Seven Reasons to Geek Out on Educational Theory
John Spencer,
Mar 02, 2020
I will admit that I'm not really a fan of theory, not even my own. They always seem like unnecessary (and usually inaccurate) abstractions of complex phenomena. But this article makes the point quite well that theory has its place. John Spencer beggins with a look at his own study of motivation theory in education. The main message is that "the more you immerse yourself in theory, the more painfully aware you are of how much you don't understand." And that's true. What follows is a quick list of the ways theory can be useful to researchers and practitioners. And while I'm not completely sold on theory (especially those that do nothing more than categorize or posit a series of steps or levels) I really do value the part where I learn how much I don't know.
A quick example, just to make the point: I was doing background reading for my ethics and analytics paper, which took me to Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (1985) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, which has a lovely section on autonomy. Now I've thought quite a lot about autonomy, and felt I had it pretty much in hand, but this set me straight (it's not that I am suffering historical amnesia, it's just that you wouldn't really expect to find a core concept for education so well documented in a book on biomedical ethics).
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