Education research reflects on me in the framework of Universal Design of Learning (UDL), which is a set of principles for curriculum development to provide equal opportunities in representation, expression, and engagement areas of knowledge to learn (CAST, n.d.) and based on an architectural theory (NCAIM, n.d.). Years of formal education with full of thought to shape myself in society influenced my personality deeply. Meanwhile, when I go through tail to head, I realize that my current understanding of educational research is based on one of educational frameworks as well, which is UDL. This essay includes two parts: representation (the purpose of the research), expression (the process of research), and engagement (effects/results in the real, present world) of educational research in my perspective of ‘goodness’ and reflections of these three areas of educational research on my scholar and individual personality as conclusion of this paper. The entire paper based and is built on one determined question, specifically ‘What is good educational research in the scholarly area?’.
A ‘good’ research presents knowledge to develop a person’s thoughts in personal and communal ways. The purpose is to build on new knowledge based on facts of present world and offers achievement by establishing new knowledge to education area and to serve society. A good research should answer variety of questions: ‘Is there an ideology behind the educational research?’; ‘If there is, is it clear to reader?’; ‘how did the framework is built historically and related to other scholarship areas to make sense to reader?’. These questions represents that a ‘good’ research in education primitively should provide me knowledge to build up my personal perspective. It is essential for me what I got out from a research piece to add and/or change my inner ‘educator’. To put these questions in other words, I judge a piece of educational research with its goals and potential multiple purposes and philosophical foundations. According to educational goals in The US, three purposes of education have shaped society, namely, democratic equality, social mobility, and social efficiency (Labaree, 1997, p. 41). I raise democratic citizenship rather than social efficiency and social mobility similar to Dewey. Since he (1938) believes that there is an absolute relationship between education and democracy, schools should focus on the democracy concept in education because democracy is a build-up process, which is based on moral cause of dignity and the worth of individual, which will lead students to become sufficient and adequate citizens in the future society.
However, I am not very optimistic as him about co-partnership of three motives (of affection, of social growth, and of scientific inquiry (Dewey, 1903, p. 204) will increase democratic citizens for future by education because I believe Dewey had tried to implement his magnificent ideas into education without any research agenda unlike his eminent contemporary, Thorndike (Cohen, 1998, p. 445) which makes his arguments more utopic/unrealistic for this world. However, as a common sense between educational researchers I am one of them who ‘carries a Dewian’ in their heart, but as realistic people, I am one of them who understands the reality, socioeconomic status/barriers of societies and how can politics and economy can affect education and educational research.
Another step for a ‘good’ educational research is to offer multiple expression ways to audience (readers) to develop a perspective towards it and maintain and/or develop this perspective persistently with applying ethical considerations to context. Also Kaestle (1993, p. 28) determined three related areas that constant reorganization, habitual timidity, and lack of consensus. These three concepts are affecting educational research community negatively, by reducing valid and reliable structure, knowledge, and results of their educational research. Which also leads two big groups in education to be unable to be aware of each other: education practitioners with their normative, personal and particular educational approach and researchers with their analytical, intellectual and universal educational approach (Labaree, 2003). This gap between two groups leads educational research to fail most of the time about producing ethically concerned, ‘good’ research. As an international beginner researcher whose home country educational research society has a big problem with these ethical considerations in research, as well as proper connection between researchers and teachers, I would argue why there is not much initiator factors such as governments or educational leaders, etc. to put this two group together in a room to fix a problem or have deeper understanding about a current issue.
Last requirement for a ‘good’ educational research is how it effects audiences’/readers’ thoughts and actions in social context, which is based on its’ philosophy. I could not place my perception of educational research exactly, since I have started to discover my inner thoughts recently about it. However, in recent advances that I pull out from this course, discussions and materials lead me to think that my sensation about educational research in the context of social world is placed crosswise between radical change and regulation criterias of Burell and Morgan (1979). I understand that there should be some regulations to provide individual satisfaction and social integration to society in educational research, but ‘good’ research should lead persons to objectivity by using functionality of knowledge in the society. I aware of having concepts determine the social sciences and they are needed to be present to determine the relationships between them to have a better understanding of where we stand in society in the context educational research. However, it is most likely to shift and/or change our position/opposition another concept because of our unique background knowledge. This means that the society shapes men. However, men also shape society, which explains why human nature and its dynamic influences important for social sciences.
To conclude, my perspective has been building on during my education process, perhaps it will continue life-long. However, I an say that my perception about education research, its goals, importance, applications, and results in society is between humanism and functionalism, in the middle of subjectivity and objectivity because of my specialized area. As methods and expression of them, my view of educational research is parallel with Howe’s positivist dogmas, specifically, empirical science-humanities dogma (Howe, 2009, p. 432), which I categorizes as to fill the gap between empirical data and its valuable practices in reality. Mixed method serves perfectly to apply this dogma to research to achieve higher ethical concepts by proposing higher validity and reliability of research.
Since I am trying to find the answers of basic questions to understand ‘educational research’ concept, I sense from the reading that educational research is not a one-time puzzle to solve, more like a rubix cup or a pyramid of co-functioning ideologies and concepts from diverse scholarship areas and disciplines with practice and to make a good research is on the top of this pyramid. Frankly, as a new-thinker about the underlying questions about research in education, I cannot put my educational philosophy or myself to an exact place. Since I started to think about the basic concepts, goals and questions of good educational research, I felt like my thoughts are getting increasingly complicated. What I can say is that I feel like I am building an eclectic perspective toward educational research to understand different disciplines’ place in it and how to place harmony between them while applying them to reality. I deeply interact with these questions in my head to see actually where are the good researches in the whole mass of research in education as unique snowflakes in a snow hill, and how I can put a meaning to them and relate with actuality. It is essential for me to understand the difference between good and bad research in education in order to establish adequate abilities to perform good research from the beginning of my research career.
REFERENCES
Center for Applied Special Technology [CAST]. (n.d.). What is Universal Design for Learning?. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html
National Center on Accesible Istructional Materials [NCAIM]. (n.d.). What is Universal Design for Learning?. Retrieved from http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/promise_of_udl/what_udl#UDArchitecture
A ‘good’ research presents knowledge to develop a person’s thoughts in personal and communal ways. The purpose is to build on new knowledge based on facts of present world and offers achievement by establishing new knowledge to education area and to serve society. A good research should answer variety of questions: ‘Is there an ideology behind the educational research?’; ‘If there is, is it clear to reader?’; ‘how did the framework is built historically and related to other scholarship areas to make sense to reader?’. These questions represents that a ‘good’ research in education primitively should provide me knowledge to build up my personal perspective. It is essential for me what I got out from a research piece to add and/or change my inner ‘educator’. To put these questions in other words, I judge a piece of educational research with its goals and potential multiple purposes and philosophical foundations. According to educational goals in The US, three purposes of education have shaped society, namely, democratic equality, social mobility, and social efficiency (Labaree, 1997, p. 41). I raise democratic citizenship rather than social efficiency and social mobility similar to Dewey. Since he (1938) believes that there is an absolute relationship between education and democracy, schools should focus on the democracy concept in education because democracy is a build-up process, which is based on moral cause of dignity and the worth of individual, which will lead students to become sufficient and adequate citizens in the future society.
However, I am not very optimistic as him about co-partnership of three motives (of affection, of social growth, and of scientific inquiry (Dewey, 1903, p. 204) will increase democratic citizens for future by education because I believe Dewey had tried to implement his magnificent ideas into education without any research agenda unlike his eminent contemporary, Thorndike (Cohen, 1998, p. 445) which makes his arguments more utopic/unrealistic for this world. However, as a common sense between educational researchers I am one of them who ‘carries a Dewian’ in their heart, but as realistic people, I am one of them who understands the reality, socioeconomic status/barriers of societies and how can politics and economy can affect education and educational research.
Another step for a ‘good’ educational research is to offer multiple expression ways to audience (readers) to develop a perspective towards it and maintain and/or develop this perspective persistently with applying ethical considerations to context. Also Kaestle (1993, p. 28) determined three related areas that constant reorganization, habitual timidity, and lack of consensus. These three concepts are affecting educational research community negatively, by reducing valid and reliable structure, knowledge, and results of their educational research. Which also leads two big groups in education to be unable to be aware of each other: education practitioners with their normative, personal and particular educational approach and researchers with their analytical, intellectual and universal educational approach (Labaree, 2003). This gap between two groups leads educational research to fail most of the time about producing ethically concerned, ‘good’ research. As an international beginner researcher whose home country educational research society has a big problem with these ethical considerations in research, as well as proper connection between researchers and teachers, I would argue why there is not much initiator factors such as governments or educational leaders, etc. to put this two group together in a room to fix a problem or have deeper understanding about a current issue.
Last requirement for a ‘good’ educational research is how it effects audiences’/readers’ thoughts and actions in social context, which is based on its’ philosophy. I could not place my perception of educational research exactly, since I have started to discover my inner thoughts recently about it. However, in recent advances that I pull out from this course, discussions and materials lead me to think that my sensation about educational research in the context of social world is placed crosswise between radical change and regulation criterias of Burell and Morgan (1979). I understand that there should be some regulations to provide individual satisfaction and social integration to society in educational research, but ‘good’ research should lead persons to objectivity by using functionality of knowledge in the society. I aware of having concepts determine the social sciences and they are needed to be present to determine the relationships between them to have a better understanding of where we stand in society in the context educational research. However, it is most likely to shift and/or change our position/opposition another concept because of our unique background knowledge. This means that the society shapes men. However, men also shape society, which explains why human nature and its dynamic influences important for social sciences.
To conclude, my perspective has been building on during my education process, perhaps it will continue life-long. However, I an say that my perception about education research, its goals, importance, applications, and results in society is between humanism and functionalism, in the middle of subjectivity and objectivity because of my specialized area. As methods and expression of them, my view of educational research is parallel with Howe’s positivist dogmas, specifically, empirical science-humanities dogma (Howe, 2009, p. 432), which I categorizes as to fill the gap between empirical data and its valuable practices in reality. Mixed method serves perfectly to apply this dogma to research to achieve higher ethical concepts by proposing higher validity and reliability of research.
Since I am trying to find the answers of basic questions to understand ‘educational research’ concept, I sense from the reading that educational research is not a one-time puzzle to solve, more like a rubix cup or a pyramid of co-functioning ideologies and concepts from diverse scholarship areas and disciplines with practice and to make a good research is on the top of this pyramid. Frankly, as a new-thinker about the underlying questions about research in education, I cannot put my educational philosophy or myself to an exact place. Since I started to think about the basic concepts, goals and questions of good educational research, I felt like my thoughts are getting increasingly complicated. What I can say is that I feel like I am building an eclectic perspective toward educational research to understand different disciplines’ place in it and how to place harmony between them while applying them to reality. I deeply interact with these questions in my head to see actually where are the good researches in the whole mass of research in education as unique snowflakes in a snow hill, and how I can put a meaning to them and relate with actuality. It is essential for me to understand the difference between good and bad research in education in order to establish adequate abilities to perform good research from the beginning of my research career.
REFERENCES
Center for Applied Special Technology [CAST]. (n.d.). What is Universal Design for Learning?. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html
National Center on Accesible Istructional Materials [NCAIM]. (n.d.). What is Universal Design for Learning?. Retrieved from http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/promise_of_udl/what_udl#UDArchitecture