Chapter 3 outlines the heartbeat of DAS. The journey starts with a nagging question, this is then turned it into a handful of doable actions. People try them in real work, jot a few fresh sentences, choose tags, mark how it felt. Study leads answer quickly, a quiet conversation grows. Then we lift our eyes: counts, quotes, a simple action-by-tag heatmap. Patterns surface, mechanisms emerge, a next step lands. The loop closes—and opens again, lighter and smarter. Each time.
DAS consists of the following five steps:
- Design. A smaller group of study leaders (e.g. teachers, principals, researchers, employees, support staff or a combination) co-designs a set of action-oriented pedagogical tasks for many other employees. (Inspired by DSR)
- Action. A larger group of employees (or students) tentatively carries out the action tasks to see how it works for them in their practice. (Inspired by CAR)
- Sampling. After each action task is completed, each participant produces a short written reflection and a quantification around effects observed in their own practice. (Inspired by ESM)
- Discussion. The study leaders read and comments back on each reflection, in real-time as the experiment unfolds, potentially triggering further reflection. (Inspired by CR)
- Analysis. A summary of all reflections, comments and quantifications is collectively analysed by all participants involved, facilitated by the study leaders.
Step 1: Design action tasks
In the design step, a team of study leaders tries to put words on those actions that a larger group of people is later invited to try out in their own context in step two. Inspiration can be taken from theory, from practice or from both. A DSR inspired technique has been developed that supports the written articulation of a content package – a collection of usually five to ten action-reflection tasks. Each task should be designed so that it hopefully creates value for others, which in a teacher’s case is the students. Each task must be phrased so that participants understand what to do, how to do it and how to reflect deeply afterwards. Each task comprises an action-oriented title (i.e., a verb included) and a task description of three to five sentences. This is then inserted into a Scientific Social Media tool such as Loopme, to which the participants are invited. A collection of tags is also designed at the outset, used by participants to quickly indicate effects and experiences of interest in the study. The design step is well aligned with DSR; tasks represent prescriptive design principles (CIMOs), content packages represent artifacts that trigger desired situations, and the design procedures align with DSR literature.
Step 2: Participants take action
In the action step, around 15-100 participants receive five to ten action tasks each, with one action-reflection to be provided for each task. A total of 75-1000 reflections are thus typically collected from a group of participants. They are asked to submit each reflection as soon as they have tried to do what is specified on each action task. Some tasks will have a deadline, others will not, depending on study design. It is not always easy to say exactly when a certain task can be done, since it depends on each participant’s unique context. The tasks should be seen as hypotheses used to conduct a CR-inspired social experiment, and the observed effects should be documented in real-time in an ESM manner. The action step is well aligned with CAR; the forms are there to help participants with their everyday practice, and the resulting data helps a boundary-crossing community reach deeper understanding.
Step 3: Sample the impact
In the sampling step, quantifications and reflections are received digitally from participants through completed ESM forms. This step takes anything from a few days to months, depending on study design. The data received is causal by nature; the cause being the action task tried out, and the effect being documented in a mixed methods way through quantifications and reflections. Some participants will not complete all or even any of the tasks, even if they had agreed to participate. Reminders through emails or push notifications increase the completion rate significantly, often to around 50-70 percent. The sampling step is well aligned with ESM; the reflection form in Loopme is completed soon after key events in the participant’s natural environment, it focuses on participants’ thoughts and feelings, and it results in a mixed dataset.
Step 4: Discuss the outcomes
In the discussion step, each submitted reflection is discussed individually with each participant in a chat manner. As soon as the study leaders receive a reflection, they must provide some brief feedback consisting of a couple of sentences in the chat associated to each submitted reflection in the SSM tool. The chat step typically results in a short comment thread between the participant who submitted the reflection and the study leaders. Such feedback is more important than one might assume. Completion rate and depth of reflection increase sharply as soon as the participants realize that someone is paying attention to their experiences. The discussion step is well aligned with CR; it emphasises drilling deep inside the black box of classrooms’ internal machinery, it helps identify weak regularities through outcome-based discussions, and it allows for context-sensitive interpretations of events on a case-by-case basis.
Step 5: Analyse the data – all together
In the analysis step, the study leaders first prepare a summary consisting of descriptive statistics, a thematic analysis of all reflections and comments and some key insights generated. For each theme identified, three to five illustrative quotes from participant reflections are shown in anonymous form, underpinning a key insight. This kind of summary typically consists of around five slides or a three-page document. Participants are invited to a meeting where they get to read the summary, discuss and reflect upon the outcome of the study individually, then in teams and lastly as a collective. The analysis meeting finishes with time set aside for yet another individual written reflection. All data, including the data collected at the analysis meeting, are used to produce a final result which can be communicated in a suitable form to all – a report, a slide deck, a video presentation or some other form.
In the above five-step description, it is often teachers or employees who carry out the action-reflection tasks and then reflect upon effects they see in their practice. However, we have also seen that DAS can be used together with students, inviting them to do action-oriented tasks and then reflect upon how it worked for them and what they learned.