Research in transformation: a pragmatist perspective on change-oriented research in digital education contexts

The digital transformation creates persistent pressure for change in educational institutions and practice. Researchers actively involved in these digital change processes face specific methodological challenges that have so far been seldom discussed. Drawing on pragmatist methodology, this paper identifies and outlines key areas for methodological reflection that follow from the interlocked dynamics that characterize change-oriented research in education. Pragmatism proves productive for this endeavor due to its situational methodology and its socio-historical perspective on research. We identify seven reflection areas, each bridging methodological concerns with the social, political, and educational issues at stake: the digital transformation of research methods themselves, underlying assumptions of educational quality, appropriate generalization strategies, consideration of uncertainties and side effects, actor configurations, overlapping temporalities, and challenges to common wisdom. We discuss why each of these aspects points to important methodological issues and demonstrate how these reflection areas enable more deliberate engagement with established frameworks for change-oriented educational research, such as Evidence-Based Practice and Design-Based Research. The proposed methodological reflection areas thus respond to the pressing need for more reflexive research designs and strategies when researchers are themselves embedded in the digital transformation processes they investigate.