Autonomy and religious education: lessons from a six-year evaluation of an educational reform in an Israeli school network

This study investigated the tension that exists between promoting an educational agenda and practising an educational approach which emphasises autonomy within the framework of religious education. Our main thesis is that every educational deed contains a dialectical tension between endorsing an educational agenda and the promotion of autonomy. Moreover, this tension is not restricted to religious education. The intensity of such a conflict varies in accordance with the flexibility (or inflexibility) of the dogma, the conceptual cohesion of the educational agenda and the perceived importance of granting autonomy to students. The more cohesive and inflexible the educational agenda is, the greater the danger that autonomy will be discarded. The present research examined an educational reform implemented in the National-Religious School Network in Israel, which included the promotion of autonomy among principals, teachers and students. Conducted over a six-year period (2006–2012), the research employed both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and involved various stakeholders in the school network. The multifaceted picture that emerged of the relationship between educational autonomy and religious agenda is presented.     

教育研究质量的综合评价

科学评价教育研究的质量是教育科研和教育事业发展的迫切需要,而我国尚无学者对评价教育研究的质量进行过系统研究.综合评价作为一项教育定量研究,可以从同行评议总体质量、考察研究中涉及的关键变量属性及测度水平、识别研究问题、假设和研究设计方法、评估测量的信度和效度、评估研究的效度和信度以及研究的总结性评价六个方面来开展,其中测量的信度、效度以及研究的效度是决定研究质量最为重要的两个方面.基于科学的质量评价,才能促进教育科研工作更加严谨、规范,促使我国的教育科研质量迈上一个新的台阶.     

Complexity and Educational Research: A critical reflection

Judgements concerning proper or appropriate educational endeavour, methods of investigation and philosophising about education necessarily implicate perspectives, values, assumptions and beliefs. In recent years ideas from the complexity sciences have been utilised in many domains including psychology, economics, architecture, social science and education. This paper addresses questions concerning the appropriateness of utilising complexity science in educational research as well as issues relating to the ways in which complexity might be engaged. I suggest that, just like all human endeavour, approaches to research emerge out of discursive communities and can be understood as self‐organising, dynamic and emergent over time. In this formulation, complexity represents one such newly emergent approach. I argue that it is important that researchers partake in critical and reflective discourse about the nature of education and conceptual frameworks, as well as about impacts and legacies of utilising complexity, so as to participate in and influence the ongoing emergence of educational endeavour. I conclude by suggesting a series of caveats for researchers considering using complexity in educational research.     

Examining the reciprocal relations of mathematics anxiety to quantitative reasoning and number knowledge in Chinese children

This study aimed to examine the longitudinal relations of mathematics anxiety to quantitative reasoning and number knowledge in Chinese children. Three hundred and sixteen 6-year-old Chinese children in Hong Kong participated in two waves of assessments, eight months apart. Cross-lagged panel analyses showed that prior quantitative reasoning and number knowledge predicted lower mathematics anxiety, even after the effects of gender, mothers’ educational levels, and general anxiety were taken into account. However, earlier mathematics anxiety did not predict later quantitative reasoning and number knowledge. Our findings were consistent with the Deficit Theory, which postulates that mathematics anxiety comes from poor mathematical competence but not vice versa. We also found a reciprocal association between quantitative reasoning and number knowledge, in which initial quantitative reasoning had a stronger prediction on later number knowledge. Taken together with previous research, this result highlights the importance of quantitative reasoning in children’s mathematics learning and its role in mathematics education.     

教育研究的科学化:保持理论与实证的张力

自然科学研究的目标是发现自然事物的实然秩序,教育研究的目标是探寻应然的教育行为。教育研究的逻辑是通过观测到的“或然映像”推断实然的教育事实,发现某种实然教育行为与受教育者随之发生的实然变化之间的相关性,根据对实然教育事实的价值判断,设计更加合理的教育行为,最终形成新的教育理论与实践体系。教育实证研究离不开理论研究成果指导,教育理论研究需要实证研究提供事实支撑。教育研究应该保持理论研究与实证研究之间的张力,既要以教育目的与理念为指导开展实证研究,也要开展关注本土现实教育实践的理论研究,从而实现教育研究的科学化。     

Opening Pandora's Box: Evidence-based practice for educational psychologists

Over the past few years evidence-based practice has become of central concern to health and social services in this country. The fundamental tenant is that there must be a clear link between professional practice and its research base. This paper outlines the concept of evidence-based practice and how it rests on the concept of good quality research -- defined as randomised controlled trials. Some of the arguments against evidence practice are outlined; in particular, the importance of educational psychologists' epistemological position. A framework is described that helps to explain how educational psychologists may use their experience to construct explanations for their clients' difficulties. The tension between those educational psychologists who wish to base their professional practice on subjective experience and self-reflection, and those who wish to base it on a more objective base is explored. It is suggested that how this tension is resolved will be the key factor in the continued public and political credibility of the profession.     

Research Methods and Types of Evidence for Research in Educational Technology

Recent concern about lack of scientific rigor in educational research has led to a reexamination of educational research methods. Methodology requires particular attention when researchers study learning in complex learning environments such as classrooms or computer-driven environments that simulate complex processes. This article reaffirms the importance of experimental research for answering some research questions. It argues that nonexperimental methods, such as design experiments and methods applied to the study of large-scale educational programs, such as randomized field trials, are useful for answering other kinds of research questions about learning in complex settings. This article discusses the validity of evidence gathered using these nonexperimental methods. Finally, it suggests that the study of the dynamics of learning can help integrate data from experiments that reveal details about learning and data from nonexperimental research that reveal how learning occurs in complex settings.     

Concealment of Child Sexual Abuse in Sports

Researchers and theorists offer a strong base of research in physical activity for high risk groups, particularly sedentary children, adults, and the elderly. Little research examines the lifelong healthy movement behaviors of former competitive athletes. This paper raises some important questions relevant to this population, in particular the disturbing, yet limited research pointing to a serious failure of former competitive athletes to necessarily live longer, healthier, and more physically active lives. The scarce research that seems to highlight this neglected problem is outlined and hypotheses that may contribute to this phenomenon are offered and categorized in the following three sections: atypical physical behaviors found in the sporting realm, utilitarian uses of physical activity, and the long-term consequences of athletic identity. Suggestions are offered to direct future research and to implement practical intervention strategies and educational programs.     

逻辑及其在知识研究中的作用

逻辑主要研究语形和语义之间的二元关系,是特殊的形式化的推理系统。演绎推理并不必然要求论证是演绎有效的或者是无效的。演绎推理是不可废止的,但非演绎推理却是可废止的。从知识科学的角度看,逻辑的作用在于提供推理形式化的范式。现代逻辑和方法论以及科学哲学之间关系密切。演绎推理只是其中的一种,并且具有一定的局限性,而非演绎推理或可废止推理也可以用数学的方法进行刻画。     

Philosophy and Educational Research: a reconsideration of epistemological boundaries

This paper examines what logically is or ought to be the relationship between philosophy and educational research. It explores the sense in which philosophising itself constitutes a form of research and notes the role of philosophy in addressing the ethical, epistemological and political issues which underpin other forms of educational research of an empirical character. The paper goes on to examine more fully the role of philosophy in empirical research. It explores the complex interplay of logic and psychology in the history and biography of the development of ideas and suggests that this picture argues for freedom of movement between the two in academic lives and institutions. It then takes a step further and, drawing on Quine and Kuhn, challenges the epistemological status of the dichotomy between a posteriori and a priori reasoning.     

Personal Epistemology Research: Implications for Learning and Teaching

The ideas that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing have been the target of research programs with disparate names, such as epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, ways of knowing, and epistemological reflection, all of which appear to be a part of a larger body of work on “personal epistemology.” Epistemological perspectives are salient in numerous academic experiences, have been shown to be related to learning in various ways, influence reasoning and judgment throughout our lives, and have implications for teaching. Yet this work has remained outside the mainstream of educational psychology and cognitive development. This paper addresses three main questions: (1) What is personal epistemology research and how is it conceptualized? (2) How are individuals' conceptions of epistemology related to learning and instruction? (3) Given what we know about personal epistemology, what might educators do? Suggestions are also provided for future research and theoretical development.     

A review of research on formal reasoning and science teaching

A central purpose of education is to improve students' reasoning abilities. The present review examines research in developmental psychology and science education that has attempted to assess the validity of Piaget's theory of formal thought and its relation to educational practice. Should a central objective of schools be to help students become formal thinkers? To answer this question research has focused on the following subordinate questions: (1) What role does biological maturation play in the development of formal reasoning? (2) Are Piaget's formal tasks reliable and valid? (3) Does formal reasoning constitute a unified and general mode of intellectual functioning? (4) How does the presence or absence of formal reasoning affect school achievement? (5) Can formal reasoning be taught? (6) What is the structural or functional nature of advanced reasoning? The general conclusion drawn is that although Piaget's work and that which has sprung from it leaves a number of unresolved theoretical and methodological problems, it provides an important background from which to make substantial progress toward a most significant educational objective. All our dignity lies in thought. By thought we must elevate ourselves, not by space and time which we can not fill. Let us endeavor then to think well; therein lies the principle of morality. Blaise Pascal 1623-1662.     

Historical Reasoning: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Students’ Reasoning about the Past

This article explores historical reasoning, an important activity in history learning. Based upon an extensive review of empirical literature on students’ thinking and reasoning about history, a theoretical framework of historical reasoning is proposed. The framework consists of six components: asking historical questions, using sources, contextualization, argumentation, using substantive concepts, and using meta-concepts. Each component is discussed and illustrated by examples from our own research. The article concludes with suggestions on how to use the framework both in future research and in educational practice.     

国外教育研究方法的应用特征--基于2000-2019年34本教育学SSCI收录期刊的文献计量分析

以2000-2019年间34本教育学SSCI收录期刊发表的学术论文为研究对象,对国外教育研究方法的应用特征进行文献计量分析,结果发现,21世纪以来,国外教育研究方法的应用基本形成了以定量研究为主、质性研究紧随其后、混合研究占有一席之地的格局;因研究议题和学术共同体偏好的差异,具体方法的应用在教育研究的不同领域呈现不同样态;"方法从之于问题"的实用主义导向不断驱动国外教育研究方法应用的多样化。     

Proportional reasoning: A review of the literature

This paper presents a review of the research on proportional reasoning. Methodologies used in proportional reasoning studies are presented first. The discussion is then organized around the following topics: strategies use to solve proportion problems, including erroneous strategies; factors that influence performance on proportion problems, both task-related and subject-related; training studies. The discussion is accompanied by suggestions for educational and research applications. This paper was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant No. SED 79-18962. Any opinions, findings and conclusions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Elizabeth K. Stage and Joan Heller for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

The medicalization of current educational research and its effects on education policy and school reforms

This paper starts from the assumption of the emergence of an educationalized culture over the last 200 years according to which perceived social problems are translated into educational challenges. As a result, both educational institutions and educational research grew, and educational policy resulted from negotiations between professionals, researchers, and policy makers. The paper argues that specific experiences in the Second World War triggered a fundamental shift in the social and cultural role of academia, leading up to a technocratic culture characterized by confidence in experts rather than in practicing professionals (i.e., teachers and administrators). In this technocratic shift, first a technological system of reasoning emerged, and it was then replaced by a medical “paradigm.” The new paradigm led to a medicalization of social research, in which a particular organistic understanding of the social reality is taken for granted and research is conducted under the mostly undiscussed premises of this particular understanding. The result is that despite the increased importance of research in general, this expertocratic and medical shift of social research led to a massive reduction in reform opportunities by depriving the reform stakeholders of a broad range of education research, professional experience, common sense, and political deliberation.     

Educational Research and Policy: Epistemological Considerations

This article is centrally concerned with the sort of knowledge that can and should inform educational policy—and it treats this as an epistemological question. It distinguishes this question from the more extensively explored question of what sort of knowledge in what form policy‐makers do in fact commonly take into account. The article examines the logical and rhetorical character of policy and the components of policy decisions and argues that policy demands a much wider range of information than research typically provides. Either the research task or commission has to be substantially extended or the gap will be filled by information or thinking that is not derived from research. One of the gaps between research of an empirical kind and policy is the normative gap. In the final section the article points to the inescapably normative character of educational policy. Of course the values that inform policy can be investigated empirically, but this kind of enquiry cannot tell us what we should do. There is a role for research/scholarship and more rather than less intelligent and critical argumentation in addressing these normative questions as well as the empirical questions that underpin policy.     

Neuroscience, education and special education

The discipline of neuroscience draws from the fields of neurology, psychology, physiology and biology, but is best understood in the wider world as 'brain science'. Of particular interest for education is the development of techniques for 'imaging' the brain as it performs different cognitive functions. Cognitive neuroimaging has already led to advances in understanding some of the basic functions involved in learning and raised implications for education and special education in particular. For example, neuroimaging has enabled scientists to study the very complex processes underpinning speech and language, thinking and reasoning, reading and mathematics. In this article, Professor Usha Goswami of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education first reviews basic information on brain development. She provides a brief introduction to the tools used in neuroimaging then considers recent findings from neuroscience that seem relevant to educational questions. Professor Goswami uses this review to suggest particular ways in which neuroscience research could inform special education. In its closing sections, this article provides authoritative perspectives on some of the 'neuromyths' that seem to have taken root in the popular imagination and argues for increased dialogue, in the future, between the disciplines of neuroscience and education.     

关于教育的经验研究:实证与事后解释

开展经验研究是推进教育科学理论建设的重要手段。实证研究是一种重要的经验研究方法,其功能在于用经验材料对提出的理论假说进行检验,将其混同于"定量"的研究是认识上的误区。事后解释是教育经验研究中常见的一类研究方式和文本,诸如质的研究、比较研究和历史研究等都属于事后解释的方法。事后解释也试图回答"是怎样的"和"为什么"的问题,只不过是以"观察—解释"而不是"假说—检验"的方式来回答。所有基于经验材料建构的理论解释都是思辨的产物,必须诉诸经验的检验,检验方式既包括逻辑的也包括实践的。