The relevance of irrelevant research; The irrelevance of relevant research

Abstract

If there is one area where 'what works' is the focus par excellence, it is certainly the context of (quantitative) empirical educational research. In this kind of investigation one is typically interested in the effect of a particular (independent) variable (or a number of these and how they are related to each other) on the one hand, and what this or these bring about (dependent variable or variables) on the other hand. Though the overall rationale may well be to achieve an understanding of educational practice, the short-term interest is often in particular effects that can subsequently be manipulated in order to achieve particular aims. Typically, social sciences start from problems practitioners as well as theoreticians are confronted with, and finding ways to deal with these can mean taking measures so as to avoid particular problems, or else, to develop effective strategies to cope with them. In both cases, one is interested in a particular effect or effects, in other words in 'what works', and so, it is argued that randomized and controlled field trials are the best way to proceed in this area of study. This is interesting as far as it goes. However, there are crucial issues, which tend to be forgotten, in what seems, at first sight, a very straightforward approach. It is not just that many variables are involved together forming complicated interrelations. There is something more fundamental that is worrying if this approach is used uncritically in the social sciences. Indeed, this approach not only tends to foreground itself as the (exclusive) legitimate way to do research, it also ignores what fundamentally must characterize all social (and therefore) educational research in view of the nature of what it is studying, namely, a meaningful context. To substantiate the claim that, on first inspection, much of the relevant research is irrelevant, this chapter will start from the example of class-size research.1 It will then make a number of comments on the kind of research that is argued for in this area, such as randomized and controlled field trials. Therefore, attention will be drawn to the fact that, on the one hand, we find pleas for well-designed experimental research, while on the other, these researchers are clearly aware of the multiple elements that have to be taken into account and the almost impossible task to overcome the problems that one focuses on. Using these insights, it will be argued that the educational field of study needs a different kind of research if it attempts to be true to the nature of what is to be studied. It will therefore be argued that the researcher not only has to be a pluralist when it comes to the issues of method and content, but moreover, has to give up the so-called disinterested and value-free approach. Only by engaging in what some would surely call irrelevant (from the point of view of research), will the researcher's investigation become relevant within the context of education.