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Educational Research as Science?

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A Companion to Research in Education

Abstract

What makes educational research scientific? And should we be worried whether it is? This chapter approaches these questions from a philosophical perspective, while also introducing some relevant work from twentieth-century philosophy of science. It discusses scientific method, confirmation, the distinction between theory and observation, the aim of science, and the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an illustration of how these questions are relevant with respect to government funding of research, see Rowbottom and Aiston (2011).

  2. 2.

    There has been a considerable debate about the extent to which there is continuity over this period. See, for example, McMullin (1965) and Grant (1996).

  3. 3.

    See Lindberg (1992) on optics in the Islamic world, and Kuhn (1957) on Ancient Greek astronomy.

  4. 4.

    For more on Medieval science and the struggles between theologians and natural philosophers, see Grant (1996) and Lindberg (1992).

  5. 5.

    For my own view on Popper ’s philosophy of science , see Rowbottom and Aiston (2006) and Rowbottom (2011a).

  6. 6.

    ‘Experience’ is a much more slippery term than is often recognised. Arguably, for example, to have an intuition (or to imagine or conceive of something) is to have a sort of experience.

  7. 7.

    For a more detailed account than that which follows, see Hanson (1962). The discussion below is based on the one that appears in Rowbottom and Aiston (2011).

  8. 8.

    Neptune had been seen before by Galileo . But he mistook it for a star.

  9. 9.

    Popper (1959, p. 83) subsequently concedes that this cannot be correct for some auxiliary hypotheses, in particular “singular statements… [e.g.] the assumption that a certain observation or measurement which cannot be repeated may have been due to error.” For further discussion, with reference to historical episodes where ‘ad hoc’ hypotheses have been advanced, see Rowbottom (2011b).

  10. 10.

    Galileo ’s fundamental breakthrough in mechanics was derived from a thought-experiment too! See Gendler (1998).

  11. 11.

    For more on thought experiments , see Brown (1991), Norton (1996), and Gendler (2000).

  12. 12.

    See, for example, Lakatos (1976) and Bueno (2000).

  13. 13.

    It should be added that there is no primitive certainty in the example that Russell gives, either. Keuth (2005, p.100) explains this nicely:

    Let us now assume that when I say “This area now looks red,” I mean only that it appears red to me here and now. Have I thus finally eliminated any transcendence inherent in my description? By using the predicate “red,” I presuppose that my present colour impression equals the impressions that I have had on other occasions when I have used the same word. Hence I try to use it according to a rule. However, I do not now have the other impressions; rather, I only remember them. Accordingly, I still assert more than I sense here and now.

  14. 14.

    See Franklin et al. (1989) and Brown (1993).

  15. 15.

    See Boland (1994), Rowbottom and Aiston (2006), and Rowbottom (2011a).

  16. 16.

    It is important to realise that ‘All’ should be taken to range, as it does in many genuine scientific theories, across all space-time. We do not, for example, take quantum mechanics to hold only in our solar system between 2000 B.C. and 2100 A.D.

  17. 17.

    This issue is also discussed in the final section of Rowbottom (2008).

  18. 18.

    It should be noted that to say there is a single aim is not to rule out ‘subsidiary aims which may or may not be means to that end’ (van Fraassen 1980, p. 8). For further discussion of the notion of ‘the aim of science ’ see Rowbottom (2010a).

  19. 19.

    Instrumentalism is presently an unpopular position among philosophers of science, but see Rowbottom (2011b) for an articulation and defence of a novel version.

  20. 20.

    And to leave this question open need not be to concede that it must be answered by appeal to psychology (say).

  21. 21.

    For related criticisms of contemporary work on so-called ‘threshold concepts’, see Rowbottom (2007).

  22. 22.

    See also Carnap (1994), chapters 23 and 24.

  23. 23.

    Examples are Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Cohen et al. (2003). For a critical study of the latter, see Rowbottom and Aiston (2006).

  24. 24.

    For more on this, see Okasha’s (2006, section 1.2) discussion of Price’s equation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Darrell P. Rowbottom

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  1. Darrell P. Rowbottom
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Correspondence to Darrell P. Rowbottom .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Alan D. Reid

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

    E. Paul Hart

  3. Hamilton Campus, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Michael A. Peters

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Rowbottom, D.P. (2014). Educational Research as Science?. In: Reid, A., Hart, E., Peters, M. (eds) A Companion to Research in Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6809-3_18

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