Educational Technology and Research

It was eye-opening to read such conflicting views about instructional technology research and development and it's future in the field. I started with 2 articles: "Enhancing the Worth of Instructional Technology Research through Design Experiments and Other Development Research Strategies" (Reeves, 2000) and "Reflections on the State of Educational Technology Research and Development" (Kozma, 2000), then felt compelled to read,  "Reflections on the State of Educational Technology Research and Development: A response to Kozma" (Richey, 2000)
In the first article, Reeves shared views from many in the field regarding the problems with IT research, how we can attempt to fix some of those problems, and the future of IT research. First, there appears to be many differences of opinion about basic and applied research and it's value in IT. I appreciated the model of Pasteur's Quadrant View of Research by Stokes and how it showed that research can be inspired by considerations of use and fundamental understanding. Reeves believes that much of the research conducted by instructional technologists (and educational researchers) is neither. Much of the research, he claims, has been done to advance the careers of academics, or for the sole purpose of getting recognized in a publication. He calls for an increase in "use-inspired basic research", or development research. He recognizes that change will not be easy, as development research is time-consuming, requires practitioners apply theories from empirical investigations, and collaborate extensively with other researchers and practitioners. This requires a major paradigm shift, when many are used to basic research that can be performed in a relatively short period of time with quantitative data. Reeves observes that most of the research is riddled with problems like specification error, lack of connection to theoretical foundations, measurement flaws and others. He also states that many researchers don't give proper attention to research goals and methods, many even confusing the two. While I agree that there needs to clear goals and methods when conducting research, we need to remember the subject being researched is a human being. Humans are riddled with their own inconsistencies, behaviors, and intellectual capacity. Researching human behavior, particularly learning can never be in my opinion, an exact science. We can however, use research to create "best practices".
In Robert Kozma's reflections article, he shines a little more of a positive light on the direction of research in educational Technology. He gives some excellent examples of research projects involving the learning of challenging topics in math and science. He believes this latest research is vital to the field because "it combines design with advanced technologies, new collaborations, large-scale implementation, and alternative research methodologies". He also believes that a lot of current projects were possible only because computer technology enabled their designs. Rita Richey, in her response to the Kozma article, thinks that Kozma places to much emphasis on the importance of technology and accuses him of perpetuating the misconception that the field of instructional technology is only about computers. I agree with Kozma, "if we understand the media we use, they can inspire our creativity and enable powerful designs". He also stresses the importance of collaboration, learner centered environments and building strong working relationships with our clients.

I think that Reeves, Kozma and Richey have more in common that it might appear at first glance. All three believe a paradigm shift in instructional design research is necessary and all value a learner centered, collaborative philosophy. Despite the differnces of opinion about the best way to conduct research, all believe we need to mix traditional theories with current applied research in order to continue making progress in the field.