Epistemic or Credal Standards for Teachers' Professional Learning and Educational Research - A Common Framework for Inquiry?

Abstract

Three potential epistemic standards for teachers' professional learning are reviewed and criticised: foundationalist, Popperian, and decision-theoretic. Susan Haack's 'foundherentism' is outlined and proposed as supplying an adequate credal standard for the rigorous conduct of both teachers' professional learning and educational research. It is argued that foundherentism offers an alternative to radical relativism, which can also accommodate within a common framework, both the findings of rigorous research and the 'subjective', even 'tacit' beliefs of teachers. Sources of credal difference between teachers' professional learning and educational research, and what is involved in bringing these into a more rational and fruitful relation to each other, are finally considered.