Educational Research: A Conjunctive Domain for Scientific Inquiry

ed from the welter of everyday experience for investigationand at the same time renders the results of these investigations less directly applicable to the solution of concrete problems. According to this interpretation, it will be impossible to establish educational research as a social science discipline, or even as a specialty within a particular discipline. Because of the heterogeneity of research interests that are grouped under this heading, a viable community of scientists who call themselves "educational researchers" and who relate to each other in the same fashion that biochemists or economists do, is in my opinion simply not in the cards. The Conjunctive Domain Organization's Proper Role If my analysis in the preceding section is correct, it follows that an organization devoted to a conjunctive domain cannot expect to function properly at the same level as do basic and applied interests within specific scientific disciplines. By the nature of its concerns, it can operate best as a coordinating structure, mediating the relations between basic and applied interests in a given discipline and among different disciplines. By serving as a kind of neutral ground, it can avoid the implicit tendencies toward conflict between representatives of its component interests and thereby facilitate communication among them. This can lead both to more rapid progress in the different disciplines and to more effective application of their findings to the concrete problems in its domain. Perhaps an analog to the situation of the conjunctive domain organization is the company which supports basic research in the belief that this will benefit the company in the long run. It keeps an eye on the output of its basic researchers and moves in with other personnel to exploit their findings whenever these appear relevant to the company's practical concerns. It provides a flow of information about its operations to these researchers in hopes of bringing new phenomena to their attention or helping them to see and explain how their work might be of direct value to the company. But this analogy cannot be carried very far, since the conjunctive domain organization tends to be the creation of its practicing members rather than of outside practical interests who hope to benefit from its activities. It must therefore plan its activities to promote its members' interests, even when these are not likely to result in practical achievements right away. It must devote its energies to helping its members achieve their own goalssometimes within their own disciplines, sometimes in the area of practical problem-solving and accept the fact that its future cannot realistically lie in the establishment of a legitimate scientific discipline. Some general ideas can be offered about the ways in which a conjunctive domain organization can most satisfactorily meet the needs of its various constituent groups. We can assume that these include basic and applied researchers within a number of scientific disciplines, persons who have some public responsibility for solving problems in this domain, and those who are themselves participants in the domain. The relative weight that each of these groups carries within the organization will determine to some extent the priorities placed on its various activities-but this is a political-administrative problem rather than one to which these remarks should be addressed. Principal among the organization's activities must be the proviion of special occasions-conferences, colloquia, consultations, etc. at which basic and applied researchers can communicate within and across disciplines with regard to specific topics in the general domain. Annual conventions, of course, provide the organization's members an opportunity to participate in a standard sort of scientific activity that is meaningful to colleagues at their home institutions, but these tend to be organized around a congeries of separate topics and their main function is to reinforce the s cial solidarity of the organization's members rather than to promote the intellectual cohesion of the domain