ERIC Number: EJ1239651
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
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ISSN: ISSN-2369-8659
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In Defense of Robin Barrow's Concerns about Empirical Research in Education
Martin, Jack
Philosophical Inquiry in Education, v26 n2 p137-145 2019
This paper offers a defense of Robin Barrow's main arguments in "Giving Teaching Back to Teachers", including additional material concerning the inability of the aggregate data and statistical methods employed in research in education (and research on teaching) to speak to individual teachers and students or to particular classrooms. This defense and extension of Barrow's position is applied in a critique of a proposal made by Lorraine Foreman-Peck in her 2004 debate with Barrow, entitled "What Use is Educational Research?", published in 2005 by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. A central confusion that attends and limits much empirical research in education and social science concerns conflation of two different senses of the concept general, as "common to all" or "on average." The havoc this confusion plays ought not be ignored or minimized by educational researchers and their advocates who tend to exaggerate the empirical regularity in social scientific data and therefore the generalizability of social science research in education and elsewhere. [Paper presented at "Philosophical Issues in Education: A Symposium in Honour of Dr. Robin Barrow" (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Nov 2 2018).]
Descriptors: Educational Philosophy, Teaching Methods, Educational Research, Social Sciences, Educational Researchers, Statistical Analysis, Criticism, Psychology, College Faculty, Teacher Attitudes, Learning Processes
Canadian Philosophy of Education Society. S-FG 6310 Faubourg Ste-Catherine Building, 1610 St. Catherine West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H4B 1R6. Tel: 514-758-7813; Web site: http://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
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Language: English
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