design Research

Yesterday, I read a very interesting paper about Educational Design Research (EDR)

First, I was supprised to read the following claim in Reeves, McKenny and Herrington's (2011) paper:

"Perhaps with the exception of a few nations such as Singapore, Finland and South Korea, most countries have an insufficient basis to be satisfied with the educational attainment of their primary, secondary, and post-secondary educational systems today." (p.55)

Actually, I thought that the educational problems were global. However, the paper provides no references to research confirming that Singapore, Finland and South Korea have no problems in their educational systems. So, it is interesting to find evidence and to look closer into possible explanations. I will try to find documentation for this claim in future readings.

Second, EDR is characterized as an educational research approach which links directly to practice and enables concrete educational changes and theoretical development.

"Unlike other forms of educational research, educational design research provides a direct link between research and practice, and thus the chances that it will have a meaningful impact are greatly enhanced." (p.58)

Finally, the paper provides a clear distinction between action research and educational design research. It is indirectly stated that EDR aims for constructing theory, models, or principles which can lead new design initiatives in contrast to action research where the focus is on solving concrete problems in practice.
In the future studies, I will look for other distinctions between EDR and action research. I am not sure that all action researchers will argue the way Reeves, McKenny and Herrington do.

References

Reeves, T.C., McKenny, S., and Herrington, J. (2011) Publishing and perishing: The critical importance of educational design research. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology , 27(1), 55-65