The use and misuse of taxpayers' money: publicly-funded educational research

Author(s):

Sarah AistonDarrell Rowbottom

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

13. Philosophy of Education - Standard submissions

Format:

Paper

Session Information

13 SES 01, Educational Philosophy and Policy

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

09:15-10:45

Room:

HG, HS 41

Chair:

Roland Reichenbach

Contribution

Millions of taxpayers’ money is spent annually commissioning educational research that is allegedly intended to inform policy. One might suggest that on ethical and epistemic grounds, the public bodies involved in commissioning such research have a duty to commission ‘good’ research. Moreover, there arguably is a double element of accountability—public bodies have an obligation to commission good research in order to ensure that even more public money is not misspent when funding future policies. In this paper we are going to explore some of the key elements of contracted research in light of what leading philosophers of science have said concerning what counts as good enquiry. By considering the work of philosophers of science we are not privileging ‘scientific’ models above other valid means of assessing research quality (although it will be an interesting enterprise given the credence/status that is afforded to ‘scientific method’ in such contexts). Rather, we wish to consider the work of Popper and Kuhn, the most prominent philosophers of science of the 20th century, in order to provide a framework with which we can examine the question to what extent, how, and when should contracted educational research be considered good? The idea is to highlight examples of good and bad practice, illuminate areas for potential improvement and lay bare the underpinning rationale for why contracted research might proceed in such a manner.

Method

Anyone who has been involved with undertaking research on behalf of public organisations will be familiar with the process. An invitation to tender is sent out and individuals/organisations are required to submit a proposal that demonstrates how the requirements of the sponsor are to be met. Such documents are generally standard in the sort of information that is required, and it is based on a random sample of invitations to tender, along with personal experiences, that this paper will set out the key issues/processes when undertaking contracted research and analyse such processes within the theoretical frameworks proposed by Popper and Kuhn.

Expected Outcomes

Although their normative views of science are radically different, we show that Popper and Kuhn nonetheless, rather interestingly, would agree on a number of key rules concerning the extent to which ‘scientific’ practice should be influenced ‘from the outside’. We then show that these rules are often broken in the way that research is publicly funded in the UK. We also, rather worryingly, demonstrate the ‘a-theoretical’ nature of much of this commissioned research. In doing so, we add credence to a number of the conference themes concerns, for example, the issue of independent, critical research and the gap between empirical and theoretical work.

References

Andersson, G. (1994) Criticism and the History of Science: Kuhn’s, Lakatos’s and Feyerabend’s Criticisms of Critical Rationalism (Leiden: Brill) Bacon, F. (1994) [1620] Novum Organum (Translated and Edited by P. Urbach and J. Gibson) (La Salle: Open Court) Bartley, W. W. (1984) The Retreat to Commitment (La Salle: Open Court, 2nd ed.). Beales, R. L. (1969) Politics of Social Research: An Inquiry into the Ethics and Responsibilities of Social Scientists (Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company). Bird, A. (2000) Thomas Kuhn (Chesham: Acumen) Bird, A. (2004) ‘Thomas Kuhn’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), E. N. Zalta (ed.)(URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/thomas-kuhn/) Davis, A. 2004: ‘The Credentials of Brain-Based Learning’, Journal of Philosophy of Education 38(1), 21-36 Duhem, P. M. M. (1954) The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (trans. by P. P. Weiner) (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Hanson, N. R. 1962: ‘Leverrier: The Zenith and Nadir of Newtonian Mechanics’, Isis 53, 359-378 Keuth, H. (2004) The Philosophy of Karl Popper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Kuhn, T. S. (1957) The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) Kuhn, T. S. (1970a) ‘Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?; in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds) 1970 Kuhn, T. S. (1970b) ‘Reflection on my critics’ in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds) 1970 Kuhn, T. S. (1977) The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) Kuhn, T. S. (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3rd Edition) Laudan, L. (1984) Science and Values: The Aims of Science and their Role in Scientific Debate (Ewing: University of California Press) Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A. (eds.) 1968: Problems in the Philosophy of Science (Amsterdam: North-Holland) Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A. (1970) Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Masterman, M. (1970) ‘The Nature of a Paradigm’ in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds) 1970 Miller, D. (1994) Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence (La Salle: Open Court) Newton-Smith, W. H. (1981) The Rationality of Science (London: Routledge) Popper, K. R. (1940) ‘What is Dialectic?’, Mind 49(196), 403-426 Popper, K. R. (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books) Popper, K. R. (1962) Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books) Popper, K. R. (1968) ‘Remarks on the Problems of Demarcation and of Rationality’ in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds) (1968), 88-102 Popper, K. R. (1970) ‘Normal Science and its Dangers’ in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds) (1970), XX-XX Popper, K. R. (1983) Realism and the Aim of Science (London: Routledge) Popper, K. R. (1996) The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality (M. A. Notturno, ed.) (London: Routledge) Popper, K. R. (2003) [1966]: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume Two: Hegel and Marx (London: Routledge) Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. 1968. Pygmalion in the Classroom (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston) Rowbottom, D. P. (2006) ‘Kuhn versus Popper on Science Education: A Response to Richard Bailey’, Learning for Democracy 2, 45-52 Rowbottom, D. P. (2008). ‘Intersubjective Corroboration’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 39, 124–132 Rowbottom, D. P. (Forthcoming A) ‘Stances and Paradigms: A Reflection’, Synthese Rowbottom, D. P. (Forthcoming B) Popper’s Critical Rationalism: A Philosophical Investigation (London: Routledge) Rowbottom, D. P. and Aiston, S. J. (2006) The Myth of ‘Scientific Method’ in Contemporary Educational Research, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40 (2), 137-156 Stove, D. C. (1982) Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists (Oxford: Pergamon Press)

Author Information

Sarah Aiston

University of Durham

School of Education

Durham

Darrell Rowbottom

University of Oxford

Faculty of Philosophy

Oxford

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