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The Limitations, Conditions, and Possibilities of Educational Research



Author(s)

Donald K. Sharpes

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DOI:10.17265/2161-6248/2015.01.005

This short essay reports on how limiting and narrow much of educational research is, how often its conclusions rarely apply to teachers, how it often uses statistics to camouflage inferior logic and clarity, and how interdisciplinary and contextual it can be if it broadens its perspetives. The slow trend to include studies from the neurosciences and the physical aspects of cognitive functioning into educational and psychological research studies is encouraging. The combined use of a variety of perspectives is promoted. As the title suggests, this report has three sections: 1. What teacher education research is not, its limitations; 2. What it is, its conditions; and 3. What it can be, its possibilities. The main purpose of this paper is to encourage more interdisciplinary, broadly-based educational research and to motivate researchers to explore developments in related fields.

educational research, interdisciplinary, methodology, social sciences, knowledge integration,  neurosciences