Tom:
 
I agree with you. In fact, another way to state what you say is that scientific experiments do not prove anything to be true. Rather they falsify or are unable to falsify a claim. So, the research does not prove that there is no difference in the self esteem of the two groups looked at. Rather, the researcher could not find evidence to disprove the claim that there is a difference. Or, the researcher could not falsify the claim that there is no difference between the two groups. 
 
Moreover, the claim that science is objective is subjective. the judgements are subjective, the reseach instruments are subjective. In other words, before the scientist makes the experiment, she must develop questions. The questions are not given in nature, rather she develops them using logic. The issues to be researched is also slelected by the means of logic and making a judgement. That means that the mind is making subjective judgements to conceive the experiment and during the performance of the experiment. 
 
this is not to say that science is useless. It simply means, as as Bonita, tom and Julie suggest, that research results have to be understood in context and within the limitations of science. while applying practitioner's wisdom to them. By the same time token, practitioner's wisdom does not mean any wild guess that a teacher may want to make or any illogical analisis. It means that teachers' critical and well founded analises have value in understanding research in the context of practice.
 
Andres

________________________________

From: focusonbasics-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Woods
Sent: Fri 9/29/2006 7:40 PM
To: The Focus on Basics Discussion List
Subject: [FocusOnBasics 523] Re: Observations vs. research



Julie McKinney wrote:


>I hear a lot of opinions based on observation that people seem to take

>as fact, and this work reminds us that our assumptions may actually

>prove to be incorrect or incomplete. Of course, some skepticism is

>healthy, but if we base our teaching practices on unverified

>assumptions, might that impede the educational process?

>What do people think about this?

>


If we base our teaching practices on unverified assumptions, we may
surely waste a lot of time, or worse. I would argue we need a lot more
than just "some" skepticism.

Today, with all the emphasis on practices based on research, it is
important to know that research, including scientific research, can be
flawed. It can yield incorrect conclusions. Much educational research
relies on extremely powerful statistical analysis of observable facts to
establish correlations or to determine cause and effect. The accuracy of
such analyses depends on two huge assumptions at are often overlooked,
sometimes conveniently overlooked. First is the assumption that the data
is normal, that is it fits a perfect bell curve.  Second is the
assumption that the types of data we wish to analyze are suitable for
the statistical procedure we wish to use. If they are not, the
conslusions we draw from them will be incorrect.

One of the more useful graduate courses I took was an educational
research methods course, in which I learned to look critically at
research. Some of the important lessons I learned were:

-Research is not about getting closer to the truth. It's about
supporting or refuting a point of view.
-Designing really good scientific research is extremely difficult, if
not almost impossible, in educational settings.
-You can never "prove" an assertion with research; you can only add
support to it, or disprove it.
-A correlation does not suggest cause (however the popular press almost
always mistakes the former for the latter).
-Every piece of research is susceptible to inherent biases,
unreliability, and questionable validity which lead to questions about
its conclusions. and;
-There is a lot of bad research floating around out there, especially in
the area of educational research.

I don't mean to suggest that educational research should not be
conducted or used. I do think it is vital to know about its weaknesses
so that we can interpret it wisely so that our opinions will not be
based, as Julie wrote, on incorrect or incomplete assumptions.
Tom Woods

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