Elicitation of language learners' personal goals as design concepts

Educational engineering as a research method focuses more on the process than on the product, more on observable phenomena than on measurable differences. Ten years ago, we noticed a factor which appears to impact heavily on the design process, and we have been observing it ever since: the identification and formulation of personal goals, not defined as psychological realities, but as hypothetical design concepts. In this contribution, we describe the background and rationale behind our research. We explain how personal goals can be elicited and how they contribute to the solution construct. We conclude with a plea for collaborative theoretical and empirical validation.