In a recent article, published in the world-leading Harvard Educational Review, Professor Gary Thomas argues that attempts to introduce an assortment of accepted scientific principles into educational research can lead to misunderstandings. Science, he says, ‘flexes to any angle to answer the questions posed in any field, and there is no “correct” scientific method’. The questions to be answered in education are located in the everyday practice of teachers and we have to find ways of answering these questions rather than trying to impose methods devised in other fields and with other kinds of questions in mind. Gary Thomas suggests that we now need a new type of science: education science, which is based on an approach which includes those directly involved in the practices of education in the research process.
The full article may be accessed via the Harvard Educational Review Website
Gary has also written a blog for the Review which may be seen at http://www.hepg.org/blog/78