The scientific status of the behavioral sciences: The case of research on teaching

It matters greatly whether a mode of inquiry and a body of knowledge have scientific standing. Scientific method is recognized as the major avenue into valid knowledge about certain important aspects of the world. The victories of the natural sciences have led us to seek similar achievements in the world of human affairs by using the same general methods. And philosophers and historians of science had been foremost in the effort to identify what those methods and victories consist of. Nonetheless, natural scientists are notoriously unimpressed with philosophy of science. One philosopher remarked on “the frustrated exasperation with which working scientists regard the arguments of most professional philosophers of science” (Toulmin, 1971, p. viii). For example, the fact that the sun has risen every day in the past does not assure us logically that it will rise tomorrow. It is such philosophical propositions that arouse the “frustrated exasperation.” However, because the scientific status of the natural sciences is so strong, natural scientists can afford such a reaction, even as they often unwittingly and naively philosophize about their work. On the other hand, the social and behavioral sciences have no such assured standing. So workers in those fields are well-advised to pay attention to their philosophical critics. Recently such a critic has given unprecedentedly close attention to research on teaching. In his Empiricist Research on Teaching: A Philosophical and Practical Critique of Its Scientific Pretensions, John H. Chambers has brought to bear a wide knowledge of the philosophy and history of the natural sciences, and most particularly the physical sciences. Chambers makes two main criticisms of research on teaching. First, it has been not scientific but empiricist. Second, even as empiricism, such research has had little practical value. In his view, the claim of researchers on teaching to being scientific is mere “kudos-seeking” pretentiousness, and their claim to useful results is equally unwarranted. He charges with serious misunderstandings of the nature of science, or practical usefulness, or both, many writers on pedagogical and other educational research, including Neville Bennett, David C. Berliner, Walter R. Borg, Jere E. Brophy, Carolyn M. Evertson, Jeremy D. Finn, N. L. Gage, Meredith Gall, Thomas L. Good, Andreas Helmke, Fred N. Kerlinger, Graham Nuthall, F. W. Schrader, Lee S. Shulman, Robert E. Slavin, and Herbert J. Walberg. The book deals with both more and less than its title suggests. More, because its argument applies to much other research in the behavioral sciences-in education, psychology (educational, personality, social, counseling, and much else), and just about all of sociology. Less, because it deals primarily not with all research on teaching but with that which is often labeled “quantitative.” Of course, “quantitative” pedagogical research has salient characteristics-such as public character, replicability, falsifiability, and important kinds of objectivity-other than those of using statistics and quantifiable data. Only toward the end of the book and relatively briefly does Chambers give attention to “qualitative” and “humanistic” approaches to research on teaching. But I shall follow Chambers and use the unqualified term “research on teaching” to refer to quantitative research of that kind, unless otherwise indicated.