Practice-based research is a vital and increasingly recognized approach in the field of learning experience design (LXD), particularly when addressing complex social, cultural, and systemic challenges. Rooted in the lived realities of community members, this form of reflective inquiry prioritizes contextually grounded, ethically engaged, and action-oriented research. It is especially well-suited for exploring community-centered LXD methods, approaches, and frameworks that aim to create more responsive learning environments.
Meaningful practice-based research begins with authentic problems of practice. In the context of LXD, this means grappling with how design processes can better center the human voices, needs, and assets of all intended users in an intended community. Rather than abstracting learning design from the contexts in which it is enacted, practitioner-scholars investigate how design unfolds in specific settings, informed by real human relationships and community dynamics (Creswell & Poth, 2018). We define practitioner-scholars as professionals, who may be enrolled in a post-secondary degree program or hold a post-secondary degree, and have been trained or coached and supervised to contribute to specific aspects of research projects or knowledge generation outside of a terminal degree program.
Importantly, practice-based research seeks to contribute reciprocal value: it must advance scholarly knowledge while also improving practice. We define scholarly knowledge, or scholarship, as the academic study of theory in application, synthesis, teaching, or dissemination. In community-centered LXD, the scholarship outputs should be meaningful and accessible to practitioners, community partners, and learners, in addition to academic audiences. These outputs may include design principles, frameworks, toolkits, or models that support inclusive and ethical design practices (DiSalvo, 2009). In this study, a group of Master of Science degree and graduate certificate-seeking student practitioners had an opportunity to apply what they learned in previous courses to an authentic, real world, virtual team evaluation project to improve practice and then contribute to a practice-based scholarship publication to advance and disseminate scholarly knowledge.
A community-centered approach to LXD scholarship draws from participatory, community-focused, and justice-oriented design traditions, including participatory design (Spinuzzi, 2005), human-centered design (Norman & Verganti, 2014), and design justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020). These traditions call for methods that elevate local expertise, engage stakeholders as co-creators, and attend to power in the design process. Practice-based research enables designers to interrogate their own assumptions and practices, engage in critical reflection, and iterate on methods in real-time to better serve the learners and communities they support.
Through the lens of Connectivism learning theory this case study demonstrates how practice-based scholarship occurs as learning extends beyond what happens within one person, to include interactions with other individuals, organizations, and technology (Siemens, 2004). This case study will summarize the project processes and support system components though an exploration of multiple data sources representing the artifacts and experiences shared within an inclusive and ethical practice approach to co-designed processes through a Connectivism learning theory lens. Thus, the purpose of this case study is to investigate the process and support systems, which enable practitioner-scholars as they engage in a bound system (Moore et al., 2023). The goal is to extend Connectivism learning theory in application to practice-based scholarship outside of a formal classroom and inform future research.
Methodologically, practice-based scholarship is characterized by flexibility, responsiveness, and rigor. It may draw on design-based research (DBR), participatory action research (PAR), or improvement science, each of which foregrounds iterative cycles of inquiry, intervention, and reflection (McKenney & Reeves, 2018; Bryk et al., 2015). These approaches allow practitioners to generate usable knowledge that is both context-specific and theoretically generative. For example, DBR provides a promising context for such inquiry during the local impact evaluation phase when complex learning environments may be examined in authentic settings.
Participating in local impact evaluation phase activities required the participants in this study to navigate distributed systems of tools, people, processes, and artifacts. These conditions are well aligned with Connectivism learning theory, which emphasizes learning as the formation and activation of networks. However, existing scholarship provides limited insight into how graduate students actually build these networks, how they make sense of collaborative research roles, and how they transition from contributing as collaborators to engaging as co-creators of scholarly work. Understanding these processes is especially important in community-centered LXD, where co-creation and shared ownership are central to ethical and inclusive design practices.
Thus, this study extends existing research on Connectivism learning theory and practice-based scholarship by offering a theory-informed, artifact-based case study of how graduate students co-constructed a local impact evaluation phase project outside of formal coursework. While prior research has emphasized the value of connected learning networks and personal learning environments in professional development (Oddone et al., 2019; Trust et al., 2016), this study uniquely demonstrates how graduate students navigate real-world roles, develop shared ownership, and engage in co-creation within a DBR context. This study offers actionable insights into the support systems enabling their contributions that can be integrated into future co-creation research opportunities where practitioners require specialized training and support to contribute. These system components included rotating leadership, asynchronous tools, reflective practices, and informal interactions, all of which scaffold practitioner-scholar development. Thus, this study bridges a critical gap in the literature by detailing the mechanisms through which research capacity and professional identity are built in distributed, community-centered learning ecosystems.
Practitioner-based scholarship is grounded in the premise that meaningful knowledge emerges through engagement with authentic problems of practice, collaborative research, and iterative cycles of reflection and action. Practice-based scholarship thus positions emerging and experienced designers alike as potential contributors to both improved practice and theoretical advancement. Yet little is known about the developmental processes through which graduate students enrolled in a professional fully asynchronous online master’s program, learn to participate in scholarship and research as collaborators and co-creators, or about the structures that support such participation.
Connectivism learning theory posits that learning occurs not solely within individuals but through the formation and activation of networks that include people, tools, digital resources, and shared artifacts (Siemens, 2004). Thus, learning emerges through connections across nodes in a distributed system, and learning involves recognizing patterns, negotiating meaning, and leveraging networked relationships to adapt to new contexts (Giacumo, 2024). In contrast to other learning theories that focus on an individual’s internal learning processes, connectivism emphasizes external social and technological connections to explain how learners might grow new knowledge, skills, and abilities, in a digitally connected world (Siemens, 2004).
There is a small but growing amount of empirical emerging evidence that students have benefited from learning designs that apply Connectivism learning theory, enabling support networked, peer-based knowledge sharing. For example, a quasi-experiment with internationally distributed business students showed that the application of Connectivism learning theory in course design significantly increased learners’ willingness to apply newly acquired knowledge in real-world settings, compared to a more traditional setup (Pandya et al., 2024). In another study, Duan and Gao (2025) tested Connectivism learning theory through evidence of students’ perceptions of knowledge generation, for which they attributed to enrollment in a university course and interactions in social network spaces.
Thus, Connectivism learning theory is a lens for understanding how students build new knowledge, skills, and attitudes. It offers us a framework for the observation of collaboration networks, knowledge flows across tools, people, and artifacts, as well as distributed expertise development in authentic, practice-grounded research contexts. Hence, we posit this theoretical perspective is well suited to digitally mediated, collaborative learning environments such as the one examined in this study.
For graduate students and emerging scholar-practitioners, practice-based scholarship offers a powerful pathway for scholarly engagement that aligns with their professional commitments and values (Al-Abbas, 2023). It affirms that deep, meaningful learning experience design (LXD) knowledge can emerge from practice and that practitioners can and should shape the theoretical foundations of the field (Al-Abbas, 2023). Thus, as learning experience design continues to evolve in response to social and technological change, practice-based research is one way to ensuring that LXD methods remain grounded in practice, community-centered, representative, and solution focused.
Practice-based scholarship in instructional design (ID) and learning experience design (LXD) has a critical role in bridging theory and practice, ensuring that design research and learning remain grounded in the lived realities of educators, learners, and organizations (Toukan & Niyozov, 2023). Unlike purely theoretical research, practitioner participation in scholarship often emerges from experience with iterative cycles of design, implementation, and evaluation, offering contextually relevant insights that aim to advance both practice and research (Marten et al. 2019). By documenting and critically reflecting on design processes, researchers posit that they along with practitioners may better contribute to the development of actionable design principles, thereby extending the field’s collective capacity to respond to diverse learning contexts with participatory approaches (Yang & Harbor, 2023).
Recent scholarship emphasizes that practitioner-based contributions are especially valuable in creating access to inclusive and community-centered design, where local expertise and situated knowledge are essential to address systemic challenges to participation and success (Bovill, 2020; Gray & Chivukula, 2019). Moreover, as LXD increasingly intersects with emerging technologies and rapidly changing workforce demands, practice-based research provides a vital conduit for integrating innovative approaches with enduring pedagogical foundations (van der Done & Kuijer-Siebelink, 2015). Thus, practice-based scholarship not only strengthens the rigor and relevance of the field but also reinforces its social responsibility to create both welcoming and meaningful learning experiences.
One can view community-centered scholarship along a continuum. This may range from collaboration, to participatory, to co-creation. In a community-centered scholarship collaboration, a researcher(s) may work with different practitioner stakeholders to carry out a scholarly project such as a local impact evaluation phase of an on-going DBR project. A practitioner stakeholder has a vested interest in the practitioner scholarship outputs and may hold a variety of different roles (e.g., student, client, professional individual contributor, instructional designer, instructor, manager, director, administrator). Once the practitioner stakeholder begins to systematically contribute to outputs that result in scholarly publication they become a practitioner-scholar. At the collaboration level, a practitioner stakeholder may or may not engage as a practitioner-scholar.
In a participatory approach, a researcher(s) may involve different practitioner stakeholders to identify a need, purpose, goals, and on-going input throughout a scholarly project. The researcher(s) guide the project and ‘own’ the process. At the participatory level, a practitioner stakeholder may or may not engage as a practitioner-scholar. In a co-creation approach, a researcher(s) may involve different practitioner stakeholders to envision the need, purpose, and goals, of a scholarly project along with contributing to all necessary work throughout the project from start to finish. The researcher(s) and practitioner stakeholders both guide the project, ‘owning’ both the process and outputs. At the co-creation level, a practitioner stakeholder engages as a practitioner-scholar. Figure 1 shows the continuum of potential practitioner involvement in scholarship projects.
Figure 1
Levels of contribution in design science research
Note. Due to the researchers’ organizational or community role, a researcher may also be a practitioner. However, for the purposes of this explanation and shared power implications, practitioner-contributors should be other individuals working in concert with the researcher.
The goal of design science is to “determine how different designs of learning environments contribute to learning, cooperation, and motivation” (Collins, 1992, p. 4). Much work has been done to document design research results and improvements (Honebein & Regeluth, 2021) as well as to share design cases, case studies, and design-based research (Moore et al., 2023). In addition, a growing amount of research has been shared regarding participatory research in teaching and learning design (Bovill, 2020; Mertans et al., 2019). However, little attention has been given to investigate practice-based scholarship activities or how system-level factors (e.g., prior knowledge, learning design strategies, and motivations) enable or present challenges in practitioner-based scholarship.
The only example we could find in the field of learning design and technology was of a doctoral student utilizing a nascent methodology (Levitan et al., 2020). According to a report funded by the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, given that most professionals in our field are required to possess a bachelor’s degree and very few possess a terminal degree with formal training in what it takes to publish research and scholarship (Intentional Futures, 2016), there is a clear opportunity to investigate how to best support access to engagement in community-centered practice-based scholarship opportunities with significant implications for both researchers and practitioners.
In a DBR project, the local impact evaluation phase examines how an intervention functions in a specific, authentic context such as a classroom, workplace training program, or community-based initiative (Bannon, 2009). This stage produces both outputs (e.g., tangible deliverables) and outcomes (e.g., demonstrable effects, changes). These outputs and outcomes hold implications for decisions that would affect different system components in any given learning and development or educational context, where practitioners and researcher may be working to create data-informed change (Giacumo et al., 2024). Examples of potential outputs and outcomes organized by system components relevant to instructional design and performance improvement are shown in table 1 below.
Table 1
Potential outputs and outcomes organized by system components
Entity Levels | Outputs (Tangible Deliverables) | Outcomes (Effects / Changes) |
|---|---|---|
Learners | - Case studies of learner experience (Easterday et al., 2014) - Validated assessment tools (Barab & Squire, 2004) | - Gains in knowledge, skills, competencies (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) - Improved engagement, motivation, and confidence (Collins et al., 2004) - Shifts in attitudes toward inclusivity and collaboration (McKenney & Reeves, 2018) |
Educators / Practitioners | - Stakeholder feedback summaries (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003) - Refined design principles (McKenney & Reeves, 2018) | - Adoption of stronger instructional practices (Barab & Squire, 2004) - Enhanced capacity to adapt and apply design principles (Easterday et al., 2014) |
Organizations | - Evaluation reports documenting methods and findings (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) - Improved prototypes or interventions (Collins et al., 2004) | - Alignment with institutional or workforce goals (Reeves et al., 2005) - Increased stakeholder buy-in for scaling or sustaining interventions (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003) |
Researchers | - Theory-informed design models (Collins et al., 2004) - Iteratively refined interventions (McKenney & Reeves, 2018) | - Evidence of feasibility and efficacy in authentic contexts (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) - Deeper understanding of contextual factors shaping implementation (McKenney & Reeves, 2018) |
Communities | - Case studies capturing local perspectives (Easterday et al., 2014) - Inclusive design artifacts co-created with stakeholders (Barab & Squire, 2004) | - Strengthened partnerships between designers, practitioners, and local communities (Barab & Squire, 2004) - Increased inclusivity and representation in decision-making processes (Easterday et al., 2014) |
Outputs are concrete deliverables generated through the evaluation process. They can include a wide array of formats depending on the project goals. Outputs have been provided as: evaluation reports documenting research methods, findings, and interpretations (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012); refined design principles updated to reflect evidence from local testing (McKenney & Reeves, 2018); improved prototypes or interventions, such as revised instructional materials, training modules, or digital learning environments (Collins et al., 2004); assessment instruments, including validated rubrics, surveys, or analytics dashboards (Barab & Squire, 2004); case studies capturing how the intervention functioned within the local setting (Easterday et al., 2014); or stakeholder feedback summaries synthesizing input from learners, instructors, and community partners (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003).
Outcomes represent the broader effects or changes resulting from the local evaluation. They can include learner-level outcomes, educator or practitioner-level outcomes, and organizational outcomes. Learner-level outcomes can include the following: increased knowledge, skills, or competencies (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012); improved engagement, motivation, or confidence (Collins et al., 2004); shifts in learner attitudes toward inclusivity, equity, or collaboration (McKenney & Reeves, 2018). Educator or practitioner-level outcomes can include the following: adoption of stronger instructional practices (Barab & Squire, 2004); increased capacity to adapt and apply design principles in context (Easterday et al., 2014). Organizational outcomes can include the following: alignment of the intervention with institutional or workforce development goals (Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2005); greater stakeholder buy-in for scaling or sustaining the intervention (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003).
Further, outcomes from a local impact evaluation phase can have implications for researchers and the communities they are seeking to serve. Research implications can include empirical evidence of feasibility and efficacy in authentic contexts (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) and insights into contextual factors (equity, culture, resources) that shape implementation (McKenney & Reeves, 2018). Implications for communities can include strengthened partnerships among designers, practitioners, and local communities (Barab & Squire, 2004) and increased inclusivity and representation in decision-making processes (Easterday et al., 2014).
Thus, the local impact evaluation phase in DBR is not only about investigating an intervention’s effectiveness; it is also about generating actionable knowledge that guides iterative design, advances theory, and ensures sustainability. The outputs provide the tangible evidence base, upon which data-informed decisions can be made to improve the learning experience design. The ensuing outcomes are testament to an intervention’s potential real-world influence across learner, educator, organizational, and community levels.
Thus, DBR depends on the collaboration of individuals in each of the system components where learning and development or education occur (Moore et al., 2024). Further, learners, educators, practitioners, scholars, and researchers may even co-design together (Moore et al., 2024). We posit that these stakeholders may also engage in participatory or co-creation project approaches as well. However, we couldn’t find any scholarly publications describing DBR and participatory or co-creation project approaches in the local impact evaluation phase. Thus, there is also an opportunity to investigate these approaches in the local impact evaluation phase of a design-based research process (Fraefel, 2014) situated in the context of graduate university programs and in practitioner-based scholarship.
LXD is defined as "the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal-oriented way" (Floor, 2018; Zivkovic, 2019). Community-based learning has been defined as connecting learning in a formal classroom environment with real-world authentic experiences (Garneau, 2023; Webber, 2021). Thus, community-based learning experience design can be seen as the process to create formal learning experiences that are human-centered, goal-orientated, and connected with authentic, real-world contexts.
As mentioned previously, DBR offers opportunities to practitioners to contribute not only to improving real-world practice but also knowledge generation. But, what if these practitioner-scholars do not possess prior training in DBR or knowledge generation skills? Anecdotally, the first author has worked with over 20 practitioner master’s program level students with no prior DBR experience or scholarly knowledge generation experience, outside of typical coursework to support their engagement in authentic project work and co-authored a variety of scholarly publications with them.
These practitioner-scholars, and others like them, need to learn how to contribute to the creation of design science. Connectivism learning theory explains why community-based learning experience design and practice-based research in DBR can occur. A community-based learning experience design process, a lead researcher(s), and practitioners may work together to plan and co-construct an appropriate support system to scaffold the emerging practitioner-scholars' learning and practice-based research performance.
Hence, this study addresses these gaps through an empirical investigation of a graduate student team that engaged in the co-construction of a local impact evaluation phase (e.g., project purpose, scope, research questions, methods and protocols, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, project management, reporting) of an on-going DBR project (Bannan, 2009). The practitioner-scholars who participated in this case held both a unique perspective and significant influence, guided key findings, and ideated recommendations for the local impact evaluation phase results. All project members were community members of the graduate program, the graduate students were recent course participants, and they were also co-creators of the practitioner research project. Hence this study is particularly noteworthy because after both authors completed the evaluation phase of the DBR project (i.e., a practice-based research project), they co-authored this case study (i.e., also a practice-based scholarship project) given the practitioner-scholars' project experiences as inputs.
Connectivism learning theory positions learning as the process of forming, navigating, and activating networks of people, tools, and information. It provides a compelling lens through which to investigate how emerging practitioner-scholars collaboratively construct knowledge and distribute expertise across digital ecosystems. The practitioner-scholar continuum noted previously in Figure 1 from collaboration to co-creation, offers a useful conceptual frame for understanding how students assume increasingly agentic roles in scholarly work situated outside of traditional coursework.
By examining these students’ interactions, artifacts, and collaborative practices within a digitally mediated ecosystem, the authors illuminate the conditions under which practitioner-scholars develop agency, distribute expertise, and contribute meaningfully to a DBR project. In doing so, this study advances understanding of how authentic practice-based research experiences can be intentionally designed and supported in graduate education.
Instructional design students value course work that includes practical, problem-solving experiences (Stefaniak et al., 2021). Researchers share evidence of integrating real-world, authentic, project-based learning experiences for instructional design courses (Giacumo, 2024; Lowell & Moore, 2020; Villachica et al., 2023). Yet, learning design and technology programs may not provide students with opportunities to complete real-world, authentic evaluation activities in their coursework (DeVaughn & Stefaniak, 2020).
In this case study, we describe a practice-based scholarship project that we conducted in the context of a practitioner-focused learning design and technology graduate program and during a co-created formative local impact evaluation phase of a DBR project. This study contributes a novel, theoretically grounded and empirical case of how graduate students engage in co-created research outside of formal coursework. While previous research has highlighted the value of Connectivism learning theory in application and personal learning networks (Oddone et al., 2019), we found none documented the mechanisms through which students can transition from collaborative participation to scholarly co-creation within an authentic DBR context. Also, unlike existing research that examines practitioner inquiry within coursework or structured programs (Pandya et al., 2024) this case offers insight into practice-based scholarship as a voluntary and community-centered process situated in real world collaboration outside of a structured graduate course offering. By integrating Connectivism learning theory (Siemens, 2004) with a practitioner-scholar continuum, this study reveals how distributed tools, reflexive practices, and peer interactions can scaffold the development of research capacity and agency. The findings call for more participatory and inclusive research models in DBR (Bovill, 2020; McKenney & Reeves, 2025). As such, this work advances both the theory and practice of how practice-based research can be designed to foster community-centered and networked professional growth. Thus, the research questions are:
How do students build and activate learning as well as collaboration networks to co-construct a local impact evaluation phase of a DBR project outside of regular coursework?
What structures, interactions, and supports enable students to move from collaboration towards co-creation in practice-based scholarship?
These questions aim to illuminate the mechanisms through which graduate students engage in authentic, community-centered research and to identify the design elements and support systems that scaffold their development as practitioner-scholars within a DBR context. By examining both the formation of distributed learning networks and the conditions that foster increasing co-creative agency, this study contributes to ongoing conversations about how to design equitable, rigorous, and meaningful practice-based research experiences in learning experience design and related fields.
This is a case study of one university faculty member and four graduate students who partnered to engage in a co-created local impact evaluation phase of a graduate course on web accessibility and design. We chose a case study method because the method allows researchers to generate knowledge focused “on contextual details and better understanding a phenomenon or characteristics of the case” (Moore et al., 2024, p. 9). Moore et al. (2024) note that a case study approach may very well be the best method to answer questions such as “why” or “how,” as well as to study processes occurring in unique or atypical contexts. As noted previously, we believe our context is unique, and thus it is well-suited for studying the application of connectivism learning theory in a digital ecosystem to enable practice-based research in a co-created local impact evaluation phase of an on-going DBR project.
The first author invited all 21 graduate students enrolled in the web accessibility and design course that she taught during the first half of the summer term in 2025 to collaborate in a local enactment evaluation of an on-going DBR project. The second author and five other graduate students voiced their interest in collaborating on the co-creation of this project after the course ended. One of these five students decided not to continue after the first kick off meeting due to a lack of time. Thus, four student practitioner-researchers volunteered their time and expertise to work on the project during the second half of the summer term. A breakdown of the participants’ demographics, work experience, and prior education is shown in Table 2 below. During this time, each was enrolled in a Learning Design and Technology graduate program at a large research-intensive university in the mid-Atlantic region. This program is situated in the School of Education.
Table 2
Participants demographics, work experience, and prior education
Participant ID | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | |
Gender | Male | Female | Female | Female |
Current Role | Graphic & Learning Design Consultant | Curriculum Specialist | Learning & Development Manager | Manager of Learning Experience |
Sector | Healthcare | Higher Education | Corporate | Education Technology |
Years of Experience | 5 years | 3 years | 20 years | 5 years |
Undergraduate Degree | Interactive Design and Game Development | English | Psychology and Women's Studies | English |
The whole team met together for approximately one hour, once a week, over the course of ten weeks. They also worked independently each week for approximately five hours. During this time the lead author provided readings, a flexible process structure, suggested roles, suggested activities, and space for team members to ask questions in the large group meetings, make requests, and co-create the project focus, approach, methods, and final report. The second author and two other practitioner-scholar team members took on a variety of different leadership roles in the weekly large group meetings and outside of these weekly large group meetings. Additionally, they contributed input, ideas, reflection, and feedback, in a variety of formats (e.g., weekly meetings, weekly peer-to-peer mentoring discussions, Microsoft (MS) Teams group chats, questionnaires, draft different analyses, the final project report). This ecology presented a unique setting and rich context for a case study.
This case study investigation drew on a diverse set of qualitative data sources that reflect the collaborative and participatory nature of the project. Each of the data sources originate from files produced in the following digital tools: Mural, Google Sheets, Google Documents, MS Word, MS PPT, MS Teams, Zoom, and Google Forms. These tools were used to produce a wide variety of artifacts.
Mural is a whiteboard we used to brainstorm ideas and to work through a process to build consensus and shared understanding of the project work and process. This artifact recorded our brainstorming, aggregation, analysis, and decision-making record. Another artifact type was the project meeting agendas. These included ice-breaking activities, resource links, discussions topics, discussion notes, attendee input, decisions, action items, and parking lot items.
Microsoft (MS) Teams messages captured evolving discussions comprised of questions, requests for feedback, interim status updates, input, our design process, real-time communication, and decision-making among project participants during the week in between meetings. There were two groups created in MS Teams: One group chat included the lead author and all four practitioner-scholars. The second group chat included only the four practitioner-scholars. The text message artifacts captured links to important documents, personal availability updates, timeline updates, requests for help, and offers for assistance.
Project meeting agendas and Zoom recordings of weekly meetings further documented the formal structure of the collaboration, illustrating how participants organized, facilitated, and reflected on their shared work over the course of the project. Collectively, these sources provided a record of both the processes and products of the participatory evaluation. Thus, another type of artifact included a series of the whole team meeting discussion transcripts. The whole team Zoom meeting transcripts were created of formal project meetings comprised of the lead researcher and all four graduate student project members.
Virtual “coffee shop” meetings transcripts were created of informal discussions between self-selected graduate student practitioner-scholars project members. In addition to these structured data sources, the project also generated rich informal and reflective materials that deepened understanding of participants’ experiences. These “coffee shop” meetings provided an informal space for graduate student collaborators to co-work and problem-solve in real time, providing insight into the social and relational dynamics of the project, as well as supporting presence in an otherwise potentially isolating online learning experience.
The lead researcher created a series of Google Forms to capture regular practitioner-scholar reflections through weekly questionnaires. These short questionnaires gathered practitioner-scholars’ reflections. The reflections capture participants’ evolving perspectives, challenges, and insights as the evaluation unfolded. Another artifact that was created through both the weekly questionnaires and weekly whole team Zoom meetings was a co-created logic model. This logic model provided a structured representation of the project’s intended outcomes and underlying assumptions, serving as both a design artifact and a source of evaluative insight. The process of building this artifact led us to agree on a purpose and goal for the project.
Finally, the collaboratively developed evaluation report synthesized findings and represented a culminating product of the project team’s scholarship. Altogether, these diverse data sources enabled a holistic view of the participatory evaluation process, illustrating not only the formal structures of collaboration but also the informal interactions and reflective practices that shaped the learning and outcomes of the study.
We used a qualitative thematic analysis approach grounded in Connectivism learning theory (Siemens, 2004) to explore how students formed learning networks and transitioned from collaboration to co-creation within a virtual team setting. In his foundational paper, Siemens (2004) introduced the concept of connectivism as a learning theory and outlined eight central principles. Among these, he emphasized that knowledge is strengthened by a diversity of perspectives, and that learning involves building and sustaining links across different sources of information. These sources are not limited to people but can also include technological systems and tools. Within this view, the ability to expand one’s understanding is seen as more valuable than any static body of knowledge. Continued learning depends on cultivating and managing networks of connections, while a critical skill lies in recognizing patterns and relationships across disciplines, ideas, and concepts. Finally, connectivism learning prioritizes the pursuit of information that is both reliable and current, ensuring that knowledge remains relevant over time. Figure 2 depicts this interconnected ecosystem approach to analysis.
Figure 2
Interconnected project ecosystem
From this analytical lens, we are able to identify patterns of distributed knowledge construction, network activation, and meaning-making across individuals, tools, and digital systems associated with the project ecosystem shown in figure 2. This allowed us to answer our first research question regarding the process we uncovered as well as the second research questions about the support system components enabling learning and performance (e.g., resources, inputs, activities, and outputs).
As the lead author of this study, the DBR project lead, and instructor for the course that served as the evaluand for this study, the first author acknowledges her multifaceted role in facilitating this current research project, guiding the recent participatory evaluation, and serving as the course instructor earlier this year. Her academic and professional background in instructional design, workplace learning, performance improvement, and evaluation shaped the study design, data collection processes, and interpretive lens through which findings were analyzed. These experiences equipped her to structure the evaluation with rigor, but they also introduced potential biases, particularly in relation to her vested interest in the success of the course and its outcomes. To mitigate these influences, she engaged in ongoing reflexive journaling and positioned graduate student evaluators as co-creators in the research process. Their diverse perspectives as both learners and practitioner-scholars provided critical balance, challenged her assumptions, and contributed to more inclusive interpretations of the data. The decision to include one graduate student evaluator as a co-author reflects a commitment to practice-based research that values shared authorship and distributed expertise. By making these dynamics explicit, we aim to increase the transparency and trustworthiness of the study and to illustrate the potential of collaborative, practitioner-centered approaches to evaluation research.
Similarly, the second author in this study, a co-creator for the evaluation project, and a graduate student enrolled in the course that formed the basis of this study, recognizes the unique positionality she brought as both a participant in the learning experience and a co-creator in its evaluation. Her professional background in higher education program support informed the perspectives she contributed to the evaluation process, particularly in recognizing the practical challenges and opportunities inherent in program design and delivery. At the same time, her position as a student required careful reflection to ensure that her insights were not unduly shaped by her own learning experience or by the instructor’s dual role as course facilitator and lead researcher. To address these dynamics, she engaged in collaborative data analysis and group reflection, which allowed her to critically examine her assumptions and contribute authentically as a practitioner-scholar. Her co-authorship on this manuscript reflects her commitment to advancing practice-based research and demonstrates the value of graduate student voices in research.
In this section, we answer the research questions according to the analysis procedures described above. For each research question, we will identify the engagement patterns and support system themes derived from our data sources. We include descriptions of each pattern and theme. Additionally, we provide relevant quotations from the practitioner-scholars and researcher reflections. Altogether, the data sources triangulate to provide a rich, thick description of the bound system context and practice-based research experience.
Using the data sources mentioned above, we identify three engagement themes and patterns across the data sources that are necessary to encourage engagement in community-based learning experience design research outside of normal classroom deliverables. These include the following: establishing a common framework from which to build the evaluation goals; establishing consistent meeting norms that are developed by the group; and assigning roles each week with clear deadlines and expectations to support progress on the project.
The first theme we identified is: Establishing a common framework at the onset of the evaluation project. This activity is crucial to supporting practitioner learning and their contributions to the project, a key characteristic of practice-based research (Al-Abbas, 2023). Once a common framework is agreed upon, the individual participants better understand the purpose of evaluation and have a common vocabulary from which to build the evaluation goals. In our case, the common framework was developed based on article readings provided by the lead evaluator. These articles included an overview of performance evaluation projects, how to write good evaluation questions, and an example case study that approached an evaluation project from 10 key design-based principles. Through these readings, the practitioner-scholars were given a common vocabulary and framework from which to develop project goals. At the beginning of the evaluation project, most participants identified a desire to establish clear goals for the project. However, because there was limited previous experience from the students involved, this step of establishing a common framework was imperative to identifying the scope of our work. A common framework allowed students who were emerging and developing learning design and technology (LDT) consultants to share a common language, recognize a common pattern of activities they could expect along the project timeline, and build confidence in knowing one way to take common principles shared in academic resources or evidence-based practice resources and apply them to their own project practices. Three out of the four participating graduate students mentioned on the final reflection survey that the provided articles were useful in establishing a shared context and supporting co-creation. In other groups, however, this could be developed from a variety of starting points, particularly if the practitioner-scholars involved have previous experience in evaluation projects.
Our second theme that emerged from the data is: Establishing a shared expectation for meetings, including the timing, regularity, and agenda structure, which supports ongoing engagement with the project. At the onset of the project, student participants identified regular meetings, open communication, and shared norms as important to the project. Therefore, we identified a clear timeline and set weekly one-hour meetings at the same time each week. We also utilized a shared agenda with a consistent meeting structure. However, there was a level of flexibility built into the project expectations. Since our participants took on extra work that spanned beyond the course we were evaluating, acknowledging potential time conflicts throughout the project was critical. Our response to this was to record each meeting so that anyone who missed a session could continue to engage with the project. Those in our group who missed occasional meetings consistently watched through the recordings, further proving that flexibility in this type of project supports continued engagement. Because of this flexibility, however, we noticed that participation began to drop off near the end of the project. As the final project deadlines were pushed due to an increase in scheduling complications for the practitioner-scholars, we received less engagement overall.
Moreover, when asked on the final reflection survey what could be done differently, all four of the participants’ suggestions were related to timing, such as extending the project completion time frame or establishing a greater expectation to collaborate outside of the set weekly meetings. This supports our theme that developing a clear expectation of timing is critical to the success of the project, and our participants seemed open to greater communication throughout the project.
The final theme that was identified to engage students in an evaluation project is: Establishing rotating roles each week. Feedback from participants in the team status check-in each week showed this action helps collaborators feel a sense of ownership for project tasks while also providing flexibility for participants to try new leadership activities and ways of working. The students involved in this project early on requested flexible roles that changed each week and weekly action items with clear deadlines to drive the project forward. While the students assigned to the various roles changed each week, we used a consistent set of roles: a timekeeper and a note-taker for each synchronous meeting; a peer-to-peer mentor to reach out to the students only each week for any concerns, questions, or feedback that might need to be directed back to the instructor; and a friendly homework reminder to share out the action items and deadlines a few days before the next scheduled meeting. These are only a few potential roles that could be used to keep the project moving, but they allow participants to take on different levels of involvement throughout the project.
Some weeks were busier than others for participants. Thus, rotating through roles allowed our team to contribute in ways that worked best for them each week. For example, if a participant knew they needed to leave a meeting early, they would not volunteer for timekeeper or note-taker in the synchronous meeting and instead might offer to take on the role of homework reminder. This flexibility encouraged ownership of tasks that each participant could realistically commit to each week, further increasing accountability and supporting engagement in the project. Some additional roles that were suggested by our participants in the final reflection survey and that could be applied to future evaluation projects were assigning a project leader to track milestones and progress and a lead editor for the final written evaluation to ensure a consistent voice throughout.
Using the data sources mentioned above we identify two themes that were integral to enabling co-creation throughout the practice-based research experience. These include identifying a common space to support collaboration throughout the progress and collecting weekly check-in data to support individual reflection and determine next steps in the project. We then share evidence to suggest how they enabled practice-based research in this case.
The first theme that emerged from our experience related to the structures, interactions, and supports is: Determining a common space for connection and collaboration is essential for effective communication. In our case, we set up a shared Microsoft (MS) Teams chat and a shared MS One Drive folder that all members had access to. Open communication was a shared expectation of our group at the onset of the project, and MS Teams provided the means for that. In addition to our chat in MS Teams, we used a variety of other collaborative spaces. These included Mural and shared MS Word and MS Excel documents. When working in these documents, for example, we used Track Changes and the comment feature to provide suggestions, track revisions, and work collaboratively in an asynchronous space. As one participant noted in a midweek check-in, “Using Microsoft Teams for real-time updates has been helpful so we're not waiting too long [between meetings for important information on the project]”.
Moreover, in the final reflection survey, two of the four participants identified the use of shared documents to support asynchronous collaboration as most useful when developing the final evaluation report. Another participant mentioned that working within a shared document was critical in the early weeks of the project as well. By working in shared spaces, participants were also given the space to learn from each other, particularly in regard to the diversity of experience and perspectives that were presented. As one participant noted on the final reflection survey, “Staying curious and asking questions in a group forum helped us make progress and scaffold prior knowledge through on the job experience and previous coursework.” These collaborative spaces allowed each team member to connect when questions came up between meetings, share their progress, and provide comments on other components of the project in real-time.
The second theme that we identified to support co-creation is: Creating opportunities for weekly team status check-ins and facilitating shared reflective practice behaviors. Not only do these activities help the lead evaluator know how to better support the graduate student team members, but the graduate students found this space for reflection supports the overall project direction, collaboration, and advancement.
Each week following the weekly synchronous meeting, the project lead sent out a check-in form with questions related to the meeting discussion and/or upcoming project tasks. Additionally, the forms asked participants three standard questions: What should we keep doing? What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? The project lead would then leverage these responses to add support, remove potential barriers to success, and move the project forward through meeting the specific needs of the practitioner-scholars.
The opportunity for reflection between weeks also supports a learning environment rooted in Connectivism learning theory. It allowed the participants to see connections between the work we were doing, their previous experience, and how those can be leveraged to complete our project goals. In reviewing the responses each week, we were able to witness participants drawing those connections and becoming engaged co-creators in the final evaluation project.
As McKenny & Reeves (2025) mentioned, there is an opportunity to establish and strengthen practice-based research in our field. This case study contributes to a growing body of practice-based scholarship by demonstrating how graduate students can engage in authentic research that both advances theory and informs practice. The project extended beyond conventional coursework to engage students as practitioner-scholars in co-creation, aligning with calls for more participatory and inclusive forms of research in instructional design and learning experience design (Bovill, 2020; Gray & Chivukula, 2019).
The findings illustrate how practitioner engagement can support both localized improvement and theoretical advancement, situating this study within emerging scholarship that underscores the need for reciprocal knowledge production in learning design (Feldon et al., 2019). By leveraging connectivism as an analytical frame, the study also emphasizes the importance of distributed expertise, showing how knowledge generation is strengthened when practitioners, researchers, and technologies form dynamic and interconnected networks.
Beyond affirming the value of practitioner-based scholarship, this study underscores the role of participatory structures in cultivating deeper engagement across the continuum of collaboration, participation, and co-creation. While collaboration has long been acknowledged in design-based research, recent scholarship highlights the importance of creating conditions for shared ownership, especially in community-based or justice-oriented approaches (Arelijung et al., 2021). The findings of this study suggest that intentionally scaffolding student practitioners into co-creative roles, through structured processes, reflexive practices, and distributed leadership opportunities, may serve as a promising model for preparing future instructional designers to engage in scholarly work that is both rigorous and socially responsible. This aligns with emerging perspectives that advocate for integrating authentic, practice-based research and reflective practices into graduate education as a way to build research capacity and foster professional identity (Tracey et al., 2014; Haughton, 2023; Zólyomi & Széll, 2025).
Finally, the study contributes to discussions about sustainability and scalability of practice-based research in higher education contexts. While the immediate outcomes included enhanced student learning, collaborative knowledge generation, and actionable design insights, the broader implications concern how such approaches can be institutionalized to support ongoing cycles of practitioner engagement. Scholars argue that participatory approaches are particularly effective in fostering communities of practice that extend beyond individual organizations or projects, creating networks that sustain innovation over time (Nicklin et al., 2021). By positioning practitioner-scholars as legitimate contributors to design research, this study not only highlights pathways for enhancing graduate education but also advances a broader theoretical agenda that recognizes practice-based research as central to the evolution of the learning experience design field.
Several limitations of this study should be acknowledged. First, the case study design focused on a single graduate course and a small group of student practitioner-researchers, preventing the generalizability of findings to other contexts. While the depth of qualitative research provides rich insights, future studies with larger and more diverse samples across multiple institutional settings are required to confirm and expand upon the broader applicability of practice-based research models (Yin, 2018). Second, the dual role of the lead researcher as both instructor and evaluation facilitator introduced potential power dynamics that may have influenced student participation and responses. Although reflexivity practices and co-creation strategies were employed to mitigate bias, the relational nature of the project may still have shaped the data in ways that privileged certain perspectives over others (Gilmore & Kenny, 2015).
Another limitation concerns the reliance on self-reported data sources, such as reflective questionnaires and group discussions. While these artifacts captured valuable practitioner perspectives, they may also reflect social desirability bias or selective recall, especially given the collaborative, evaluative, and previous professor-student relational context. Triangulation across multiple artifacts and data types helped to enhance trustworthiness, but future research could integrate additional measures, such as independent observations or external peer review, to further validate findings (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Finally, the study was situated within a specific technological and institutional infrastructure that enabled collaboration through digital platforms. The accessibility of such tools, as well as the availability of time and institutional support, may not be equally present in all contexts, raising questions about equity and scalability (Areljung et al., 2021). Addressing these limitations in future work will be critical for refining models of practice-based research and ensuring that they are adaptable to a variety of educational and professional environments.
This study highlights several opportunities for future research into practice-based research and its role in advancing community-centered learning experience design. First, further investigation is needed to examine how practitioner scholarship unfolds across a wide variety of organizational and cultural contexts. Expanding beyond a single project or university to include multiple programs or international perspectives would provide insight into how contextual variables such as institutional support, program structure, or norms shape practitioner engagement in collaborative, participatory, and co-created practice-based scholarship. Comparative studies across settings could help identify both common enabling conditions and context-specific adaptations necessary for sustaining practitioner involvement in research.
Second, longitudinal studies could explore how participation in practice-based research influences graduate students’ professional development, identity-development, research capacity, and long-term engagement as scholar-practitioners. While this study captured immediate learning outcomes evidenced by the participants’ first-ever DBR local impact phase evaluation report deliverable shown in Figure 3, as well as this research study, little is known about how such experiences shape career trajectories, professional identities, or future contributions to instructional design scholarship. Research that tracks graduates into their professional practice could reveal whether early engagement in co-created research fosters sustained habits of knowledge generation in workplace or community contexts.
Figure 3
DBR local impact phase evaluation report title page
Finally, future research should investigate the systems-level supports that enable practice-based research to thrive. This includes examining the role of technological platforms, mentorship structures, and institutional policies in scaffolding practitioner engagement, particularly for those without prior research experience. Studies that explore scalable models of support (e.g., digital collaboration ecosystems, cross-institutional networks, or professional learning communities) may provide practical pathways for embedding practice-based research more widely within graduate education and professional practice. In doing so, future research can contribute not only to advancing theory but also to ensuring access to meaningful, practice-based scholarship opportunities for emerging researchers and advancing practitioner-scholars.
This case study demonstrates the potential of practice-based research to bridge theory and practice in learning experience design by engaging graduate students as co-creators in authentic research. By situating practitioner contributions along a continuum from collaboration to co-creation, the study offers a model for integrating participatory and community-centered approaches into design research and authentic practice. At the same time, this work includes limitations: A single case study context, which cannot be generalized, and the dual role of the researchers. Thus, continued research and replication across diverse settings is needed. Future research should investigate how practitioner-scholars can be supported at scale, sustainably, and across institutional, technological, and global contexts. Ultimately, the study underscores that practice-based research is not only a tool for preparing emerging professionals, but also a critical avenue for generating inclusive, contextually relevant scholarly knowledge that advances both practice and theory in the field of instructional and learning experience design.
All authors confirm they have contributed to the preparation of this article. Conceptualization, Lisa A. Giacumo; methodology, Lisa A. Giacumo; Tricia M. Wilson; software, Lisa A. Giacumo; validation, Lisa A. Giacumo; formal analysis, Tricia M. Wilson, Lisa A. Giacumo; investigation, Lisa A. Giacumo; resources, Lisa A. Giacumo; data curation, Lisa A. Giacumo; writing—original draft preparation, Lisa A. Giacumo; Tricia M. Wilson; writing—review and editing, Lisa A. Giacumo; Tricia M. Wilson; visualization, Lisa A. Giacumo; Tricia M. Wilson; supervision, Lisa A. Giacumo; project administration, Lisa A. Giacumo; funding acquisition, N.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
We would like to thank our colleagues for their participatory evaluation project collaboration as volunteer graduate research assistants enrolled in the Learning Design and Technology Master of Science degree program with George Mason University at the time of their project work.
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