Educational Explanations. Christopher Winch
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how a research programme which is getting into difficulties tries to solve its problems through semantic redefinition rather than data collection, following predictions made by Lakatos. Some key lessons about future research in the area are drawn.
Chapter 10 takes up research in comparative vocational education. Much has been achieved over the last quarter of a century in understanding how vocational education and training systems differ from country to country. Economists and comparative educators have co-operated in trying to show how VET systems are embedded in their societies and national economies and how they are expressive of different forms of capitalism (Ashton and Green 1996; Brockmann et al. 2011). The case study shows how these primarily descriptive studies manage to do this within limits. Descriptive accounts of differing VET systems and their embedding within their societies are not always accompanied by adequate interpretation and explanation of the phenomena described. In particular, interpretative work can show how practices which may look superficially similar from society to society are very often very different when subjected to closer scrutiny. Comparative VET research poses methodological challenges if it is to advance further in explanatory force. Among these is the need for empirical investigation of conceptual variation in different, albeit quite similar societies. The ways in which different national VET systems are to be understood have important implications both for policy borrowing in VET and for the attempt to develop transnational policy tools. This will be discussed in relationship to VET policy in the EU over the last quarter of a century.
Chapter 11 takes up the case of School Effectiveness Research (SER). From the 1970s onwards, dissatisfaction with the paradigmatic view that ‘Education cannot compensate for Society’ grew and the search was on for ways of distinguishing effective from ineffective schools. I will examine the choices available for investigating this issue and explain those that were eventually made in the dominant research programme in this area. Key methodological decisions and conceptual approaches are examined and the course of SER and its achievements and limitations are described and discussed. A number of critical issues are identified. These include the definition of ‘school effectiveness’ adopted; the limitations of the regression-based methods for measuring effectiveness, including measurement error, the problem of missing values and the problem of unstable results. Problems to do with generalisation of findings will also be broached. These include the difficulties of putting SER research into viable school improvement strategies, the interpretation of the regression-based findings for the identification of features of effective schools and the relativistic nature of the data. The chapter will include an estimation of the achievements as well as the setbacks of the SER programme.
Chapter 12 examines the history of research on learning to read, with particular references to difficulties that some children have in learning to read. Despite vigorous controversies concerning effective ways of teaching reading, which have raged over the past century, the field has also shown positive gains in understanding, albeit ones which may be more limited than some of their proponents have been willing to admit. However, by and large, the more serious empirical researchers in this field have been cautious, while research which incorporated some doubtful metaphysical assumption has declined in influence. Within the field, conceptual challenges abound and these have not always been addressed with the seriousness that they deserve. These include both what is understood by ‘reading’ and different levels of reading ability and critically, the concept of a reading difficulty and the associated diagnosis of dyslexia. It will be shown that the understanding of what dyslexia is involves considerable conceptual work and that the issue as to whether there is such a phenomenon is by no means resolved. This chapter will also examine the ways in which research on reading has affected policy and will look at a case study which plausibly shows how such research can be used effectively.
Chapter 13 takes us to an issue which has always plagued EER and its application. This issue, which involves the uncritical and enthusiastic acceptance of the deliverances of EER, usually followed by disappointment and the entry of a new challenger in the lists, I call educational faddism. Educational faddism is the shared responsibility of governments and policymakers, teachers and educational researchers. I will describe the pressures which make educational faddism based on EER so irresistible and also show how it has also undermined faith in EER. Ironically, this point applies to recent attempts to transcend it through the use of metasurveys which seem to provide clear deliverance of the implications of any such research. Failure to attend to Mackie’s point about causal fields, described in Chapter 8, exacerbates the difficulties in making productive use of EER in policy initiatives. However, it is also the case that failure to attend to basic canons of probity in EER can be avoided and a lot of consequent mistakes avoided if policymakers and researchers are self-disciplined enough to do so.
In Chapter 14, I look at the ways in which philosophy and the more overtly empirical disciplines involved in educational research can work more fruitfully together. One consequence of the argument so far is the need for an interpretive or hermeneutic sensibility to be present in research from inception, through execution to the drawing of conclusions. This involves being sensitive to the subjects of the research’s own understanding of educational practices and the values and aims that inform them. The need for a hermeneutic approach in EER is stressed. The role of empirical investigations of conceptual variation is also emphasised (comparative VET studies). More traditional conceptual analysis also has an important role to play (Bernstein sociolinguistics and the dyslexia debate are relevant examples) and also philosophy of science (more awareness of paradigms, research programmes, causal analysis all have a role to play). We need to be aware, however, that the various possible contributions that philosophy can make to EER do not exist in separate non-interacting boxes.
Hermeneutics can be used judiciously with a more synchronously inclined form of conceptual analysis (for example in the study of conceptual variations in know-how concepts – Chapter 10) and a reflective element in the philosophical analysis of educational issues is always required to ensure that inquiries into the requirements of particular conceptions of education do not masquerade as categorial investigations. It can be particularly difficult for analysts personally committed to a particular conception of education to refrain from importing elements of their own preferred conception into categorial assertions.
Chapter 15 takes an extended look at the relevance of the discussion of EER to teachers’ own practice. It has been argued that it is impossible, if not incoherent to ignore the findings of EER. It has also been pointed out that it is difficult to draw practical conclusions from such findings. What does this mean for teachers? It will be argued that teachers do need to be able to distinguish between good and poor quality research on the one hand and relevant and less relevant research on the other. Except in relatively uncommon circumstances, however, all findings need to be considered in the light of teachers’ own objectives and circumstances before their relevance to their own work can be properly assessed. This means that teachers need to have a critical sensibility vis-à-vis EER, and this needs to be developed within both initial and continuing teacher education. The claim that teachers can and should themselves be educational researchers is critically assessed and a form of partnership between teachers and researchers is argued for.
Notes
1 1 The total education and development research spend funded directly or indirectly by the government in the third quarter of, 2018 was £2.029 billion. By contrast in Q1 of 1997 it was £590 million. Source: DfE (2019) https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/efx4/cxnv .