Origins of educational research.
In the field of education, as in the rest of the sciences, research has become a precise and elementary activity. For this reason, educational research has been originated as a discipline that "deals with issues and problems related to nature, epistemology, methodology, goals and objectives within the framework of the progressive search of knowledge in the educational field." (5)
The origins of educational research are at the end of the 19th century, when the scientific methodology is adopted in pedagogy. This research, as an empirically based discipline, was first called experimental pedagogy, a designation similar to that of experimental psychology, used by Wundt in 1880.
The experimental pedagogy is born in a social-historical context in which the interest to consolidate the education on empirical foundations and to incorporate the experimental method in the human sciences is highlighted.
According to the studies of Buyse (1949), three main influences can be differentiated in experimental pedagogy: the philosophical thought reigning in the nineteenth century, the emergence of scientific pedagogy and the growth of experimental methodology.
The philosophical thought prevailing in the nineteenth century, was characterized by philosophical currents that were fundamental for the independence of the social sciences, contributing greatly to provide scientificity to the pedagogy. These currents are positivism, whose representative is Comte; pragmatism, represented by James; the sociologism of Durkheim; and Dewey's experimentalism.
The emergence of scientific pedagogy, based on experimentation, was another important factor for the development of experimental pedagogy. This occurs thanks to the contributions of eighteenth-century rationalism; the growth of the natural sciences with the contribution of the ideas of Darwin, Cournot and de Bain; the publication of the works of authors such as C.Bernard, Galton, Burt, Cattell and Rice, among others. Also of note are the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Herbart to establish the empirical pillars of education. (Arnal, J. and others, 1994, p.24-25.)
The development of experimental methodology is the product of numerous elements of a political, social and cultural nature. It is produced initially in the area of medicine and psychology, to later spread to the educational field.
The concept of educational research has been modified as new approaches have emerged for the treatment of educational phenomena. Currently, the meanings attributed to the expression Educational Research are varied, depending on the diversity of objectives and characteristics that are established. This theme leads us to address the next section related to the paradigms in the study of educational events.
