Defining Progress in Educational Research

This paper addresses the question, What is progress in educational research? It is argued that the question is fundamental to understanding how effective educational research is and might be in improving practice. The paper begins with a discussion of the problem of partial specification. The conseq...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational researcher 1985-11, Vol.14 (9), p.3-9
Main Author: Mosenthal, Peter B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communities
Curricula
Educational Improvement
Educational Research
Learning
Observational research
Operational definition
Pedagogy
Progress
Research Needs
Research papers
Research Problems
Research Utilization
Teachers
Writing instruction
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper addresses the question, What is progress in educational research? It is argued that the question is fundamental to understanding how effective educational research is and might be in improving practice. The paper begins with a discussion of the problem of partial specification. The consequences of this problem for defining the research-practice relationship are considered. Next, three solutions to the problem of partial specification are presented. It is shown that these solutions represent different approaches to defining progress in educational research. In addition, it is argued that these solutions have different implications for relating research to practice. The paper concludes by raising several questions that educational researchers need to consider if some type of rapprochement among definitions of progress in educational research is to be made.
ISSN:0013-189X
1935-102X
DOI:10.2307/1174552