Master class on practice based research methods 11 December 2019. Education as an applied interdisciplinary research field faces acute challenges in defining the nature and scope of practice-based research. Constantly shifting notions of what it means to learn and, consequentially, what it means to teach make practice-based research a fluid and muddy concept. Increasing technologisation of learning environments and heightened expectations concerning the role of evidence in situated educational decisions have led some scholars to suggest a range of new approaches that are seen as more suitable for quickly changing research and practice contexts and capable to connect research with practice, design with teaching, and data with action. In this presentation, I discuss some different ways of thinking about these connections and emerging from them methodological implications. I argue that practice-based research has to ground itself in a much better understanding of diverse ways of knowing and embrace the notion of the methodological craftsmanship.

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Practice-based research
methods: Challenges
and potentials
Seminar and MasterClass
Lina Markauskaitė
11 December 2018 @University of
Southern Denmark, Kolding

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Background

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My 2 “modes” of working across research &
practice

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Main points
1. Research useful for teaching and learning (T&L)
changes together with T&L practices
2. Our challenge is to create enduring dynamic
connections between ways of engaging in T&L practices
and in research practices
3. Practice-based research is epistemic craftsmanship
4. We need Basic and Use-inspired basic research of T&L
practice
Note: When I say ‘practice’ I mean ‘T&L practice’. In fact, I
will talk about two practices: ‘T&L practice’ and ‘Research
practice’.

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Practice-based research (PBR)
Practice
– many definitions
– a number of practice
theories
My working definition of
practice:
– an enduring, purposive
activity
Some versions of PBR
– Research for practice
– Research of practice
– Research within practice
– Research through practice

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3rd Order2nd Order1st Order
The 3 Orders of learning, teaching, design &
research
Teaching as
telling
Learning as
acquisition
Designing for
learning
content
(product
design)
Teaching as
facilitation
Learning as
participation
Designing for
experiences
(service
design)
Teaching as
co-configuration
Learning as
co-construction &
conscientious
inhabiting
Co-designing for
knowing
(relational design)
Scientific
mode
(‘what works’)
Action mode
(‘know how’)
Ecosystem mode
(‘when’, ‘who’, ‘why’)

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I. Scientific mode
Situating research of and
for practice within the
established disciplines or
fields of study
PBR as a disciplined
inquiry

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Disciplines of education
1. Psychology
2. Sociology
3. Philosophy
4. History
5. Economics
6. Comparative ed
7. Geography
8. …
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7609/ful…

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Education as a discipline or field
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7609/ful…

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Discipline as…
…a set of shared
dispositions about:
a) Objects
b) Evidence
c) Methods
d) Expertise
Benefits
– Gives intellectual “home”
– Enables production of
cumulative knowledge
– Values intellectual agency
But
– Imposes constrains on
knowledge development
– External usefulness is rarely the
main concern
https://images.pexels.com

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II. Action mode
Situating research of and
for practice within the
practice
PBR as an activity in the
world

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A spectrum of approaches
Form
Research-based practice
to
Practice-based research
Teachers as:
– Designers
– Researchers
– Innovators

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Key features
– Draws on practitioners’
methodological ‘know
how’
– Produces ‘know how’ for
practice
Products do not ‘travel’ well:
– Diverse purposes
– Lack of contextual cues
– Unclear granularity
– Needs a community
– Needs a common
vocabulary
Falconer & Littlejohn, 2009

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III. Ecosystem mode
Situating research for and
of practice within a self-
improving ecosystem
PBR as a principled-
reflexive action within a
multilayered, dynamic
ecosystem
Source: Senge, 2000

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PBR as an ecosystem on its own
Models for linking research
to practice
1. Research Development &
Diffusion
2. Evidence-Based Practice
3. Boundary-Crossing
Practices
4. Knowledge Communities
A combination of all 4
modes is necessary
Based on Broekkamp & van Hout-Wolters, 2007
From Goodyear, 2011
Requires epistemic fluency
& craftsmanship
– Different disciplines
– Different inquiry traditions
– Different perspectives

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EXAMPLE 1:
‘Easy’ way for doing PBR
Following a tradition
https://images.pexels.com

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From ISLS Vision 2009
Tradition of the learning sciences

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Tradition of the learning sciences
“Learning Sciences (ISLS)… seek to
advance the sciences and practices of
learning, broadly speaking, with special
attention to how they may be augmented
by technology.”
“ISLS is committed to application in
context (not only in laboratories), to
rigorous empirical research (not simply
philosophy), and to design and
application (not only theory)”
From ISLS Vision 2009

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A view of learning
Learning is distributed…
…across people, and across tools and artifacts.
Activity
System
…therefore, it is situated and,
importantly, mediated.
Research involves production of
design artefacts – technology,
models, principles, theories
https://pixabay.com

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Design-based research
…a systematic but flexible
methodology aimed to
improve educational
practices through iterative
analysis, design,
development, and
implementation, based on
collaboration among
researchers and practitioners
in real-world settings, and
leading to contextually-
sensitive design principles
and theories.
Action
research
(Lab)
experimen
ts
DBR

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‘What’ of DBR: Main steps
Compleat model
Middleton et al, 2008
Research
(Theory)
Development
(Design & Field test)

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‘How’ of DBR: Main ingredients
Conjecture mapping
Sandoval, 2013
Research
(Theory)
Development &
Implementation
(Design)

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Example: Learning about climate systems
1. Learning complexity
knowledge
2. Productive failure & analogical
encoding
3. Developing concrete models,
worksheets, etc.
4. Working with & preparing
teachers
5. Trialing solutions in a
classroom
6. Refining Acknowledgement: ARC Linkage project with Michael Jacobson

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DBR: Some challenges
1. Researcher-participant relationship and roles
2. Hawthorne effect
3. Reliability and validity
4. Capturing context and process
5. Integrating and analyzing various, often ‘rich’, data formats
6. Producing knowledge needed for design (when, why)

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EXAMPLE 2:
‘Hard’ way for doing PBR
Working outside
disciplinary traditions
https://pixabay.com

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Some layers of social inquiry
What kinds of conclusions will
we be able to draw?
Where do we focus?
What kinds of evidence do we
collect?
What things do we choose to
notice?
How do we know & research?
What kinds of questions do we
ask?
How do we act?ONTOLOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY
METHODOLOGY
INSTRUMENTATION
DATA
ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES
Realism
Positivism
Nomothetic
Segregation
Numerical
Statistical
Nominalism
Anti-positivist
Ideographic
Integration
Qualitative
Interpretative
HUMAN NATURE
Determinism Voluntarism

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Living between the ‘ends’
Post-positivism Critical
(Discourse analysis)
Participatory,
Constructivist
(Action research)
Post-modernism
New materialism
Ecological perspectives
Performative
(Arts-based inquiry)
Complexity
Positivist Interpretativist
(Interaction analysis, Phenomenology)
Critical realism
(Design based research)
Feminism
(Discourse analysis)

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Example: Researching ‘formal concepts’ and
‘actionable knowledge’
Ontology: realist, dynamic
Axiology: internal-external
Epistemology: manifold
Human nature: grounded
Methodology: interpretativeImmanuel Kant
1724-1804
Thomas S. Kuhn
1922-1996
David Hume
1711-1776
Manuel Delanda
Lawrence Barsalou
Stephen Toulmin
1922-2009
Atkinson & Shriffin
Grounded cognition & manifold view of human conceptual understanding
It is NOT an eclectic constellation

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Research as ‘method’ and Research as ‘craft’
Design
Data
Analysis
Findings
Hypothesis
Design
Data
Analysis
Findings
Hypothesis
Design
Data
Analysis
Hypothesis
Data
Analysis
Analysis
Analysis
Hypothesis
Findings
Findings
Findings
Improvisation based on Patton (2011) Developmental evaluation

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Traditional challenges
Design
Data
Analysis
Findings
Hypothesis
Design
Data
Analysis
Hypothesis
Data
Analysis
Analysis
Analysis
Hypothesis
Findings
Findings
Findings
Improvisation based on Patton (2011) Developmental evaluation
1. Lack of compact theoretical language
2. No ready methodological toolbox
3. Being outside ‘epistemic renting’ culture
4. Hard create cumulative knowledge

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Some final notes
Where we are and what's
next
https://pixabay.com

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Pasteur's quadrant and the place of PBR
Everyday curiosity
Image from: http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/is-there-archaeology-in-pasteurs.html
Design-based
research, etc.
PBR
Action research,
evaluation studies
etc. PBR
Theory-oriented
research: cognition,
brain, etc. PBR

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Evolution of scientific & social methods
Scientific research
1. Empirical: Aristotle
2. Logical-theoretical:
Newton, Kepler
3. Computational: modelling
4. Exploratory: data-driven
Social research
1. Descriptive: qual & quan.
2. Theory-oriented:
interpretative & experimental
3. Constructivist-critical: action,
design-based
4. Social/behavioural data
mining, performative
Cutting-edge discoveries emerge at the edges of disciplinary domains from the
synthesis of theories, experiments and computation using large integrated datasets
Based on Szalay, 2007

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Final thoughts
Success of PBR much relies on our abilities to navigate across inquiry
cultures and craft PBR methods
Education
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/purity.png
https://xkcd.com/435

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Main points
1. Research useful for teaching and learning (T&L)
changes together with T&L practices
2. Our challenge is to create enduring dynamic
connections between ways of engaging in T&L practices
and in research practices
3. Practice-based research is epistemic craftsmanship
4. We need Basic and Use-inspired basic research of T&L
practice

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Email:
Lina.Marakauskaite@sydney.edu.au
Thank you
Your questions, comments, reflections…