What does it mean to do educational research?
Why should you research in the educational field?
Why is it so important?
We all know about research on medicine and health, but we do little about research on education. Compared to medicine and education, research still has relatively influence on educators, I mean, on the work of educators. Educational research develops new knowledge about teaching, learning, leadership, and administration. This new knowledge will lead to the improvement of educational practice, that's why this knowledge is of value.
The incorporation of research on education is necessary, since this has become a reference of essential quality within the pedagogical-training process that is implemented in the different institutions, schools and educational centers of the country, as it is precisely researching the renovating element, activator and transformer of educational practices and facilitates the complete extinction of memory, mechanical, passive and repetitive vices survivors of the old behaviorism and traditionalism; and on the other hand, without minimizing quality, in the student's training there is a reflexive, critical and analytical process that makes learning a significant act, allowing the student to dare to propose alternative solutions to school, personal, group problems, family and social.
Research is one of the most important quality references within the qualification of the training process that is taught in a school, center or institution; this means that the student, teacher or student who does not investigate, will be outside the requirement index of the new educational proposals, which means that they would not be at the forefront of the scientific and technological advances of humanity. With the development of the research process in an institution, all the members of the educational community benefit, mainly the students because they manage to develop a series of skills and abilities for the generation of new knowledge from the critical and reflexive point of view; In the same way, the methodological process used by teachers is strengthened.
Research is also vitally important in the dynamics of construction of interdisciplinary knowledge, in the sense that it is precisely the path that must be followed for the construction of meaningful knowledge for the student in training, since these arise as a result of the process of reflection, analysis of real situations that are confronted with existing theories.
Educational research is of great social importance since it is a powerful tool that closes the gap between the problems and solutions in education, as problems of transcendence and sociocultural projection are identified and resolved that affect the educational process of all the members of the educational community.
Stages and phases
Martínez M. (1999: 36), proposes the following general processes of qualitative research based on ethnography, which seems to us very complete in the various stages and phases proposed:
FIRST STAGE. The general design of the research process
Phase. 1. Determination of the objectives. The choice of certain objectives or the approach of certain problems to solve imply the adoption of a special epistemological orientation or the acceptance of a certain theory, or rely on some basic assumptions. Choosing the objectives of an investigation presents, in addition, other problems of different degree of difficulty. The first is a philosophical and ethical background and needs a justification: what I am going to study and why. The second problem is related to methodological strategies and tries to clearly delineate what one wants to investigate.
Phase. 2. An approach to the problem. The problem does not occur before but emerges from the exploratory dynamics that the researcher carries out. Ethnographic researchers feel highly stimulated when they commit themselves to a new field study guided only by a "central idea" of the problem areas present as interesting. One of the most satisfying aspects of the ethnographic approach is precisely to feel free to discover a common thread, rather than feel obliged to investigate a predetermined problem that could exist, in fact, only in the mind of the researcher.
SECOND STAGE. Collection and description of the information
Phase 1. Fieldwork. It refers to the place where the ethnographer must go to find the information or the "data" he needs. The basic criterion for this point is of a general nature, it is necessary to emphasize the information you have to look for it where it is. The observation should not distort, distort or disturb the true reality of the phenomenon being studied. It is extremely convenient that the procedures used to make the observations repeated times; for this, it will be necessary to try to record the interviews, shoot the scenes, take the photographs, make detailed annotations of the circumstances and situations. Ethnographic research is the work of only one person, although there are others who collaborate since it is a unique mental process. Another aspect of great relevance is that the basic tasks of collecting data, categorizing and interpreting them are not performed in successive times, but are continually intertwined. That is, our mind does not respect a temporal sequence of these activities.
Phase. 2. Choice of the sample. The choice of the sample will depend on what we plan to do with it and what we believe it can do with it. The choice of the sample in an ethnographic study requires the researcher to specify precisely which is the relevant population or research phenomenon, using criteria that can be based on theoretical or conceptual considerations, personal interests, situational circumstances or other considerations. The ability to identify how a particular group perceives events, comparing it with the perceptions of other groups and constructing a larger image from the point of view of an external observer, is one of the strengths of qualitative ethnographic research.
Phase. 3. Entry into the study group. In ethnography supposedly what people say and do is consciously or unconsciously influenced by their social situation. The ethnographer is, therefore, very sensitive to the way in which he introduces himself into an environment and carefully establishes the role that the gathering of information can facilitate. Just as there are places and groups where access is free and permanence does not offer any difficulty, others are practically almost impenetrable, such as organized crime groups. For all these reasons, the researcher will sometimes have to resort to very varied strategies to achieve their goals, expose their reasons and objectives, rely on their professionalism, ensure full respect for confidentiality and secrecy, obtain permission from higher authorities. hierarchy in the institutions, resorting to the help of friends, relatives or acquaintances who have contact with the groups.
Phase. 4. Procedures and instruments. Observation is the oldest and most used technique in all types of research. In the case of qualitative and ethnographic research, without neglecting the help that many good instruments can offer, the observer often becomes their main instrument. However, it is possible to identify the instruments and techniques most frequently used by ethnographic researchers: participant observation, field notes; the interview with key informants; sound recordings, video and photography; The analysis of documents and artifacts; The open questionnaires; The individualized scales and ranges; The observation forms: Semantic differential techniques; the projective techniques.
THIRD STAGE. Categorization and Content Analysis
Phase 1. Categorization of contents. It is to codify the obtained protocol description. It is about categorizing or classifying the parts in relation to the whole, describing significant categories or classes, constantly designing and redesigning, integrating and reintegrating the whole and the parts, as the material is revised and the meaning of each sector, event, fact or data. The categorization process will follow these steps: Transcribe in detail the contents of protocol information. Divide the contents into thematic units. Then categorize is to classify, conceptualize or codify by a term or expression that is clear and unambiguous.
Phase. 2. Content analysis. The word analysis in its etymological origin means to separate or divide the parts of a whole in order to understand the principles and elements that compose it. For this reason, when reflecting and concentrating on the contents of the interviews, recordings, field descriptions in that contemplation, categories or expressions will appear in our minds.
FOURTH STAGE. Interpretation and theorization
Phase. 1. Use of analogies, metaphors, and models. Our mind is unable to work without continuously using analogies. Our mind captures the nature of things unknown because of their analogical relationship or because of their structural similarity to others that they already know. That is why the promotion and use of the imagination through comparisons, similes, metaphors, and analogies, will lead us to create a model that can represent conceptually and a theoretical structure as an image of the reality studied. Although the analogies and the models have unquestionably constituted a fertile source of scientific theories.
FIFTH STAGE. Preparation of the final report
The researcher will specify the steps or fundamental stages of his work: his interest in the subject studied epistemological and theoretical framework, research design, planning, choice of sample, data collection, categorization analysis, theoretical structuring, and possible applications. The role that researchers must play is more to suggest possible lines of action that are directly and logically derived from the conclusions of the research.
In the use of analogies, metaphors, and models, our mind captures the nature of things unknown because of their analogical relationship or because of their structural similarity to others that they already know. That is why the promotion and use of the imagination through comparations, similes, metaphors, analogies, will lead us to create a "model" that can conceptually and adequately represent a theoretical structure as an image of the reality studied.
