The Reflection on Educational Research Over Twenty Five Years (SUMMERY PART 2)

War Paradigms.

In Australia educational paradigms was assumpted as discipline wars, where the psychologist and curriculum experts want to have control on the educational research aspect. Where they claimed that their method is the most appropriate way in conducting educational method, (qualitative and quantitative method). This situation was disputed by Thompson as he mentioned to as post-paradigmatic thought: he explained that

Educational Research

“the new method of science philosophy rejects both the idealist assumptions of the positivist assumption of the quantitative paradigm and the qualitative paradigm, however the new concepts of science philosophy accommodates some of the methods and some of the assumption of both paradigm 

By refering to the above perception the Australians’ researchers could run together in the same research project.

A new imbalance.

The administration and management of educational research in Australia grew rapidly, and the qualitative methodology became most popular.however the increasing of the education sector in Australia triggering new problem in the aspect of education research, we knaow that Australia was a multicultural societies, a homogenous society, the region and religious differences, and it is caused that the qualitative methodology is unable to solve this problem, so that they need the a appropiate methode such as a quantitative method. So that the move away from the quantitative research to qualitative methode accur by the early nineties.

The growing of policy studies and government control

In the 1980s the use of action research and policy studies became favorites. Educational policies were directed on current problem or issues in education aspect which where governments’ concern. The parent’s association and teacher’s union were made in this era, this all directed to improve the educational process related to educational problem, the government are supposed to take over educational research by determine the decision/policy were made by those who control the system and funds about what should be researched on the research and the methodology.

Action research

The movement of Australian action research combined strategic orientation, the political awareness, practical truth and critical perspective. The aim of action research is to improve and develop action within the process of critical reflection and the self-reflection. For the theory of educational action research is not simply to explain/indicate the source of the problem, but it must bring some realization of action that must be determined in order to overcome the problem. The research used technique to analyze to describe how the new learning builds on the old, and it also to learn how the teacher understand what they do in particular education setting. However this method also unable to answer the educational problem clearly, then some experts triad to develop the educational research where they focus on the teacher and the student’s perspective and their understanding of the concept and phenomena and reflected of how those understanding was formed. They made link science learning research and constructionist perspectives, the information processing theory and the cognitive psychology in general, all became relevant to research into learning and science teaching in order to solve educational problem.

• Read School Based Curriculum and Action Research 
• Read  The Reflection on Educational Research part 1

Criticism from Within.

Critical theory could be grouped as social theorist came out as the effect of the interest growing in qualitative research. This method based on Gibson perception are intensively interested in theory it’s self. For instance, in educational research, this method focus on the achievement, the progress, the ability, the objective and the interest of the certain group, and this method became more popular in educational research in the past decade and most of it were used in so much literature.  

Gender Research.

The gender research became popular on 1975, this research conducted in order to decrease the gander discrimination, and the focus on equal right and determine what the carrier choice for the girls. In the area of academic studies, the mapping of sex focus on study of the process of the carrier choice by the girls and the boys, the investigations of discrimination of gender among teachers and the discussion on the equal opportunities for girls. But this research was concepted and done by the researchers mainly with backgrounds in history and sociology. For the ten years up to 1995, there have been increasingly concern and research into gender and the education. The researchers was developed the new gender research by focusing on the girls’ interests, the culture, and the role of women in school and society.  

The Research Paradigm and The Research Politics and AARE.

The Politic has a very big role in the existence of educational research, because the educational research in Australia was affected by the diversity in the public opinions toward the education problem, and the new government change. So in order to defend the education, the educational research existence, the researchers triad to protect their territory, the building their knowledge, the familiar with the government policy, especially regarding to the educational policy, and involved in political system in order to understand well about the policy decision making. The result that they got trough the political awareness and the experience, the reflectivity about research lead the presence development in the field of the public policy, and the development of long terms programs etc.

The analysis of the papers presented on AARE conference.

The AARE analysis conference papers utilize that the broad subject AEI categories, even some data was missing but all the data represented since (1979 up to 1991), it shown that the psychology area dominated, but the psychology dominated is not so clear cut on year by year comparison.  This reflection used as the educational research interest.