Abstract

Randomized field experiments, which in the United States has been proposed as the gold standard of educational research, is dismissed by some critics as "positivistic". Although this dismissal over identifies positivism with a specific research method, the larger point is accurate: the "gold standard" is often insensitive to local situations and human value and philosophical positivism supports and en-courages this insensitivity. In this paper I examine the way positivism is limited in terms of its understanding of the role of values in educational research and I offer pragmatism as a productive alternative to these limitations. In contrast to the view of some critics I show that pragmatism would not reject out of hand randomized field experiments. Rather it would contextualize them as one of a number of valuable research tools. I argue here that pragmatism provides a more complete understanding of the research process because un-like positivism it does not dismiss value claims as meaningless, but provides a way to rationally address them. Thus its understanding of the research process is better suited to the process of educating which is inherently infused with values. I also expand on the ideas of traditional pragmatism by introducing a variation that I call critical pragmatism.