This course offers introductions to, reflections on, and exercises with the methodological approaches of design research, action research, appreciative inquiry and innovative co-creation in education and related areas of research. The common tread in these approaches is that they favor that researchers and practitioners work together to both create knowledge of and change the practice. The advantage of these approaches compared to traditional ones is that the research is continually informed by the reflections and experiences of the practitioners and that the research is immediately communicated to the participants.

The course introduces to actions research in general and to pragmatic and dialectic action research in particular. In action research, the researchers work together with the other participants to solve the problem or change the practice, just as the practitioners contribute to the research with their reflections on the practice in question.

Furthermore, the course introduces to design based research, which is research inspired by the processes of work in design. In design-based research, the researcher selects and designs an intervention, such as a learning or play activity, in collaboration with practitioners, and the intervention is redesigned through iterative processes. Lastly, the design process is used as a resource for developing theory as the pragmatic understanding of knowledge states.

Finally, the course introduces to innovative co-creation, in which researchers and practitioners collaborate to develop novel concepts or theories that make possible new interventions and transformations of practices in ways that add value. The role of the researcher is to develop theoretical frameworks and conceptual prototypes and redesign them in iterative processes based on joint observations, discussions and reflections with practitioners.

A general focal point of the course is that both actions research, design-based research and innovative co-creation requires that the participants are sensible to the situation and open towards other people’s perspectives, and that all the participants are disposed towards working creatively together and prepared to explore new ideas and do things differently.