On September 28, 2023, the DBR network is planning its second symposium in Hamburg, titled “Finding a common ground for practicing and teaching DBR”.

Design-based research (DBR) is a challenge to early career researchers as well as many established educational researchers: One of the essential characteristics of DBR is that it combines very different activities; each of them brings its own goals, processes, and requirements that need to be reframed in the light of DBR. To provide a basis for teaching and communicating DBR in an understandable way and to give researchers guidance in their own projects, we must therefore discuss requirements for designing, experimenting and theorizing as well as for linking these activities to each other. While standards of empirical research are familiar to many, the design process and its connection to theory and empirics in DBR is still largely understudied. The symposium aims to start here and then link different perspectives by inviting Design Researchers and Educational Researchers with an empirical focus to an exchange with the DBR community.

Questions guiding our discussion could be:

  • What are the requirements of a good design process in educational contexts?
  • What helps link design, theory, and empirical analyses?
  • What could be concluded for the development of methodological standards in DBR?

We look forward to keynotes from Arthur Bakker (Utrecht University) and Pieter Jan Stappers (TU Delft). From the network, Heidrun Allert (CAU Kiel) will give the third speech.

To encourage exchange, we would like to follow a discussant model. The program planning is in progress. We will keep you informed here and via our newsletter. Registrations will be possible from June.