Methodology and the Research-Practice Gap

A much neglected reason for the limited contribution of research to the understanding and improvement of educational practice is the mismatch between educational research methodologies and the generic features of practice. Increasing the match requires an account of practice that clarifies its methodological implications. I propose a problem-based methodology (PBM) in which practices are treated as solutions to practical problems and explained by inquiry into the problem-solving processes that gave rise to them. Such inquiry is guided in PBM by a constraint inclusion account of a problem and a set of criteria for debating solution adequacy. The implications of this account for the conduct and contribution of educational research are developed through a detailed discussion of recent research on school tracking.