Education-ish Research, I

I know that many people in education, including education bloggers, share my disappointment with what is published today as education research.

For some, it is primarily a disaffection with what seems to be a set of "constructivist" assumptions that unnecessarily undergird a lot of research. For others, it is frustration with the lack of experimental rigor in many of the research designs. For still others—and I would include myself in this group—it is mostly that a lot of research simply doesn't address what they care about.

Ironically, veteran education researcher Deborah Ball (along with co-author Francesca Forzani) provide some measure of validation for our frustrations, disappointments, and disaffections. In a paper (PDF) titled "What Makes Education Research 'Educational'?" published in December 2007, Ball and Forzani point to a less obvious but still visible problem with education research that is closely related to the problems we all see—its tendency to focus on "phenomena related to education," rather than "inside educational transactions":

In recent years, debates about method and evidence have swamped the discourse on education research to the exclusion of the fundamental question of what constitutes education research and what distinguishes it from other domains of scholarship. The panorama of work represented at professional education meetings or in publications is vast and not highly defined. . . Research that is ostensibly "in education" frequently focuses not inside the dynamics of education but on phenomena related to education—racial identity, for example, young children's conceptions of fairness, or the history of the rise of secondary schools. These topics and others like them are important. Research that focuses on them, however, often does not probe inside the educational process.

Certainly many of us have read terrible "studies" that are, in fact, "inside education," as we might intuitively understand that term—they are situated in classrooms, they focus on students or teachers or content, etc. Nevertheless, Ball and Forzani make an important point, and the consequences of ignoring problems "inside education" may already be playing out:

Until education researchers turn their attention to problems that exist primarily inside education and until they develop systematically a body of specialized knowledge, other scholars who study questions that bear on educational problems will propose solutions. Because such solutions typically are not based on explanatory analyses of the dynamics of education, the education problems that confront society are likely to remain unsolved.

Consider brain-based education. How many other "solutions" like this can we name?

I'll have more on these ideas, including Ball and Forzani's suggestions for better education research, in a future post.


Ball, D., & Forzani, F. (2007). 2007 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture--What Makes Education "Research Educational"? Educational Researcher, 36 (9), 529-540 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X07312896