Design-based research: Understanding its application in a teacher professional development study in Indonesia

This paper discusses contextual application of design-based research (DBR) in an Online Learning Community for Teacher Professional Development (OLC4TPD) study in Indonesia. Design-based research was applied in the study because it holds promise for a significant progressive refinement of the problems of practice, in this case the in-service teacher professional development activities. The procedure of DBR is culturally and contextually complex due to the involvement of various stakeholders and sociocultural elements in the research settings. In this study, the authors have adopted Hofstede’s (1994) cultural dimension on Indonesia as a pair of lenses to examine the context from four cultural dimensions: power distance, individualism, uncertainty of avoidance, and masculinity. This paper discusses these dimensions in an effort to understand how design research has been conducted in the Indonesian context. As suggested by Hoadley (2002), a narrative description of the DBR process is presented to provide insights for those interested in enacting similar education innovations in their own local contexts.