Research in Education

PARADIGM SHIFT IN RESEARCH IN EDUCATION
Article by Dr. S. Malaikkani


A historical perspective of the field of research will reveal the growth of it slowly first and vigorously at present. In olden times research was restricted to disciplines like science, Maths, Philosophy, and language. Scientific research was alone considered as the original research. There were two different types of researches in science namely fundamental or basic research and applied research. Later Social Sciences like Philosophy, Social Science, Education, Psychology etc. also tried to emulate it.

Aristotle was the forerunner of the present day research and he collected data, created information out of it and produced a knowledge pool and tried to use it for the benefit of the mankind. He verified the collected data and brought out in book form and was the first scholar to author more than 150 books by his hard work.

After a long break, Francis Bacon taught the students how to

1. Observe nature
2. Collect data
3. Form Hypotheses
4. Analyze the data and interpret it
5. form a conclusion and prove the hypotheses

In hid book ‘Novum Organum’, Bacon had explained in detail how conduct research both in the field and in laboratory. He emphasized that Nature contains everything and people should develop the spirit of enquiry and try to find out the truth. Charles Darwin emulated the principles dictated by Bacon and observed Nature, collected materials, and produced evidence to prove his hypothesis based on the ‘ The Theory of Evolution’.

Education Research was of recent origin and heavily depends on the Disciplines like Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy and Biology. The Russian psychologist was the first to conduct an experiment with his dog’s salivation. He created the S - R bond theory in Education. Later, studies conducted on the following areas.

1. Curriculum
2. Methods of Teaching
3. Evaluation
Recently efforts were made to analyze the behavior of teachers in the class room. Flanders did a wonderful analysis of teacher’s behavior and demonstrated that teacher’s behavior plays a vital role in imparting education to children. This is the research which brought educational research into the class room.



Simultaneously different types of researches were introduced and it was very much useful to make educational research more empirial and scientific. Some of them are the following.

1. Survey research
2. Experimental research.
3. Case study
4. Ethnographic Study

The advancement of statistics helped researchers to analyze data precisely and come to clear solutions.

The latest trend has been the use of computers and internet to conduct research at all levels. They are useful to select a topic, to collect related literature, to conduct research and pool data, to analyze it and to interpret it. Today quality research cannot be undertaken without computer and internet.

The important paradigm shift in education research today is from the teachers to the learners.
Class room management, class room environment, Student’s behavior, their learning style, self-learning, and speed-learning are the major thrust areas of study throughout the world. Other areas of interest are the Communication Information Technology (CIT), learner- friendly text books and new pedagogical techniques.

In foreign countries, research in education has reached advanced levels and they conduct research in the use of e-books, online-learning, e-learning, web-learning, and virtual class room learning. The quality of our education depends on the quality of our research in education.

All the ills of our education system can be removed by the findings of the latest research.
Unfortunately Indian Teachers and Students possess knowledge about their books and not
about the latest research findings. Indian teachers conduct research merely for increments and promotion opportunities. They don’t have any idea of socio-economic benefit of their
theses. Most of the theses are not published and they sleep in the shelves of the libraries.
They are unaware of the saying “Publish and flourish”.