On the Science of Education Design Studies

Abstract

The authors argue that design studies, like all scientific work, must comport with guiding scientific principles and provide adequate warrants for their knowledge claims. The issue is whether their knowledge claims can be warranted. By their very nature, design studies are complex, multivariate, multilevel, and interventionist, making warrants particularly difficult to establish. Moreover, many of these studies, intended or not, rely on narrative accounts to communicate and justify their findings. Although narratives often purport to be true, there is nothing in narrative form that guarantees veracity. The authors provide a framework that links design-study research questions as they evolve over time with corresponding research methods. In this way, an integration can be seen of research methods focused on discovery with methods focused on validation of claims.