What is Design-Based Research?

Design-Based Research (DBR) is a systematic, iterative, and flexible approach often used in our work designing emerging technologies. We’ll contrast DBR with other methods that are sometimes confused with it such as, design-based implementation research, co-design, and design studies. In our focus on DBR, we’ll see how it can help us understand and improve our theory-based designs through empirical research in authentic contexts. In this session, attendees will learn what DBR is, and how design activities and research activities can be used to test theoretical conjectures, improve implementations, and generate knowledge such as design patterns, principles, or theories. DBR is iterative and we’ll spend time discussing how to take findings and results from one iteration of DBR into the next cycle, including how to document this process. The session leaders will also discuss how to include an equity lens in DBR work.