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Abstract
Generally educational research is grounded in the empirical traditions of the social sciences (commonly called quantitative and qualitative methods) and is as such distinguished from other forms of scholarship such as theoretical, conceptual or methodological essays, critiques of research traditions and practices and those studies grounded in the humanities (e.g. history, philosophy, literary analysis, arts‐based inquiry). Since the early twentieth century, mainstream educational research is of an empirical nature. In quantitative research, one typically looks for a distribution of variables (how many are there with this or that characteristic) and for explanations, which can be of a deductive‐nomological kind, incorporating universal laws, or be of an inductive nature, which employ statistics. Due to being subsumed under its own set of laws, quantitative research can offer an explanation either in terms of an argument (a logical structure with premises and conclusions governed by some rule of acceptance), or as a presentation of the conditions relevant to the occurrence of the event and a statement of the degree of probability of the event given these conditions. Using Polkinghorne’s distinction between an “analysis of narratives” and “narrative analysis” one can further differentiate between two kinds of qualitative research. One may be interested in common features in different cases. Here the purpose is not only to describe categories, but also to deal with the relationships between different categories. In many cases this kind of research is generally analogous to a quantitative design (including hypotheses), with the exception that qualitative data are gathered, i.e. they refer to what people feel about, or what their experience is with, particular things, what they say that their reasons, desires and intentions are. To be distinguished from this is a second kind where the researcher arranges events and actions by showing how they contribute to the evolution of a plot. The plot is the thematic line of the narrative, the narrative structure that shows how different events contribute to a narrative. This interpretive research thus goes beyond research as the accumulation of knowledge and comes close to those areas of scholarship (see above) that were distinguished from educational research grounded in the empirical traditions of the social sciences. In other words, an interpretation is offered. In this paper various problems relative to the different types of research will be dealt with. It will be argued that educational research (the study of education) should be characterised by various modes of explanation depending on the kind of theoretical interest one is pursuing. That is does not give us fixed and universal knowledge of the social world as such, but rather that it contributes to the task of improving upon our practical knowledge of ongoing social life. It presupposes dialogue between all those involved and furthermore invokes a normative stance. Finally, it should be seen as a case of positive slowness that prevents us from being absorbed in the chaos of unmediated complexity.
Notes
1 See for instance: “Standards for reporting on empirical social science research in AERA publications. American Educational Research Association,” Educational Researcher 35, no. 6 (2006): 33–40.
2 See F. Mosteller, R.J. Light and J.A. Sachs, “Sustained inquiry in education: Lessons from skill grouping and class size,” Harvard Educational Review 66 (1996): 797–842.
3 Goldstein and Blatchford draw attention to several technical problems, which may arise because researchers have ignored the problematic aspects of measuring or defining certain concepts such as: the sample population may differ from the target population; reduction of class sizes within a large school may not be the same as an equivalent change in a small school; the institutions or populations which are most accessible for study are often atypical; a design where randomisation occurs only at the school level may not be representative of the real world where typically differential sizes do exist within schools; teachers may alter their style of teaching (they might tend to use more whole‐class teaching methods and concentrate more on a narrower range of basic topics), and consequently compensate in a number of ways with larger classes. See H. Goldstein and P. Blatchford, “Class size and educational achievement: a review of methodology with particular reference to study design,” British Educational Research Journal 24 (1998): 255–268.
4 P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, ed. and trans. J.B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
5 H.G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. G. Barden (London: Sheed & Ward, 1975).
6 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations/Philosophische Untersuchungen, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953).
7 P. Winch, The Idea of a Social Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958).
8 C. Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 2 vols.
9 S. Mahieu and R. Vanderlinde, De professionele ontwikkeling van beginnende leerkrachten vanuit het micropolitiek perspectief [The professional development of recently graduated teachers from the perspective of micro politics] (Unpublished master’s thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2002).
10 D.C. Phillips, “Gone with the wind? Evidence, rigor and warrants in educational research,” in Papers of the Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, ed. J. Tooley (Oxford: Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, 1993).
11 K. Carter and W. Doyle, “Personal narrative and life history in learning to teach,” in Handbook of Research on Teacher Education. Second Edition, ed. J. Sikula et al. (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 120–142.
12 D. Polkinghorne, “Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 8 (1995): 5–23.
13 R. Smith, “Technical difficulties: The workings of practical judgement,” in Educational Research: Why ‘What works’ Doesn’t Work, ed. P. Smeyers and M. Depaepe (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 159–170.
14 J. Bohman, “Pluralism, indeterminacy and the social sciences: Reply to Ingram and Meehan,” Human Studies. A Journal for Philosophy and the Social Sciences 97 (1997): 441–458.
15 S. Cavell, In Quest of the Ordinary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
16 In J. Gibson and W. Huemer, eds, The Literary Wittgenstein (London: Routledge, 2004).
18 Baz, “On when words are called for: Cavell, McDowell, and the wording of the world,” 496.
17 A. Baz, “On when words are called for: Cavell, McDowell, and the wording of the world,” Inquiry 46: 478–479.
19 Baz, “On when words are called for: Cavell, McDowell, and the wording of the world,” 476.
20 S. Mulhall, “Misplacing freedom, displacing the imagination: Cavell and Murdoch on the fact/value distinction,” Philosophy 47 (Suppl. Vol., 2000): 264.
21 S. Affeldt, “The ground of mutuality: criteria, judgment, and intelligibility in Stephen Mulhall and Stanley Cavell,” European Journal of Philosophy 6 (1998): 31.
22 Affeldt, “The ground of mutuality: Criteria, judgment, and intelligibility in Stephen Mulhall and Stanley Cavell,” 5.
24 Mulhall, “Misplacing freedom, displacing the imagination: Cavell and Murdoch on the fact/value distinction,” 272.
23 M. Gustafson, “Perfect pitch and Austinian examples: Cavell, McDowell, Wittgenstein, and the philosophical significance of ordinary language,” Inquiry 48 (2005): 377.