Conducting Design Studies to Investigate and Support Mathematics Students’ and Teachers’ Learning ◆
reflect a bidirectional view of the relation between teach-
ers’ activity in PD sessions and their classrooms.
Incorporating design principles from the PD and preser-
vice teacher learning literatures to delineate an envisioned
learning trajectory might involve, for example, outlining a
sequence of cycles of pedagogies of investigation and ped-
agogies of enactment that are designed to support teach-
ers development of increasingly sophisticated forms of
the intended knowledge or practice. Including pedagogies
of enactment in which teachers try out the intended prac-
tices in their own classrooms would encourage up-front
attention to how teachers’ developing practice is situated
in the school settings where they work. That said, because
research on the processes by which teachers develop par-
ticular practices is relatively thin, the initial envisioned
learning trajectory will almost certainly be provisional and
thus eminently revisable.
Placing the study in theoretical context. The intent of
a PD design study is to produce knowledge that will be
useful in providing guidance to others as they attempt to
support teachers’ learning in other settings. As is the case
with classroom design studies, it is therefore important to
frame a PD design study explicitly as a paradigmatic case
of a broader class of phenomena, for example, teachers’
development of particular practices (e.g., eliciting and
responding to student thinking), knowledge (e.g., of stu-
dents’ reasoning in a particular mathematical domain),
or beliefs (e.g., about the mathematical capabilities of par-
ticular groups of students). As an illustration, Borko and
colleagues (Borko, Jacobs, Koellner, & Swackhammer,
2015) framed their initial PD design studies as a context
in which to develop a more general model of high-quality
PD that targets both individual teachers’ learning and
the development of a learning community. The resulting
model, which they call the problem-solving cycle, can be
adapted to a range of domains beyond their initial focus
on algebraic reasoning. As another example, in the con-
text of a PD design study that focused on teaching sta-
tistical data analysis in the middles grades, Cobb and
colleagues (Cobb, McClain, et al., 2003) developed a more
general theory of the role of the school and district setting
in mediating the influence of professional development
on teachers’ developing practice. Both these examples
illustrate that, similar to what we discussed with class-
room design studies, the resulting models or theories are
grounded in the practice of designing to support learning.
Experimenting to Support Learning
The objective when experimenting to support the par-
ticipating teachers’ learning is to improve the envisioned
221
trajectory by testing and revising conjectures about both
the prospective learning processes and the specific means
of supporting it.
Data collection. The data collected have to make it
possible for the research team to address the broader
theoretical issues under investigation when conducting
retrospective analyses. At a minimum, researchers will
need to collect data to document—
• relevant aspects of the PD learning environment,
including the enacted supports for the participating
teachers’ learning, and
• the process of the teachers’ learning in the PD sessions.
In addition, for studies with in-service teachers and
with preservice teachers who participate in school set-
tings, researchers will need to collect data to document—
• relevant aspects of the school context that might medi-
ate the impact of the PD on teachers’ resulting prac-
tices, knowledge, or conceptions and
• developments in the teachers’ classroom practices.
The data are likely to be primarily qualitative given the
goal of accounting for both the process by which teachers
learn and the means by which it is supported. However,
it is reasonable to include validated quantitative instru-
ments, such as an assessment of teachers’ mathemati-
cal knowledge for teaching (Hill et al., 2008), if they fit
with the theoretical intent of the study and contribute to
the research team’s understanding of teachers’ ongoing
learning.
Cycles of design and analysis. In PD design studies, the
cycles comprise a PD session together with the research-
ers’ debriefing meetings held after the session to conduct
an initial (ongoing) analysis of what transpired and to
plan for future sessions. The cycles are therefore usu-
ally less frequent than is the case for a classroom design
study and depend on the frequency of the PD sessions.
In the debriefing meetings, it is important for research-
ers to take account of the school settings in which the
in-service teachers (or preservice teachers) work when
developing explanations of the teachers’ activity in PD
sessions as well as of their classroom instruction.
Conducting Retrospective Analysis
As is the case for classroom design studies, ongoing analy-
ses conducted while a PD design study is in progress con-
tribute to the immediate pragmatic goal of supporting the
participating teachers’ learning, whereas retrospective
222 ◆ methods
analyses treat the teachers’ learning and the means by
which it was supported as paradigmatic of a more encom-
passing phenomenon. In discussing retrospective analy-
ses, we assume that one of the primary goals of the study is
to develop a practice-specific PD theory.
Argumentative grammar. The argumentative gram-
mar that we propose for PD design studies parallels that
for classroom design studies. The two major differences
are specific to PD designs with in-service teachers and
with preservice teachers who participate in school set-
tings. They concern accounting for changes in the teach-
ers’ activity across settings and the need to take account
of the mediating role of the school context. Although
trustworthiness is central to the argumentative gram-
mar for PD design studies, we do not discuss it explicitly
because the issues addressed when discussing classroom
design studies also apply to PD design studies.
Similar to classroom design studies, the first step in the
proposed argumentative grammar is to demonstrate that
the teachers would not have developed the documented
forms of instructional practice but for their participa-
tion in the design study. This is usually straightforward,
because PD design studies typically investigate teachers’
development of instructional practices that rarely occur
in situ and for which there are currently not viable designs.
The second step in the argumentative grammar involves
showing that the findings are potentially generalizable.
This can be accomplished by delineating the aspects of
the investigated learning processes and the means of sup-
porting them that are necessary rather than merely contin-
gent and by reporting how the school settings in which the
teachers worked mediated the influence of the PD on their
classroom practices. Similar to classroom design studies,
this does not imply that a design should be repeated with
absolute fidelity. Instead, the intent is to inform others of
the necessary aspects of the PD design and of the school
settings so that they can customize the design to the set-
tings in which they are working. This entails conducting
an analysis of the entire data corpus to document how the
teachers developed increasingly sophisticated forms of
instructional practice, to identify aspects of the PD learn-
ing environment that supported the teachers’ development
of these practices, and to clarify the mediating role of the
school settings in which the teachers worked.
The resulting practice-based PD theory explains how
the teachers’ learning was engineered by specifying rela-
tions between successive developments in teachers’
practice and the relevant aspects of the PD learning
environment and the school settings. The likelihood
that the research team will be able to construct a robust
theory of this type is greater if they take a broad view of
the school settings in which teachers work and employ
an interpretive framework that treats teachers’ learning
as situated with respect to the PD learning environment
and school settings.
Similar to classroom design studies, the generaliz-
ability of the findings of a PD design study is based on a
process-oriented explanation that reports the mecha-
nisms through which and the conditions under which
teachers developed the documented practices. In the
case of a practice-specific PD theory, the mechanisms are
the process by which specific aspects of the PD learning
environment supported teachers’ successive reorganiza-
tions of their practices. The conditions are the teachers’
practices at a particular point in the substantiated learn-
ing trajectory and specific aspects of the school settings.
In summary, the argumentative grammar for a PD
design study involves—
• demonstrating that the participants would not have
developed particular forms of practice but for their
participation in the design study;
• identifying the specific aspects of the PD learning
environment that were necessary rather than contin-
gent in supporting the emergence of these successive
forms of practice; and
• clarifying how specific aspects of the school settings
mediated the influence of the teachers’ learning in PD
sessions on their classroom practice.
Given that the research base on which a team can build
when formulating initial design conjectures for a PD
design study is thin, it is unlikely that a robust practice-
specific PD theory can be developed in the course of a
single study. Therefore, as is the case for classroom design
studies, it is probably necessary to conduct a series of stud-
ies in which the findings of one study inform the initial
PD design for the next study (see, for example, Borko
et al., 2015).
As an additional observation, much of what we have
said about investigating and supporting teachers’ learn-
ing can be generalized to the investigation of the learning
of members of other role groups whose practices are impli-
cated in school and district instructional improvement
efforts, including mathematics coaches, school leaders,
and PD facilitators. The goal of such studies would be to
develop a practice-specific PD theory that consists of—
• a substantiated learning process that culminates with
the target role group’s development of a particular
form of (coaching, school leadership, or facilitation)
practice and
 Conducting Design Studies to Investigate and Support Mathematics Students’ and Teachers’ Learning ◆
• the demonstrated means of supporting that learning
process.
In our view, it is reasonable to extrapolate from the
teacher learning literature because there is little research
on supporting coaches’, school leaders’, and PD facilitators’
learning.
Organizational Design Studies
As we have indicated, the intent of PD design studies is
for researchers to develop and refine a design for support-
ing teachers in improving their classroom practice and
thus their students’ mathematical learning. In contrast,
the intent of organizational design studies is to develop
and refine a design for supporting the development of
school or district capacity for instructional improve-
ment in mathematics. For example, a study of this type
might build on the findings of PD design studies by inves-
tigating what it takes for school districts to develop the
capacity to provide high-quality teacher PD (Borko et al.,
2015; Jackson et al., 2015; Maaß & Doorman, 2013).
When we discussed PD design studies, we emphasized
the importance of documenting how school and district
context mediates the influence of PD on classroom prac-
tice. Organizational design studies focus directly on the
school and district context in which teachers work and
involve both investigating and scaffolding the development
of contexts that support teachers’ ongoing improvement of
their instructional practices. Figure 9.2 shows some of the
key aspects of the school context an organizational design
study might focus on.
Organizational design studies are a variant of design-
based implementation research (DBIR), which is con-
cerned with “the development and testing of innovations
that foster alignment and coordination of supports
for improving teaching and learning” (Penuel, Fishman,
School and District Context
Current goals for students’ Current organization of
learning professional development,
Vision of high-quality teacher collaboration
instruction and instructional
Current coaching
instructional
Current school practices Current
and district accountability for
created assessments instruction (e.g., school
leaders’ press)
Figure 9.2. Schematic representation of an organizational design study.
223
Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011, p. 331). Consistent with the basic
tenets of DBIR, organizational design studies focus on
persistent problems of practice, involve iterative cycles
of design and analysis, and develop theory related to sup-
porting and sustaining system-level improvements in
classroom teaching and learning. As Penuel et al. (2011)
noted, the iterative nature of design research makes it
particularly well suited for supporting the productive
adaptation of innovations as they go to scale.
Few organizational design studies have been conducted
in mathematics education to this point. However, studies
of this type have been conducted in other subject matter
areas. For example, the Center for Learning Technologies
in Urban Schools (LeTUS) investigated and supported the
implementation of a technology-supported innovation in
science in two large school districts. In the course of several
design and analysis cycles, the research team clarified the
conditions for the successful large-scale implementation
of innovations of this type that implicate multiples levels
of a school system (Fishman et al., 2004). Organizational
design research also shares several commonalities with
improvement science as it is being applied to education by
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
(Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015). Improvement
science provides a set of routines and tools for improving
organizational systems and processes by learning from
practice (Berwick, 2003; Lewis, 2015). Bryk, Gomez, and
Grunow (2011) clarified that a core aspect of the approach
involves enacting plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles that
are highly compatible with the cycles of design and analy-
sis characteristic of design research. Thus far, the meth-
ods of improvement science have not been used to support
improvements in content-specific aspects of mathemat-
ics instruction that have been linked to student learning.
However, in our view, a potentially productive direction
for future organizational design studies involves adapt-
ing some of the tools and routines of improvement science
School and District Context
Intended goals for Intended organization of
students’ learning professional development,
Vision of high-quality teacher collaboration
instruction and instructional
Intended coaching
instructional
Intended school practices Intended
and district accountability for
created assessments instruction (e.g., school
leaders’ press)
224 ◆ methods
to support improvements in the quality of mathematics
teaching and learning at scale.
In the remainder of this section, we assume that the
intent of an organizational design study is to investigate
and support teachers’ development of ambitious, inquiry-
oriented instructional practices at the level of a large
school district. A primary goal when conducting a study
of this type is to contribute to the development of what we
call a content-specific capacity building theory (or content-
specific theory of action for building district capacity for
instructional improvement). Content-specific means
not merely that the theory is specific to mathematics
instruction but also that it is specific to a particular vision
of high-quality mathematics instruction (cf. Hiebert &
Grouws, 2007). In our view, it is essential that this vision
be justified in terms of student learning opportunities as
the vision orients the entire organizational design effort.
A content-specific capacity building theory consists of—
• a substantiated organizational (school and district)
learning process that culminates in the development
of school and district contexts that support math-
ematics teachers’ ongoing development of particular
forms of instructional practice and
• the demonstrated means of supporting this organiza-
tional learning process.
To ground our discussion of organizational design
studies, we use the Middle School Mathematics and the
Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST) study with which
we are associated as an illustrative case. This study is
in its eighth and final year at the time of writing in 2015
and involves an ongoing collaboration with several large
urban districts to investigate what it takes to improve
the quality of middle-grades mathematics instruction
across a district. As part of the study, the research team
conducts a data collection, analysis, and feedback cycle
in each district each year. Each annual cycle involves
documenting the district’s instructional improvement
strategies, collecting and analyzing data to document
how these strategies are being enacted in schools and
classrooms, reporting the findings to district leaders,
and making recommendations about how the district’s
strategies might be revised to make them more effective
(Henrick, Cobb, & Jackson, 2015). Although there are
differences in the collaborating districts’ improvement
strategies, they include—
• providing PD for teachers and for principals in their
role as instructional leaders in mathematics;
• developing a cadre of mathematics coaches;
• organizing regularly scheduled mathematics teacher
collaborative meetings; and
• fostering collaboration between members of key cen-
tral office units.
It is important to note that the enactment of the annual
cycle involves a genuine collaboration between the re-
searchers and the leaders of the collaborating districts.
District leaders retain the authority to determine the
instructional improvement designs that they attempt
to implement, and the role of the researchers when they
make recommendations about modifying the district
improvement strategies is advisory. The researchers
then take the design that district leaders subsequently
develop as their primary point of reference when they
conduct the next data collection, analysis, and feedback
cycle. Thus, in contrast to the other two types of design
studies we have discussed, organizational design studies
frequently involve a genuine partnership in which practi-
tioners play a central role in revising the design based on
ongoing analyses (Cobb, Jackson, et al., 2013).
It is important to clarify that the feedback analyses
conducted as part of each cycle are pragmatic in intent and
aim to inform the districts’ instructional improvement
efforts. They therefore correspond to the ongoing analyses
conducted in the course of classroom and PD design stud-
ies. When we discussed these two types of design studies,
we noted the importance of debriefing meetings after each
classroom or PD session in the course of which members
of the research team share ongoing analyses and make
plans for future sessions. In the case of the MIST study,
this debriefing phase of each annual cycle is protracted
and involves the researchers developing a written report
for each district in which they share findings and rec-
ommendations. The research team then meets with dis-
trict leaders to discuss the implications for the district’s
instructional improvement effort.
The MIST study is relatively broad in scope and focuses
on several of the aspects of the school and district con-
text shown in Figure 9.2. It is therefore important to
clarify that organizational design studies that focus on
a single aspect of the school and district context can
make important contributions to our understanding of
instructional improvement at scale. For example, Project
PRIMAS conducted a series of design studies to develop
and refine seven modules for supporting the develop-
ment of teacher development leaders (Maaß & Doorman,
2013). Although the focus of Project PRIMAS is nar-
rower than that of the MIST study, its span is larger as
it involves a collaboration of researchers from 14 uni-
versities, and the modules are being implemented in
 Conducting Design Studies to Investigate and Support Mathematics Students’ and Teachers’ Learning ◆
12 European countries. We classify Project PRIMAS as
an organizational rather than PD design study because
the intent is to support the development of system-level
capacity for instructional improvement in mathematics.
As a further illustration that is relatively narrow in
focus and modest in span, members of the MIST team con-
ducted a design study in which, with the leaders of one of
the partner districts, they co-designed and co-led PD for
three mathematics coaches and approximately 30 school
leaders (Dunlap, Webster, Jackson, & Cobb, in press;
Jackson et al., 2015). The rationale for involving district
personnel in this work was to improve district capacity
for instructional improvement by supporting their devel-
opment as designers and facilitators of coach and school
leader PD. More generally, we can envision organiza-
tional design studies that focus on any one of the aspects
of the school and district context shown in Figure 9.2
and that might be conducted in a relatively small num-
ber of schools rather than across entire districts. The pri-
mary feature that qualifies such studies as organizational
design studies is that a research team, which might be
quite small, investigates and supports the development
of school or district capacity for instructional improve-
ment in mathematics.
Developing an Interpretive Framework
The purpose of the interpretive framework used in an
organizational design study is to assess the potential of
a school’s or district’s improvement strategies to con-
tribute to instructional improvement before they are
implemented and to account for the documented conse-
quences of the strategies when they are implemented.
The interpretive framework that we use in the MIST
study has enabled us to explain why the collaborating
districts’ strategies are playing out in the ways that we
document, thereby informing the formulation of recom-
mendations for revising current district improvement
strategies. Space limitations preclude a discussion of this
framework beyond noting that it distinguishes between
four general types of supports that capture the range of
improvement strategies that districts typically attempt
to implement: new positions, learning events (including
PD), organizational routines, and tools (Cobb & Jackson,
2012). In the course of the MIST study, we have found
that strategies that support consequential professional
learning involve some combination of new positions to
provide expert guidance, ongoing intentional learning
events, carefully designed organizational routines car-
ried out with a more knowledgeable other, and the use of
new tools whose incorporation into practice is supported
225
(Cobb, Jackson, et al., 2013). Consistent with current
research on teacher learning and on professional learn-
ing more generally, the framework reflects the view that
co-participation with others who have already developed
relatively accomplished practices is essential when the
learning demands of a district’s improvement strategy
require the reorganization of, rather than merely extend-
ing or elaborating, current practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991;
Rogoff, 1997; Sfard, 2008).
Preparing for a Study
Given that organizational design studies typically involve
an ongoing collaboration with practitioners, considerable
thought needs to be given to the recruitment of partner
schools or districts. In our view, it is essential to specify
explicit selection criteria. In the case of the MIST study,
the criteria included that researchers and district lead-
ers had compatible goals for students’ mathematical
learning and compatible views of high-quality mathemat-
ics instruction so that they could begin to forge a common
agenda for instructional improvement. Once a partner-
ship has been initiated with the collaborating schools or
districts, it might also be necessary to select a purposeful
sample of schools and participants within those schools
to make data collection and analysis manageable. In
the MIST study, we selected between 6 and 10 middle-
grades schools in each district (depending on the size of
the schools) that were representative of district schools
in terms of their capacity for instructional improve-
ment in mathematics. The participants in the study then
included middle-grades mathematics teachers from the
participating schools, the mathematics coaches who
served these schools, the principals of these schools, and
district leaders in key central office units (e.g., Curricu-
lum and Instruction, Leadership), for a total of 50 parti-
cipants in each collaborating district.
Specifying goals for organizational learning. As we
have indicated, the intent of an organizational design
study is to support and investigate the development of
school and district contexts that are productive for teach-
ers’ learning. The process of specifying the goals for an
organizational design study therefore involves delineat-
ing the aspects of a school or district context that have
the potential to support teachers’ ongoing improvement
of their instructional practices. In this regard, Elmore
(1979–1980) recommended mapping out from the class-
room by first considering supports for teachers’ learning
(e.g., pull-out PD, teacher collaborative time, mathemat-
ics coaching) and press for their learning (e.g., princi-
pals’ classroom observation and feedback). The resulting
226 ◆ methods
specification of supports and press for teachers’ improve-
ment of their instructional practices then has immediate
implications for coaches’ and school leaders’ practices
and leads to a consideration of possible supports for their
learning. Although research in mathematics education,
the learning sciences, and educational policy and lead-
ership can inform the specification of goals for organi-
zational learning, the research base on which a research
team can build is limited and becomes increasingly thin
the further it moves out from the classroom. It is therefore
wise to view initial goals as provisional and to anticipate
that they might well be revised in the course of the study.
Documenting starting points for organizational learn-
ing. Consistent with the intent of an organizational design
study, the process of documenting the starting points
involves assessing each aspect of the school and district
context on which the study focuses (e.g., teacher collab-
orative meetings) as well as teachers’ current instructional
practices. In our view, video (or observation) is essential to
assess teachers’ initial instructional practices. In contrast,
we have found it feasible to assess relevant aspects of the
school and district context (including coaches’ and school
leaders’ practices) by conducting interviews with and
administering surveys to teachers, coaches, and school
leaders. It has, however, proved essential to triangulate the
responses of members of different role groups (e.g., teach-
ers and school leaders) to avoid relying exclusively on self-
reports.
Delineating an envisioned learning trajectory. In the
case of an organizational design study, an envisioned tra-
jectory comprises testable conjectures about significant
developments in (1) each focal aspect of the school and
district context (e.g., coaches’ and school leaders’ prac-
tices, activities enacted during teacher collaborative
meetings, the quality of facilitation); (2) the means of sup-
porting those developments; and (3) how those develop-
ments are likely to support and press for improvements
in teachers’ instructional practices. Given the currently
thin research base, most of the conjectures about devel-
opments in the school and district context will be highly
provisional and thus are likely to be revised repeatedly in
the course of the study.
Placing the study in theoretical context. The intent of
an organizational design study is to produce knowledge
that can inform others as they attempt to support the
development of productive school and district contexts
in other locales. Consistent with our discussion of other
types of design studies, it is important to frame the effort
to improve the contexts in which the participating teach-
ers work as a paradigmatic case of a broader class of phe-
nomena. For example, the MIST study is a paradigmatic
case of supporting districts’ development of the capacity
to support mathematics teachers’ development of ambi-
tious instructional practices. A more circumscribed study
might be a paradigmatic case of supporting school leaders’
development as effective instructional leaders in math-
ematics or of organizing school-based teacher collabora-
tive meetings that support participants’ development of
increasingly sophisticated instructional practices.
Experimenting to Support Learning
The immediate pragmatic objective when conducting an
organizational design study is to support the collaborat-
ing schools or districts in increasing their capacity for
improvement. However, it is also important to remain
cognizant of the longer term research objective of con-
tributing to the development of a content-specific capac-
ity building theory by testing and revising conjectures
about both the development of increasingly productive
school and district contexts and the specific means of
supporting these developments.
Data collection. The data have to make it possible for the
research team to address the broader theoretical issues of
which the capacity-building work with the partner schools
or districts is a paradigm case when subsequently conduct-
ing retrospective analyses. At a minimum, it is necessary to
collect data to document—
• changes in each focal aspect of the school and district
context (i.e., enacted supports and accountability
relations);
• changes in teachers’ classroom practices; and
• (ideally) changes in students’ mathematics learning
by using assessments that are aligned with the goals
of the instructional improvement effort.
Depending on the number of participants, the data
might be either primarily qualitative, or both qualitative
(e.g., participant interviews, video recordings or observa-
tions of the participating teachers’ instruction) and quan-
titative (e.g., participant surveys, measures of teachers’
mathematical knowledge for teaching).
Cycles of design and analysis. Cycles are often daily for
classroom design studies and span perhaps a week or month
in the case of a PD design study depending on the frequency
of PD sessions. Cycles might well be longer in the case of
organizational design studies due to the complex, inter-
related nature of developments implicated in the organi-
zational learning of a school or district. In the MIST study,
for example, data collection-analysis-feedback cycles that
spanned an entire school year proved to be more appropri-
 Conducting Design Studies to Investigate and Support Mathematics Students’ and Teachers’ Learning ◆
ate than the originally planned semiannual cycles given our
focus on district-wide changes in practice.
Conducting Retrospective Analysis
The analyses conducted as part of each iterative cycle
while an organizational design study is in progress con-
tribute to the immediate pragmatic goal of supporting
the development of the collaborating schools’ or districts’
capacity for instructional improvement. In this regard,
they parallel the ongoing analyses that are conducted
while a classroom or PD design study is in progress and
that inform the effort to support the participating stu-
dents’ or teachers’ learning. Retrospective analyses of an
organizational design study treat developments in the par-
ticipating schools’ or districts’ capacity for instructional
improvement and the means by which they were supported
as a case of a more encompassing phenomenon. In organi-
zational design studies that have a broad or large span, the
amount of data collected is likely to be large compared with
classroom and PD design studies.
As an illustration, PD design studies typically investi-
gate and support the learning of a single group of teach-
ers. As a consequence, it is both possible and reasonable
to analyze video recordings of and artifacts generated
during PD meetings by employing qualitative techniques.
In contrast, the number of classroom lessons observed or
video recorded in the course of an organizational design
study often makes it impossible to analyze the resulting
data qualitatively at an adequate level of rigor. In the case
of the MIST study, the research team found it essential
to use an existing instrument, the mathematics-specific
Instructional Quality Assessment (Boston, 2012; Boston
& Wolf, 2006), to code classroom video recordings.
Similarly, given the number of participants, we found it
necessary to develop a number of coding schemes for key
constructs that were assessed by conducting interviews
(e.g., participants’ visions of high-quality mathematics
instruction; Munter, 2014). In general, it is wise when
preparing for an organizational design study to antici-
pate that there may not be appropriate instruments
available to code either important aspects of participants’
practices or major supports and accountability relations.
The need to develop and validate instruments is an addi-
tional challenge that frequently has to be addressed when
conducting an organizational design study. In our view,
collaborations across research teams to develop common
instruments are both highly desirable and sorely needed.
In cases where the retrospective analyses of the data
generated in the course of an organizational design study
involve mixed methods, it is important to try and ensure
227
that the quantitative and qualitative analyses mutually
inform each other (National Research Council, 2002). For
example, the results of quantitative analyses can be used to
select relevant cases for in-depth qualitative analysis (e.g.,
teachers who are successful in supporting the learning of
historically underserved groups of students). Conversely,
qualitative analyses can be conducted of a small set of rep-
resentative cases to clarify the mechanisms or processes
that lie behind and account for relationships or associa-
tions identified by quantitative findings (e.g., the finding
that there is a relationship between the instructional
expertise of colleagues teachers turn to for advice and
improvement in teachers’ instructional practices; Sun,
Wilhelm, Larson, & Frank, 2014).
Argumentative grammar. The argumentative gram-
mar for organizational design studies largely parallels
that for classroom and PD design studies. Given the gen-
eral lack of success of large-scale instructional improve-
ment efforts in the United States over the last 50 years in
mathematics and in other content areas (Elmore, 2000), it
is usually possible to show that the participating schools
or districts would not have improved their capacity for
instructional improvement but for their involvement in
the study. A primary goal of retrospective analyses that
contribute to a content-specific capacity building theory
is to trace successive developments in the focal aspects
of the school and district contexts, document how these
developments were supported, and detail their influence
on the practices of members of different role groups. The
resulting analyses should include an explicit specification
of the collaborating schools’ or districts’ initial capacities
for instructional improvement (cf. Lamberg & Middleton,
2009). This specification is essential if other researchers
are to adapt the design for supporting the development
of school or district capacity to the settings in which they
are working. For example, if there were few teachers in
the collaborating districts who had already developed
relatively sophisticated instructional practices, it might
have been crucial to support the development of a cadre of
mathematics coaches. Researchers partnering with dis-
tricts in which a significant proportion of teachers have
already made substantial progress in developing ambi-
tious instructional practices might adapt the design by
capitalizing on these teachers’ instructional expertise
rather than by focusing on mathematics coaching.
Current Limitations of Design Studies
To this point, we have focused primarily on the potential
contributions of design studies. It is essential that the
research team members conducting a design study adopt a
228 ◆ methods
highly critical stance toward their conjectures about learn-
ing and the means of support if they are to improve their
initial design. In concluding this chapter, we step back and
take a similarly critical stance toward the design research
methodology to identify areas for further improvement.
In discussing classroom design studies, we highlighted
a major current limitation that also applies to PD and orga-
nizational design studies: the lack of an explicit, agreed-
upon argumentative grammar. We attempted to address
this weakness by outlining a provisional scheme of argu-
mentation and hope that other design researchers will cri-
tique, refine, and improve this initial effort. In our view, it is
essential that this limitation is rectified if design research
is to become a mature methodology with explicitly codi-
fied standards that can be used to judge the quality of
proposals for and reports of particular classroom, PD,
and organizational design studies.
A second limitation of all types of design studies
concerns the limited attention that is typically given to
issues of equity. It is important to acknowledge that the
complexity of the settings in which classroom, PD, and
organizational design studies are conducted makes it
impossible to specify completely everything that tran-
spires in the course of a design study (Cobb, Confrey,
et al., 2003). Choices therefore have to be made when fram-
ing a design study as a paradigmatic case of a broader class
of phenomena. It is nonetheless striking that few design
studies have been conducted that focus explicitly on equity
in student learning opportunities. In this regard, a class-
room design conducted by Enyedy and Mukhopadhyay
(2007), in which they attempted to support students’ devel-
opment of increasingly sophisticated statistical argu-
ments by drawing on their out-of-school knowledge, is
an all too rare exception. In our view, attending to issues
of equity in classroom design studies entails attending
explicitly to the distribution of students’ learning oppor-
tunities and, perhaps, the development of their math-
ematical identities (cf. Cobb, Gresalfi, & Hodge, 2009).
In the case of PD design studies, attending to issues of
equity entails investigating teachers’ development of
instructional practices for which there is either evidence
that they support the learning of diverse groups of stu-
dents or, at a minimum, a conceptual analysis that indi-
cates they have this potential. For organization design
studies, it entails ensuring instructional practices that
satisfy this criterion are central to the orienting vision of
high-quality instruction.
A third set of limitations specific to classroom and
PD design studies is the frequent failure of researchers
to design for scale when preparing for studies, thereby
limiting the potential pragmatic payoff and relevance of
their work beyond the research community (Fishman &
Krajcik, 2002; Penuel et al., 2011). This weakness is espe-
cially evident in many classroom design studies, as it is
often the case that little attention has been given to the
knowledge and skill that teachers would have to develop
to enact the design effectively. In many cases, the learn-
ing demands appear to be unreasonable for most teach-
ers given their current instructional practices and their
schools’ capacity for instructional improvement. This
weakness is also evident in PD design studies in which
members of the research team often “camp out” in a
small number of schools but fail to take into account their
atypical expertise in supporting the participating teach-
ers’ learning. The possibility that the design developed
and refined in the course of a design study might contrib-
ute to improvements in classroom teaching and learn-
ing on a large scale will be significantly reduced unless
researchers consider not merely their own but others’
capacity to support students’ or teachers’ learning when
formulating the design. Borko et al.’s (2015) work is an
exception, as they documented the practices of the facil-
itators of the problem-solving cycle and implemented
and refined designs aimed at supporting facilitators’
learning.
The fourth limitation that we identified is specific to
classroom design studies and concerns the lack of atten-
tion to the instructional practices of the teacher in the
study. Most researchers who conduct classroom design
studies would readily acknowledge that the study teacher
plays a central role in supporting the participating stu-
dents’ learning. However, these teachers’ instructional
practices are rarely the focus of explicit analysis. This
is unfortunate because they typically enact relatively
sophisticated practices. Analysis of their practices could
therefore contribute to the delineation of crucial aspects
of inquiry-oriented mathematics instruction. This would
in turn help clarify the goals for teachers’ learning that
should be targeted in teacher PD in general and in PD
design studies in particular. Kwon et al.’s (2013) investiga-
tion of the development of mathematical argumentation is
a rare exception, as they framed the study-teacher’s dis-
cursive moves as an essential designed support for the par-
ticipating students’ learning. Such attention to the study
teacher’s practices can inform efforts to support the imple-
mentation of instructional sequences developed during
a classroom design study in other contexts.
The fifth set of limitations is specific to PD design
studies. As we noted earlier, there are relatively few
published accounts of PD design studies, and most of
these do not explicitly report several of the important
features of design research we have outlined. A signifi-
 Conducting Design Studies to Investigate and Support Mathematics Students’ and Teachers’ Learning ◆
cant proportion of the reports we reviewed failed to
provide information about the design principles that
underpin the PD design, conjectures about teachers’
learning and the specific means of supporting their
learning, and the relation between teachers’ participa-
tion in PD activities and their classroom practice. We
found instead that most of the small number of stud-
ies of this type focused exclusively on teachers’ par-
ticipation in the PD sessions. In our view, it is essential
to document changes in the participating teachers’
instructional practices by, at a minimum, conducting
preobservations and postobservations of their class-
room teaching. In addition, researchers conducting PD
design studies have rarely attempted to document the
settings in which the participating teachers work; the
group of participating teachers is, in effect, located in
an institutional vacuum. As a consequence, the general-
izability of study findings is threatened, since it is diffi-
cult if not impossible for other researchers to adapt the
PD design to the school contexts in which they are work-
ing. Thus, there is an urgent need for PD design studies
that are carefully planned and executed, and adequately
reported, as they can make critical contributions to the
development and refinement of practice-specific PD
theories. This will require that, as a field, we establish
clear standards for reporting design studies, as the fail-
ure to include essential information about the setting in
published reports makes it difficult for research teams
to learn from and build on prior studies. This, in turn,
limits the possibility that the field will develop robust
theories regarding how teachers can be supported to
develop productive forms of practice.
The final set of limitations is specific to organizational
design studies. As we have noted, researchers developing
studies of this type are currently hampered by the thin
research base they can draw on when specifying goals
for the development of the school and district contexts
the participating teachers work in. In addition, there is a
pressing need to develop and validate measures of key con-
structs. Collaborations across research teams to develop
common instruments and analysis procedures would
seem to be in order given the challenging nature of this
work. A final concern that researchers conducting orga-
nizational design studies need to consider is the danger
of what Dede (2004) termed “design creep,” such that a
study evolves into a full-scale systemic reform initiative.
Dede’s warning points to the need for the research team
to circumscribe the scope of the study explicitly when
specifying both goals for organizational learning and the
focal aspects of the school and district context on which
the study will focus.
229
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