[NLA] A note on scientific based educational research

[Catherine B. King]

Hello George and Colleagues:

George's note shows why teachers et al are so boxed in 
and without power, political or otherwise.

We've got it backwards:  We seem to be trying to
fit education into a natural and statistical science box
rather than understanding that the natural and statistical
sciences are essential to, but smaller than, education 
and its visionary aspects.   Students and teachers, adult 
or otherwise, are not inert or without history and a vision 
for the future, or for what "is not yet."   That vision is about
"qualified" people living a "qualified" existence?   

I suggest that we have accepted the status quo notions 
of "science" as a kind of "king of the real," and with it,
anyone who speaks of vision and reasonable argument
about "what is not yet" is "not scientific" and therefore is 
ruled out of court?  I suggest that this acceptance is 
"profoundly" effecting our understanding, and therefore 
our advocating for, our field.  

Adults, educators and policy makers are making decisions 
from, first, "What is" that comes to us from legitimate 
research and argument in the human sciences and 
education (about people and not inert objects).  

But, second, we are also making decisions from a developing
VISION about "What could-should-would be."   Though 
evidence gathering and critical judgment about it are 
essential to the project of education and policy-making, so is 
(1) qualifying the evidence and (2) developing a sense of 
VISION about "What is NOT YET, but should-could-will be;" 
and that vision is, we hope and strive for, a qualified one.  

If their/our critical judgments and decisions for policy that will
form our future are not "qualified," then they are poor ones, by 
definition? 

I suggest we have accepted a bad definition of science itself 
as a kind of inert and finished content rather than as a critical 
method applied differently to different data.   That is, one kind
of data is conscious, the other is not and the method is 
adjusted to fit the data; one has its proper end in theory, 
in statistics, in technology and in applications.  The other has 
theory, technology, and statistics, but its proper end is in 
qualified human understanding and living.

Also, what we know and say about humans must have a 
component of openness to the "yet unknown"--IF we are
to remain true to the data--conscious, decision-making,
visionary human beings.  

The data itself--human beings--are visionary and
quality-seeking critters.  How can qualification NOT be a
part of our critical investigations?   It would be--ahem--
uncritical to leave out qualification as an essential 
dimension of the data under review or in the researcher?

Second, the aim of "complete predictability," if  followed 
through to its end in the human sciences, would give us a 
kind of Stepford Society?   

If educators and researchers in education and the human 
sciences are operating under this assumption--and I think
many of us are--it's a bad one; and this assumption in our 
policy makers makes teachers look like we are always 
"under-performing," and until we have a Stepford Society,
we will continue to do so.  It also does not speak well of 
policy-makers' self-knowledge--or of policy as the 
expression of their own vision that they themselves 
were educated into--we hope?

Third, we have forgotten the vast differences between 
(1) gathering evidence for "What Is" and (2) the importance
of presenting a reasonable argument about "What should-
could-would be" in either natural or human science, or in 
education, and our various fields of discourse.   Educators
are an intrinsic part of this argument in everyday classroom
activities both in what we say and in how we act.  

Education is not only about "What Is" in ALL fields; it is 
also about qualified change based on a developing 
VISION--about a future, or about "What should-could-
would be," either in our lifetime or the next.   But with our
vision of "natural and statistical science as reality," and 
"knowing what already is" as the only legitimate discourse 
in education, we have lost the power that having 
theoretical knowledge of educators' involvement with 
VISION would give us.  We, as scientists, teachers, 
administrators and policy makers are all involved with 
that vision--legitimately.

But critical judgment and reasonable argument about 
"What should-could-would be" is in essence qualitative--
for how could we have a vision for change if we couldn't
or wouldn't add a qualitative judgment about "What is"?
Without qualification, change would just be arbitrary and
it wouldn't matter what we do in the future, or even 
tomorrow?  It is part of the human condition that we
qualify or disqualify things--it's the impetus of all knowledge
including all scientific-theoretical knowledge--to find
things out--intelligence--and to make things better--
excellence?  Further, knowing is "better" than not--
which we deem "ignorance"?

Fourth, all science is based in a plethora of notions of the
good, even that it is "better" or not to define and 
distinguish facts from values in some investigations, if
you understand the great irony here.  Facts are valuable 
to the scientist--the scientist is not a "qualified" scientist 
because we are value-free, but because we "value" 
critical judgment over mere belief, evidence over 
arbitrariness, qualified over unqualified statements, 
collaboration over isolated or dogmatic review.   We
all know that one is "better" than the other.

Scientists (and policy makers up to this administration,
but apparently not including it) also implicitly highly "value" 
the political climate that allows us to ask any question 
we want.  

So the ground of all scientific fields is made of a political 
and ethical (qualified) and spiritual vision that came down 
to us from a wealth of educated and educating people who 
were striving to understand "What Is" in all fields and human
endeavors, but who also had a vision about "What should-
could-would be" and were able to argue their case on 
critical and reasonable grounds in open debate and in
collaboration with others.   In other words, they gave 
reasons for what they thought about "what is," but also 
about" what should-could-would be."

Here, the "subject" puts out a reasonable argument aimed to 
express some objective truth--judged to be so based on 
good and reasonable evidence, just like any science.  But 
the subject who is more than the scientist also speculates 
and sets up the conditions for a future truth based on a 
developing vision of the good.   

Can we as adult educators really claim education for our own
if we do not understand ourselves as intrinsically involved
with a vision for the good (valuable, qualified, etc.)?  Our
mandate for it is Constitutional:  to "promote the general 
welfare," and to "establish justice," where "welfare" doesn't 
mean "handout" in a capitalist version of it, but rather a 
vision of community where everyone can develop and 
participate in it.  Adult education is essential to creating
a just community and to promoting the general welfare where 
all adults may have the opportunity to know their choices
and to develop their vision of their future in fruitful
collaboration with teachers and other members of the 
community in a peaceful setting.

I have said as much in other notes over the years we have
been involved with this list, but again, I suggest we need to 
recover a more qualified and therefore more legitimate view 
of ourselves in adult education.

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA 


---- Original Message ----- 
From: George E. Demetrion <sophocles5 at juno.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 11:56 PM
Subject: [NLA] A note on scientific based educational research


> For those who might have an interest and for those who should:
> 
> In reviewing the important National Research Council's (NRC) publication,
> "Scientific Research in Education,"  I came across the following
> statement:
> 
> "[Q]uestions such as 'Should all students be required to say the pledge
> of Allegiance?" cannot be submitted to empirical investigation and thus
> cannot be examined scientifically.  Answers to these questions [that is,
> those of values] lies in realms other than science" (p. 59).
> 
> Perhaps so. The issue remains, do such questions lay in the realm of
> legitimate educational investigation?  To provide another example, the
> current Strategic Plan of the United States Department of Education
> encourages character education and patriotism.  Drawing on the logic of
> the NRC's publication, the issue of whether these should be highlighted
> in the K-12 curriculum cannot be investigated empirically because as
> questions of value, inquiry about them lies in realms other than science.
> 
> Given that assumption are there other sources of reasoning than science
> by which to make informed decisions about educational policy?  Can the
> issue of values themselves be subject to a substantial inquiry by
> communities of scholars, teachers, students, and informed citizens?  Does
> the realm of legitimate educational scholarship lie exclusively or even
> predominantly in the realm of the sciences?  Or might it also reside in
> the realm of the humanities stemming from the field of history, cultural
> anthropology, literary discourse theory, political theory, and social
> philosophy?  If the latter fields are also viewed as valid sources of
> critical scholarly educational investigation, then such issues as
> requirements about the Pledge or the nature of the curriculum ( questions
> of profound value) are very much legitimate ones.  If science is
> construed as emphasizing such criteria as "testability," "refutability,"
> "replicability," "objectivity," "reliability," "validity," and viewed as
> "rigorous," "cumulative," "fact-based," determined by "experimental" and
> "quasi-experimental design," "random sampling," and the "placebo effect,"
> then such value laden questions about the Pledge, the curriculum or the
> politics of adult literacy education, are simply viewed as outside the
> pale of legitimate investigation based on scientific-based educational
> research. 
> 
> However, if such questions are important dimensions of educational
> practice and can be investigated by intellectual traditions other than
> science (and science itself is not as rigid as sometimes perceivedboth by
> proponents and critics), then those academic disciplines need to be
> maintained as legitimate realms of scholarship upon which educational
> studies are formulated.  Otherwise, such issues over values cannot be
> subject to legitimate scholarly inquiry.
> 
> That I need to say this seems utterly absurd except for the political
> climate that has landed upon Washington D.C over the past two years. 
> From a scholarly perspective I intend to examine very thoroughly the
> NCR's study, "Scientific Research in Education."  From what I've read so
> far, it's a sophisticated document that is bringing much important
> insight to the field of educational scholarship (Note, I studiously avoid
> the terminology "research," because the realm of academic scholarship is
> broader than which is connoted by the term "research."  Theory,
> imagination, values,  experience, culture, and yea, even the battered
> term "ideology" interact in various subtle ways in the canons of the
> various academic disciplines which make up the realm of what might be
> viewed as legitimate scholarship).  Like it or not, the realm of
> educational studies cannot (except at its own peril) avoid the reality of
> the pluralistic and contentious scholarly traditions that make up the
> canons and research foci of the various academic disciplines, many of
> which converge in the making up of the field of adult literacy studies in
> its various and sometimes contested interpretations.
> 
> In short, educational studies needs to draw on the scientific research
> tradition as equal opportunity partners with its sister disciplines in
> the humanities, in the honorific fields of history, literary studies,
> cultural anthropology, political theory, and social philosophy.  Cut
> these latter disciplines off as not representing serious realms of
> scholarship or denigrate them by referring to them as not science and you
> eradicate them from the  canon of legitimate investigation.  In my view,
> that would be a profound loss.  
> 
> Of course, strictly speaking, one cannot use such a "subjective"
> adjective as "profound" in any scientific treatise because it is not
> objectively descriptive of any empirical reality.  Therefore, from the
> realm of the scientific research tradition, my use of the term
> "profound," is literally, meaningless.  Likewise, the President's
> inference that Saddam Hussein represents a profound threat to the
> security of the United States might also be dubbed as meaningless. In
> short, the term  "profound" does not belong in any scientific study of
> educational research.  Neither do questions of the Pledge, or the matter
> of patriotism as a legitimate value to instill in the curriculum, nor the
> issue of social justice as that, too, is inherently mired in "ideology"
> and therefore not the subject of "cumulative" research such as that which
> characterizes the field of medicine, agriculture, and industrial
> production.
> 
> According to current administration visions, educational research is to
> become a field for mature, cumulative scientific research like the field
> of medicine, agriculture, and industrial production.  Issues to be
> resolved by research are largely technical, value free, and ideologically
> neutral.  Intuition, imagination, basic human experience,
> unscientifically-grounded theory construction, ideology and yea, values,
> themselves are okay for practitioners and those not informed by
> high-quality research, but they have no basis in scientific
> investigations of educational research.  And when it comes to educational
> scholarly inquiry, scientific research is the most reliable source of
> knowledge construction.  It's indisputable  It says so in the USDoE
> Strategic Plan.
> 
> Not that I dismiss the realm of scientific research in education.  Far
> from it.  However, neither do I view it as the foundatioonal discilpine. 
> Rather, I view it as one of the dialogue partners in the collective quest
> for valuable knowledge.  I would rather build on the years of scholarship
> that have already comprised the emergent field of educational studies
> (even with many questions & problems remaining), while pressing forward
> toward the progressive problem identification and resolution of current
> and  anticipated issues.  
> 
> I need to stop.  It's a shade to midnight
> 
> George Demetrion
> sophocles5 at juno.com
> (Ancient Greek playright, historian, and social philosopher)
> 
> 
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