Portraying the design research cycle: Professional development in Indian slums

Although para-teachers make up a substantial portion of the world’s educational work force, little empirical research has been conducted on their professional development. During the iterative process of analysis, design, evaluation, and revision, design research was conducted to gain insight into desirable characteristics of a professional development program for Indian para-teachers in urban slums. The design study flanking evolution of the para-teacher professional development program helped (re)shape each cycle of implementation, and to track lasting effects on organizational climate, teacher agency and pupil learning. Because long-term, high-quality design studies in the field of education are rare, this paper focuses on the research approach and its affordances for contributing to theory-development while also capturing and speaking to the needs of practitioners.