February 3…Scientifically-based Educational Research
How did Pring’s Ch. 1-2 and Labaree leave you feeling about the possibility of educational research to be scientific? What obstacles do you see to realizing the vision of a scientifically-based ed. research and are they insurmountable?
Because of Pring Ch.2, I feel the need to identify the many different ways the word “scientific” could be interpreted. I identify educational research as scientific, though I can understand how some see education research as “less scientific” than the hard sciences. I think qualitative educational research can certainly be scientific, though I do not think that educational research can be fully quantitative like the hard sciences.
ReplyDeleteIn education, there are SO many variables. In order to quantify what happens in a classroom, for example, the researcher would have to ignore a lot of distinctions between the 30 children to be able to quantify them for a research report. In doing so, the researcher would effectively be reporting with less validity. However, I do believe that larger-scale research can be done in education, especially with implementation of certain programs. The quantifiable data may be more generalizable on a large-scale, but I don’t think that quantifiable data would be as useful for classroom teachers.
I think what I am trying to say is that there are two (at least) distinct reasons I can think of to product educational research: 1) to provide quantitative research to evaluate/guide implementation of programs/initiatives and 2) to provide qualitative research to evaluate/guide practice in classrooms. I suppose that quantitative research COULD be used by practitioners, but as a teacher myself, I would find quantitative research much less useful to guide my day-to-day behavior in the classroom.
-Chelsea Prue
Like Chelsea above, I can't help but question the meaning of "scientific" and "rigor" in the context of Pring's chapter 2. As he succinctly writes, "It all depends on what you mean." I think the inherent complexity in educational environments, compounded by our ethical understandings of human subjects research, will always leave educational research in our "murky" and ill-defined space. Learning is not as easily quantifiable as the measurement of a specific distance, for example. And our theoretical lenses for viewing these changes also vary: behavioral, social-constructivist, cognitivist, etc.
ReplyDeleteBoth Larabee and Pring make it clear that the challenge of educational research is to some extent financial. And if education is seen as a "lowly" charge, then perhaps innate institutional bias plays some part in the dismissal of the idea that educational research can be rigorous. As someone who reads educational research frequently for my professional and personal edification, however, I would counter that there are lots of hard scientists also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning---and finding it as challenging to report upon as we do as educational scholars.
I keep coming back to this idea of research needing to be scientific, and the challenges laid out by Larabee with qualitative research, mixed methods, and even action research. Of course, I studied action research as part of my master's program, so when Larabee wrote, on page 18 near the bottom of the first column, that doc students frequently looked "for practical solutions before explaining the problem," I wrote in the sidebar, "Action Learning." In the next paragraph, he mentions Action Research, upon which Action Learning is based. Maybe in our exploration of wanting educational research to be more scientific, we are looking for practical solutions before truly understanding the problem of the low status of educational research? I can't help but lend a critical eye towards some critical theory here... again quoting Larabee, p. 13 near the bottom of column 2: "teaching, more than other professions, draws recruits from groups that are traditionally disadvantaged socially, women and the working class." Is educational research less respected because it is truly less rigorous? Or is it disrespected for some other, more insidious reasons? I wonder, too: if we are not doing theoretical "what if" research (because it's either unethical, or unfunded, or whatever the reason may be) but instead using research to solve problems, is that at the basis of this idea that educational research is somehow unscientific or unsound?
I see the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) as highly regarded in higher education, especially in university centers for teaching and learning. I belong to a reading group of faculty developers who read and discuss these articles for our own personal and professional growth. However, I know that it is difficult for faculty in other departments to publish about their SOTL work in their disciplinary journals (the ones that "count"), and are therefore reluctant to spend the time researching and publishing on teaching, if it doesn't "count" towards tenure. That's another discussion for another post, I suppose.
Kori Mosley
ReplyDelete2/1/2020
I appreciate Pring’s efforts to break “it” down - making an attempt to help someone like me navigate the philosophical issues present in the realm of research, especially that of education (and for me, art education). I am hopeful that he will continue to address VALUE(S) and QUALITY, as those are things that I wrestle with defining, applying, and assessing as an art educator. Additionally, I feel like I have skirted these issues - or maybe wallowed in them? Art class is one with many “right” answers (terminology, historical facts, techniques, materials, etc.) but it also has a very hefty serving of open-endedness (expression, interpretation, experimentation, risk-taking, meaning-making, innovation, creativity, etc.). It feels both “hard” and “soft.” To that end, both quantitative and qualitative research methods seem appropriate and logical, depending on the question (and if you can actually express what you mean to ask!). At first thought, trying to apply quantitative methods to art education just feels wrong; there is something about art that wants to stay outside of “that” realm. Yet there is so much about art that IS scientific. There is also so much about art that seems misunderstood - and in need of scientific research to “prove” something… As I understand it, quantitative research is picking up speed in the field of art education, I suppose for just that reason. I suppose also that this is where mixed-methods come in handy.
Beyond those challenges, I also relate to Labaree’s points about the personal nature of education, the “emotional labor” (p. 19) - and the cognitive dissonance that can occur when trying to negotiate the space between practice and scholarship. I fee that. Regardless of these obstacles, I don’t think the task is insurmountable, I am just not sure yet if I am the one to do it.
The ambiguity in scientific-ed research and defining it is something I wrote about as well. I agree that just because there isn't a clear path, doesn't mean it isn't possible. I think if anything that's what makes ed research more capable of being scientific. Language is complex, and this puzzlement and questioning is how we construct pathways to scientific ed research.
DeleteEd research was compared to medical research multiple times. Talking about the quality and substance of research and how limiting it would be if teachers/doctors were not involved in formulating the research questions. Again, the comparison of teachers to doctors was mentioned when citing how limiting it would be if doctors just studied the diseases but not treatments. Essentially saying how ed research has failed by not translating research back to practice for teachers and administrators. These two flaws seem to be an obstacle in conducting scientifically based ed research, but I don’t think these flaws are insurmountable.
ReplyDeleteIn the first two chapters of Pring, the struggle of defining ed research is apparent. Research is broadly defined, but this means it encompasses many areas of research. An area of concern with this is that since it is so fragmented, the bigger picture is not always communicated. Because of the philosophical battle to define ed research, it doesn’t seem impossible for it to be scientific. I think when things are “mushy” like Labaree puts it, it puts ed research at an advantage to continue to grow and develop what scientific research can look like. Also, I think as educational researchers, it is valuable to bring experiences to research development. I know Labaree said this was a weakness of teachers, but I think it is the opposite. Research needs to be reciprocal. Experiential learning, informed practices, and research might just be the loop that is needed to translate research back to practice.
Hello, Aliza,
DeleteI completely agree. To understand the system of education, one has to be a member of that system. Teachers and administrators are the ones who are carrying out the work daily, and they have an understanding of the complexity of this system because they are a member of the system. While I do understand how this may lead to bias within the research, I question how we can create stronger research methods that expose and limit those biases in an authentic space that allow us to move educational research while getting to the root of educational research.
Like Caitlin and Chelsea, my reading of Pring inspires me to consider what we mean by "scientific." I really appreciated his emphasis on the importance of understanding what we mean we when talk about ed. research (apologies for the accidental Carver reference), and that a lot of our arguments and misunderstandings are rooted in our not understanding how or in what context we are using words.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, defining words and giving each other the space and time to understand what we mean is costly, and because ed. research handles a lot of abstract terrain, the folks most concerned with the costs and returns on investment have even more reason to be skeptical or at least on guard.
So whatever "scientific" research is, it seems expectations from ed. research should be formed within the context of an understanding of the nature of ed. research. I sort of feel like I'm chasing my tail.
Ed. Research is a vast world, and because it's so big and investigates things that span from the very concrete to the very abstract, it seems to me that the term "scientific" should be defined in the context of where the research falls on that spectrum. If that's the case, then I think "scientific" ed. research is possible and should not create unrealistic expectations.
- Peyton B.
Your dissertation subtitle: "what we talk about when we talk about ed research"
DeleteYou make a good point about chasing your tail: that's how I've been feeling while reading these articles and chapters the last few weeks. Maybe that's the process of untangling the complicated mess that is educational research?
Pring and Labaree’s articles highlight the challenges of educational research due to the ambiguous nature of what education is and, therefore, how to conduct educational research. Pring sets the stage towards developing a philosophical analysis of the word education and its complexity due to the usage of the word and how it is applied. As a school of thought, education does not have an agreed-upon definition, and it seems, the definition one chooses is driven by the standpoint they are defining education. While reflecting on Stenhouse’s (1975) definition of research: “Systematic, critical and self-critical enquiry which aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge,” this definition grounded me on the purpose of research, and also why Pring and Labaree question the plausibility of educational research. The keyword to me is systematic, and it is this very word that leaves me encouraged. To understand the system of education, we have to examine the outcomes of the individuals who the system serves, while stripping back the very parts that make up the system. As we have discussed in class, no one researcher can do this alone, but as a school of thought, I believe we can, but it is imperative that we have a universal definition of what education is and its purpose. As I typed that very statement, I started second-guessing what I typed: a universal definition of education. I question the consequences of this universal definition, who gets to decide that definition and, most importantly, who is left out of shaping that definition. The history of education has shown that education is a powerful tool to control not only the minds of another group but has also been used to determine who not only has the right to an education but the quality of education. As an immature researcher, I hope as my craft and research matures, I want to be part of not only defining what education is and how it is applied. We are in need of a better understanding of the system of education and the parts that make up the whole.
ReplyDelete...Before I answer this question, let's all get on the same page of what we mean by "scientific".
ReplyDeleteI'm just kidding! Well, I'm mostly just kidding.
I'm going to ask my peers/instructor to check me on this next idea if it's intellectually lazy. I full believe in the discipline's potential to be scientific and I think it rests on how committed the discipline is to being a "squishy" field. That's the work, right? Managing the Squish? We all could have gone into Math or Biology of Chemistry if we wanted more pristine inputs/outputs, but we went into a swamp of variables. Why run from it? What I like about the Pring text is that it doesn't operate from a deficit model with Education as an area of research. I'm projecting a bit, but I don't think it makes anyone a less serious academic if they study how a middle school student learns as opposed to how an atom bomb works. That might be the first hurdle. Is there an internalized inferiority complex in being an academic in a soft science? Anyways, when I say 'Managing the Squish' I mean taking stock of all of the language, context, and definitions that we live in and taking stock of what we are doing before we do it. How do we take great care in describing what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what that means. If the field we're in has less firm boundaries, delineations, and discrete points, how can we make order in that?
Reading the Pring text I was thinking a lot about how, outside of our own baggage, bad faith arguments shape how we think about education research. Chapter 1, I believe, noted how it could be both simultaneously too academic and too practitioner focused, too theory oriented and too devoid of theory. Are the external critics of Educational Research interested in developing educational research? I don't necessarily believe that important external stakeholders/gatekeepers are invested in education at all, and are happy to find reasons to question its merits and divert capital from it. Are the children of policy makers going to public schools that operate under these policies? While we're trying to manage the squish (if that's what we need to do), how do we stop ourselves from rushing the process, skipping steps, or fitting square pegs in round holes to appeal to people who don't actually care about the integrity of the work?
Educational Research, as it's currently situated, puts the author in a position to get embarrassed by their peers and critics. If your thought process, methodology, and interpretation of language shape your research there's a lot of YOU in there. And if there's a lot of YOU in your work then there is a of YOU that can be dunked on by a peer reviewer. I think it's important to be in "the arena", to try your best to explain your position and let yourself be open to critique. (This also sucks a lot and I feel very differently about it when I'm ACTUALLY being critiqued.) Engaging in sustained dialogue about shared vocabulary, whether or not we're using them, and whether or not we should be looking at them, is a cornerstone towards a more scientific field. (Which is kind of ironic, right? To be MORE scientific you have to get MORE abstract?) To be fair, I can only imagine how much harder it is to receive a critique that is: "I believe your entire approach to this concept is flawed" is much harder to square than "I don't agree with how you phrased your interview questions." ...But that's the work, right? We all signed up for this knowing our ideas would go out in the world. Don't we owe it to "the knowledge base" to let it interact with us? ESPECIALLY when the folks we are in dialogue with are working in good faith, I believe we owe it to ourselves and our discipline to suss out what fits and what doesn't.
So, do I think we can be a scientific field, or move towards being a MORE scientific field? Yes! What are the obstacles? Impatience, intellectual insecurity, a lack of open dialogue, bad faith actors in positions of influence. Is it insurmountable? If you want Educational Research to be like Physics research than I might say yes, but I don't think anything involving human beings in insurmountable. It might be insurmountable in this political reality, but that's why we have Dialectics!!!!
DeleteFor better or worse, that comment above was ALSO me.
DeleteBoth Pring and Labaree describe the complexity of educational research – of the need to understand the subject being studied both conceptually and practically. Labaree asserts that education must be approached from multiple perspectives in order to be understandable. Pring points out that the first step in research is to clearly define the “what” in what is being studied, as well as the contexts of how the “what” is used. This speaks to the multiple perspectives Labaree says are necessary. Because of this complexity, I believe that educational research is scientific research and that quality educational research that will make the biggest impact on practice is best achieved through a mixed methods approach, one that not only examines the what, but also examines the contexts that influence the what. This includes understanding who is involved. I believe obstacles to educational research being valued as scientific include, but are not limited to: (1) a lack of understanding of the complexity of education by those who compare it to and measure its quality against fields such as medicine and other “hard” sciences, (2) methods used to conduct educational research, (3) research that does not solve the problems facing practitioners and students in educational settings (causation and utility issues), and (4) research that is not generalizable to the broader scope of education (validity). None of these obstacles are insurmountable if we are diligent in defining both the what and how in educational research.
ReplyDeleteSherol
Reading Pring and Labaree’s chapter and articles gave me a deeper understanding of why there is skepticism with doctorate programs in education and the students who are enrolled in them. The “Education as discipline” argument is something that I never thought about until reading these two authors. When Labaree revealed that “teaching is perceived as least esteemed of the professions…and draws recruits from groups that are traditionally disadvantages socially, women and working class”, it made me think of my own path to want to “teach” as a profession (in higher education). There is a feel of charity when considering a teaching as a profession, which is not a bad thing. However, in order to change the narrative about scholarly work in education, we as practitioners and educators must balance our love for practicality and intellectual research. These readings made me aware of the importance of looking at this journey toward scholar/researcher/practitioner through a lens that is flexible. Being both practical and scientific should be the goal.
ReplyDeleteThe obstacles that I foresee are the ability of the scholar/practitioner to balance research and the practical nature at which they/we view our reason we chose to pursue doctoral education. It is my belief that many are on the quest to fix or find the solution to issues that are seen within respective practices. While it is difficult to detach from your practice to dedicate endless time and resources to research, it is necessary if the field is to be respected as scientific. Conducting more experiments takes time and resources, but I feel that a dedication to doing such is relevant to being respected and convincing rather than soft. I do not think the obstacles are insurmountable.
Across many of these sources, it's clear that the nature of philosophical thinking about research, education, or really any other topic means coming to terms with ambiguity and uncertainty. This skill, to deal in the fuzziness of language and knowledge, is underlying every debate thus far about research, policy, and practice. How do we define what we do well enough to objectively evaluate it? How do we know that our claims to truth about our practice can be justified for someone else who needs to make the decisions?
ReplyDeleteThe irony, then, lies in how this debate finds its way circumventing itself and muddying the waters to make the initial claim at all: educational research is science. By some accounts, the structure of analysis is what makes a researcher a scientist, and yet by others, the deep attention to philosophical demands of meaning-making and knowledge definitions are what provide a study with substance. It seems to me that the theoretical framework of each player in the argument is digging their own hole deeper with each attempt toward clarity.
I don't know who is responsible for elevating the reputation of educational research to a level that is generally respectable as "scientific," but I think that it is far too easy to become our own obstacle.
These authors, from varying perspectives, demonstrate that engaging in this level of discourse creates divisiveness and a perpetual self-critical spiral that may be too overwhelming to surmount and reach agreement.
As Andy mentioned above, just because education researchers aren't studying the atom bomb does not mean that we're studying anything less important, complicated, or meaningful, that is all dependent on perspective. In my opinion, all the "moving parts" of society are important, from atoms to student behavior and art to financial investment banking - it is influential people and institutions who have decidedly ranked what is most important. As educators and educational researchers, we KNOW that the work we do is important and life-changing so we may have to become stewards and show the rest of the world. With all of that being said, it's time to address the idea that education research may or may not be "scientific". Labaree definitely doesn't believe education research is scientific or at least that historically and currently, education research is not being carried out in a scientific way. Pring appears to have a more flexible, open view of what constitutes quality scientific research. He points out multiple times that the complexity of language and how it is used and intended to be interpreted greatly affects the meaning/definition of the world. Thus, I believe an argument can be made to Pring that educational research is scientific.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to showcase educational research as scientific, I think that some changes in the nature of ed research can be made. As we know, education research relies heavily on the context of the environment it is conducted in. A teaching strategy or assessment style may work phenomenally in an accredited school located in a wealthy area and may fall flat in an urban, low-income school and it's important to see that this can occur for a variety of reasons - teacher experience level, differing ratios in student subgroups, level of support given to students/teachers from administration, etc. At times, it may even feel like comparing apples to oranges. I can't help but find myself wondering why research isn't being systematically across the country to try and illuminate those differences and offer valid explanations for them. Teachers at similar schools (ie. lower performing, high-SES population, high English language learner population, high gifted population, etc.) could form a coalition of sorts to all engage in the same type of pedagogical research, share their findings, and draw conclusions from their work. Then that data could be collected for the purpose of a meta-analysis to examine trends across the different types of environments the work was done in. Instead, I feel like education research is done in isolation often - which I don't believe lends to the credibility or validity of the results.
Personally, I appreciate now knowing what I am getting into regarding the reputation of education research. Before the readings, I was unaware of what an uphill battle it will be to contribute to a body of knowledge especially without funding. The bottom line is that if educational research is unable to impact policy change it will forever be tossed aside as data and recommendations that are useless. One educational debate that comes to mind based on research is whether children learn to read best through phonics or a whole-language approach. However, the research may be skewed on the best approach because of confounding variables regarding the teacher's teaching style, personality and pedagogy (how the students and teachers relate together and embrace the instructional approach). This to me seems to make educational research "feel less scientific". There are too many variables to make conclusions based on the data. This same sentiment was made by Pring with regard to why people question the validity of education really being a research based profession. Two points were made: 1)it is a content focused field on the practice of teaching 2)too many external factors affect research as noted above. I think in order for educational research to be relevant it may need to shift to focus on how to best prepare students for the workforce through such methods as project based learning and design thinking. It would be probable that corporations would invest in educational research to ensure they are churning out a pipeline of future employees to increase they revenue streams.
ReplyDelete~Natalie Foster
As Peyton mentioned above, I found myself questioning the term “scientific” in relation to educational research. The readings brought me up to speed on how Education in the Ph.D. realm is viewed from different aspects. I think that it’s hard to discuss Education in terms of research in the same breath as other “disciplines” such as science, or medicine. There are so many variables when it comes to classrooms, that it’s a task to get them all together. I've never worked in a k-12 setting so I cannot even fathom the difficulty of putting research into practice, but the more I think about my dissertation topic, I can picture how difficult it could be and it's helping me to refine my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI too appreciate that I'm getting these different perspectives. One of the main reasons that i'm pursuing this degree is to conduct research that can impact practices down the line. While it is understood that there is no guarantee my research will make any impact, I feel like if I use specific methods, than Educational research is scientific.
What I keep realizing is that I am actually quite unfamiliar with educational research beyond the papers I've read for other classes. My field is medical education, and I always use that as my benchmark for ed. research. There's a lot of overlap, but I feel a distinct disconnect in my familiarity with what's actually out there and just how "scientific" it is. I think I take for granted being embedded, so to speak, in a world that very much knows its identity (med ed versus ed research at large). I think a lot of the same issues exist--we spend a lot of time trying to contribute to something novel, rather than applying something learned or studied. And what do we consider to be evidence--that is, what information will we allow to inform policy? When I got my MS in Sociology, I focused on the achievement gap and parent involvement, and I felt much, much more connected to the world of what we're calling educational research. I never gave pause to consider whether or not it was "scientific."
ReplyDeleteAs a quick, but related, aside, I might continue to harp on it while the comparison gets made between education and medicine--but, like medicine, might teachers ignore "evidence" and instead pursue what they know will "work"? In the world of medicine, it seems very black and white, at least the way Laberee and Pring seem to see it. It's all evidence, science. But in the world of medical education, everyone is scrambling to figure out the best way to teach doctors because no one actually knows what it means to be a "good doctor." Medicine has its own identity crisis. Rant over, hopefully--why does this comparison keep cropping up!?!
I do think there is pressure within the world of social science to be as scientific as possible, but I feel a caution in the start of chapter 3, "Not social science."
I think the biggest obstacle to educational research is the publish or perish, McDonaldization mentality, nature of academic and higher ed. It seems no one wants to practice what they feel is being preached, scientific or otherwise.
(Meagan, here).