Design-Based Research

The Creative Unit "Subject-related educational processes in transformation" uses the methodological approach of Design-Based Research which integrates various methods, but in addition provides a methodological framework from which the two objectives - research and design of change - can be realised.

With the methodological approach of Design Based Research, teaching-learning environments are cyclically (further) developed, implemented and empirically tested. The aim is firstly to develop learning environments which may be suitable to initiate subject-specific learning processes and at the same time to arrive at a (local) theory about the design of this very process. Didactic design studies exist which are neither concerned with the static description of an actual state nor the question of whether something works (in the sense of "what works best"). Instead, it is about how a particular learning environment works and develops, taking into account the particular context, particularly in view of the changing structure within the educational system.

In the specialist didactic subprojects, teaching and learning processes in lessons and in individual learning will be examined. The subprojects rely on situations of teaching activity in which it is clear that, due to changes in the wider or narrower context, previous patterns of action are no longer viable. For these situations, learning arrangements will be designed and developed cyclically. Equally a contributing theory on teaching and learning processes is created. Learning arrangement and theory are in consequence, related to, reflected on and evaluated with regard to the initial question.