Design-Based Research in Higher Education in Ecuador = La investigación basada en el diseño en la universidad ecuatoriana

Abstract

Higher education in Ecuador is facing new challenges related to improving the quality of teaching and innovation in students´ learning. One of the challenges involves integrating research with teaching activities, academic management, and community engagement. The Design-Based Research (DBR) approach becomes key and strategic for effective education. It allows teaching staff to join an interdisciplinary team and influence their immediate context to improve their teaching practice, ensure the quality of the curriculum design, and develop contextualized theories about the educational process. The review will focus on academic manuscripts of Design-Based Research generated by Ecuadorian researchers. These will be sourced from repositories of Ecuadorian universities within the last six years. In this way, it is proposed that Design-Based Research provides the fundamental epistemological and methodological horizons for faculties to integrate research with curriculum design and teaching practice. Thus, educational research will be more concrete and applicable in the immediate teaching contexts for their improvement and innovation, and in turn, the practice itself will reformulate the theory that underpins educational action.