Education Research "Plays an Extraordinarily

Education Research "plays an extraordinarily weak role in educational decision-making," according to Grossen (nd). The university teacher training programs, educational consultants, researchers, and national curricular organizations comprise a professional support system that governs American public schools. Unfortunately, the educational practices the professional support system advocates is based on theory but not on practice; on ideology but not on empiricism. In fact, the professional support system sometimes disputes the validity of scientific research when crafting educational policy (Grossen, nd).

The so-called research upon which much educational policy is based not on empirical research but on opinions that are rooted in popular theory. The professional support system creates educational fads that are based on spurious evidence. Students, teachers, district officials, and school administrators are largely powerless over the professional support system. The state departments of education act as intermediaries between the large-scale professional support system and the local schools. Grossen (nd) claims that scientific research, not fad, should govern educational practice.

Evidence, not opinion, should create the shared knowledge base from which schools construct their curriculum and practice. The author outlines the Ellis & Fout three-part classification system to describe educational research. First, basic research consists of known correlations and theories derived from them. Most current educational policy is based on first-level research. Second, researchers test theories on a small scale and with small population samples. From this level researchers can determine whether larger-scale empirical designs are warranted.

The third level of research is large-scale program evaluations: tested on whole schools and regions. Policy makers frequently disparage empirical research only on the basis of its age, prematurely claiming that older studies are outmoded. Grossen (nd) notes that old does not necessarily mean outdated. The empirical design and its results, not age, should determine the validity and relevance of a given educational theory. Too often, educational policy makers and the professional support system skip from level one research (theory and conjecture based on correlations) to policy.

A shared knowledge base might be created from theory alone and as Grossen (nd) points out, it often is. "Most of the educational practices that become widely disseminated in our university teacher-training programs and across the nation do not even have level two research support, nevermind level three," (Grossen nd). Greater gatekeeping is necessary to restore the integrity of the educational policy system and the professional networks that support it. Current gatekeepers do not draw their policies from science but from opinion.

Almost all of the most popular educational theories touted today have little to no empirical support. Grossen lists a litany of common teaching methods and theories that are not backed by research including Piaget's theory of development; Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences; cooperative.