Educational Research: Creative Thinking and Doing by John O'Toole

by John O'Toole

Introduces students to the broad field of educational research, demonstrating how to use research to think about issues arising from classroom settings, organisations, or wider professional activities. Authors from University of Melbourne, Australia.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some good tips in here that got me thinking and I will have to consider them more. The wooliness of thinking in some parts of the book are frustrating, and at times things are not properly shown or backed up, they just make big pronouncements. Considering there is supposed to be something new and fresh here they need even more specific examples (I appreciated the ones given though at times they illustrated the more obvious points, not the parts I wanted to see in action). At other times there is that endearing quality common in education lecturers where they use themselves as an example of fallibility and imperfection. It's hard not to relate when they do that and to be bought in to want to "have a go" yourself (therefore over the years I have stolen this method and use it in my own teaching too).

The omission of feminist criticism seems strange it is not even mentioned in passing. The ways of thinking the authors are both advocating and showing as relatively new, as opposed to a dryer more "one truth" approach of the past owes much to feminism and even though I am glad they did not fall into the essentialism trap where their way of thinking gets labelled "feminine" or "female" (maybe because as men they don't want this label) a bit of acknowledgement of where some of the progress came from would have been good (even as a short aside). They quote Yates extensively (as they should) and a couple of other authors that make it seem that they are not unaware of the contribution of feminist though, just choose to ignore it. The entire field of sociology also seems to be ignored, trivialised or dismissed as "too complicated" in parts of the book e (inevitably it is present in some of the examples used) even though this is something that would fit very well with their methods.

At the end there is a cheerful acceptance of using fashion and buzzwords to "market" your ideas. This is very pragmatic but I wonder if there is a connection between the "marketable educational information" way of thinking and the things they leave out. The book is definitely infused with an Arts advocacy which I don't mind, except that at times it seems to be shallow and based on what is "nice" or "popular" rather than going deeper. At the end the point is made that "in corporate life" buzzwords like "creativity, imagination, innovation, interactivity and teamwork" are gaining traction and that we can uncritically feed this demand from an Arts education persepective (206). I understand that "educational markets" are a reality for educators and researchers but the thought of blithely letting this tail wag the dog that is education seems chilling!

I enjoyed and learned from the discussion of Anglo-Saxon versus Latinate ways of speaking in English and the classism that has made people wrongly think that convoluted language (I think Wilkinson and possibly Fox have referred to it as "Ponglish") better. I didn't think it was safe to completely trust their call for plain speech but I do value clarity as a reader and think it is worth considering our words and why we chose them carefully. Many of the playful discussions of the frustrations of research were good to read.

I have gained something here; it didn't blow my mind but it was a decent read and I have taken some notes to reflect more on.