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On the Methodological Demands of

Formative Interventions
a a a
Yrjö Engeström , Annalisa Sannino & Jaakko Virkkunen
a
University of Helsinki
Accepted author version posted online: 10 Feb 2014.Published
online: 17 Apr 2014.

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Methodological Demands of Formative Interventions, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 21:2, 118-128, DOI:
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 Mind, Culture, and Activity, 21: 118–128, 2014
Copyright © Regents of the University of California
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ISSN 1074-9039 print / 1532-7884 online
DOI: 10.1080/10749039.2014.891868

COMMENTARY
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On the Methodological Demands of Formative

Interventions

Yrjö Engeström, Annalisa Sannino, and Jaakko Virkkunen

University of Helsinki

INTRODUCTION

Bringing design-based research and activity-theoretical formative intervention research into dia-
logue is commendable. William R. Penuel contributes to this effort by examining two cases that
he considers to be “emerging forms” of formative intervention research in his article, “Emerging
Forms of Formative Intervention Research in Education” (this issue). According to Penuel,
although couched within the broad notion of design-based studies in the learning sciences, these
cases go beyond standard assumptions and limitations of design-based research and take steps
that seem to be in line with key ideas of formative intervention research.
The approach taken by Penuel has the obvious advantage of showing that formative inter-
vention is indeed an emergent and open-ended approach to theoretically guided research. Our
concern with this approach is that the very idea of formative intervention research may lose its
rigor and become blurred. This concern prompts us to use Penuel’s contribution as an opportunity
to examine the methodological principles of formative intervention research as that approach has
developed in recent years. Our goal is to sharpen the key ideas of formative intervention research
while nourishing its open-ended and developing character. Our question is, To what extent and in
which ways are Penuel’s two cases indeed examples of formative intervention research?
We do not engage in a debate with design-based research in this commentary. Our criti-
cal perspective on design-based research has been presented recently (Engeström, 2011), and
Penuel quite adequately discusses the relationship between design-based research and formative
intervention research. Rather, our focus is on clarifying the demands of formative intervention
research as a contribution to future discussion of the issues that Penuel raises.

Correspondence should be sent to Yrjö Engeström, University of Helsinki, Center for Research on Activity,
Development and Learning (CRADLE), Institute of Behavioral Sciences, P.O. Box 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 3A), Helsinki
FIN-00014, Finland. E-mail: yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi
 METHODOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS 119

Some Historical Background

Before engaging with the cases, we want to sketch some historical background for the current
discussion. In 1977, Urie Bronfenbrenner pointed out that Western studies of human development
have the disadvantage of being limited to environmental variations that fit within macrosystems
that presently exist or have occurred in the past: “Future possibilities remain uncharted, except
by hazardous extrapolation” (p. 528). Bronfenbrenner quoted A. N. Leont’ev as saying,

It seems to me that American researchers are constantly seeking to explain how the child came to be
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what he is; we in the USSR are striving to discover not how the child came to be what he is, but how
he can become what he not yet is. (p. 528)

Bronfenbrenner (1977) went on to discuss the promise and challenge of what he called the
“transforming experiments” of Soviet psychologists and educators. “By this term they mean
an experiment that radically restructures the environment, producing a new configuration that
activates previously unrealized behavioral potentials of the subject” (p. 528). Bronfenbrenner
emphasized that it is one thing to compare the effects on development of systems or system ele-
ments already present within the culture; it is quite another to introduce experimental changes
that represent a restructuring of established institutional forms and values.
Bronfenbrenner was no ideological dupe. He pointed out that “once Soviet research moves out
of the laboratory, the control group disappears, systematic data yield to anecdotal accounts, and
the ‘transforming experiment’ degenerates into dutiful demonstration of ideologically prescribed
processes and outcomes” (p. 528).
Despite such impediments, foundational methodological principles of transforming
experiments—or formative interventions as we call them—were worked out at least in prelim-
inary form by Vygotsky, Il’enkov, Davydov, and their colleagues. There are two foundational
methodological principles of formative intervention research, namely, the principle of double
stimulation and the principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete (Sannino, 2011).
These two principles together make transformative agency a third principle of formative interven-
tions. These principles are not abstract; they must be connected to the target of the intervention,
a real object-oriented activity system or a constellation of activity systems in the society. In the
discussion that follows, we use these three basic principles as lenses through which we examine
the two cases presented by Penuel. This examination also requires that we sharpen the lenses
themselves.
In our view, one important challenge is to integrate the methodological principles worked
out by the Russians with the broader societal insight put forward by John Dewey. According
to Dewey, the very striving for control, or absolutistic thinking, plays a central part behind the
disasters of modern society.

When we say that thinking and beliefs should be experimental, not absolutistic, we have then in mind
a certain logic of method, not, primarily, the carrying on of experimentation like that of laboratories.
Such a logic involves the following factors: First, that those concepts, general principles, theories
and dialectical developments which are indispensable to any systematic knowledge be shaped and
tested as tools of inquiry. Secondly, that politics and proposals for social action be treated as work-
ing hypotheses, not as programs to be rigidly adhered to and executed. They will be experimental
in the sense that they will be entertained subject to constant and well-equipped observation of the
 120 ENGESTRÖM, SANNINO, AND VIRKKUNEN

consequences they entail when acted upon, and subject to ready and flexible revision in the light of
observed consequences. (Dewey, 1927, pp. 202–203)
The implication of Dewey’s remarks is that instead of controlling the world, we should accept
that all our designs have unintended consequences and drift in unexpected ways. Thus, instead of
pushing through grand designs, we should cultivate tentative solutions by means of experimen-
tation, first locally and, when working solutions are found, by generalizing and spreading them
through dialogue and further experimentation.
There are several current attempts based on cultural-historical activity theory aimed at
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developing formative intervention methods or implementation toolkits that seek to build upon
Bronfenbrenner’s visionary text. These include the Russian genetic-modeling experiment of
Davydov and his colleagues (Zuckerman, 2012), the French clinic of activity (Clot, 2009; Clot &
Kostulski, 2011), the American Fifth Dimension (Cole & The Distributed Literacy Consortium,
2006), and the Finnish Change Laboratory (Engeström, 2007; Virkkunen & Newnham, 2013).
This commentary is based on experiences and results gained during 20 years of implement-
ing, analyzing, and developing the Change Laboratory method. Our own understanding of the
methodology of formative intervention research has developed significantly over this period.
In particular, our view of the principle of double stimulation has been expanded and deepened in
the past 7 years or so.

DOUBLE STIMULATION

Double stimulation has often been understood primarily as a cognitive technique that can enhance
problem solving and concept formation. Experiences from Change Laboratory interventions con-
vinced us that much more is at stake, namely, motives, conflicts, volition and agency of the
participants. These experiences prompted us to reexamine double stimulation:
The formation of new solutions, concepts, and skills in double stimulation is much more than just
a cognitive learning achievement. It is a liberating achievement of agency formation, which gives
expansive personal and collective meaning to the associated cognitive and cultural learning contents.
(Engeström, 2007, p. 374)
In this spirit, Sannino (2011) characterizes the principle of double stimulation as “the mecha-
nism with which human beings can intentionally break out of a conflicting situation and change
their circumstances or solve difficult problems” (p. 584). As Sannino points out, Vygotsky’s sim-
ple example of waking up by means of counting to three condenses well the dynamics of double
stimulation we have been seeking to emphasize.
Upon waking, a person knows, on the one hand, that he must get up and, on the other hand, that he
would like to sleep a little longer. A conflict of motives develops. The two motives alternate, appear
in consciousness, and replace each other. . . . A typical, developed voluntary act in the same situation
exhibits the following three instants: (1) I must get up (motive), (2) I don’t want to get up (motive),
(3) counting to oneself: one, two, three (auxiliary motive) and (4) at the count of three, rising. This is
the introduction of an auxiliary motive, creating a situation from within that makes me get up. . . . I
got up at the signal “three” . . . but I, myself, through a signal and a connection with it, got up, that
is, I controlled my behavior through an auxiliary stimulus. (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 211)
 METHODOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS 121

In double stimulation, the first stimulus is the problem itself. Human beings employ external
artifacts, which they turn into signs by filling them with significant meaning. Such signs are
used as second stimuli with the help of which the subject gains control of his or her action
and constructs a new understanding of the initial problem. Through this process, according to
Vygotsky (1987, p. 356), the subject transforms a meaningless situation into one that has a clear
meaning.
As the literature review being worked out by Sannino (2014) reveals, a closer examination of
Vygotsky’s work makes it clear that double stimulation is the foundational mechanism by which
volitional action, or will, emerges. Thus, double stimulation is the gateway to all higher mental
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functions. Its starting point is a conflict of motives. If the conflict of motives and the volitional
aspect are disregarded, double stimulation is easily reduced to just another term for the general
notion of mediation.
In Penuel’s general discussion of the principle of double stimulation, the conflict of motives
and volition are not mentioned. Contradictions in activity systems are discussed in isolation from
double stimulation. Thus, the crucial meaning of double stimulation as the generative mechanism
of willed quest for change—or transformative agency—is missed.
In the description of the first case, Project WHIRL, Penuel writes that “we believed it was
critical to present stimuli that might help make visible the contradiction between district policies’
equity goals and teachers’ low expectations” (this issue, p. 105). This approach seems indeed
a possible basis for the emergence of a fruitful conflict of motives. But did such a conflict of
motives emerge, and if it did, how? Penuel’s description does not answer these questions. Instead,
the description goes on to state that teachers were invited to “identify problems of practice they
considered obstacles to engaging students in more self-assessment and reflection on learning”
(this issue, p. 105). Again, perhaps these problems evoked a conflict of motives? We do not
know.
The treatment of the first case under the rubric of double stimulation is focused on the intro-
duction and employment of “mediating devices to facilitate teachers’ search for solutions to the
problems” (this issue, p. 106). We want to ask, How were these devices appropriated and used to
resolve the (possible) conflict of motives? The case description moves at such a general level that
the actual steps of double stimulation are impossible to reconstruct.
In Penuel’s second case, the MIST project, “a key aim is to identify points of congruence and
disconnections between districts’ espoused and enacted theories of action” (this issue, p. 108).
Again, perhaps such gaps and disconnections are a fruitful ground for eliciting a conflict of
motives, but in this case we have even less evidence than in the first case.
If double stimulation is to be deployed in a more systematic way, its actual unfolding needs
to be traced in detail. The first crucial transition is moving from a systemic contradiction to a
personally experienced conflict of motives. Engeström and Sannino (2011) developed a method
for analyzing discursive manifestations of contradictions, a tool for understanding this very
transition.
The second crucial transition in double stimulation is movement from conflict of motives (first
stimulus) to the identification and filling with meaning of a potential auxiliary stimulus. A device
given by the interventionists is unlikely to smoothly become the auxiliary stimulus-means
preferred by the participants. Most likely the initially given potential second stimuli are rejected
or reshaped by the participants, and the participants typically pick up or invent devices of their
own, often as if behind the back of the interventionist. Importantly, the construction of a second
 122 ENGESTRÖM, SANNINO, AND VIRKKUNEN

stimulus is also a decision to act in a certain way (recall Vygotsky’s example of waking up by
counting to three). It is not just a general instrument; it is an instrumental solution to the conflict.
The third important transition is movement from the formation of the second stimulus as a
meaningful sign to the implementation of this device in the resolution of the conflict of motives.
There may be considerable delay between the formation of the second stimulus and its employ-
ment in practice. The true test of the efficacy of double stimulation is a situation where the conflict
reappears: Will the new stimulus-means be used to break out of the conflict or will it remain only
an idea, a sign without impact?
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ASCENDING FROM THE ABSTRACT TO THE CONCRETE

Karl Marx explained that his method starts from the real concrete (the world as it presents itself
to us) and proceeds through abstraction (separating from this whole the unit with which we think
about it) to the thought concrete (the reconstituted and now understood whole) (Marx, 1904; see
also Ilyenkov, 1982; Kosík, 1976; Ollman, 2003; Zeleny, 1980). This dialectical movement of
thinking is called the principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete.
In empirical thinking based on comparisons and classifications, abstractions capture arbitrary,
only formally interconnected properties. In dialectical-theoretical thinking, based on ascending
from the abstract to the concrete, a “germ-cell” abstraction captures the smallest and simplest,
genetically primary unit of the whole functionally interconnected system under scrutiny. This is
a method of grasping the essence of an object by tracing and reproducing theoretically the logic
of its development, of its historical formation through the emergence and resolution of its inner
contradictions. The initial germ-cell abstraction is step-by-step enriched and transformed into a
concrete system of multiple, constantly developing manifestations.
Strongly influenced by the philosopher Ilyenkov (1977, 1982), the psychologist Davydov
(1990) constructed a theory of learning activity that follows the logic of ascending from the
abstract to the concrete. Learning activity is achieved through specific epistemic or learning
actions. According to Davydov (2008, pp. 125–126), an ideal-typical sequence of learning activ-
ity consists of the following six learning actions: (a) transforming the conditions of the task in
order to reveal the universal relationship of the object under study; (b) modeling the identified
relationship in material, graphic, or literal form; (c) transforming the model of the relationship in
order to study its properties in ”pure form”; (d) constructing a system of particular tasks that are
solvable by a general method; (e) monitoring and assessment of the performance of the preced-
ing actions; and (f) evaluating the assimilation of the general method that results from solving the
given learning task. Davydov’s formative interventions were built to systematically follow this
logic.
Engeström’s (1987) theory of expansive learning is another step in developing a learning
theory based on ascending from the abstract to the concrete. The theory of expansive learn-
ing focuses on learning processes in which the very subject of learning is transformed from an
individual to a collective activity system or a network of activity systems. Initially, individuals
begin to question the existing order and logic of their activity. As more actors join in, a col-
laborative analysis and modeling of the zone of proximal development are initiated and carried
out. Expansive learning leads to the formation of a new, expanded object and pattern of activity
oriented to the object.
 METHODOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS 123

Expansive learning is achieved through specific epistemic or learning actions. Together these
actions form an expansive cycle or spiral. An ideal-typical sequence of epistemic actions in an
expansive cycle may be described as follows.

• The first action is that of questioning, criticizing or rejecting some aspects of the accepted
practice and existing wisdom.
• The second action is that of analyzing the situation. Analysis involves mental, discursive
or practical transformation of the situation in order to find out causes or explanatory mech-
anisms. One type of analysis is historical-genetic; it seeks to explain the situation by
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tracing its origins and evolution. Another type of analysis is actual-empirical; it seeks to
explain the situation by constructing a picture of its inner systemic relations.
• The third action is that of modeling the newly found explanatory relationship in some
publicly observable and transmittable medium.
• The fourth action is that of examining the model, running, operating, and experimenting
on it to fully grasp its dynamics, potentials, and limitations.
• The fifth action is that of implementing the model by means of practical applications,
enrichments, and conceptual extensions.
• The sixth action is that of reflecting on and evaluating the process.
• The seventh action is that of consolidating the outcomes into a new stable form of practice.

Change Laboratory interventions are designed so that the participants are faced with tasks that
call for expansive learning actions and eventually for a more or less complete expansive cycle.
In other words, the process of a formative intervention follows specific methodological steps,
which are flexible, but not situationally improvised. The process follows and nurtures the logic
of ascending from the abstract to the concrete.
The general shape or steps of the process in formative interventions are not described in
Penuel’s article. Penuel states that “the processes by which these hybrid assemblies are organized
can take different forms” (this issue, p. 103). Thus, the two case descriptions do not elaborate on
the possible theoretical ideas guiding the process or make clear the actual stepwise unfolding of
the process from the point of view of the participants. Consequently, so far as we can ascertain,
the principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete is absent in Penuel’s article. Again,
it is of course possible that some aspects of the two cases did indeed resemble some features of
ascending from the abstract to the concrete—another point for future discussion.
The fact that formative interventions as we understand them follow the logic of ascending from
the abstract to the concrete, typically with a carefully planned sequence of tasks and learning
actions, does not mean that the interventionist’s plan is smoothly implemented. To the contrary,
participants in formative interventions commonly take over the process at some point and gen-
erate deviations from the interventionist’s intentions. These deviations reveal gaps between the
interventionist’s object and the participants’ objects—gaps that need to be negotiated.
In a recent article (Engeström, Rantavuori, & Kerosuo, 2013), a systematic analysis of gaps
between the interventionists’ script and the learners actions in the course of a Change Laboratory
identified two types of deviations, namely, action-level deviations and object-level deviations.
The former are bounded episodes in which the participants take one or more actions that deviate
from the script, but the process then returns to follow the initial script. The latter are episodes
in which the participants take actions that redefine and transform the initially planned object of
 124 ENGESTRÖM, SANNINO, AND VIRKKUNEN

the learning effort, thus changing the entire course of the process and forcing the intervention-
ists to redefine their script. The deviations and negotiations are important instances of emerging
transformative agency among the participants (Engeström & Sannino, 2012).

TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY

Penuel appropriately singles out agency as a key principle in formative intervention research.
However, the notion of agency he presents is rather general, limiting its analytical power. Agency
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needs to be theoretically substantiated and, preferably, turned into operational conceptual tools
for analysis of empirical data.
In existing theorizing and research on agency, individually focused psychological approaches
have been dominant (e.g., Bandura, 2006; Deci & Ryan, 1995; Martin, Sugarman, & Thompson,
2003). As Deci and Ryan (1995) define it, “the term human agency refers to those motivated
behaviors that emanate from one’s integrated self” (p. 35). The type of agency conceptual-
ized within cultural-historical activity theory challenges the dominant individualist perspective.
We call this type of agency transformative. The notion of transformative agency has been used
with slightly different connotations by authors representing different theoretical frameworks (e.g.,
Bajaj, 2009; Hays, 1994; Lovell, 2003). Within the activity-theoretical framework, Virkkunen
(2006) defines transformative agency as “breaking away from the given frame of action and
taking the initiative to transform it” (p. 49).
Transformative agency differs from conventional notions of agency in that it stems from
encounters with and examinations of disturbances, conflicts, and contradictions in the collec-
tive activity. Transformative agency develops the participants’ joint activity by explicating and
envisioning new possibilities. Transformative agency goes beyond the individual as it seeks possi-
bilities for collective change efforts. In this respect, the concept of transformative agency is close
to the concept of relational agency (Edwards, 2005, 2009). However, transformative agency is
not limited to the relations of an individual expert in that it underlines the crucial importance of
expansive transitions from individual initiatives toward collective actions to accomplish systemic
change. Transformative agency also goes beyond situational here-and-now actions as it emerges
and evolves over time, often through complex debates and stepwise crystallizations of a vision to
be implemented (Engeström & Sannino, 2013).
The concept of agency was not available to the founders of cultural-historical activity theory.
They wrote about volitional action and will. The emergence of volitional action is at the core of
both the principle of double stimulation and the principle of ascending from the abstract to the
concrete. Double stimulation explains how volitional action emerges out of a conflict of motives
with the help of an auxiliary stimulus, an artifact filled with meaning and turned into a sign.
Ascending from the abstract to the concrete explains how individual volitional actions of breaking
away from the old grow into a new concrete collective activity with the help of the direction and
vision crystallized in the germ-cell abstraction.
In a series of recent studies, types of expressions of transformative agency have been identified
in Change Laboratory processes (Engeström, 2011; Haapasaari, Engeström & Kerosuo, in press;
Sannino, 2008). The following six types seem to cover quite well the range of expressions of
transformative agency in this type of formative intervention.
 METHODOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS 125

1. Resisting the proposed change, or suggestions or initiatives associated with it.

2. Criticizing the current activity and organization.
3. Explicating new possibilities or potentials in the activity, often relating to past positive
experiences.
4. Envisioning new patterns or models for the activity.
5. Committing to taking concrete actions to change the activity, often formulated as
commissive speech acts tied to specific time and place.
6. Taking consequential actions or reporting having taken consequential actions to change
the activity.
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These six types of transformative agency typically appear in combinations that evolve over time,
moving from rudimentary expressions of resistance toward envisioning, committing, and taking
consequential change actions. This is also a movement from individual initiatives to more collec-
tive forms of transformative agency. Thus, the evolution of these types of agentive actions is in
itself a learning process.

PERSPECTIVES OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTION RESEARCH

Formative interventions, in particular Change Laboratories and Clinic of Activity, are often used
in change efforts in workplaces and organizations. Design-based research is more commonly
used in schools and classrooms. Change Laboratories have been and are currently conducted
in schools (e.g., Engeström, Engeström, & Suntio, 2002; Sannino, 2010; Virkkunen, Newnham,
Nleya, & Engeström, 2012), but the participants are typically teachers, not students. Is this an
inherent limitation of the Change Laboratory method?
This is actually a question of the possibilities of and limits to transformative agency in children
and adolescents. Learning by Expanding (Engeström, 1987) discusses the example of Children’s
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, initiated by seven adolescents between 12 and 17 years of
age. Movements such as the Deport-es para Compartir in Mexico (http://deportesparacompartir.
org.mx/es/?lang=en) build on children’s potential as change makers in local communities and
global challenges. Another example is children’s involvement in revitalizing the cultivation and
use of a native vegetable in a Japanese community (Yamazumi, 2014). Examples such as these
indicate that the transformative agency of children and adolescents should not be seen narrowly
as confined to the monopoly of the school. Schools might be better conceived of as partners
in children’s movements that involve heterogeneous actors, associations, and agencies. When
involved in such a movement, the school itself may become a focus of transformation, largely,
but not solely, initiated and driven by students. Involving children in the making of their own cur-
ricula (Goulart & Roth, 2010), as well as the recent educational notions of “learner-generated
content” (e.g., Chang, Kennedy, & Petrovic, 2008; Narayan, 2011), may gain new meaning
and power in these kinds of development. All in all, we foresee a growing need for formative
interventions in which children and adolescent take center stage as subjects with transformative
agency.
In our view, there is a global push toward formative interventions in multiactivity
constellations which may include private companies, public agencies, communities and third-
sector associations, and policy-making administrative and political bodies. Experiences from
 126 ENGESTRÖM, SANNINO, AND VIRKKUNEN

conducting Change Laboratories with medical practitioners from different clinics in the health
care system of Helsinki prompted Engeström (2005) to reconsider agency in radically distributed
terms. Downing-Wilson, Lecusay, and Cole (2011) addressed this challenge in terms of “mutual
appropriation.” Currently Change Laboratories in multiactivity constellations are planned or con-
ducted in Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, and South Africa. Not accidentally, initiatives for
such bold formative interventions are increasingly coming from the global south.
So far a great strength of Change Laboratories has been the relatively compact, yet com-
prehensive, character of the data gathered in such interventions. The entire cycle of 6 to
10 laboratory sessions plus follow-up sessions is typically video-recorded and transcribed
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for analysis. Although laborious, systematic and rigorous analyses of this type of data sets
are entirely possible. The methods of analyzing discursive manifestations of contradictions
(Engeström & Sannino, 2011), expansive learning actions and deviations from instructional inten-
tions (Engeström et al., 2013), and expressions of transformative agency (Haapasaari et al., in
press) were developed with these comprehensive data sets. These methods, in turn, allow for
systematic comparisons between Change Laboratories conducted in different settings and at dif-
ferent times, and thus the discovery of alternative profiles and developmental patterns in these
interventions.
The emerging focus on multiactivity constellations may, in part, require more distributed and
heterogeneous modifications of the existing methods of formative intervention. This will open
up new challenges, some of which have been discussed in the debates on multisited ethnography
(Coleman & von Hellerman, 2013; Falzon, 2009).

CONCLUSION

We welcome Penuel’s attempt to open a discussion of the potential of formative intervention

research. Our aim in this commentary has been primarily to elucidate what one of the partners
in the dialogue, formative intervention research based on cultural-historical activity theory, is all
about.
From our point of view, there are reasons to doubt that the two cases in Penuel’s article
are to a large extent compatible with the tenets of formative intervention research. It is these
very tenets that we have tried to articulate and sharpen up. Because we do not know much
in detail about the two cases, it may also be that they are more compatible with formative
intervention research that what it appears on the basis of the compact descriptions in Penuel’s
article.
One way forward in the dialogue would be to examine in greater detail some cases of design-
based research against the methodological demands we have tried to articulate and sharpen up in
this commentary. At the same time, it might be useful if the methodological demands of design-
based research were similarly articulated and used in examining cases of formative intervention
research.
However, the latter may be an unfair or unrealistic idea. Like Penuel, we see the current the-
oretical and methodological bases of design-based research as deliberately eclectic and loose.
If this is indeed so, perhaps it is more realistic to nurture dialogue between formative intervention
research and some more specifically defined and theoretically articulated strands of design-based
research.
 METHODOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS 127

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