Design-based research–Tension between practical relevance and knowledge generation–What can we learn from projects?

Researchers often develop teaching-learning solutions to improve the quality of instruction. Some of these solutions are developed in the paradigm of design-based research (DBR). The output of DBR projects goes beyond design products for practice and includes contributions to local theories about teaching-learning in specific subject areas and contexts as well as knowledge about how to design and implement these processes. Design knowledge and contributions to local theories are intended to construct a cumulative, content-specific body of knowledge about teaching and learning that is transferable to related subject areas or contexts. To make this process work, dimensions of DBR need to be systematically reported. However, DBR projects are sometimes criticized for focusing more on practical output than on reports about research output and the form of cooperation with practitioners. To empirically investigate these presumed voids, we examined DBR projects conducted by the German-speaking physics education research community during the past 20 years.