Serious challenges require serious scholarship: Integrating implementation science into the scholarly discourse

The articles in this special issue illustrate the challenges of implementing interventions in school contexts, as well as the lessons that can be learned from such work. Being responsive to the challenges and affordances of educational contexts requires studying not just the treatment, but also what happens before, during, and after implementation. Scholarship on implementation science and curricular design can be productively integrated into intervention development and research, as the authors in this special issue have shown. Gathering data regarding the entirety of the intervention implementation can result in powerful lessons for the field, but researchers, and journal editors, must apply the same standards of rigor for reporting implementation fidelity as they do for reporting psychometrics or statistical analyses. As this special issue shows, when the field of educational psychology takes seriously the scholarship of implementation, the result is positive implications for theory, practice, and the preparation of future scholars.     

Social identity theories and educational engagement

There is a large body of research in studies of schooling, particularly ethnographic case studies, which posits that collective action among students undermines engagement in school and contributes to educational inequality. In this paper I review studies of engagement from a social identity theory perspective. To what extent can collective action explain why some student groups are less engaged than others? I discuss four approaches to identifying social identity‐related problems of engagement frequently used in prior research. While researchers often find problems of engagement among low‐academic‐status students, research on educational engagement has had difficulty locating the underlying causes of inequality in student engagement. Social identity theories of educational engagement are inherently theories of collective action. I conclude that a fifth approach, large‐scale observational studies of monitoring and sanctioning, provides the best framework for identifying both the prevalence of, and solutions to, this particular source of disengagement.     

A View from Somewhere: Explaining the Paradigms of Educational Research

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which posits the existence of two (or more) equally legitimate epistemological paradigms—positivism and constructivism—and offer an alternative that places a priority in educational research on understanding the purposes and meanings humans attribute to educational practices. Only within the context of what I call a transcendent view from somewhere—higher ideals that govern human activities—can we make sense of quantitative as well as qualitative research findings.     

Beyond ‘talking out of school’: educational researchers as public intellectuals

This conceptual article explores the notion of educational researchers operating as public intellectuals. To do this, I situate my analysis within a broader tradition of public intellectual work in the American academy. I also offer a framework for three specific forms of public intellectual work, supported by relevant examples, which can be taken up by educational researchers. I then raise critical issues, concerns, and tensions that complicate such work, and conclude by offering suggestions for better linking educational research to the broader public. Although this article focuses largely on researchers working within the university context, particularly tenure-line faculty, many of its insights are applicable to independent researchers, policy analysts, or others working within the broadly defined field of educational research.     

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.     

The implications of the differences between design research and instructional systems design for educational technology researchers and practitioners

Design research (DR) has been an emerging research paradigm in the field of educational technology as well as in education generally for two decades. Educational design research integrates design and research into a socially responsible approach to inquiry related to learning and teaching. Given its still relative novelty, design research requires further discussion regarding what it is and how it can be effectively executed. Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is one of the major activities carried out by educational technologists. Both ISD and design research deal with the enactment of design to improve educational practice. This paper describes the differences and similarities between these two activities and addresses the implications of these differences and similarities for educational technology researchers and practitioners.     

教师备课思维范式的转换及教学创新

教师备课思维范式的研究，是教师思维研究的有机组成部分。在教学活动中，备课作为第一环节，教师以什么样的哲学观念来指导教学设计，直接体现了相应教育理念。本文指出传统的备深思维范式已不能适应新世纪素质教育的发展要求，提出了构建以人为本、以引导学生学习为主、以学生活动为焦点的新备课思维范式的设想，从而促进教学创新。     

理论研究与实践探索的贯通：基于学习科学的教育革新

很多领域都存在理论研究与实践应用之间的鸿沟,学习科学与教育实践之间也不例外。如何贯通理论研究和实践探索,从而形成相互支持的效应,是研究者和实践者需要共同面对的问题。学习科学推动教育实践变革的路径可以从理论诠释和合作实践两个方面展开。在理论诠释方面,研究者不仅要用易懂的方式言说,还要对理论进行选择和综合。指出理论和相关研究成果的实践意蕴,以案例展示实践的具体方法,将理论观点与实践者的先拥观念进行比较,以促进概念转变。在合作实践方面,研究者需要和实践者一起,将学习科学的理论和研究成果见之于特定情境的具体实践,从而形成一套适应这一情境的、定制性的具体实践方案或分析工具,或者通过对教学经验和教学案例加以概括和归纳,从而形成一般性的、可迁移的方法。实践者在整个过程中以合乎学习科学的方式,在实践共同体中将学习和实践融合,革新教育实践,发展专业能力。     

Reframing quality and impact: The place of theory in education research

In March 2004, Stephen Ball and others presented a symposium at the conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) on the necessity of theory in educational research. Like Ball, I have observed that theory, not just social theory, is a difficult space and one that divides researchers (those comfortable with theory and those less so), within educational research. It is an aspect of educational research training that rarely receives the attention essential for ‘quality’ educational research. In the context of the contemporary research assessment exercises, it is worth reflecting on the relationship between research informed by social theory and expectations of quality and impact. In this paper I revisit the argument made by Ball and others for the necessity of theory, and discuss its role in framing research questions, informing analysis, and promoting reflexivity on the significance and relevance of research. I illustrate this process by discussing the ways theory can assist in the generation of research agendas and questions. I conclude the paper with an example of how a team of educational researchers from Australia, UK and New Zealand have made use of social theory to inform an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project investigating the recontextualisation of health knowledge in schools.     

教育技术存在问题研究范式另解

借鉴关系哲学理论分析教育技术存在问题的研究范式值得商榷,纠缠于教育和技术关系分析并不能找到令人满意的教育技术存在答案。将教育技术存在问题转向统一存在、存在者、本质之“我是”问题,教育技术存在问题才能得到正解。基于教育技术与文化同构的理论共识,教育技术存在问题之“我是”答案可以从文化人类学理论及研究范式中汲取营养。     

用复杂的思维方式研究学校教育活动——兼从方法论角度反思二十余年中小学整体改革研究

从关注教育活动的整体性到关注其复杂性,是教育改革与发展研究的一个趋势。为此,需要反思曾经用过的整体主义思维方式。具体来说,至少应考虑:(1)探寻一般性理论,还需要结合具体时空条件的、具有特殊性的深入研究;(2)超越还原式的研究思路、放弃根据预定计划演绎确定活动结果的做法;(3)关注教师、学生在教育活动中的主体作用和研究者在教育研究中的主体作用。     

Reforming Science Education: Part II. Utilizing Kieran Egan’s Educational Metatheory

This paper is the second of two parts and continues the conversation which had called for a shift in the conceptual focus of science education towards philosophy of education, with the requirement to develop a discipline-specific “philosophy” of science education. In Part I, conflicting conceptions of science literacy were identified with disparate “visions” tied to competing research programs as well as school-based curricular paradigms. The impasse in the goals of science education and thereto, the contending views of science literacy, were themselves associated with three underlying fundamental aims of education (knowledge-itself; personal development; socialization) which, it was argued, usually undercut the potential of each other. During periods of “crisis-talk” and throughout science educational history these three aims have repeatedly attempted to assert themselves. The inability of science education research to affect long-term change in classrooms was correlated not only to the failure to reach a consensus on the aims (due to competing programs and to the educational ideologies of their social groups), but especially to the failure of developing true educational theories (largely neglected since Hirst). Such theories, especially metatheories, could serve to reinforce science education’s growing sense of academic autonomy and independence from socio-economic demands. In Part II, I offer as a suggestion Egan’s cultural-linguistic theory as a metatheory to help resolve the impasse. I hope to make reformers familiar with his important ideas in general, and more specifically, to show how they can complement HPS rationales and reinforce the work of those researchers who have emphasized the value of narrative in learning science.     

Naming beyond the white settler colonial gaze in educational research

In this article, I describe the ways educational research often calls us out our names, meaning that educational researchers often name communities not as they are but as the academy needs them to be along damaging logics of erasure and deficiency. I use Morrison’s concept of the White gaze, Tuck’s concepts of damage-centered and desire-based research, and other contemporary scholarship on settler colonialism, White supremacy, and education to offer ways of naming in educational research beyond the White settler gaze. Finally, I look to hashtag naming in current social movements (e.g. #BlackLivesMatter, #DearNativeYouth #NotYourModelMinority) to imagine educational research that understands the naming of the communities of our work as informed by movement speech, the sort of naming that can save lives and show us and others who we are and desire to be.     

Some lessons for educational researchers: Repositioning research in education and education in research

This paper is a reflection on the current policy moment in educational research in Australia in the context of globalisation. Set against a consideration of the emergent structure of feeling, the paper draws on three case studies of research to draw out some lessons for educational researchers and the research community. The argument is put that the dangerous ‘we’ of AARE needs to support increased funding for education and for educational research and, for the latter, to support a range of funding sources, types of research, methodologies and dissemination approaches. Increasingly there are pressures upon such eclecticism because of governmental attempts to ‘instrumentalise’ relationships between educational research and practitioner needs as perceived by governments. While such research is necessary, there is also a need within a democratic polity for research framed by agendas set by researchers that critiques government-directed developments. The paper argues there is a complex relationship amongst researchers and educational policy and pedagogical practitioners and as such the concept of ‘impact’ as applied to educational research requires substantial theorising. Contemporary research policy has tended to inhibit the dissemination of academic research to educational practitioners, while educational policy has tended, inappropriately in the argument of the paper, to construct teachers as the mere recipients of policy and research done elsewhere.     

中国教育史学史的演进特点、进展及其展望

教育史学史是教育史学的客观演进历程,不仅为人们提供教育史学演进的知识谱系,而且提出教育史学研究中的问题、局限性与不确定性。由于中国教育史研究源于新式学堂的教学需要,服务教学成为中国教育史的研究起点并使其盛行于20世纪上半叶,由此出现了不同取向的教育史学研究。从1950年到20世纪70年代末,教育史研究者在借鉴苏联教育史学的基础上,对以往教育史研究成果重新作出分析评判,教育史学史得以兴起;然而,由于对史学理论与方法的使用不当,在改变学术研究性质的同时,还改变了研究方向。改革开放后,研究者在教育史的恢复重建中,开始关注以教育史学科建设为核心的教育史研究,教育史学受到高度重视并取得显著成果。但是,这不意味着教育史学研究没有问题。为繁荣教育理论,为人类教育事业贡献智慧,未来的中国教育史学研究需要处理好以下问题:其一,克服固守于“用”的教育史研究定位;其二,教育史研究中的概念和概念体系建设;其三,教育及教育史研究与社会之间的关系;其四,外来教育史学理论与本土教育史研究之间的关系。     

THE STEALTH GERONTOLOGYTM PROGRAM: TRAINING TEACHERS TO INFUSE AGING AND AGE-RELATED CONTENT INTO PUBLIC SCHOOL CLASSROOMS

Preparing youngsters for an aging society requires teachers who keep pace with health science research. The Stealth Gerontology^TM program educates teachers regarding aging-related issues. The design and assessment of the program are reported in this paper. Teachers attended sessions including direct instruction and hands-on participation (e.g., laboratories). Sound educational methods were modeled through interactions with university researchers and lessons from the Positively Aging^® curriculum, while highlighting aging topics matched to educational standards. Participants showed significant improvement (p ≤ 0.05) in eight of nine topics in multiple-choice pre- and posttests. Evaluations indicate a high degree of success.     

我国教育科学研究发展现状的分析

《教育研究》、《教育理论与实践》的引文分析表明 :目前我国教育科研工作者习惯于引证定性的成熟理论 ,注重权威的观点和专家定论 ,对新理论、新知识、国外信息———特别是英语语种以外的信息 ,吸收能力较低 ;上海、北京、江苏等地已成为我国教育理论研究的主要基地 ;教育科学研究的热点集中在课程教材教法、教师学、普通教育学、中外教育基本理论、教育心理学、高等教育等方面 ;教育科研的期刊论文在发表后两年被引率达到最高     

Are online communities for young people an issue for education researchers? A literature review of Swedish and international studies within the educational field

Issues concerning children and young people are of interest for the educational field as question about fostering, up-bringing, learning and socialisation are core topics for academic researchers in education. Today many young people in Sweden and around the world spend an increasing amount of their time in online communities or social networking sites. This article aims to investigate whether it also is highlighted by the education researchers. Is it an area to which educational researchers currently contribute? The goal for this article is to present research that is done regarding these issues. My findings show that few academic studies deal with youth and their online environments. Foremost is the research about Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in formal learning situations: in higher education, in schools and classrooms, among professional groups such as teachers and about more general computer use rather than on questions about the fostering or up-bringing of children online. This study implies that online activities for children and young people is a topic currently lying outside the educational research field, resulting in a discussion on why that can be. My work consisted of three parts: a manual search in Swedish research journals at a university library and by searching one Swedish (Libris) and one international (ISI Web of Science) online database. This activity took place in 2009 and covered research conducted between 2003 and 2008. I conclude that this area is one where educational expertise is lacking; hence further research is strongly required.     

Doing Feminist Educational Theory: A post-modernist perspective

This paper arises from my work as a teacher of courses in feminist educational theory in a New Zealand university. Students usually encounter educational theories as disembodied abstractions scattered in fragments in various, often seemingly unrelated, courses. In a crowded curriculum there is little space for them to create their own educational theories or to reflect on the processes of educational theorising. In this paper I speak with two voices as a means of modelling - for students and teachers of feminist courses - a process of doing educational theory. It is written in two columns. In the left-hand column I speak with an academic voice. I begin by reviewing some theoretical writings of post-modernist theorists who have drawn attention to the ways our educational and social theories are generated by our circumstances - biographical, historical, cultural, generational, and geographical. I then argue that post-modernists have seldom practised what they preach - their abstract, and often inaccessible, writings remain severed from the lived realities at their base. In the right-hand column I speak with a more personal voice. I introduce some everyday experiences which are usually rendered invisible in academic writing in order to demonstrate how a few moments of 'lived reality' can be generative of feminist educational theory. The paper also contains ideas about how its unorthodox form can be used to trigger multiple and idiosyncratic readings and as a trigger for students' writing.     

建设性后现代主义对我国教育思想的启迪

后现代主义(postmodernism)是20世纪后半叶流行于西方社会的一种哲学,文化思潮,涉及范围广泛,对当今西方社会文化,教育,艺术等各方面带来了很大的影响。当前我国正从前工业社会走向工业社会,学习,借鉴西方发达国家现代化过程中的经验,教训,减少现代化带来的破坏性,无疑是对我们是有益的。以格里芬为代表的“建设性后现代主义”以一种批判性的,建设性的态度对待“现代主义”,提出了“整体有机论”,给我们了一个全新的视野。特别是对于具有前瞻性的教育理论研究,可以用“建设性后现代主义”“整体有机论”的观点来研究我国教育领域的问题,从而发展我国的教育理论,指导我国教育的改革和发展。