Design in educational research - clarifying conceptions and presuppositions

The term ‘design’ is used widely – and diversely – across the field of educational research, in varying constellations with educational terms, and both as a verb and as a noun. To give but a few examples, the following are commonly found in the Anglo-American literature:

Pedagogical design (Conole, 2013; Laurillard, 2012)

Learning design (Conole, 2013, used as a noun, Mor et al., 2014, used as a verb)

Design for learning (Carvalho and Goodyear, 2014)

Educational design (Goodyear, 2005)

Instructional design (Gagné et al., 2005).

In Scandinavia, the term didaktisk design is prevalent (Gynther, 2010; Selander and Svärdemo-Åberg, 2008; Levinsen and Sørensen, 2011; Hansen, 2012; Dohn, 2011a; Dohn and Hansen, 2016), though the Scandinavian equivalent of the Anglo-American terms are used as well (Selander and Kress, 2010; Jensen, 2002). Didaktisk design takes as its outset the German concept of Didaktik which, to complicate matters, has a rather different meaning than the English didactics: The English didactics denotes instructional methods, narrowly construed as concerned with the efficient delivery of information. In contrast, the German and Scandinavian Didaktik denotes the broad field of teaching and learning, both theoretically and practically, with a significant focus on Bildung, i.e. on the formation of the person. However, the apparent extensive agreement within Scandinavia on which term to use conceals a diversity quite as large as the one within the Anglo-American literature, as to the precise reference of ‘design’ as well as to this reference’s status as process or entity.