David Wiley on the Current State and Future of Design-based Research (2013)
Channel: DesignBasedResearch
Date: 2014-02-08

This video interview was recorded at the 2013 Design-based Research at the Crossroads Conference in Athens, GA (http://dbrxroads.coe.uga.edu/). The following questions were asked:

1.) What are you doing currently with design-based research
2.) Where is DBR currently, and where do we go from here, and
3.) What advice do you have for burgeoning design-based researchers.

Dave makes the following points in this video:

1. Wiley's current DBR research is looking at applying the DBR method to improving typically expensive text books for general education courses (high enrollment courses) with open education resources that are licensed to allow the iterative process in DBR to improve the content over time by engaging the replacement and revision of open content sources. 
2. Wiley comments that from his perspective DBR is relatively in its infancy and yet he values the impact DBR is making in quality and costs for example -- Toyota manufacturing system.  He acknowledges that DBR plays an important role in what we do and the process we do our research.
2.1 Wiley explains how the Toyota model of lean manufacturing process is aligned with DBR.  He reflects on how this lean manufacturing model is all about improving quality and the people who are directly engaged in the production, it includes improvement over time, lots of people being involved, and not being driven by a single manager. He suggests that this is similar to DBR as the researcher is not just a researcher telling a teacher what they need to do, but very much a partnership with all the people who are involved.  The essence is that there are people working together with a real focus on improvement, a real focus on quality, a real focus on valuing everyone's contribution and empowering anyone to "veto" when they see something needs to be fixed.
3. Wiley recommends that when starting out in DBR you need to switch your mind to really think in cycles and make your work about including everyone in your context, see them as co-developers and co-contributors.  Essential to this is to stop asking the question "Does this work or not?" and to instead ask "How do I make this work better?"
3.1 In order to apply DBR to a limited timeframe (e.g. PHD dissertation), Wiley asserts that it starts with the way you handle the problem. He relates "take a problem that you breakdown and be creative about how you break it down.  It might seem the natural cycle time to be a 1 year cycle, it might seem natural, but now it is on you to be more creative to make it a 1 month cycle or 3 month cycle -- so you can get through it 4, 5, or 12 times in a year." The essential element is that as you engage in the process you balance your attention to the impact you can have on product.

David Wiley's academic home is at Brigham Young University. His research interests are open education, college affordability, access to education, social media and learning, future of higher education, social entrepreneurship. Learn more about Dave here: http://education.byu.edu/directory/view/david-wiley and here: http://education.byu.edu/directory/view/david-wiley