How can educational research support practice at scale? Attending to educational designer needs

Abstract

Curricula, assessments and teacher professional development programmes wield a powerful influence on teaching and learning enactment. Together with the interpretation of those using them, these products mediate the flow of ideas from research to practice. In most countries, those curricula, assessments and professional development programmes that become widely used are created by educational designers. Given their crucial function, it is surprising that the role of educational designers is rarely recognised in the educational research literature, studied empirically or supported in practice. This article argues that educational research stands to (better) support practice at scale when it is attuned to the needs of educational designers. First, mechanisms for knowledge production and use are discussed, including the linkage role played by educational designers in the educational infrastructure of most countries. Then, the importance of understanding and bolstering the linkage between research findings and the work of designers is discussed. Arguments are given for research to better support those who design for scale, along with sample research questions posed by educational designers. In these, a distinction is made between the knowledge designers crave to shape their products (curricula, assessments, teacher professional development) and the knowledge they need to shape the processes through which those products come to fruition. This article closes with a call for educational researchers to explicitly focus their knowledge creation and dissemination efforts towards research consumers with the largest direct effects on teaching and learning: educational designers.

A stratospheric mission – design of a conceptual framework to bring weather balloons and STEM into the classroom

“…During Space Lesson 3 in particular the project team met with the pupils and teachers to talk to them about the success of the project and outline some of the preliminary payload experiment results with the children. The reflective discussion with the teachers exemplified the value in the importance of purpose and empirical relevance to practitioners in conceptualising and enacting educational design (McKenney and Schunn, 2018) and also in supporting them to conduct and participate in research (Teaching Council, 2021).…”

“…Incorporate reflection to inform future sessions Froebel (Lilley, 1967) Connect the child to natural world Steiner (Edmunds, 1987), Dewey (Dewey, 1997;Rivkin, 1998), Malaguzzi (Constable, 2014), Pestalozzi (Rusk and Scotland, 1985), Sobel (2005) Centre around the learner Piaget (Constable, 2014), Rousseau (Rusk and Scotland, 1985) As a skilled practitioner, provide an enriched environment Roe et al ( 2013), Farah et al (2008) Incorporate adventure through uncertainty and supported risk Dewey (Dewey, 1997;Rivkin, 1998), Beames and Brown (2016) Develop a space for creativity and agency Steiner (Edmunds, 1987), Malaguzzi (Constable, 2014) Incorporate authentic challenge to achieve flow Csikszentmihalyi and LeFerve (1989), Beames and Brown (2016) Integrate curriculum subjects DES (1999), NCCA (1999), Bacon ( 2018)…”

Lecturing from home: Exploring academics' experiences of remote teaching during a pandemic

“…Uses determinism is an approach that perceives technology as offering neutral tools that extend our capacities ( Kanuka, 2008 ). Instead, we argue, a more insightful and reflective approach to the use of educational technology, based on educational research ( McKenney & Schunn, 2018 ) and learning design ( Laurillard, 2012 ) is required to avoid technology being used in an instrumental way ( Henderson et al., 2017 ) that “manifests itself in wariness, in stilted teaching encounters and in a silenced discourse” ( Joseph-Richard, Jessop, Okafor, Almpanis, & Price, 2018 , p. 389).…”

Attitudes towards Research Methods in Education: Development of the ATRMQ Scale

“…For instance, McKenney and Schunn [4] argue that educational research can provide teachers with a solid theoretical framework for curriculum design, so training in research can help teachers apply this framework in practice. Similarly, previous authors concluded that teachers trained in educational research have a deeper understanding of the teaching and learning process, are able to implement research in their professional practice to enhance student performances, and acquire a greater capacity for making informed, evidence-based decisions [5][6][7].…”