EDST faculty undertake research and scholarship to address philosophical, historical, and sociological and practical “how to” questions about educational research methods.

Those questions include:

• What are the strengths and limitations of the competing sets of epistemological and corresponding ontological assumptions underlying rival paradigms of educational research? How do we understand the relationship between the methods used in educational research and the trustworthiness or validity of the results?
• What research methods are most appropriate for investigating different kinds of research questions (empirical, interpretive, historical, conceptual)? How should we understand the notion of different forms or ways of knowing—and, similarly, of alternative epistemologies—and what are the implications for educational research?
• In what ways do unequal power relations affect the production of knowledge through educational research? How do(es) the standpoint(s) and social location(s) of the researcher(s) affect the process of educational research and its results?