Is Education Research Inherently
Value-Laden?
Implications for Epistemology and Expectations
Philosophers of science, feminists, and a number of
sociologists have considered the question of scientific research and the
possibility of any sort of objective research even in the case of the natural
sciences. These considerations appear to have fallen into two distinct and
often polarized camps. One perspective championed by science studies aims to
demonstrate through both historical and contemporary research that science is
inherently value laden, its methodologies and foundational assumptions
inevitably reflect forms of knowledge that are culturally sanctioned (e.g. the
individual as the model of the knower, certain formulations of causality, the
ways in which the subject/object relationship is imagined within science.).
Along these same lines, there is ample evidence that scientific research does
not always follow the norms of neutrality either in how it conceptualizes its
data or in how it recruits and supports its practitioners---science seems to
somehow foster a skewed presence of white males in its most prestigious
disciplines, universities, and research projects. Whether this historical
exclusion of women and minorities at the level of research formulation or
researcher recruitment is part and parcel of the scientific project is still a
question that is up for grabs. Lastly, industrial, political, and other
economic pressures that may affect science at various levels of its practice
further complicate the implication of the social within scientific work. The
other camps holds a diametrically opposed perspective, one which appears to be
the view of the everyday researcher and of many who try to understand the
foundations of science (philosophers of science). This second perspective
maintains that there is an equally obvious objectivity to science, an
objectivity supported by the history of science and its successes. On this
view, the norms that have ruled science merely need more self-reflection and
further articulation, but science refers to some reality that overrides the
social and defines research. Further, its methods are, if compromised in their
execution, ideally able to insure a rational and objective understanding of the
data, further hypothesis testing and so forth. The above views on the
relationship between science and values may be more acute in arenas such as
education, given that it is an applied field, a veritable magnet of social
interests, and has itself been studied by scholars for its own ideological
complicity with science and the scientific method. Thus scientific study into
science education requires a degree of critical reflexivity that is almost
self-subverting.
If we do grant a degree of objectivity to scientific
research, i.e. research that is grounded in the empirical tradition, and we do
accede numerous counts of scientific practices as value-laden, we are in a
contradictory position. Neither history nor data can answer this question for
us. Thus we must set out to "reconcile the claim that scientific inquiry is
value or ideology laden and that it is productive of knowledge" (Longino,
1993). Helen Longino's careful division of the process of scientific work into
those moments that are ruled by constitutive values and those that are ruled by
contextual values begins to move us toward the possibility of reconciling the
two camps described in the previous paragraphs. Longino posits that some values
operate to define what are the norms that govern good scientific practice.
These values refer to the priority of experiential/ empirical information/data
to inform one's ultimate conclusions, norms of theoretical coherence, forms of
experimentation, and elegance in formulation. These constitutive values allow
research to posses a degree of autonomy in its findings, but Longino believes
that challenges to this autonomy are sufficiently cogent to disallow the idea
that there are ultimate foundational rules that exceed the social organization
of science. What she does posit is that certain social communities are capable
of abiding by rules of interaction, reflection, and criticism that maximize the
"objectivity" of their results. That is, a community of thinkers can be devoted
to the constitutive values of science and thus adhere to norms that allow that
community to enjoy agreed upon forms of knowledge making, including the
relationship between data and hypotheses, the relevance of explanatory models,
and other procedures that are usually lumped in the camp of those who believe
such procedures are "value-free" and "free-standing." Longino clearly believes
that the forms of science, except for its most base reliance on the empirical,
may change and that different sub-fields of science may have different
constitutive values and new ones may emerge. For Longino, diversity in a
scientific community seems imperative to inoculate a scientific community
against its own indifference to other social values that may affect research in
less positive and "objective" ways.
Longino also elaborates the role for contextual values
in science. These values "contaminate" science in a way but are unavoidable.
Contextual values refer to the "social and cultural environment in which
science operates" (Longino, 1989). It is absurd to think that science can
operate without contextual values. These values help determine problem choice
in that some problems are seen as cultural priorities while other languish.
Their effects can be seen in explanatory models. For example, many current
ideas on brain function and gender refer to models of causality that answer to
gender anxieties as well as to the data that is collected by biologists,
neurobiologists, and others. The problem relates to the necessary effect of
background assumptions. As Longino insists, one can never eliminate these
backgrounds. Although such assumptions enter into every level of scientific
thinking and research, all efforts, such as logical positivism, have failed to
eliminate such social influence. They never will in that one can never fully
account for the under-determination of data. Data will never be able to tell us
how to solicit it or which theory it must confirm. Induction, in sum, cannot
answer all the questions of value that are raised by scientific research.
Background assumptions, informed by contextual values inevitable enter the
breach. In response, one can become attentive to such assumption through
cultivating critical reflection within a research community. Such
reflection requires a commitment to norms that fall into the category of
constitutive values (knowing that these might change but are in force at this
time). It also requires a diverse community that will see the taken for granted
assumptions of its own cognitive efforts. even when those efforts are framed as
scientific research.
Questions:
- Is this dualistic framework helpful in addressing
the implications of value-laden research in education? What other frameworks
might be helpful?
- Assuming the constitutive/contextual framework,
where might NSF have the greatest impact? Does NSF influence at the
constitutive or contextual level?
- How do industrial, political and economic pressures
impact NSF thereby implicating the social within scientific work? Are these
influences promoting "bad" science?
- What does critical reflection look like at the
constitutive and at the contextual levels? What is NSF doing to help promote
these activities?
- Is there sufficient diversity in the NSF
educational research community to inoculate against indifference and to promote
constitutive values, which help ensure a degree of objectivity? If not, what
populations/perspectives are missing?
- Are the contextual influences such that certain
important educational problems are languishing and should be addressed?
- Does a mixed methods approach in the research
design foster the kind of critical reflection often missing from a single
methods approach?
- Which forms of knowledge at the constitutive level
are ripe for critical interrogation? Formulations of causality? The
relationship between data and hypotheses? The role of explanatory models? The
subject/object relationship?
- What are the best ways to address the
underdetermination of data and the inductive process so as to minimize the
social in the scientific enterprise?
References
Longino, H. (1993). Essential tensions- Phase Two:
Feminists, Philosophical, and Social Studies of Science. In A Mind of One's
Own: Feminist Essays on Reason & Objectivity. Antony & Witt (Eds.)
Westview Press
Longino, H. (1990) Science as Social
Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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