Learning Theories

The short answer to the question is that there are three fundamental disciplines for research and inquiry about the educational process. They are the disciplines for verification of analytic statements, normative statements and empirical statements about the education educational process.

In relation to the three fundamental disciplines of education, the following distinctions are critical.

1. There is the educational process,
2. There is the activity of conducting research or inquiry about the educational processin order to produce knowledge about the educational process,
3. There is knowledge about the educational process which is produced by successful, disciplined research or inquiry about the educational process.
4. There are the rules of evidence and proof which must be followed to support the claims that the statements produced by the research or inquiry about the educational process are true or warranted.

Confusion is caused by people (academics in universities, researchers who conduct inquiry about the educational process, teachers, people in general) using the terms field, study and disciplineinterchangeably to name these four different things. They also use the term education to name these four things. So there is no wonder that the discourse about education is confusing and that there are seemingly no differences among field, study, discipline and education!

Confusion in discourse about the educational process can be dispelled if you sort out the four critical categories as follows.

1. Field of phenomena:A field of phenomena is a set of occurrences which happen or exist. In the field of phenomena which we name with the term education, there are teachers guiding students in their study, students following the guidance of their teachers in their study, some content being taught and studied, some learning goals being pursued, some methods of teaching and studying being used, some cultural, social and physical setting in which the teaching and studying takes place, etc. Research or inquiry can be conducted about the field or parts of the field of the educational process. Examples of parts of the educational process include early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, vocational education, special education, physical education, mathematics education, science education, education for social equity, education for women, etc.
2. Activity of conducting research or inquiry about the educational process. Various people (university academics, professional researchers) conduct research about the educational process. They do this by asking and answering questions about the educational process. They seek evidence to substantiate their answers so that the answers qualify as warranted assertions (or knowledge) about the educational process. Researchers intend to produce true statements about the educational process which can be shown to be true with the appropriate, necessary and sufficient evidence.
3. Fund of knowledge.Successful research or inquiry produces true statements or knowledge. The collection of true statements which can be made about the educational process makes up the total fund of knowledge about the educational process. A useful name for the total fund of knowledge about the educational process is the term educology. The use of the term educology avoids the confusion of mistaking the educational process (education) for knowledge about the educational process (educology). The total fund can be organized into smaller collections or subfunds of knowledge about the educational process. For example, there can be scientific knowledge about the educational process (i.e. knowledge about existing states of affairs in the educational process, or scientific educology). There can be praxiological knowledge about the educational process (i.e. knowledge about effective practices of teaching, studying, counseling, etc. in the educational process, or praxiological educology). There is historical knowledge about the educational process (i.e. knowledge about past states of affairs in the educational process, or historical educology). There can be normative philosophical knowledge about the educational process (i.e. knowledge about good and bad states of affairs in the educational process, or normative philosophical educology). There can be analytic philosophical knowledge about the educational process (i.e. knowledge about the meaning of terms and sentences used in discourse about the educational process, or analytic philosophical educology).
4. Discipline for conducting inquiry. The discipline followed by the researchers in their inquiry is the set of rules of proof and the methods of evidence gathering which they must follow in order to present warranted knowledge claims about the educational process. At least three broad rules of proof are used. They are the rules for verification of analytic, normative and empirical knowledge about the educational process. Analytic discipline, normative discipline and empirical discipline are the three fundamental disciplines used for producing knowledge about the educational process.

Analytic Discipline.Analytic discipline uses the principle of necessity reasoning. This discipline requires that a statement be judged true (i.e. warranted) when it is necessarily implied by a set of premises (i.e. a set of preceding statements). The principle of necessity reasoning is the same as the principle of deduction. Techniques of analytic inquiry include term isolation, definition, explication, model case, contrary case, borderline case, imaginary case, related concepts, unrelated concepts, practical consequences, language results, underlying anxieties, social context, term substitution and new terms techniques. Other analytic techniques include statistical analyses (analysis of variance, correlation, etc.) An example of an analytic statement about the educational process is the following:

"Students always learn from effective teaching."

Normative Discipline. Normative discipline uses the principle of normative reasoning. This discipline requires that a statement be judged true when it is necessarily implied by a set of criteria (i.e. standards or rules or both). In addition, those criteria must be consistent with a set of values or norms to which all persons can reasonably adhere if they were in the same set of circumstances and they were free to make a rational choice. The principle of normative reasoning is the same as the principle of evaluative reasoning or the principle of evaluation. Techniques of normative inquiry include value clarification, value validation, value vindication and rational choice. An example of a normative statement about the educational process is the following.

"Plagiarism by students in their assignments should be condemned."

Empirical Discipline. Empirical discipline requires the use of the principle of observation. This discipline requires that a statement be judged true (i.e. an assertion be affirmed as warranted) if it is consistent with observable evidence of objects, actions, behaviors or states of affairs which occur or exist in the natural world. Empirical techniques of inquiry include survey, experimentation, quasi-experimentation, analogy, unobtrusive measures, case studies, participant observation, systematic observation, simulations, ethnographies, naturalistic studies. An example of an empirical statement is,

"Twenty-two percent of university students admit to having plagiarized on at least one assignment."

All three fundamental disciplines are needed to produce knowledge about the educational process.

Organization of Knowledge about the Educational Process (Organization of Educology). Once knowledge about the educational process has been produced through successful, disciplined inquiry, it can be organized into any number of funds of knowledge. The organization is usually done in relation to what the knowledge is describing or characterizing. For example, there can be

1. History of Education (or Historical Educology): the fund of knowledge about past states of affairs in the educational process;
2. Science of Education (or Scientific Educology): the fund of knowledge about existing states of affairs in the educational process;
3. Praxiology of Education (or Praxiological Educology): the fund of knowledge about effective practices in the educational process;
4. Normative Philosophy of Education (or Normative Philosophical Educology): the fund of knowledge about good and bad states of affairs in the educational process;
5. Analytic Philosophy of Education (or Analytic Philsophical Educology): the fund of knowledge about the meanings of terms and sentences used in discourse about the educational process.

The five funds listed above are not disciplines. They are collections of organized knowledge, not the rules for conducting inquiry to verified knowledge claims about the educational process.

Other organizations of knowledge into funds are, of course, possible and very common. For example, there is

1. The fund of knowledge about the education of women (the educology of women's education);
2. The fund of knowledge about physical education (the educology of physical education);
3. The fund of knowledge about teaching and studying mathematics (the educology of mathematics education);
4. The fund of knowledge about the uses of computers in education (the educology of computers as a teaching and learning resource);
5. The fund of knowledge about early childhood education (the educology of early childhood education), etc. (the list can go, does go in real life, on and on).

So, to keep your thinking about the educational process straight and clear, maintain these five basic critical distinctions:

1. The educational process is a field of phenomena about which research and inquiry can be conducted,
2. Conducting research about the educational process is the activity of asking questions, answering questions and substantiating the answers with the necessary and sufficient evidence to warrant the answers as being true, i.e. as being knowledge,
3. The discipline for conducting research is the set of rules of proof and the methods of evidence gathering which researchers must follow in order to present warranted knowledge claims about the educational process; there are three basic sets of rules, or disciplines: the disciplines for analytic, empirical and normative inquiry.
4. The fund of knowledge about the educational process is the collection of true statements about the educational process which are produced by sound, well disciplined research and inquiry, following the analytic, empirical and normative rules of proof and evidence gathering.
5. The general fund of knowledge about the educational process is educology. Parts of educology can be organized into smaller funds or collections of true statements about the educational process.

One of the problems that teachers sometimes face with students who all share the same native language is that they use their native language rather than English to perform classroom tasks. This may be because they want to communicate something important, and so they use language in the best way they know! They will almost certainly find speaking in their language a lot easier than struggling with English.

But, however much teachers might sympathise with their students, the need to have them practicing English (rather than their own language) remains paramount.

There are a number of things that can be done in this situation.

Talk to them about the issues: teachers can discuss with students how they should all feel about using English and/ or their own language in the class. Teachers should try to get their students' agreement that overuse of their own language means that they will have less chance to learn English; that using their own language during speaking activities denies them chances for rehearsal and feedback.

Encourage them to use English appropriately: teachers should make it clear that there is not a total ban on their own language- it depends on what's happening. In other words, a little bit of the students' native language when they're working on a reading text is not too much of a problem, but a speaking Activate exercise will lose its purpose if not done in English

Only respond to English use: teachers can make it clear by their behaviour that they want to hear English. They can ignore what students say in their own language.

Create an English environment: teachers themselves should speak English for the majority of the time, so that, together with the use of listening material and video, the students are constantly exposed to how English sounds, and what it feels like. Some teachers anglicise their students' names too.

Keep reminding them: teachers should be prepared to go round the class during a speaking exercise encouraging, cajoling, even pleading with them to use English- and offering help if necessary. This technique, often repeated, will gradually change most students' behaviour over a period of time.