Educational Design Research: Final Reflection

What more do I hope to learn about EDR?
McKenney and Reeves (2012) noted that, "The insights and the interventions of educational design research evolve over time through multiple iterations of investigation, development, testing, and refinement." The aspect of EDR that I would like to have a better understanding of is the relationship between the iterative process and the results of the study. I have struggled with the idea of putting the treatment through several iterations and then still knowing what I am measuring (or otherwise analyzing) in the end. I have no doubt that an intervention, or treatment, improves its effectiveness and efficiency over the course of pilots and trials and refinements. I am just unclear about how I could relate any results to any particular piece of the iterations.

Will I consider EDR for my dissertation?
No, I am not considering EDR for my dissertation. I am already committed to a case study approach of an existing program. However, learning about EDR this semester has made me think about the process that I (and colleagues in my office) use to develop new programs and projects. I can see using an EDR approach for the next major project that I roll out after my dissertation is completed. It would be interesting to use the EDR approach and perhaps even publish the results.

What aspects of the peer review activities did I find beneficial of challenging?
I found the peer review activities to be highly beneficial. My classmates gave me excellent feedback, often seeing things that I had completely overlooked. While I did not always incorporate all of their suggestions into my final drafts, I did find that I incorporated the majority of their suggestions. In the end, I think my papers were much improved by the peer process. At the same time, I also learned a great deal by doing peer reviews of other students' papers. That process forced me to take a close, critical look at what someone else was working on. I think that one of the outcomes of these assignments wa that I read the work of my classmates much more closely than I would have otherwise. I was purposeful in which peers' papers I read - choosing ones that were fairly closely aligned with my own topic. In the end, I learned quite a bit from reading those drafts closely enough to comment. Some of the ideas I read about in peers' papers even affected my own work.


McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.

Decision-Making in Educational Design Research

The decision-making process inherent in Educational Design Research (EDR) is still a bit muddy for me. My sense of EDR is that the design is constantly in flux. Assumptions, decisions, and changes all continue to happen throughout the design and implementation process. According to McKenney and Reeves (2012), the interactions and resulting changes to the design continue, and can even increase, as a project matures. The video of Dr. Bannan-Ritland describing the process of decision-making in EDR contributed to my confusion. In the video, she defined EDR as an unstructured, problem-solving process. She went on to describe the EDR process as having large numbers of assumptions and decisions made during the design process. She even indicated that her graduate assistants made many decisions along the way concerning the design of a project.

This situation makes me then wonder how we are able to measure which aspects of the design principles impacted the outcomes of an intervention, and to what extent. Perhaps due to my inexperience as a researcher, I would find it difficult to feel confident about making continuous decisions regarding the design of a program. It seems to me that effective EDR requires an experienced researcher who can quickly make design decisions based upon assumptions from the literature and from experience. My concern is really the potential domino effect of making weak design decisions early on which can then have negative effects on the subsequent decision-making. Very quickly, a design can become either quite convoluted or just based on weak assumptions and decisions. Either way, a researcher would end up in a situation where it would be very difficult to have confidence in the ability to judge the impact of the design elements on the outcomes of the intervention.

McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.