Abstract

The arc of quantitative educational research should not be etched in stone but should adapt and change over time. In this article, I argue that it is time for a reshaping by offering my personal view of the past, present and future of our field. Educational research—and research in the social and life sciences—is at a crossroads. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them is the rapid rise of data science, which has implications for educational research in general and SREE in particular. I ask us to question whether our laser focus on causal inference—which will remain crucially important—has crowded out other methods for studying equally important—yet not necessarily causal—questions. After introducing the wisdom of four muses—two philosophers of science and two statisticians—I sketch my personal research trajectory and its intersection with the field’s. The remainder of the article describes three types of studies that I would like to see more of: longitudinal studies using truly longitudinal analyses; assessment and measurement studies; and studies using data science methods.

摘要

定量教育研究的弧线不应刻蚀，而应随时间而变化。在本文中，我认为现在是时候重整旗鼓，提出自己对本领域过去，现在和未来的看法。教育研究以及社会和生命科学方面的研究正处于十字路口。造成这种情况的原因有很多，但其中最主要的原因是数据科学的迅速崛起，这对整个教育研究（特别是SREE）都有影响。我问我们一个问题，即我们对焦点因果推理的关注（这一点将仍然至关重要）是否已经挤出了其他方法来研究同样重要（但不一定是因果关系）的问题。在介绍了四种思维的智慧之后（两位科学哲学家和两位统计学家），我勾勒了我的个人研究轨迹及其与该领域的交汇点。本文的其余部分描述了我希望看到的三种研究类型：使用真正的纵向分析的纵向研究；评估和测量研究；并使用数据科学方法进行研究。