ABSTRACT
A. Sannino, Y. Engestrom, and M. Lemos’s contribute to advancing fundamental understanding in their ongoing development of the explanatory resources provided by cultural-historical activity theory, especially the concepts of double stimulation and ascending in cycles from the abstract to the concrete. Sannino et al emphasize that the method of formative interventions can increase generative capabilities in groups of practitioners because “formative interventions based on activity theory can and must generate a new type of dialogue and complementarity between practical impact and rigorous analysis”. This chapter believes that our program of development and research called design-based research would be stronger if we adopted the practice of having causal design principles stated. It evaluates in published reports of studies that examine educational innovations, with an aspiration to develop empirically grounded hypotheses that link design features with learning outcomes explicitly.
