A participatory framework proposal for guiding researchers through an educational mobile app development

Keywords: Participatory framework, Mobile application, Educational software development, Educational Design Research, Mixed-methods, Participatory Design, User-Centered Design

Abstract

The research work reported in this article is part of a wider study aimed at developing a mobile application (app) for Science Education in primary school. For that, we designed a participatory framework proposal nested within the larger framework of Educational Design Research. This framework emerged from the authors’ need to organise the different phases of the mobile apps development and to arrange the expected products that arise from them. Our framework suggests a grounded, participatory and user-centred approach, relating literature contributions with data collected among future end-users. In this study, we exemplify the implementation of the proposed framework by presenting the outcomes of a specific moment of the preliminary research: students’ stories and drawing analysis, to define the mobile app concept. For that, we (1) present and describe the participatory framework proposal, (2) identify and characterise the research method adopted to define the mobile app concept, (3) reveal and analyse data collected from the implementation of a creative writing and drawing activity performed by fourth grade primary-school students, and (4) describe the implications of data analysis in the mobile app concept definition. Our intention is to share with other educational researchers an approach that can be used to develop educational mobile apps grounded on future end-users’ perceptions and ideas. We also aim to contribute to deepen the Educational Design Research apps by proposing and exemplifying the implementation of a framework that brings together researchers, students, teachers and experts.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Rita Tavares, CIDTFF, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Rita Tavares is currently a Research Fellow. She is an integrated member of the Research Centre Didactics and Technology in Teacher Education – CIDTFF (originally Centro de Investigação em Didática e Tecnologia na Formação de Formadores), Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Portugal, and her main research interests are Digital Educational Resources, Digital Learning Environments, Participatory Design, User-Centered Design, Universal Design (for Learning), Educational Data Mining, and Science Education.

Rui Marques Vieira, CIDTFF, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Rui Vieira has been teaching in University of Aveiro since 2004 where he is involved in initial and post-graduation teacher’s education. He is an integrated member of the Research Centre Didactics and Technology in Teacher Education – CIDTFF, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Portugal, and his research interests are related mainly with Science Education and Critical Thinking.

Luís Pedro, DigiMedia, Department of Communication and Arts, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Luis Pedro is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Arts, University of Aveiro, Portugal. He is an integrated member of the Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre – DigiMedia and his research interests are related to Social Media Development, Integration and Assessment in Educational and Training Contexts.

References


Allen, M. (2007) Designing Successful e-Learning: Forget What You Know About Instructional Design and Do Something Interesting, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.


Amado, J. (2014) Manual de investigação qualitativa em educação (Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education), 2nd edn, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra. doi: 10.14195/978-989-26-0879-2


Amiel, T. & Reeves, T. (2008) ‘Design-based research and educational technology: rethinking technology and the research agenda’, Educational Technology & Society, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 29–40, [online] Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.11.4.29


Anastasi, A. (1976) Psychological Testing, 4th edn, MacMillan, New York, NY.


Anderson, T. & Shattuck, J. (2012) ‘Design-based research: a decade of progress in education research?’, Educational Researcher, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 16–25. doi: 10.3102/0013189X11428813


Barab, S. & Squire, K. (2004) ‘Design-based research: putting a stake in the ground’, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 1–14. doi: 10.1207/s15327809jls1301_1


Beck, K. (2000) Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Boston, MA.


Ben-Zahia, M. & Jaluta, I. (2014) ‘Criteria for selecting Software development models’, in Global Summit on Computer & Information Technology, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Sousse, pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1109/GSCIT.2014.6970099


Bichelmeyer, B. (2005) ‘“The ADDIE model” – a metaphor for the lack of clarity in the field of IDT’, in AECT 2004 IDT Futures Group Presentations, eds E. Boling, IDT Record, Indiana, pp. 1–7, [online] Available at: http://www.unco.edu/CETL/sir/clt/documents/IDTf_Bic.pdf


Bodily, R., Leary, H. & West, R. E. (2019) ‘Research trends in instructional design and technology journals’, British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 64–79. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12712


Boehm, B. & Turner, R. (2003) ‘Observations on balancing discipline and agility’, Proceedings of the Agile Development Conference, 2003, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Salt Lake City, UT, pp. 32–39. doi: 10.1109/ADC.2003.1231450


Boyle, T. (2002) ‘Towards a theoretical base for educational multimedia design’, Journal of Interactive Media in Education, vol. 2, pp. 1–16, [online] Available at: www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/2. doi: 10.5334/2002-2


Branch, R. & Kopcha, T. (2014) ‘Instructional design models’, in Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, 4th edn, eds J. Spector, et al., Springer Science+Business Media, New York, NY, pp. 77–97. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5


Brown, A. & Green, T. (2016) The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice, 3rd edn, Taylor & Francis, New York, NY.


Chen, I. (2011) ‘Instructional design methodologies’, in Instructional Design: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, eds Information Resources Management Association, IGI Global, London, pp. 80–94.


Costa, F. (2013) ‘Designing educational multimedia resources’, in Media in Education, eds A. Moreira, O. Benavides & A. J. Mendes, Springer, New York, NY, pp. 29–40. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-3175-6_3


Creswell, J. W. & Creswell, J. D. (2018) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 5th edn, Sage Publications, Los Angeles, CA.


de Villiers, R. & Harpur, P. (2013) ‘Design-based research – the educational technology variant of design research: illustrated by the design of an m-learning environment’, Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference on – SAICSIT ’13, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), East London, South Africa, pp. 252–261. doi: 10.1145/2513456.2513471


Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (2003) Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.


DGS (Directorate-General of Health of Portugal). (2017) Programas de Saúde Prioritários (Priority Health Programs), Portuguese Government, Portuguese National Health Service & Directorate-General of Health of Portugal, Lisbon, [online] Available at: https://www.sns.gov.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/DGS_PP_MetasSaude2020.pdf


Guilford, J. & Fruchter, B. (1973) Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education, 5th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.


Hamzah, A. (2018) ‘The role of participatory design in mobile application development’, IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 325 012011, IOP Publishing Ltd, Yogyakarta, pp. 1–5. doi: 10.1088/1757-899X/325/1/012011


Hartson, R. & Pyla, P. (2019) The UX Book: Agile UX Design for a Quality User Experience, 2nd edn, Morgan Kaufmann, Cambridge.


Hinostroza, J. & Mellar, H. (2001) ‘Pedagogy embedded in educational software design: report of a case study’, Computers & Education, vol. 37, pp. 27–40, [online] Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036013150100032X. doi: 10.1016/S0360-1315(01)00032-X


International Organization for Standardization. (2010) Ergonomics of Human – System Interaction – Part 210: Human-Centred Design for Interactive Systems, ISO, Geneva.


Johnson, J. & Henderson, A. (2002) ‘Conceptual Models: begin by designing what to design’, Interactions, 9(1), pp. 25–32, [online] Available at: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=503366. doi: 10.1145/503355.503366


Keates, S., Trewin, S. & Elliott, J. (2006) ‘Including users with motor impairments in Design’, in Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction, ed C. Ghaoui, Idea Group, Hershey, PA, pp. 317–323.


Kucirkova, N. (2017) ‘iRPD – a framework for guiding design-based research for iPad apps’, British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 598–610. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12389


Laubheimer, P. (2016) Wireflows: A UX Deliverable for Workflows and Apps, Nielsen Norman Group, [online] Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/wireflows/


Leavy, P. (2017) ‘Chapter 5: qualitative research design’, in Research Design: Quantitative, Qualitative, Mixed Methods, Arts-Based, and Community-Based Participatory Research Approaches, ed P. Leavy, The Guilford Press, New York, NY, pp. 124–163.


Majgaard, G., Misfeldt, M. & Nielsen, J. (2011) ‘How design-based research and action research contribute to the development of a new design for learning’, Designs for Learning, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 8–27. doi: 10.16993/dfl.38


Martins, I., et al. (2007) Colecção Ensino Experimental das Ciências: Educação em Ciências e Ensino Experimental – Formação de Professores (Experimental Science Education Collection: Science Education and Experimental Teaching – Teacher Training), Ministério da Educação e Ciência – Direcção-Geral de Inovação e de Desenvolvimento Curricular, Lisboa, [online] Available at: http://www.dge.mec.pt/guioes-didaticos-eb


Matković, P. & Tumbas, P. (2010) ‘A comparative overview of the evolution of software development models’, International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 163–172, [online] Available at: http://www.iim.ftn.uns.ac.rs/casopis/volume1/ijiem_vol1_no4_4.pdf


Mayring, P. (2000) ‘Qualitative content analysis’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, vol. 1, no. 2, [online] Available at: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0002204


McKenney, S. & Reeves, T. (2012) Conducting Educational Design Research, Routledge, New York, NY.


McKenney, S. & Reeves, T. (2013) ‘Systematic review of design-based research progress: is a little knowledge a dangerous thing?’, Educational Researcher, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 97–100. doi: 10.3102/0013189X12463781


McKenney, S. & Reeves, T. (2015) ‘Educational design and construction: processes and technologies’, in The Future of Ubiquitous Learning, eds B. Gros & M. M. Kinshuk, Springer, Berlin, pp. 131–151. doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-47724-3_8


Mirri, S., Roccetti, M. & Salomoni, P. (2018) ‘Collaborative design of software applications: the role of users’, Human-Centric Computing and Information Sciences, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1–20. doi: 10.1186/s13673-018-0129-6


Molenda, M. (2003) ‘In search of the elusive ADDIE model’, Performance Improvement, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 34–36. doi: 10.1002/pfi.4930420508


Munassar, N. & Govardhan, A. (2010) ‘A comparison between five models of software engineering’, IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 94–101, [online] Available at: http://www.ijcsi.org/articles/A-Comparison-Between-Five-Models-Of-Software-Engineering.php


Norman, D. A. (2013) The Design of Everyday Things, Revised an., Basic Books, New York, NY.


Nunnaly, J. & Bernstein, I. (1994) Psichometric Theory, 3rd edn, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.


Office of Information Services. (2008) ‘Selecting a development approach’, [online] Available at: https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/cms-information-technology/xlc/downloads/selectingdevelopmentapproach.pdf


Ørngreen, R. (2015) ‘Reflections on design-based research: in online educational and competence development projects’, in Human Work Interaction Design, Work Analysis and Interaction Design Methods for Pervasive and Smart Workplaces, eds J. Nocera, et al., Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, pp. 20–38. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-27048-7_2


Plomp, T. (2013) ‘Educational design research: an introduction’, in Educational Design Research, eds T. Plomp & N. Nieveen, SLO – Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development, Enschede, 2nd edn, pp. 10–51.


Prior, L. (2014) ‘Content analysis’, in The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed P. Leavy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 359–379.


Reimann, P. (2011) ‘Design-based research’, in Methodological Choice and Design: Scholarship, Policy and Practice in Social and Educational Research, eds L. Markauskaite, P. Freebody & J. Irwin, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., London, pp. 37–50. doi: 10.1007/978-90-481-8933-5


Richardson, L. (2003) ‘Writing: a methodology of inquiry’, in Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, eds N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 499–541.


Rito, A., Silva, A. & Breda, J. (2016) ‘MUNSI PROGRAMME – Integrated municipal programme for monitoring and addressing overweight and obesity in primary school children’, in Health by Numbers Portugal – Directorate-General of Health Scientific Journal Proceedings of the 1st Portuguese National Public Health Congress, eds P. J. Nogueira, et al., Directorate-General of Health, Lisboa, p. 46, [online] Available at: https://www.dgs.pt/documentos-e-publicacoes/portugal-health-by-numbers-special-issue-december-2016.aspx


Ritter, F., Baxter, G. & Churchill, E. (2014) Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems, Springer-Verlag, London.


Robertson, T. & Simonsen, J. (2012) ‘Challenges and opportunities in contemporary participatory design’, Design Issues, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 3–9. doi: 10.1162/DESI_a_00157


Ruparelia, N. & Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services. (2010) ‘Software development lifecycle models’, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 8–13. doi: 10.1145/1764810.1764814


Seel, N. M., et al. (2017) ‘Chapter 1: what is instructional design?’, in Instructional Design for Learning: Theoretical Foundations, eds N. Seel, T. Lehmann, P. Blumschein & O. Podolskiy, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp. 1–17.


Shing, S. & Yuan, B. (2016) ‘Apps developed by academics’, Journal of Education and Practice, vol. 7, no. 33, pp. 1–9, [online] Available at: https://eric.ed.gov/?q=%22Mobile+apps+development%22&id=EJ1122634


Simonsen, J. & Hertzum, M. (2012) ‘Sustained participatory design: extending the iterative approach’, Design Issues, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 10–21. doi: 10.1162/DESI_a_00158


Sommerville, I. (2011) Software Engineering, 9th edn, Pearson Education, Boston, MA.


Tavares, R., Vieira, R. & Pedro, L. (2017) ‘Preliminary proposal of a conceptual Educational Data Mining framework for Science Education: scientific competences development and self-regulated learning’, 2017 International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Lisboa, NJ, pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1109/SIIE.2017.8259644


Tavares, R., Vieira, R. & Pedro, L. (2019a) ‘Creative writing and drawing activity performed by 4th grade primary-school students: figshare’, Figshare, Romania, London and Cambridge, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.8938052.v1.


Tavares, R., Vieira, R. & Pedro, L. (2019b) ‘Questionnaire: primary-school teachers’ conceptions about their knowledge and their educational practices in Science Education using digital educational resources’, Figshare, Romania, London and Cambridge, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.10013015.v1


Tchounikine, P. (2011) Computer Science and Educational Software Design: A Resource for Multidisciplinary Work in Technology Enhanced Learning, Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht, New York, NY. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-20003-8


The Design-Based Research Collective. (2003) ‘Design-based research: an emerging paradigm for educational inquiry’, Educational Researcher, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5–8, [online] Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X032001005


Thorne, S. E. (2014) ‘Applied interpretive approaches’, in The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed P. Leavy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 99–115.


University of Aveiro. (2019) History of the University of Aveiro, [online] Available at: https://www.ua.pt/#/en/historia


Wang, F. & Hannafin, M. (2005) ‘Design-based research and technology-enhanced learning environments’, Educational Technology Research and Development, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 5–23. doi: 10.1007/BF02504682


World Health Organization. (2018) COSI Factsheet: Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative – Highlights 2015–17, [online] Available at: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/372426/WH14_COSI_factsheets_v2.pdf?ua=1


Zydney, J. & Warner, Z. (2016) ‘Mobile apps for science learning: review of research’, Computers & Education, vol. 94, no. 2016, pp. 1–17. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2015.11.001
Published
2020-12-31
How to Cite
Tavares R., Vieira R. M., & Pedro L. (2020). A participatory framework proposal for guiding researchers through an educational mobile app development. Research in Learning Technology, 28. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v28.2370
Section
Original Research Articles