Education Research On Trial: Policy Reform and the Call for Scientific Rigor

by Walters; Pamela B.

• ISBN13: 9780415989886
• ISBN10: 0415989884
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-11-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

"Education research is a scientific field in crisis. The foundation of the current crisis is a long-time perception that too much of the work of educational researchers fails to meet minimum standards ofscientific rigor. This perception constitutes the "bad reputation" from which the field of education research suffers. Long-simmering scientific doubts became a full-blown crisis, however, when critics-mostly critics from outside the field-recently launched charges that education research has failed to provide a solid evidence base for the improvement of educational practice, in part because educational researchers have been preoccupied with the wrong questions and in part because much of their research has been based on the wrong research methods. We see, then, that the crisis of confidence in the quality of education research goes hand in hand with a crisis of confidence in the quality of American education. The solution to both sets of shortcomings, critics maintain, is to pose different research questions and address them with more "rigorous" scientific methods. The charges about the shortcomings ofeducation research and the proposed means of improving it are the subject of this book."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Politics of Knowledge	p. 15
The Politics of Science: Battles for Scientific Authority in the Field of Education Research	p. 17
A History of Efforts to Improve the Quality of Federal Education Research: From Gardner's Task Force to the Institute of Education Sciences	p. 51
Seeking Rigor; Finding Rigor	p. 81
Assessing Quality in Educational Journals	p. 83
Can Non-randomized Studies Provide Evidence of Causal Effects? A Case Study Using the Regression Discontinuity Design	p. 105
Blending Quality and Utility: Lessons Learned from the Education Research Debates	p. 125
Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of Science and Policy	p. 143
Narrow Questions, Narrow Answers: The Limited Value of Randomized Controlled Trials for Education Research	p. 145
A Quixotic Quest? Philosophical Issues in Assessing the Quality of Education Research	p. 163
Education Research That Matters: Influence, Scientific Rigor, and Policymaking	p. 197
Appendices
The Definition of "Scientifically Based Research" in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001	p. 221
The Definitions of "Scientifically Based Research" in the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002	p. 223
Mission and Functions of the Institute of Education Sciences, as Detailed in the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002	p. 225
Selection from Request for Proposals for Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training Programs in the Education Sciences, Issued by the Institute of Education Sciences in 2004	p. 227
Notes on Contributors	p. 231
Index	p. 235
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