Philosophy of Education and Educational Research

Abstract

WORK IN the field of educational research has, understandably, been largely under the influence of the science of education movement. Within the past two decades, however, vanguard literature in the fie Id has shown an increased degree of sophistication as the brass -i ns tru ment techniques of the early statisticians and measurers have be e n more critically assessed. Yet, even today, an inspection of titles and abstracts of dissertations in education throughout the country reveals the continuing preponderance of statistical analysis and quantification. Workers in philosophy of education have been critical of the science of education movement?its orthodoxy?its atomism?its failure to exam ine its own assumptions?its mechanism?and, again understandably, they have not ordinarily chosen to involve themselves in specific enter prises in field research nor in the teaching of educational resear ch. To remain thus remote from the kinds of problems to which educa tional research addresses itself is difficult for the philosopher of edu cation who is primarily concerned about education. For such aperson, the question of how to put philosophy of education to work in areas where deliberate, careful, systematic inquiry is called for, is a pressing one. Surely a concern with the nature of inquiry (traditional in modern phil osophy) should not be imcompatible with an interest in the research methods usually the domain of professors of educational research. Is it possible that a study of philosophy of education may help students de velop an understanding of critical, systematic inquiry that may prove helpful to them in their research undertakings ? It is conceivab 1 e that such an understanding could make some dint in the present naive de votion to non-critical use of statistical analysis and quantification. Here and there, a close relationship between educational research and philosophy of education is recognized. In the preface to Good, Barr and Scates' textbook, probably in years past one of the most widely used basic buides in courses in educational research, it is asserted to be the position of the authors that no essential conflict exists between the meth ods of science and the processes of logic and philosophy. These au thors claim to discuss philosophy and logic in functional relationship to the total process of problem-solving. Again, in the preface to the more recently published Barr, Davis and Johnson, Educational Research and Appraisal (J. B. Lippincott, 195 3), the authors caution against measurement without appropriate orienta tion. They stress the growing concern about meanings of data collected by data?gathering devices.