The Provision of Contributions and Insights to Improve Practice - Essay Example

Methodology Chapter METHODOLOGY CHAPTER Comparison with Lab Experiment Research According to Plomp & Nieveen (2009), the key aim of conducting educational research involves the provision of contributions and insights to improve practice, as well as inform policy development and decision making in the education domain. DBR, rather than acting to replace present approaches, seeks to incorporate them. However, it does so with the aim of generating innovations and theory to solve educational research questions and issues. For this reason, it differs from other common research approaches like lab experiment research, action research, and formative assessment research. These differences, which can be considered to be improvements on the latter approaches, are what make design-based research a good fit for this research study. Design-based research differs from lab experiment re4search in a number of ways, especially in the education domain. While using lab experiment research in this case would have required a laboratory setting to ensure that there were no significant interruptions from confounding variables, design-based research will enable the current research to account for the dynamics, complexities, and limitations of the real world classroom (Behrendt, 2010). In addition, despite the existence of significant dependent and confounding variables in the classroom, DBR does not seek to consider all the former variables. This ability to choose from a number of dependent variables offers an advantage for using DBR to study the use Adobe Connect in learning a second language, especially since lab experiments have a fixed procedure due to attempts to manipulate one variable and control for the rest. By revising the research design iteratively and flexibly over the course of the research, it will be possible to characterize the complexities of how participants develop competency in the use of technology (Behrendt, 2010). Moreover, the fact that DBR will allow for social interactions with the ESL teachers, as well as between the ESL teachers and their students. This is due to its “real world” orientation, which lends it an added advantage over lab experiment research that would isolate the ESL teachers and prevent their interaction with researchers. Due to the complexities portended by the language barrier and learning new technology, it will be difficult to come up with a hypothesis from initial investigation of the research problem, which is a requirement of experimental investigations (Behrendt, 2010). By using DBR, however, the researchers will be able to develop practical design profiles to investigate problems in learning ESL. Since the research process, will require collaboration with ESL teachers from across Saudi Arabia with different expertise and challenges, experimental research would be limited because the researchers would have to make the ultimate decisions. By using DBR, the researchers will be able to draw on the expertise of ESL teachers in making decisions on best practices when teaching ESL with technology. In addition, the presence of different phases of research that are cyclical will enable the researchers, in collaboration with ESL teachers, to adapt the solutions, as more evidence becomes available (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012). Traditionally, the lab experiment approach has been the preferred approach in educational research. While it may be useful developing an initial version of teaching ESL with technology, lab experiment research lacks the ability to further test and refine the learning artifact developed, especially in a real classroom setting. Anderson and Shattuck (2012) argue that, in the real classroom setting, researchers must seek to tackle learning transfer from the perspective of the subject, contending that observational judgments are usually unwarranted. This latter point limits lab experiment research, particularly with regards to its ability to transfer learning and update theory based on results. Theoretical findings on how students learn ESL using Adobe Connect and ability to update existing theory on the subject thus will be another key contribution of DBR in comparison to lab experiment research. In fact, it is possible to refer to the findings that will come from DBR as the ontological innovation since DBR will lead to the emergence of unforeseen issues, as a result, of the wide range and intensity of observations (Reeves, 2005). In turn, this will result in findings that may instruct the refinement and re-introduction of explanatory concepts of theory. In short, results from lab experiment research rarely lead to improvement on what is already in use, such as the use of technology to teach ESL in Saudi Arabia, because it mainly seeks to prove or disprove a hypothesis, while DBR has a higher chance of being effectively applied, as it is the result of real-life practitioner collaboration (Reeves, 2005). Comparison with the Action Based Research (ABR) In relation to the fact that the present research study is conducting an investigation of ESL teachers, who are also in collaboration with one another, DBR will share some of action based research’s characteristics. This is especially because, just as with ABR, DBR will seek to identify issues confronting the teaching of ESL in the “real-world” classroom setting, while also seeking to use the information gathered to improve subsequently on current best practices (Baumfield et al, 2009). This will also be augmented by the deep involvement of the researchers and ESL teachers in the process of research, which is a similar approach to ABR. However, DBR will be a better fit for the current research study as it will enable the researchers to generate theoretical concepts that will enable them solve real issues facing technology-based ESL teaching and learning. In addition, the researchers will be able to collaborate with ESL teachers from the beginning of the study in the research design and the research process (Baumfield et al, 2009). This is one major difference with ABR, which would have involved research design by the ESL teachers and the researchers would have come in later to facilitate the process of research. Plomp & Nieveen (2009) found that, ABR and DBR share several similarities, such as both striving for utility, production of knowledge that is useful to researchers and practitioners, combination of evaluation and acting, practitioner and researcher collaboration, striving for improvement and development, creation and testing of knowledge throughout the process, and interventions aimed at local intervention. However, action based research and design based research endeavors have conditions that do not overlap. For example, there may be cases of ABR without technical design, as well as cases of DBR striving to solve a problem purely and DBR sans local practice intervention (Plomp & Nieveen, 2009). The major goal and contribution of DBR is assumed to be striving for new ways of achieving an un-situated goal, which is critical in this research design since the major problems of using Adobe Connect to teach ESL in Saudi Arabia are as of yet unclear. DBR also demands novel technology and innovation, whereas ABR moves more toward normal design practice. As a result, DBR will be a better fit since the current technology under investigation, Adobe Connect, requires radical solutions due to language barriers and the need for cross-cultural competencies. If ABR were to be used, it would result in safe solutions because there is limited opportunity to adapt the solution to emergent issues after its implementation (Plomp & Nieveen, 2009). Since the research question for the study seeks to address the realm of technology research in an educational setting, it will be important to take the classroom setting as a microcosm of society. Thus, just as with other aspects of society, coming up with the best solution will require dialogue, debate, and collaboration between divergent perspectives, which is where design based research holds a significant advantage over the action based research (Arthur, 2012). Because it is the ESL teachers who will be introducing the Adobe Connect concept to the students, their voices will be better recognized and integrated using a design based research. Action based research would tend to view the researcher as an external technocrat, bringing advice and solutions to ESL teachers who have identified the problems facing technology-aided teaching of ESL. However, design based research will allow the issues being discussed and addressed in this research study to emerge from a real school setting (Arthur, 2012), through the ESL teachers’ work with the students. The issues that arise from using Adobe Connect to teach ESL need to be negotiated between the researchers and the ESL teachers, although it should also be added that this would not be a reversal of directionality. As pointed out by Mackey and Gass (2012), an important balance has to be struck between what researchers identify as issues and problems over the course of the research and the issues that practitioners consider as pressing. It is this conflict of objectives and values, which creates a valuable opportunity for collaboration and debate. Both action based research and design based research would allow the ESL teachers to become active collaborators during the identification of research priorities, as well as contribute during the entire process of research. Most proponents of action-based research have recognized the fundamental role of practitioners, in this case ESL teachers, in research. This particular research study will seek to use design based research because, not only does it solve problems related to technology-aided ESL teaching that action based research addresses, but also identifies design principles that can be reused (Mackey & Gass, 2012). Comparison with the Formative Evaluation Research Of all the three, research designs that were discarded in favor of design-based research, formative evaluation is the closest, especially with regards to its formative and iterative nature that is similar to DBR. In fact, over the course of the research study, formative evaluation will be adopted as a complementary design because it will offer the study opportunities to iteratively refine the theory and design guiding the research. However, design based research will be a better fit for investigating the research question because it will enable the researchers to generate theory, which is not an objective of formative evaluation (Flagg, 2013). Instead, using formative evaluation for this study would have resulted solely on the improvement of design practice, meaning that it would have been difficult to improve further on the practice after the initial implementation of solutions. Whereas formative assessment research is an evaluation design, design based research is more of a research paradigm and allows more flexibility in decision-making and implementation (Flagg, 2013). Formative evaluation research is also referred to as implementation evaluation or developmental evaluation, and its best use is during the determination of how effective a program, as well as process, is as the process is still ongoing (Kopec et al, 2012). While this makes it similar to design based research, some crucial differences make DBR a better fit for answering the research question. Strictly speaking, using formative evaluation in investigating issues and solutions in using technology to improve ESL teaching would be mainly concerned with feedback to ESL teachers concerning their performance, as well as about the courses they have designed and taught. In this case, the ESL teacher would be the one to consider received information from the various sources, including other ESL teachers, researchers, and students, making him/her the evaluator and the subject of evaluation. On the other hand, using design-based research will enable the ESL teacher, in collaboration with the researchers; to test the design of the ESL intervention based on prior research and derived principles from this research (Kopec et al, 2012). In this case, it has been noted that design based research is not merely another term for formative assessment, despite their stark similarities. Using design-based research for the current study will enable the collaboration between ESL teachers and researchers to refine interventions. This will be done through improving ESL interventions iteratively and testing the interventions in various contexts by using diverse ESL teachers (Hung, 2011). In addition, it will also be conducted through shuttling between application and expansion of theory and seeking to explicate insights from the theory, which, although grounded in context, can be modified and extrapolated for implementation in increasingly diverse contexts. In short, design based research will rely on expert review, literature adaptation, and antecedent theoretical activities regarding ESL technological interventions. This will go beyond formative evaluation since it will conclude by positing a theory, as well as making an effort to support and understand sustainability and innovation in using technology as an ESL teaching intervention (Hung, 2011). Since the current study is seeking to identify issues and solutions for using technology as an intervention for effective teaching of ESL in an environment with language and cultural barriers, formative evaluation would be insufficient since its main objective is improving interventions that are already in progress (Hung, 2011). As a result, it will not afford the researchers a full view and assessment of the failure or success of the program as DBR would. Additionally, formative evaluation would only be as effective as the resources availed to the ESL teachers by the school administrations, unlike DBR, which, through collaboration with researchers, enables for cost sharing. If this research study used formative evaluation, any significant changes indicated as necessary by the evaluation can only be addressed sufficiently in the presence of funding from schools. Finally, formative evaluation will allow the researcher to collect information about whether the technology-based ESL intervention is successful in ways that could improve its design, after which the intervention is frozen. On the other hand, DBR will allow the researchers to take successful innovations as a collaborative product of the classroom context and the designed intervention (Hung, 2011). This means that the research will go past the perfection of its interventions to a broader inquiry into the nature of technology-aided ESL teaching. References Anderson, T. & Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-Based Research. A Decade of Progress in Education Research? Educational Researcher, 41(1), 16-25. Arthur, J. (2012). Research methods and methodologies in education. London: Sage Publications. Baumfield, V., Hall, E., & Wall, K. (2009). Action research in the classroom. London: SAGE Publications. Behrendt, H. (2005). Research in science education: Past, present, and future. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Flagg, B. N. (2013). Formative Evaluation for Educational Technologies. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Hung, H.T. (Hung, 2011). Design-based research: Designing a multimedia environment to support language learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 48(2), 159–169. Kopec, D. A., Sinclair, E. L. A., & Matthes, B. (2012). Evidence based design: A process for research and writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2012). Research methods in second language acquisition: A practical guide. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Plomp, T. & Nieveen, N. (2009). An Introduction to Educational Design Research. Netzodruk: Enschede. Reeves, T. C. (2005). Special issue: Design-based research – design-based research in educational technology: Progress made, challenges remain. Educational Technology, 45(1), 48. Read More