Educational Researcher

Nhiều phương pháp giảng dạy mặc nhiên cho rằng kiến thức khái niệm có thể được trừu xuất từ các tình huống mà nó được học và sử dụng. Bài viết này lập luận rằng giả định này không thể tránh khỏi việc hạn chế hiệu quả của các phương pháp như vậy. Dựa trên nghiên cứu mới nhất về nhận thức trong hoạt động hàng ngày, các tác giả lập luận rằng kiến thức là định vị, là một phần sản phẩm của hoạt động, bối cảnh và văn hóa nơi nó được phát triển và sử dụng. Họ thảo luận về việc quan điểm này ảnh hưởng đến sự hiểu biết của chúng ta về học tập như thế nào, và họ nhận thấy rằng trường học truyền thống quá thường xuyên bỏ qua tầm ảnh hưởng của văn hóa trường học lên những gì được học ở trường. Như một giải pháp thay thế cho các thực tiễn truyền thống, họ đề xuất học nghề nhận thức (Collins, Brown, & Newman, đang chuẩn bị xuất bản), mở rộng đặc trưng bản chất định vị của kiến thức. Họ xem xét hai ví dụ về giảng dạy toán học thể hiện những đặc điểm chính của cách tiếp cận này đối với giảng dạy.

The purposes of this article are to position mixed methods research ( mixed research is a synonym) as the natural complement to traditional qualitative and quantitative research, to present pragmatism as offering an attractive philosophical partner for mixed methods research, and to provide a framework for designing and conducting mixed methods research. In doing this, we briefly review the paradigm “wars” and incompatibility thesis, we show some commonalities between quantitative and qualitative research, we explain the tenets of pragmatism, we explain the fundamental principle of mixed research and how to apply it, we provide specific sets of designs for the two major types of mixed methods research ( mixed-model designs and mixed-method designs), and, finally, we explain mixed methods research as following (recursively) an eight-step process. A key feature of mixed methods research is its methodological pluralism or eclecticism, which frequently results in superior research (compared to monomethod research). Mixed methods research will be successful as more investigators study and help advance its concepts and as they regularly practice it.

In this article, the authors first indicate the range of purposes and the variety of settings in which design experiments have been conducted and then delineate five crosscutting features that collectively differentiate design experiments from other methodologies. Design experiments have both a pragmatic bent—“engineering” particular forms of learning—and a theoretical orientation—developing domain-specific theories by systematically studying those forms of learning and the means of supporting them. The authors clarify what is involved in preparing for and carrying out a design experiment, and in conducting a retrospective analysis of the extensive, longitudinal data sets generated during an experiment. Logistical issues, issues of measure, the importance of working through the data systematically, and the need to be explicit about the criteria for making inferences are discussed.

Curriculum materials for Grades K–12 that are intended to promote teacher learning in addition to student learning have come to be called educative curriculum materials. How can K–12 curriculum materials be designed to best promote teacher learning? What might teacher learning with educative curriculum materials look like? The authors present a set of design heuristics for educative curriculum materials to further the principled design of these materials. They build from ideas about teacher learning and organize the heuristics around important parts of a teacher’s knowledge base: subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge for topics, and pedagogical content knowledge for disciplinary practices. These heuristics provide a context for a theoretically oriented discussion of how features of educative curriculum materials may promote teacher learning, by serving as cognitive tools that are situated in teachers’ practice. The authors explore challenges in the design of educative curriculum materials, such as the tension between providing guidance and choice.

Currently, considerable debate focuses on whether mind is located in the head or in the individual-in-social-action, and whether development is cognitive self-organization or enculturation into established practices. In this article, I question assumptions that initiate this apparent forced choice between constructivist and sociocultural perspectives. I contend that the two perspectives are complementary. Also, claims that either perspective captures the essence of people and communities should be rejected for pragmatic justifications that consider the contextual relevance and usefulness of a perspective. I argue that the sociocultural perspective informs theories of the conditions far the possibility of learning, whereas theories developed from the constructivist perspective focus on what students learn and the processes by which they do so.

Because both score meaning and the value implications of scores as a basis for action are central issues in test validation, a unified view of validity is required that comprehends both the scientific and the ethical underpinnings of test interpretation and use. This unified concept of validity integrates considerations of content, criteria, and consequences into a construct framework for testing rational hypotheses about theoretically relevant relationships, including those of an applied as well as of a scientific nature. The essence of unified validity is that the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of score-based inferences are inseparable and that the unifying force behind this integration is the trustworthiness of empirically grounded score interpretation, that is, construct validity.

The Model of Domain Learning (MDL) is an alternative perspective on expertise that arose from studies of student learning in academic domains, such as reading, history, physics, and biology. A comparison of the MDL and traditional models of expertise is made. The key components and stages of the MDL are then overviewed. Discussion concludes with a consideration of evidence-based implications of this model for educational practice.