The basic logic seems to be that since perfect research in education is impossible (double blind field studies in education are even more difficult than they are in physics) we can ignore research altogether and base our practice on whatever fad we favor.
BTW, there's a good article in the current Skeptic magazine about double blind research.
At 10:44 AM -0500 4/7/05, Stephen Black wrote:
On 6 Apr 2005, Richard Hake wrote:
Carnine is perhaps the U.S.'s most prominent advocate of Direct Instruction [see e.g., Carnine (2000)]. Carnine played a leading role in undermining effective math instruction in California [see, e.g., Schoenfeld (2003)], and, I suspect, is now poised to attempt the same on a national scale for the 3 R's and for science instruction.
Hmm. As I received my very own personal copy of Dr. Hake's post, I
assume he is implicitly responding to my post commenting favourably on Direct Instruction. I'll flatter myself that he is, anyway.
I was curious about the accusation that Carnine "played a leading role in undermining effective math instruction in California" for which he cites Schoenfeld (2003), so I checked it out [at http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/AHSchoenfeld/Math_Wars.pdf ]
Here is sole relevant passage [gotta #$$%% copy it out because it's a pdf, hence all the ellipsis]
"Carnine...is anti-research; see his piece "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More LIke Medicine)...at http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/carnine.pdf Carnine advocates direct instruction, and he is an author of two direction instruction programs...Thus Carnine stood to profit financially from a State Board endorsement of direct instruction...the State Board proceeded in any case--with Carnine being the sole purveyor of research on effective instruction to the Board...the report was shoddy at best. The methodology was questionable, so much so that the American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group for Research in Mathematics Education...wrote a public letter...disputing Carnine's methods. Summaries of many of the papers reviewed were inaccurate, and some of the report's conclusions were not clearly related to the research summary".
Well, I don't have world or time or probably expertise enough to go through all of this myself to see if the name-calling is justified, and the conflict of interest is disturbing, but I don't think this backs up the claim that Carnine is anti-research. In fact, reading Carnine's piece "Why Education Experts Resist" cited by Schoenfeld to support his accusation leads to the opposite conclusion, what with Carnine's emphasis on evidence and recommendation of double-blind randomized design. So while it's possible there are grounds to criticize Carnine's research, it seems to me it's shoddy practice to claim he played a "leading role in undermining effective math instruction" or to label him "anti-research" on the basis of the cited references.
--
"No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -H. L. Mencken
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