What are we trying to understand and improve? Educational research as Leerlaufreaktion.1

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Abstract
The problems that educational research are supposed to solve have been poorly analyzed and the basic phenomena that we are trying to understand have not been clearly described. Educational experimenters often resemble Leerlaufreaktionen in lower animals, i.e., complex, highly integrated activities that take place despite the absence of an appropriate environmental occasion. We have tended to forget the practical origins of science and have allowed ourselves to be dominated by overly abstract ideas that betray our goals. Experimenters require tangible events to think and wonder about in order to improve their intuitions and in order to generate and test ideas that will deepen our understanding of nature and make a real difference in the practical world. Better observations of what actually goes on in instructional situations are therefore needed and more detailed records of teaching and learning must be kept. An instructional record‐keeping system called a course memory is described.

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