Can and should educational research be educative?
Martyn Hammersley
Faculty of Education and Language Studies
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK6 7AA
email:
Paper presented at the symposium on "Do we need a science of education?" at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Leeds, England, September 13-15, 2001
A number of writers have argued that educational research should be educative, in the sense of being geared directly to improving educational practice. One early example is the work of Lawrence Stenhouse. As Malcolm Skilbeck points out, Stenhouse 'was interested in research method basically for its educative potential not for reasons of the disinterested pursuit of knowledge' (Skilbeck 1983:12). Thus, for him, the task of educational research was to serve teachers. Moreover, Stenhouse saw teaching as itself grounded in the research activity of the teacher, rather than in a body of subject knowledge produced by others. While Stenhouse did not deny the contribution that outside researchers could make to education, he saw their work as properly subordinated to - in the sense of being designed to facilitate - the practical inquiries of teachers as working professionals. And this governed his views about what shape educational research ought to take. Thus, quoting Skilbeck again: 'Essentially, [Stenhouse] wanted a procedure for studying selected, individual cases (not randomly drawn samples); cases of classroom or school practice selected by experienced and insightful educators for their potential value in illuminating educational decisions and enhancing practice' (p16).
Stenhouse was a prime mover in the founding of the Centre for Applied Research in Education, at the University of East Anglia. John Elliott, another founding member, has summarised the view of educational research shared by the Centre's staff as including the following two elements: "the overriding purpose of educational research is to bring about worthwhile educational change"; and "research is only educational when it is directed towards realising educational values in practice" (Elliott 1990:4). Certainly, these assumptions structure Elliott's own work. And while on some occasions, like Stenhouse, he appears to draw a distinction between "educational research" and "research on education" - even acknowledging the value of the latter as one resource in teacher action research (see Elliott 1985:243) - on other occasions he raises questions about the possibility or desirability of academic research on education. He argues that research should be relocated "within the practical domain of "insiders"", and views external research as the incursion of "technical rationality" into the practical domain (Elliott 1991:51-2). Analysing teachers' fear of theory, he argues that generalised knowledge about teachers' practices "constitutes a denial of the individual practitioner's everyday experience. It reinforces the powerlessness of teachers to define what is to count as knowledge about their practices" (Elliott 1991:46). So, it is implied, what is required is that we "stop pretending that truths about education can be detached from our values, and discovered in contemplation rather than action". On this basis, he concludes that, despite his disagreement with them in other respects, "the political evangelists for commercial values" are right in thinking that "the world of academe needs to be culturally dismantled" (Elliott 1988:193).
Other writers have taken a similar, if not quite so iconoclastic, line. For example, Carr and Kemmis argue in favour of critical educational research, interpreting this as integrating educational theory and practice. They comment that: "At the outset, then, it is important to recognise that since it is the investigation of educational problems that provides educational research with whatever unity or coherence it may have, the testing ground for educational research is not its theoretical sophistication or its ability to conform to criteria derived from the social sciences, but rather its capacity to resolve educational problems and improve educational practice" (Carr and Kemmis 1986:109). Moreover, "[...] since the practical experience of teachers is the source of the problems under consideration, it must be recognised that the active participation of practitioners in the research enterprise is an indispensable necessity" (Carr and Kemmis 1986:126). So what is required is that researchers "merge their separate identity and collaborate with teachers in a common effort to resolve educational problems and improve educational practices" (Carr and Kemmis 1986:127). In short, the "institutionalised separation of knowledge from action [...] must be overcome [...]" (Carr and Kemmis 1986:198)(1).
On somewhat different grounds, Michael Bassey has argued that we should draw a distinction between educational research, whose aim is to "critically inform educational judgements and decisions in order to improve educational action" (Bassey 1995:39), and disciplinary research concerned with investigating social and psychological phenomena that occur in educational settings. He does not deny the value of social scientific research in those settings; his point is simply that such research is not educational, in the sense of serving educational policy-making and practice; and that there is a need for research which is educative in this sense.(2)
In this paper I will suggest that these arguments point to an important distinction between types of research, but that they do not formulate the distinction soundly. I will also argue that, by its very nature, research cannot be educative in design.
Arguments that educational research should be educative
Arguments for educational research being educative can be put under three headings, though the authors whose work I discuss do not always maintain these distinctions. First, there are arguments which appeal to semantics - these suggest that any study of education must be evaluative because 'education' is a value-laden term. Secondly, there is the claim that educational, and indeed all social, inquiry must be oriented to other values besides truth because of the distinctive character of human social life (by comparison with the physical phenomena studied by natural science), or because of the distinctive knowledge-constitutive interest that underlies it. Finally, I will consider the more limited argument that there is a worthwhile form of research, educative in character, that is distinct from conventional social science but does not replace it(3).
The semantic argument
It is sometimes suggested that for any research to be entitled to call itself 'educational', it must be educative in purpose. There are traces of this argument in the work of a number of writers, but the most detailed presentation is probably that by Wilson and Wilson, so I will focus on this here. They appeal to "what we normally mean by ["education"] in twentieth century English". And they argue that it implies a connection with learning, and thereby with knowledge, truth, and rationality. It follows from this that education is an evaluative term, and must only be applied to instances that satisfy the requirements of this usage. Thus, they claim that while "the Nazis may have said that the Hitler Youth Camps were "educational" [...] they were not: they fitted their own conception of education, but that conception was simply wrong. Not, or not only, morally wrong: just incorrectly entitled" (Wilson and Wilson 2000:356). And the Wilsons draw the implication that since what educational research investigates is a value-laden activity, so too must it be value-laden; in the sense of being governed by an understanding of what is and is not educational.
Several points can be made in response to this. First of all, it is not at all obvious that when we use the word "education", for example when we refer to 'the education system of England and Wales', we are committing ourselves to the belief that what is referred to is truly educational. We may simply be using the phrase as a name. Thus, it is not patently contradictory to say "as currently organised, the English education system is anti-educational". More than this, though, we often use the words "education" and "educational" to refer to the aim or intention of an activity, without implying that its character or effect is actually educational in normative terms. So, again, there is no contradiction involved in referring to 'the German education system under the Nazis', even if we believe that a substantial portion of what went on in schools and universities under that regime was far from educational(4)
A second point concerns the way in which Wilson and Wilson assume that there is a consensus about what is and is not genuinely educational. They appeal to "the public concept [of education, which]- with a little philosophical assistance by way of reminder - we all share and can recognise". Thus, they claim that ""education", "educational", etc. have a clear and unequivocal sense in English", as referring to "a kind of good [...] which might briefly be described as the acquisition of knowledge or some sort of mastery or control over the world" (Wilson and Wilson 2000:357). While I would not want to deny that we do all share ideas in common about what education is, I do not believe that these form some single coherent concept. We are likely to mean somewhat different things by the word in different contexts. And we may well disagree about what we treat as the central meaning of the term. For example, from my point of view, Wilson and Wilson's formulation seems to be a definition of 'learning', rather than of "education" interpreted as an activity; and in these terms it is deficient because it does not make any explicit reference to the needs of the particular learner. As will become clear later, such reference is central to education for me, and I suspect this is true for many others(5)
A third point is that it does not follow, without further assumptions, that because education is a value-laden activity so too must educational research be governed by the same values. This is little more than a play on words. Saying that some corpus of research is educational could mean that it was designed to educate. But it need not mean this. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies "educative" as one meaning of the word "educational", but the first one it lists is "pertaining to institutions or activities concerned with education". So, educational research could simply be research which focuses on those institutions or activities which are in some sense directed towards education; and, as noted earlier, there is no requirement here that the conception of education involved be one that we accept as genuine. Thus, in semantic terms, educational research need not be educative, any more than social research must be carried out by a group, rather than by an individual investigator, in order to be 'social'(6).
Let me make one further comment, this time about the general character of the Wilsons' argument. They claim to be able, from "tolerably obvious" points, indeed from 'reminders', to "suggest a fairly dramatic or radical revision of our current ideas about the subject-matter, and hence about the methods, [of educational research]" (Wilson and Wilson 2000:357). This sounds like the intellectual equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. If it can be done, it will be stunning. But why have others not seen the rabbit lurking at the bottom of the hat, or felt it wriggling around when they were wearing it? One cannot avoid the suspicion that the rabbit has been smuggled in. In the case of the Wilsons' argument, this is done by their appeal to a single, consensual meaning of the word 'educational'.
Having said all this, I want to acknowledge a genuine problem to which the Wilsons and others are responding. This is that while much educational research has operated without explicitly addressing the issue of what is and is not truly educational, it has often presented conclusions which are evaluative or prescriptive, or that could reasonably be read as such.(7)
Moreover, the Wilsons are right that this kind of scientism, which is to be found amongst both qualitative and quantitative researchers, obscures the need for the value issues surrounding education to be openly discussed. Indeed, in one version, the effect is to disguise education as a purely technical matter, implying that policies and practices are to be judged entirely in terms of their "effectiveness". Frighteningly, in these terms Hitler"s youth camps would probably score very highly as educational.
At one point in their discussion, the Wilsons distinguish between a "sociological" and a "transcendental" sense of the phrase "educational research". While they effectively dismiss the former, it seems to me that what is required is that the distinction between the two sorts of concern be properly respected. So, what is necessary is not that educational research explicitly addresses value issues, but instead that it makes clear the limited nature of its conclusions: that it is concerned solely with describing and explaining, or with conceptual clarification, not with evaluating and prescribing. Maintaining the distinction between factual and value claims is important, since they need to be appraised in different ways; and this means that researchers" intellectual authority is limited to the former. Moreover, the development of factual knowledge can easily be distorted where it is carried out in pursuit of some other, practical or political, goal (Foster et al 1996; Hammersley 1999 and 2000). In other words, I am arguing that we need to draw a clear distinction between the role of educational researcher and that of educationist; while yet recognising the importance of both roles.
The argument from the practical character of human social life
A second argument for educational research being educative is perhaps best described as ontological or epistemological, rather than semantic, in character. It appeals to the distinctive nature of human social action; or, alternatively, to the nature of the 'interest' which should guide educational, and perhaps all social, inquiry.
One starting point is an appeal to Aristotle. He draws a sharp distinction between theoretical and practical sciences. The former are concerned with phenomena that are universal and eternal, whereas the latter focus on what is changeable. And, since human social life is open to change, being at least in part a product of our actions, Aristotle argues that "domestic, legislative, and political science" (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1141b27) must be practical rather than theoretical in character. This means that it must be concerned not with producing knowledge but rather with determining what is the right course of action in particular situations(8)
Wilf Carr starts from this Aristotelian position in putting his case for a "critical educational science" (Carr 1995; see also Carr and Kemmis 1986):
Clearly most research activities are theoretical in the sense that their distinctive purpose is to resolve theoretical problems by discovering new knowledge. Determining the distinguishing purpose of educational research, however, is complicated by the fact that education is not itself a theoretical activity, but a practical activity the purpose of which is to change those being educated in some desirable ways. This implies that educational research cannot be defined simply by reference to the sort of purposes appropriate to research activities concerned to resolve theoretical problems but must instead operate within the framework of practical ends in terms of which educational activities are conducted. Hence, while educational research is, like any other research activity, concerned to investigate and resolve problems, it differs from theoretical research in the sense that the educational problems it seeks to address are always practical problems, which, as such, cannot be resolved by the discovery of new knowledge. (Carr 1995:79)
I take it that here Carr is not simply relying on the semantic argument, on an appeal to the meaning of 'educational', but is, like Aristotle, making a point about the nature of the phenomena with which different forms of research deal. If so, it is worth noting that, while Carr does not explicitly state the point, his argument about educational research would apply to all social inquiry. It is not just education that is a practical activity in these terms; so too, for example, are crime, politics, and domestic labour. Thus, on the basis of this Aristotelian argument, criminology, political sociology, and the sociology of the family - along with most other areas of social inquiry - must also be practical sciences. And it should be noted that this would amount to a reversion, in these other fields as well as in education, to the mode of inquiry which prevailed before the advent of the social sciences. Given this, some examination of the reasons why social science in its current form originally emerged might be useful. One reason was the belief that the earlier modes of evaluative inquiry were so embedded in a set of assumptions about what ought to be done that the achievement of sound factual knowledge about what was actually done, why, and with what consequences was obstructed. An obvious question to ask, then, is: how would the revived form of practical inquiry advocated by Carr avoid this problem?
Aside from this, it seems to me that there are fundamental problems with the ancient Greek distinction between theoretical and practical activities that Carr employs here. These relate primarily to the conception of theoretical science on which it relies. One problem is that Aristotle sees theoria as contemplation of the true nature of the natural world, rather than as a process of inquiry. In other words, his emphasis is on the end-point of investigation, and this is because he sees that end-point as within reach. In the light of subsequent experience, we are unlikely to share his confidence in the capacity even of natural science to reach a finished and complete picture of the physical world; so today we are inclined to think of theoretical science as an unending process of inquiry (see Rescher 1998). We can, nevertheless, extract from Aristotle a useful distinction between theoretical and practical problems. The former are concerned with knowledge - with what is and is not true - while practical problems relate to what should be done. Now, it is important to recognise that research always faces both theoretical and practical problems; but it seems to me that, contrary to Carr (and perhaps to Aristotle), its goal is always the resolution of theoretical problems(9). After all, what else would mark it off from other types of activity? At the same time, it is true that some research is designed to provide knowledge that will meet people's needs for information in trying to solve practical problems; whereas other research, while still intended ultimately to have lay relevance, is not designed to satisfy specific informational needs. I will develop this distinction later.