A minimax principle for educational research

Educational research has lost considerable prestige in recent years. The optimism of the 1960's has not been fulfilled and educational research has been relegated to a defensive position. If the findings of educational research are to be more intuitively appealing, readily understood, and widely accepted, educational researchers should give better attention to the reduction of needless methodological complexity and to the improvement of conceptual clarity. To focus attention on this necessity, a minimax principle is suggested in which the educational researcher should seek to minimize the maximum methodological complexity that is necessary to produce a satisfactory degree of conceptual clarity