Future Directions of Educational Research by Government-funded and Research Institutes of Local Offices of Education

Abstract

본 연구에서는 정부의 교실혁명과 교육자치를 통한 교육개혁 정책에 따른 정부출연 교육연구기관의 연구 방향을 탐색하고자 한다. 정부출연 교육연구기관과 시도교육청 교육정책연구소에서 수행된 연구의 비교 분석을 위해 한 정부출연 교육연구기관과 13개 시도교육정책연구소에서 최근 5년간 발간된 연구 보고서를 발행 연도, 연구 영역, 주제, 세부영역, 학교급, 위탁여부, 지역특수성, 수행 형태 기준에 따라 비교 분석하였다. 분석 결과에 따르면 두 기관의 설립 목적과 특징에 따라 수행 연구 영역, 주제, 범위, 형태, 방식 등에 차이를 보이고 있으며, 지방 교육자치 정책에 따라 시도교육청의 교육정책연구소에서는 자율적이고 보다 실천적이며, 지역성과 현장성이 강한 정책 연구가 수행되고 있으며 각 지역 연구소의 위상과 제도적 여건에서 차이가 있어 정책 연구네트워크를 구축하여 지역 간 공동연구를 통해 연구 역량을 강화하고 한계를 극 복하고자 한다. 중앙 차원에서 연구가 수행되는 정부출연 교육연구기관은 전국교육청 정책연구네트워크와 협의체를 구축하여 공동연구를 추진한다면 지역교육청과 학교 현장의 자료 수집 및 현장 접근성이 높아지고, 현장성이 강한 교육 연구 수행이 가능하게 되며, 현장의 참여와 피드백이 활성화되어 실질적이고 지역별 실정에 부합되는 교육 정책 방안이 마련될 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.The purpose of this study is to seek for the future directions of educational research of government-funded research institutes in accordance with the new government s educational reform policy focusing on local education autonomy. For this purpose, we examined the educational research outcomes of a government-funded educational research institute(GFERI) and the research institutes affiliated to local offices of education(LOERI). A comparative analysis of the research reports by LOERI and GFERI was done with a total of 683 research reports published by 13 regional educational policy research institutes and 1,023 reports published by the GFERI. The published reports were analyzed according to publication year, category, theme, school level, research type, and research focus. Classification by publication year shows that the number of research reports decreased in GFERI while LOERI increased the number of research reports. It is also revealed that there is a big gap among the LOERIs; while the least number of studies are 4 research report, the largest number of studies are 151. 317 out of 1,023 reports by GFERI were in the teaching and learning field; 296 reports were in the field of curriculum and textbook, and 262 reports were studies on assessment. 437 cases out of a total of 683 research reports by the regional educational research institute were categorized as ‘local research issues’. The comparison between the LOERI and GFERI shows that the most significant difference lies in local issues, and one common area is learning and teaching improvement. It implies that local educational policy research institutes has conducted research on various regional areas(regional school policy, school administration, local educational policy etc.) to meet various local needs, while the GFERI has done educational research at the national and international levels with focus on curriculum, evaluation, and teaching and learning. In the school level classification, the studies dealing with all elementary, middle, and high schools outnumber the other types of research. It is found that local research institutes did more studies at the kindergarten level than GFERI. In the comparison according to regional specificity, it is found that GFERI focuses on policies and educational issues at the central level, while the LOERI conducted studies on region-focused issues. The scope of GFERI research goes beyond the domestic to the global level. While the staff member of GFERI were conducted studies, teachers and university professors joined research as external co-researchers in the regional educational policy research institutes. According to the new government’s local education autonomy policy, LOERIs are expected to carry out autonomous, more practical and field-based policy research in accordance with the policy of each provincial office of education. Recently, a network of regional education policy research institutes has recently been established to carry out joint research among regions to strengthen the capacity of individual research institutes and to overcome the limitations or local constraints. It is necessary for GFERI as a government-funded research institute, to carry out studies with local research institutes to meet needs from local areas across the country. Efforts needs to be made to seek effective ways of doing research in collaboration from selecting research topics, and collecting data and analyzing to proposing educational policies. A consultation body can be established to enhance collaboration among institutes. Such collaboration is expected to support and bring about an effective implementation of the new educational policy with focus on local education autonomy.