Research Priorities in Educational Administration

Abstract

IN RECENT literature, professional meetings and informal discus sions, the school administrator has been reflecting a concern that edu cational research activities are not sufficiently germane to the prob lems confronting him. From that perspective, the researcher has been pursuing interesting but largely problems and avoid ing or indicating an insensitivity to the many and immedi ate unresolved indeterminate situations that daily confront those who are engaged in organizing and maintaining the ongoing educational es tablishment. Although the extent and detailed nature of this dissatis faction remain to be determined empirically, one can be reasonably safe in the assumption that the situation exists and is serious enough to warrant examination. For instance, despite some methodological questions that arise in connection with the survey by Johnson (3), one cannot fail to be concerned that only 35 percent of the administrators responding were satisfied with what research workers are contributing to help them improve their school programs ... /ano!/... according to 77 per cent of those replying, research reports are too formal and foreign for practical application in ordinary school situations. (3:8). It is felt here that the criticism referred to has not been answered adequately by educational research people. To insist, with justifica tion, that the and the constitute an integrity, is not convincing if the researcher who so insists continues to be ex clusively theoretical in his discourse and operations. To retort that the must be deduced from the is not help ful if the research person does not assist in such deducing and hypo thesizing. Furthermore, it does not seem presumptuous to ask that the educational research person be interested continuously in how his data, hypotheses and theoretical systems bear upon the very practice that he presumably is attempting to clarify and systematize. Nor is it indefensible to suggest that the educational researcher should be sensitive to and should participate in attempts to clarify the indeter minate situations confronted by those who are using the results of his research in educational practice. * We are mindful of a corollary of these propositions; the administra tor, similarly, should have the research sophistication necessary to op erate effectively with researchers and research data. The criticism that research people and data are not helpful would be offered less frequently,