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The Forum > Article Comments > Education research: a nebulous miasma of jumbled words and ideas > Comments

Education research: a nebulous miasma of jumbled words and ideas : Comments

By Peter Ridd, published 7/3/2005

Peter Ridd argues that we are not getting value for money from educational research.

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Arjay's short contribution seems to suggest that current educational research is causing "social, moral and educational disintergration" [sic]. Unfortunately, he hasn't presented any evidence to uphold his view point. He suggests that "The left wing Soft Option Brigade[SOBS] have been in charge of education for a long time influencing both our children,politics and our society" which is at odds with the fact that we currently have a conservative education minister. The one dimensional left-right wing argument is alway a gross oversimplification of the cosmos of political viewpoints anyway.

Firstly, there are many things that affect our society and politics. It is true that education is one of the big ones. But how do we measure the successes of our society? Is it really in decline?

Looking at this years Australian Institute of Crime statitics, we can see that the homicide rate for 2003 dropped 7% from the 2002 rate. The rates of many other types of crime have also dropped, but only one has risen (sexual assaults, by 1%). Even that increase might only reflect an increase in the amount that get reported, due to changes in society's attitudes. Indeed, it is well know amongst criminologist that the "explosion of crime" is simply a myth.

What else indicates the current state of play? If not hard crime stats, then what about the increase in the number of people doing voluntary work (I think QUT did the research on that), donating money (note the recent tsunami appeal) and the increases of racial and religious tolerance, and the decrease of sexist attitudes over the last few decades.

However, I don't really think that these wins for our society can be attributed soley to education. Ronald Inglehart's 'World Values Survey' research (http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/) has much more compelling arguments about why post-industrial society is changing, and it's all about the changing patterns we work and interact as we do increasing amounts of service-oriented work. I really recommend that interested people read up on it - it profoundly changed my views on our society's future.
Posted by Sams, Sunday, 20 March 2005 12:22:47 PM
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Sams, you find strong support from civilisationalists, when saying education is joined by other influencers in determining culture's consequences. In this frame, "culture is adaptive to itself" (Quigley 1961) with adaptation being not merely integrated, but, rather "intergrative". That is, cultural variables, say, politics or economics, influence education; while, education also influences politics and economics.

Ajay, if I understand you correctly, you mention the educational environment has not changed since the 1980s, because one just plays politics and follows course policy documents. Not so:

Government has influence the funding of universities, and, establishes whom achieves matriculation into universities. In this frame, today, in secondary education, we too often have school teachers with normal (in a statistical sense)intellectual capacities . In tertiary education we have pressure on academics to educate average students, who are too intellectually challenged to cope with "higher education". Thus, we find in the first case primary and secondary student teachers extended and academics under pressure to soft mark, ignore paraphasing and plagiary, and to limit assessment scope by not comprehensively examining all learning outcomes. So, it is one thing to use terms, such as, curricula and higher education; but, another thing for these expressions to maintain meaning in today's world.

Australian education is a damaged and closed system. Dawkins created a mess and passed on the ball. Today, Nelson is making things even worse, while, retired Vice-Chancellors audit the mess made by the themselves and their successors... Just too many mess-ups and in-house monitoring. I meant it, when I said that Nelson will ultimately do Australia more damage to Australia than the Japanese bombing Darwin.

Newspapers highlighting HECS and Student student union issues are just shifting the deck chairs on the the Titanic, as the Minister and the AVCC ruin Australian the governance of Australia's education for selfish political reasons. Will they be sorry? Of course not. Rather, the current and future generations of Australians will suffer.

Car 54 where are you? Some comment from the original author would be helpful.

Cheers.
Posted by Oliver, Sunday, 20 March 2005 9:27:26 PM
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Just re-read the ARC example thet Peter quoted.What a lot of nebulus BS!Most of the Uni disciplines such as science,business,maths,music etc have maintained their standards over the years.I'm relating experiences from a public school past,of left wing teacher's unions which have had immense influence over education policy and attitudes.

Just that one ARC quote demonstrated to me that nothing has changed in terms of their vague and ill disciplined attitudes to the actual implementation of educational theory and practice.How can you derive real outcomes from that non specific nonsense?
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 21 March 2005 10:58:33 PM
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Dr. Ridd raises three key points none of which his critics effectively address. A decline in literal and numeric competency in high school graduates is a widely recognized concern both here and in the U.S. While this decline might be due to societal influences outside the educational system (e.g. internet, TV, computer games) it is not found everywhere and education must take some responsibility for failing to effectively address what is being faced elsewhere without a similar decline in outcome.

Questioning the convoluted and jargon laden language of professional educators is also not unjustified. Specialized terminology is necessary to efficiently communicate complex and/or very specific ideas without elaborate and repetitive description and qualification. Such terminology tends to be clearly defined and understood by those involved and even the non-specialist can with a little effort readily learn its meaning. Education however, is rife with ill-defined terminology and jargon that conveys no more precise meaning than the common language it replaces. The language of education is not designed to clearly and efficiently communicate so much as it is intended to lend a facade of depth and import.

That education research has produced little of practical value is simply a fact. Although primary and secondary education in the U.S. and Australia has been directed by professional educationalists tertiary education has remained largely independent from them. While our primary and secondary education has fallen behind, our leading universities are among the world's best. It seems the methodology of teaching isn't nearly so important as knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Education research is long on theory but short on verification. It has been characterized by fads based on untested theories. There is still little in the way of a firm foundation or progress in any particular direction. Since we obviously still don't know what we are doing a much more empirical approach is called for. Excellent individual teachers and schools do exist both here and elsewhere and there is much that could be learned from them.
Posted by wstarck, Tuesday, 12 April 2005 2:30:17 PM
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Peter, I'm with you but I think your negative comments should not apply to those dedicated math/science teachers who invent new ways of teaching/learning (e.g. use of Java to visualize the complex plane, use of CAS in general relativity teaching, etc.). For those who invent words for a living (e.g. "post-structural teacher reflection"), I think they have created a new discipline that may belong better under linguistics or sth. What they do is bogus and these people have even created bogus journals and departments to publish bogus papers that should appear in newsletters/ newspapers rather than serious academic journals. There is a huge difference between common sense, routine stuff done by teachers(even if clothed in nearly incomprehensible fancy words) and real research such as cosmology, history or biology. Some of these "EdD"'s should consider giving away their degrees to mothers who pamper kids who have done a lot more real & positive stuff in the education of children. But then, all the chefs, drivers, etc. should all be awarded similar degrees also, maybe "ChFD", "DDD", etc. So, again, justify your existence guys!
Posted by Bradley, Monday, 23 May 2005 6:04:15 PM
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"...Arguing against this summary is like punching at a nebulous miasma of jumbled words and ideas. It’s hard to know where to start."
Right on, man! And at least you've managed to describe this feeling. I've been unable to even express it to my friends who are doing lots of this sort of crap because I don't even know where to begin. Their stuff hardly makes sense to someone with a clear mind and prefers concise language, but somehow gets "proven" by some p-values and t-statistics at the end of their bogus papers. I mean just looking at the words they've invented leaves me speechless. It is like watching the Lord of the Rings where two actors speak to each other in "elf" language, but the actors got too carried away and started using this language even back in their normal lives, while they're not really saying anything! (Except in some galaxy far far away, where the official talk is Post-modernistical Social-constructivistical Meta-Nebula Miasmamical B.S. but that's beyond the comprehension of the human mind, so we have to create a new journal for it)
Thanks Peter and I'm with you all the way!
Posted by Bradley, Monday, 23 May 2005 6:39:35 PM
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