Educational Research: Of Importance or of impotence?

Larry A. Magtanong

While it is true that majority of the teachers who pursue their graduate studies find research a challenging and perplexing thing, question neither research is beneficial or not is quite an interesting topic in education. Writing and doing research can be done on any topic, be it medical, non- medical, pedagogy, or anything else. In order to do research, one must need to have a topic or the problem on which he or she is interested with. Also, the topic must have relevant questions to answer.

For research, certain steps have to be followed like first observation, then background research then preparing of hypothesis, eventually conducting a simple experiment. While, the aforesaid processes were brain-drain in nature, is writing a research an important factor among teachers? Teachers are asked to teach and handle classes for a minimum of six hour and maximum of 8 hours every day. This is not to mention of course the paper works that the teacher must finish and submit. Preparation of instructional materials, checking of papers and doing reports are additional works that every teacher must embrace.

However, conducting research may seem to be an additional task, completing it is such a rewarding experienced. The main aim of doing and completing a research is to provide the best of the solution to some of the world problems, including the problems that are evident inside the school or inside the classroom. In addition, completing an educational research is an avenue to enhance teachers’ knowledge. Doing such is a creation of knowledge by a process of accretion, with each fact (or probable fact) serving as a kind of building block that, when placed into its proper niche, adds to the growing “edifice of knowledge”. When the facts take the form of generalization or cause-effect linkages, they may be used most efficiently for prediction and control. Generalizations may then be made, with predicable confidence, to a population of settings (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998, pp. 212).

While the world of pedagogy is being faced by a lot of problems, a research based solutions and decisions must be considered. An action and decision that are based from a valid study serves as a light house that dispels confusions, problems and possible threats to the learning of the students.

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The author is SST I at Rafael L. Lazatin Memorial High School