教育研究和教育实践中的证据和价值

Evidence and Values in Educational Research and Educational Practice

教育作为一种专业实践,应当基于证据或至少知于证据的理念继续使政治家、政策制定者、实践者和研究者为之神往。这个思想方法的影响力表现出不断增强的迹象。但同时针对基于证据和知于证据的实践的理念,不断增多的文献却提出了一些有关其可行性的基本问题。本文通过分析这个讨论的一些前设对这个领域做更深层的探讨,聚焦在这个讨论中的知识论、存在论和实践维度并在每个领域发现缺失:在知识论领域有一个知识缺失,在存在论领域有一个效能/功效缺失,在实践领域有一个应用缺失。这些缺失加在一起不仅对基于证据的实践提出了质疑,而且突出了规范性、权力和价值的角色。在这个背景下,本文大致论述了基于价值的教育的思想,以作为基于证据的教育的另种选择。因为政策制定者对于证据在教育实践中能够和应当获得什么的期望令我感到不安,所以本文的贡献主要是力图给教育者和其他专业人士提供论点,以帮助他们抵制那些关于证据在他们实践中的作用的没有正当理由的期望,更重要的是抵制存在于他们实践中的没有正当理由的介入。

The idea that professional practices such as education should be based upon or at least be informed by evidence continues to capture the imagination of many politicians, policy makers,practitioners and researchers.There are growing signs of the influence of this line of thought.At the same time there is a growing body of work that has raised fundamental questions about the feasibility of the idea of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice.In this paper I make a further contribution to this discussion through an analysis of a number of assumptions that inform the discussion. I focus on the epistemological,ontological and praxeological dimensions of the discussion and in each domain identify a deficit.In the epistemological domain there is a knowledge deficit,in the ontological domain an effectiveness or efficacy deficit and in the practice domain an application deficit.Taken together these deficits not only raise some important questions about the very idea of evidence-based practice but also highlight the role of normativity,power and values.Against this background I outline the case for the idea of value-based education as an alternative for evidencebased education.As I am generally concerned about the expectations policy makers hold about what evidence can and should achieve in professional practices such as education,my contribution is primarily meant to provide educators and other professionals with arguments that can help them to resist unwarranted expectations about the role of evidence in their practices and even more so of unwarranted interventions in their practices.