Rigor and Realism: Doing Educational Science in the Real World

• In Event: The Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture: Catherine Snow (#AERAReal)

Abstract

Some educational researchers are adopting new models for doing educational research, models that start from problems of practice, prioritize the challenge of utility to educators, and presuppose partnership relationships between researchers and practitioners. In attempting to implement such approaches, we often find that attention to the conditions of real-world practice may compete with attention to the constraints of rigorous design. That familiar problem can be exacerbated by the conflicting epistemologies of real-world decision-making vs. rigorous scientific knowledge-building. This conflict, in its multiple forms only some of which will be discussed, is a dilemma rather than a problem; it demands careful consideration of approaches to balancing. the desirable features of rigor and of realism when they conflict.

Author

• Catherine E. Snow, Harvard University