What is Research?

What is Research?

H. M. Hamlin
American Vocational Journal, September 1966, p. 14-16.

We are on a research binge. Vocational educators are flocking to research seminars. Nearly $18 million is available this year under the Vocational Education Act of 1963 for research, development, and training. With the use of these funds, centers have been established; individual projects have been financed; and research coordinating units have been developed in connection with state departments of education. The supply of competent researchers, always short, has been exhausted.

This late attention to research is most welcome, but the whole movement to provide it could become perverted and discredited. Teachers and supervisors have been skeptical about the research that has been done. We must not provide more of the same, different only in magnitude and cost. Much of the research we have done has been narrow, insignificant, and amateurish. Frequently it has not related to the practice of vocational education or has not been interpreted to practitioners.

It is fortunate that in the Vocational Education Act of 1963 research has been linked with development and training. Separate projects in research, development, and training are being funded, but often all three phases are combined in a project. Practitioners are welcoming the development and training projects in which they may participate. They have long recognized a need for them. They are coming to see that these projects are most useful when combined with sound research.

If research is to make the contribution to practice that is now possible, we must start with an adequate concept of the nature of research. My own definition is that research is an unusually stubborn and persisting effort to think straight which involves the gathering and the intelligent use of relevant data. Obviously, it must be directed by people of high ability who either know the specialized techniques of research or can supervise people who do.

Such a definition takes in a variety of types of research, some of which are being neglected in a mad effort to force all research into an experimental design involving the use of the most sophisticated statistical methods. In relying on experimental studies, we are attempting the most difficult and the least conclusive type of research in education that is possible. There are other kinds of legitimate and useful research.

We need much research that could be classed as "philosophical": inquiry into values and ideals and their implications for vocational education. Values determine everything we do or might do; research unrelated to values is sterile.
We need historical research. I have lived through most of the period during which vocational education in the public schools has developed and am frequently astounded by the assumptions of the younger generation about its history. Some assume, for instance, that everything began with the Smith-Hughes Act and on the initiative of the federal government. Many accept what is, because they do not know that anything else was ever conceived, or tried. Planning for the future often lacks a sound basis in knowledge of past trends.

We need case studies of individuals with and without specialized vocational education and studies of vocational education in communities, larger areas within states, and states. We need longitudinal studies of institutions providing vocational education. We have usually been so limited in time for research that we have only taken snapshots of current situations. Frequently we are misled by apparent success with a procedure which would turn sour if used over a long period.
We need studies which summarize and integrate the research we have, drawing from the aggregate of it the conclusions that are justified. Often they would be quite different from those resulting from individual research studies.

III

Many of our younger researchers have put blinders on themselves by concluding that this or that is not "researchable." By my definition, anything is researchable; it is only necessary to use methods appropriate to the type of research attempted.
We have also blinded ourselves to profitable types of research by our preoccupation with federally aided vocational education. At the Center at North Carolina State University we are concerning ourselves with "occupational education," defined as education designed to contribute to occupational choice, competence, and advancement.

This definition makes possible the inclusion of much that is critically important that has often been omitted: unreimbursed vocational education, vocational guidance and counseling, the contributions of the elementary schools and junior high schools which receive no federal funds, the portions of the practical arts that are related to occupational choice and competency, and the English, mathematics, science, and social science taught in relation to an occupation or a cluster of occupations. We should be concerned also with the outcomes of education that was not planned to contribute to occupational choice and competence but which nevertheless makes important contributions.

There are neglected types of research which a few are now beginning to attempt.

Some are looking into policy and Policy﷓making for vocational education at the local, state, and national levels. This has been considered a dangerous field to study because we are studying our masters﷓the public and its representatives in Congress, the state legislatures, and the school boards. But public policy determines everything we do in vocational education. If policy is bad, or if only bad policy can be produced by the processes used in policy﷓making, we in vocational education and those we try to serve are the victims.

There are studies at Stout State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of "generalized vocational education." The investigators recognize that youngsters in the elementary schools and high schools seldom know the occupations in which they will engage, that occupations are changing so rapidly that special preparation must be delayed until near the time of entrance into an occupation, and that an individual born in one part of the country may be employed in any other part. They see also that youngsters are making tentative choices of occupations, that they are making educational choices early which lead them toward or away from some occupations, and that attitudes and habits basic to occupational success must be developed early. In this type of research, creative planning of the new educational experiences children and youth are to have will be the most important element.

In a recent research seminar at North Carolina State University an area of research largely new to vocational educators was opened to representatives from 23 states: occupational mobility and migration in relation to occupational education. It is strange that we have so long overlooked migration as a factor that should influence our work. We have tried to serve communities or states without enough consideration of the individuals who will leave them for employment. We have not studied enough the factors which influence mobility upward within an occupation nor provided sufficiently the means whereby mobility upward can be attained.

At Ohio State University and the University of California the vocational education roles of state departments. of education are being studied. There should be corresponding studies of the roles of the universities in occupational education. The state agencies have often studied the local schools; they themselves should be studied.

One of the most significant developments in the country is the evolution of vocational﷓technical education in area schools (junior and community colleges, vocational schools, technical institutes, and branches of universities serving areas usually larger than a school district). In many states these institutions can be studied from their beginnings and critically important assistance given them in their formative years.

The U. S. Office of Education has suggested that research in evaluation should have the highest priority among researches planned for the near future. This kind of research deserves special consideration because a national evaluation to take place in 1967 was authorized by Congress. Not all of our eggs should be in this one basket. We need alternative national evaluations, state evaluations, area evaluations, and local evaluations. We need to suggest criteria and procedures for the official national evaluation.

Researchers have usually stayed away from evaluative studies because they are difficult, potentially dangerous, and include much that is subjective. Webster's dictionary says that to evaluate is "to examine and judge concerning the worth, quality, significance, degree, or condition" of something. Illustrating the use of the word, it quotes Havelock Ellis approvingly: "To make an evaluation it is not enough to count; we must come as critics to scrutinize."

The current obsession with experimental design and elaborate statistical treatment will cause researchers to avoid some of these areas of study. It is frustrating to try to get anyone recently trained in research methods in the universities or in research seminars to attempt some of the most needed kinds of research. Their instinct is for the narrow, insignificant problem which lends itself to the research and statistical treatments which have recently become hallowed. Are we training researchers or research technicians?

Some researchers are obsessed with the need for objectivity. Granting that we want as much objectivity as possible, there is no completely objective research. Subjectivity enters in the choice of a subject, in the selection of data to be gathered, and in the interpretation of data. If the director of research is competent, his subjective judgments may be its greatest contribution.

Another current obsession is with elaborate statistical analysis, used as much to obscure as to illuminate. An example is factor analysis. Certainly it has some small use in research in occupational education, but one can factor﷓analyze crude data to death and still have nothing.

When shall we learn that research in education is not comparable to research in chemistry or soils? In experimental research in education we are dealing with unpredictable human beings. We cannot control all variables; often the more important ones run uncontrolled.

I am not saying that we should avoid experimental research, which is frequently illuminating, if inconclusive. Or that we should avoid the appropriate use of all of the devices modem statistics provides. I am only saying: Don't get into a straight jacket at this early stage of the development of research in occupational education, and don't disparage those who refuse to get into it.

Ideas and concepts are the first requisite for good research. We can. use technicians and legmen, but don't put them in charge. Research without important ideas is busy work.

It is currently fashionable to involve psychologists, sociologists, and economists in research in occupational education. This is a desirable trend but we cannot depend upon people outside our field to produce the research we need. The burden falls mainly upon us in the profession who must learn to use effectively those from other disciplines. When we are recruiting from other disciplines, let us not forget specialists in political science. Many of our most urgent problems are more closely related to political science than to any other discipline.

Our most valuable associates in research are likely to be our colleagues in education, particularly those in finance; administration; elementary, secondary, and adult education; guidance; philosophy of education; educational psychology; and educational sociology. The methods of research they have found useful are those most likely to be appropriate for us.
There is a special hazard in conducting research in the separate land grant colleges because many of the specialists in education whose help we need are located on other campuses, some of them remote physically and some even more remote psychologically.

VII

In some of our research the best accomplishment would be through the use of the techniques of a good newspaper reporter engaged in making a study in depth. The questions he would raise are often the questions we should raise: Who? What? When? Where? Why? We should develop the skill he has in writing reports.

VIII

There are current problems involving the relationships of state departments of education and universities in conducting and disseminating research. These must be resolved. There are contributions each may make, but they may be quite different. Most of all, the integrity and independence of the university must be preserved. Research must be tolerated which may lead in any direction, even to discrediting some of the previous state department efforts.

A new and necessary dimension in research regarding occupational education has been added by the suggestion that costs be taken into account. We are asked to determine how much good occupational education can be bought with a given amount of money when the education is provided by the local public schools, the public area schools, the public and private colleges, the private, vocational schools, and business or industry.

There are enormous hazards in cost studies. There is danger that only the increased earning power of the trained individual will be considered without consideration of the effects on the total welfare of society or the total welfare of the individual. Vocational and general education should not be so segregated that only economic returns are considered; they are not segregated in practice. The less tangible returns from education, which "costing" might overlook, may be the most valuable returns.

The "centers" which are being developed with funds under Section 4c of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 will have important roles in setting examples for research in occupational education. I have been fortunate in having been associated with the two recognized centers-- those at Ohio State University and North Carolina State University. I have just become associated with a third enterprise at the University of California which, though nominally not a center, may serve the purposes of a center for the western part of the United States.

In keeping with the provisions of the Act, these are centers for research, development, and training, not merely for research. There is a good prospect that the three functions can be kept coordinated and in balance. Important short﷓run results can be secured through development and training projects while research projects of great significance, but requiring more time, are developing.

It is fortunate that the directors of these enterprises are practical and broad﷓gauged persons. If anyone can accomplish a fruitful merging of research, development, and training, these men can. If the three functions are coordinated, many of the aberrations in research about which I have been complaining can be avoided.

We are witnessing now an "explosion" of new ideas about occupational education. Some of these will remake the field; some will fall by the wayside. We are developing a healthy tolerance of ideas. Groups outside our field, like that at the Ford financed Wisconsin Center, are competing with us in the marketplace for ideas. Private universities are researching vocational education. We have no longer a monopoly of the study of our own handiwork.
It is hardly likely in view of our history that the profession as a whole will get overenthusiastic about research, but we might come to rely unduly upon it. Practitioners need to know enough about research to be able to interpret it and judge its utility.

We shall answer in our individual ways the question: What is research? My plea is we do not narrow it to that which is now respectable in some esoteric research circles.

We need significant research now, not a decade from now. We are already decades late. We have our chance now because we have funds to work with. If we waste our present substance, the whole movement will be discredited and the funds we have will be lost or diverted to some other group.

Back to lesson 1