EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Educational Research & Development (R&D) is a research design aimed at developing

educational products, like curriculum, syllabus, text books, instructional media, modules,
assessment instruments, etc (Borg and Gall, 1989 in Latief, 2011 : 186). Research &
Development and Classroom Action Research are similar in term of the goal. Both research
designs have the same purpose that is to solve classroom problems. They are usually
conducted by classroom teachers, since the problems are found in their classrooms and the
research is conducted in their classrooms. Moreover, both research designs involve several
cycles to meet the targeted criteria of success.
Research & development is different from Classroom Action Research in the process
as well as the product of the research. They have the same purpose that is to solve
classroom problems but the way they solve classroom problems are different. Classroom
Action Research solves classroom problems by producing innovative instructional strategies
while Research & Development solves the classroom problems by producing more
appropriate instructional media or instructional assessment instruments.  
The process of conducting the research is also different. In classroom Action Research, the
strategy is planned, implemented/acted,observed and reflected until the problem is solved
and innovative stategy is obtained.  In Research & Development, on the other hand, the
educational media or instructional assessment instrument is prepared and validated before
before being tried out.
Research & Development involves several steps as follow (latief, 2011:188) ; First,
Classroom problems related to instructional supporting documents (like the syllabus, the
textbook, the media) as well as assessment instruments are identified. Then they are
reviewed from related references, from seminars, or from discussion with colleagues. Third,
the selected instructional documents or assessment instruments considered as the cause of
the problem is developed based on related principles, theories, or criteria that have been
studied. The product is reviewed by the researcher to ensure all the appropriate principles
have been applied in the development of the product. Next, the product is validated to
related experts to obtain the theoretical validation. The the product is revised based on the
input from the experts to improve the quality. More than one experts with different
expertise may be needed to validate the quality of the product, for example a digital
educational media development may need validation from experts in intructional media,
picture, IT, etc. Afterwards, the instructional product is tried out in a small scale and revised
based on the results of the try-out. Targeted criteria of success are needed to determine the
acceptability of the product. Try out subjects depend on the product to be developed. If the
product is isnstructional media, the subjects of try out are students, however, if the product
is syllabus, the subjects of try out are teachers. Try-out to a larger group may be needed to
get more feedbacks for the product revision. Finally, the final product consists of a set of
educational products that are support classroom instructions is published. If the product is a
media, it must be included the manual, the media, the activities which can involve the use of
media,etc.
Besides the steps above, the R&D has various cycle suach as defining,designing
developing, and disseminating. The other kind of R&D design cycle is exploring, developing,
validating, and experimenting. From those cycles, the main difference lies on the last step of
each cycle which aims at providing empirical validation. In the try out, the product has not
been finished, or in other words, it is still being developed. The try out is conducted to a
limited sample to get feedback for the improvement of the product. In the experimenting
step, on the other hand, the product being experimented is the final product. The
experimenting is conducted to the whole population to know the effectiveness of the
product. In the dissemination step, the product which being is developed is not intended for
the students,but the teachers, for example the development of the syllabus, assesment
instruments, etc. In dissemination step, the product which has been developed is reported at
professional meeting as well as in journals (Borg and Gall, 1989 in Weganofa, 2011).
Research & Development is conducted to solve classroom problems and to achieve other
behaviorally defined objectives. So the criteria of success to measure the acceptability of the
product are the evidence that the product has proved to be able to solve the problems and
the students of the field try out have achieved the behaviorally defined objectives.
Therefore, it is not necessary to use pretest-post test comparison like the analysis in
experimental design or to compare the average score of the students of the field testing
with the average score of other students learning the same skills using another media as the
measure of acceptability.
References
Latief, Mohammad Adnan. 2011. Research methods on language learning: an introduction.
Malang: Universitas Negeri Malang (UM Press).
Weganofa, Riza. 2011. Classroom Action Research & Research and Development (online).
(http://rizaweganofa.blogspot.com/2011/10/classroom-action-research-research-and.html,
accessed on October 30th 2019)