Why most education research is rubbish

And what this means

Photo by Kinga Lopatin on Unsplash

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Let’s face facts. Most education research is rubbish. Reports are written that are based on this rubbish. Curriculums are developed informed by this rubbish. Even the most prestigious education journals print questionable articles based upon eccentric research practices.

When I first became interested in education research, I created a series of Google Scholar alerts for terms like ‘inquiry learning’, ‘school discipline’ and ‘direct instruction’. For sentimental reasons, I’ve not been able to let these go and so twice per week, my mailbox is deluged with complete and utter rubbish.

And the existence of this rubbish poses a problem.

Due to the fact that rubbish research can be cited in order to justify any crazy educational scheme or opinion, teachers who engage with research can drift into a state of relativist ennui. For their part, many academics see the situation as a positive. Education is a much more complicated business than, say, brain surgery or rocket science, they opine, and those who look for simple solutions are silly ‘positivists’ who have yet to appreciate this (version of) reality.

So why all the rubbish and what can we do about it?