With this question I would like to reflect on both the value of more fundamental ánd the value of applied research in education. I am wondering if the value that is now so openly placed on more applied research can be traced to historic developments and maybe even economic ones?
Fleur, as you noted, there has been a significant increase in the pursuit of practice-based approaches to educational research and program development. Mostly, this seems to result from a universal trend to support quality education with proven science. Trends in education appear to be cyclical in nature and various approaches and educational methods are often revisited ever so often. I would tend to agree with you that focuses on practice-based educational research are driven by economic reasons, with educators and educational organizations aiming to get the most out of the curricula taught in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest cost possible. But, I also think that the current trend we are seeing has much to do with cross-over methods that very often bleed over from other disciplines, such as evidence-based medicine in clinical areas. The overall goal of practice-based education as I understand it is to provide the highest quality education possible. The best way to do this is to research what has and has not worked and why. There was a fairly comprehensive report concerning these quality pursuits a few years ago. The report contains a great deal of interesting information. I am attaching it here for you in case you want to read it when you get a chance. :)
Thank you for the report, it does provide a good overview of the development.
This is an essential issue. In my experience, another interesting part of this is that "what works" and "doesn't work" do not remain the same over time. As you note, scholarship itself has changed which suggests that the education that promotes and requires that scholarship has also changed. (One can examine journals over say fifty years of publications and easily observe the numerous changes that must reflect a change in educational practices, which is to say. education believed for some reason to represent "quality," whatever that term might be hiding. As the intro to the report Jeanie provided suggests, some definitions are rather vague. While I would not like to seem reductive on this point, when there are political motives for this kind of research, one finds a lack of definition characteristic.
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