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Theme Issue: The Role of Design in Educational Research Anthony E. Kelly, Guest Editor Research as Design by Anthony E. Kelly Inspired by the seminal work of Ann Brown, Allan Collins, Roy Pea, and Jan Hawkins, a growing number of researchers have begun to adopt the metaphors and methods of the design and engineering fields. This special issue highlights the work of some of these active researchers and provides a number of commentaries on it. he educational system may be described as open, complex, nonlinear, organic, historical, and social. It embodies the values and problems of the society that supports it and sets its goals. Educational researchers use the tools of science to construct a professional language within the field of education. They use this language to generate distinctions and descriptions for the system. The distinction and descriptions themselves and interventions designed from them make the system’s actions relevant to its own evolution and improvement (cf. Maturana & Varela, 1987). When we study the developing professional language of educational researchers, we find communities that use dialects that support arguments centered on confirmation (e.g., those that apply grammars such as Fisher’s randomized trials to educational variables with measurable variance). Other communities use dialects (particularly those influenced by the grammar of ethnography) that support rich descriptions that illuminate arguments about processes. An emerging research dialect, which is described in this special issue, attempts to support arguments constructed around the results of active innovation and intervention in classrooms. The operative grammar, which draws upon models from design and engineering, is generative and transformative. It is directed primarily at understanding learning and teaching processes when the researcher is active as an educator. Stokes (1997) describes a typology of motivations for research. Design research in education would fall under his use-inspired basic research category. In Toulmin’s sense, this research is clinical (Toulmin, 2001). Further, its proponents are willing to attempt to address, simultaneously and iteratively, the scientific T Educational Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 3–4 processes of discovery, exploration, confirmation, and dissemination. In its goals and in its context of use, this emerging design research methodology attempts to be both scientific and educational. The first article in the special issue, by the Design-Based Research Collective, summarizes the current thinking of the group (begun in 1999), which now includes members with a vast array of backgrounds, including cognitive science, psychology, artificial intelligence, anthropology, biology, mathematics, human-computer interaction, and instructional design. Most of the Collective have been involved with efforts from some of the original design-based research proponents, including Jan Hawkins, Allan Collins, and Ann Brown. The article by Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, and Schauble provides an elegant description of an approach to design research that has its roots in Russian teaching experiments, Piagetian psychology, and radical and social constructivism (for a brief history, see Steffe & Thompson, 2000). Their approach steers by disciplinary subject matter and students’ construction of this subject matter (primarily in mathematics but also in science). In their article, McCandliss, Kalchman, and Bryant revitalize the field-laboratory connection proposed by Brown (1992) by demonstrating the success of collaborations between researchers from cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, and development psychology and teachers. The article by Lobato raises an issue central to educational research: the nature of transfer of learning. She argues that one’s framing of the transfer problem impacts both local design decisions and larger (population-level) claims. Bannan-Ritland, whose work grows out of (and transcends) instructional system design, provides a multistage model for design research in education. This model provides an important framework and vocabulary to propel development in the emerging methodology. Shavelson, Phillips, Towne, and Feuer, though supportive of design research, remain skeptical of the warrants for its claims. They situate their criticism within the framework proposed in the National Research Council report, Scientific Research in Education (2002). Sloane and Gorard describe the three phases of model building common to statistical methodologies. They situate design reJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 3 search methods in these phases and also extend their analysis by considering not only sources of experimental “error” but also criteria in design activities that center on obviating “failure.” Zaritsky, Kelly, Flowers, Rogers, and O’Neill provide the lagniappe for the special issue. Their brief commentary intersects clinical practice, product design, the study of diffusion of innovations, and emerging perspectives on business communities of practice to sketch some of the territory that awaits educational researchers (design experimenters or experiment designers) in bringing their findings to bear on “the marketplace” of practice. NOTE article, which was supported by the Spencer Foundation. Additional funders are credited in the individual articles. In all cases the opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the respective funding agencies. Also, the author wishes to acknowledge the feedback on this overview by Christopher Hoadley, Richard Shavelson, Finbarr Sloane, Raul Zaritsky, and the editors of Educational Researcher. AUTHOR ANTHONY E. KELLY is a professor at George Mason University, Graduate School of Education, 4400 University Drive, MS #5D6, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444; akelly1@gmu.edu. His research interests include educational research methods, cognitive neuroscience, and the uses of technology in education. Manuscript received October 8, 2002 Revisions received November 7, 2002 Accepted November 7, 2002 The writing of this set of articles was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation to Anthony E. Kelly and Richard Lesh, whose goal is to explicate and advance emerging educational research methods. An exception is the Design-Based Research Collective 4 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER