JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2007 | Volume:6 | Issue:21|Papers Count:14

Education, as one of the most important institutions in terms of cultivating human character and building civilizations, has a significant role in shaping man’s cultural life-world. The importance of this institution becomes more apparent when we consider the plain fact that modern societies contain more cultural elements than any other society in the whole history of mankind since the emergence of the first homo-sapiens. Culture (in the broadest sense of the term) has the largest share in their architecture.At the same time, the institution of education is itself a man-made construct and as such while it is capable of exerting causal influence (by means of collective intentionality of its creators/ users) upon people, it undergoes changes through interactions with human agents. Since the future developments of this institution depends, to a large extent, on the cognitive abilities of these agents and the efficacy of their methods, whatever epistemological/ methodological model which could assist in improving the functions of this institution and realizing its positive potentials is bound to be welcome.The main argument of the present paper is that a m which is informed by the epistemology of critical rationalism and the methodology of situational logic could provide social actors with an effective approach towards making desirable improvement in the institution of education. As a result of applying this approach, I would argue, detection of novel and positive potentials of the institution of education would more readily become possible and therefore it would become much easier for the social actors to improve the efficiency of this institution. Moreover, this approach would assist them to recognize the defective aspects of this institution in a more effective fashion and thus be better prepared to prevent their undesired consequences.In what follows, after a brief introduction of the two notions of "critical rationalism" and "situational logic" I shall try to explain some of the applications of an approach which combine these two notions in the service of improving the efficacy of the institution of education.

Referring to characteristics of educational research is considerably preceded by explaining the nature of this kind of research. There are two rivals in this regard: causal and technological approach and phronesis approach. According to the first approach whose exemplar being positivism, the nature of educational research needs to be sought in its applied feature. In other words, this kind of research is due to applying social sciences' findings in order to achieving educational ends. Instrumentalism in terms of means-end relation takes the main position in this approach. In contrast, the second approach, following Aristotle, denies the supposed instrumentalist feature of educational research and, distinguishing the two realms of techne and phronsesis, takes instrumentalism as congruent with the first realm and educational research with the second.In phronesis "making" is not concerned, rather "acting" is at issue and the latter or how to live has basically an ethical feature. According to this view, educational research could not be conducted by methods in terms of means- end features. It rather should refer to human action in terms of its ethical characteristics and essential feature of these characteristics. Teaching is a pivotal case of this kind of action and should be studied on this basis. Even though the second approach has some strength due to its basic attention to practical aspect of educational research, it could be criticized because of its negligence of inevitable instrumental or means-end aspects in educational phenomena.The present essay's suggestion that somehow goes beyond the two approaches seeks the nature of educational research in double value action research. Phenomena to be studied in education are double value actions. Double here should be understood with regard to other realms of social studies. While value is involved in the phenomena studied in psychology and sociology, educational phenomena, in addition, refer to a second layer of value exemplified in educational aims. Thus, educational methodology will be formulated in two kinds of philosophical and scientific methodology. Philosophical investigations in education deal with rational and logical studies in relation to values and aims and their implications in practical methods. Scientific research in education, being a kind of action research and referring to value actions, could not deal with causes (and hence causal methods) as sources and producers of actions, they rather will use methods referring to reasons of actions. Of course, findings provided by using causal methods could be used in education but as designating the limits of action rather than their sources.

The current article whose goal is reaching a clear picture of the viewpoints by the methodology instructors in the field of education and psychology in Iran is consisted of five parts.First, the focus has been on the development record of methodology and the influential elements on it. The author then clarifies the research-wise theoretical framework. The current article is the product of this research. This topic begins with a critical observation about segregating methodologies into quantitative and qualitative and follows it with seventeen-fold statements that indicate the distinctions among different methodologies and makes up the base for compiling the research tools. At the end, the author's segregation stand about the distinction between methodology of biological sciences and human sciences methodology has been described. In the next part, the research methodology and the information analysis method, which is the known content analysis and purports interference is described.In this research, the cases were selected from the two groups of researchers in the field of educational sciences and psychology as samples, who represent the two different generations of researchers (preceding and recent). This tact has made possible the ground for comparing the methodology beliefs of these two groups in the information analysis field. The result of this comparison shows crave toward achieving this promising result that as time passes, not only among the recent generation but also within the preceding generation methodological multiplicity has been justified.In the status of belief and opinion, the researchers of the field of education and psychology, especially the recent group consider the methodological monopoly which underlies the legitimacy of the unique scientific method of quantitative research finished. This matter has been thoroughly discussed at the last section of the article with integrating approach, comparison, discussion, and conclusion.

The preparation of this article is based on studies and findings of a scientifically approved research, which took place for “investigating research methodology in psychology and education in Iran.” The research questions to be investigated were as follows:1- What are the epistemological and methodological foundations of the textbooks and resources used in university courses of research methods in psychology and education?2- What status do the articles that are being published in scientific-research-based journals in psychology and education in Iran have in terms of epistemology, methodology, and goal or type of research design?3- How much co-ordinance do the course syllabus that are taught in the research methodology courses in Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral levels of Psychology and Education in the nations’ large universities (i.e., Tehran University, Allame Tabatabaee University, Shahid Beheshti University, Tarbiat- Moallem University, Tehran-Azad University, Shiraz University, and Isfahan University) have with the most important university textbooks for the research methodology course?4- What are the theoretical foundations and the epistemology behind the content of the professors’ teachings in the research-methodology courses in Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral levels of psychology and education in nations’ large universities?5- To what extent do the students of the Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral levels in psychology and education in research methodology courses in nation’s large universities learn the nature of research or the theoretical foundations and the epistemology (the philosophy of science) of research?To answer questions one and two, sixteen main teaching textbooks in psychology and education and all articles in psychology, which have been published in the last issues of the country’s scientific-research-based journals have been considered and reviewed. As well, in order to answer questions three to five, 22 of the professors of research methodology courses in psychology and education in the Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate levels in the seven large universities of the country - who teach in the psychology and educational sciences faculties in these universities - were taken to structured interviews. The same was done to 119 university students who had had the highest scores in the psychology and educational sciences faculties of the mentioned universities.This research showed that:1- The epistemological and methodological foundation of the course textbooks for research methods that is taught in universities is of the positivism and post-positivism philosophy and the quantitative research methods.2- The psychological and educational articles that are published in scientific-research-based journals of psychology and education in the country are based on the positivistic and post-positivistic philosophy of science as well as on quantitative methodology and are mainly the results of strategic research projects.3- The numbers of teaching research method credits in the three levels of Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral level of psychology and education is very low and the syllabus of teaching by the professors during the courses is much less than those available in genuine research-methodology textbooks.4- The epistemological foundation behind professor’s teaching of research methodology is also of the quantitative, positivistic, and post-positivistic philosophy and no attention is paid to qualitative researches.5- The students of the research methodology course in the three levels of Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral of psychology and education are not made aware of the nature of research and the theoretical foundations of philosophy of science in psycho-educational researches and no previous training is given to them in this matter.

Methodology of Educational Research"(=MER) is a theory(or a set of Ideas) that describes how and why knowledge can be gained through" Educational Research"(=ER). It provides a rationale for researchers and users of ER and explains reasons behind using specific strategies and methods in dealing with educational phenomena. (Scott & Morrison, 2006). Thus methodological discourses- clearly distinguishable from current discussions on research methods and techniques- are based on philosophical foundations especially epistemological assumptions.There are different approaches to MER based on various philosophical and metaphysical positions; but in spite of this fact there are doubts on possibility and desirability of a religious or Islamic approach to MER. It seems that these doubts have been arising from positivist and secular viewpoints. This article, firstly, describes the meaning and realm of MER and points to its important role in ER. The second step in this article is to criticize this viewpoint and place emphasis on the possibility of defining a religious and value-based approach to MER. It, secondly, recognizes the paradigm of "epistemic contrast with revelatory teachings of religion" and points to its theological and philosophical foundations. Finally, the article presents an argument delineating the capabilities of Islamic teachings for understanding and guiding education and reaches the conclusion that an Islamic approach to MER is desirable.

The Islamic ontological and epistemological foundation is not in accordance with methodological segregation of natural sciences and social sciences on one hand and on the other hand does not accept the dominance of natural sciences methodology over social sciences. However, since the fields of knowledge or branches of science have common goals, common subject, common origin and structure the hierarchical and unique truth, their research methods are common.Methodological monopoly causes limited-mindedness of the researcher toward the complexities of reality and its different aspects or layers. The skeptical unity approach in epistemology is the basis for synthetic approach in methodology and produces an expanded spectrum of proportional and agreeable research-methodology combinations which are used according to circumstances and problems of each field.In addition to leaving methodological monopoly, paying attention to fundamental approach, taking advantage of the standard knowledge, considering the researcher's character in research validity, paying attention to the third level of reality, the generalization of conceptual methodology from social sciences to natural sciences are other research-methodology that are resulted from Islamic foundations.

Writing is a method of discovery, a way of finding out about yourself and your world. When we view writing as a method, we experience "language-in-use," how we "word the world" into existence… And then we "reword" the world, erase the computer screen, check the thesaurus, move a paragraph, again and again. This "worded world" never accurately, precisely, completely captures the studied world, yet we persist in trying. Writing as a method of inquiry honors and encourages the trying, recognizing it as emblematic of the significance of language (Laurel Richardson, 2001, p. 35(.In this essay I briefly describe, justify, and perform an approach to reading and writing educational inquiry that foregrounds the generativity of bringing literary and other fictions into intertextual "play" with the academic and professional texts that constitute the so-called "literature" of educational research. I focus in particular on the popular genre of the crime story; in order to demonstrate that strategically positioned readings of crime fiction can inform our understandings of storytelling practices in educational inquiry.