The Significance of Research

Abstract

When I asked the respondents my first question about publications of their own that they felt were significant, I deliberately left the interpretation of the phrase significant publication in my first question to the respondent researchers. In Chapter 3 I have discussed the quite personal interpretations a number of them chose. Many others, however, interpreted the phrase in ways that related it to the research field generally and a range of these are described in this chapter. The interpretations that can be related more directly to the five specific intra-research criteria for a distinctive field of research are discussed in Chapters 6–10. Finally, those respondents whose interpretation was in terms of the impact or potential impact they saw their publication having on the practices of science education itself are described in Chapter 11. There they become evidence for the output criterion, O1. Implications for practice.

I wrote that one because it seemed to me that I’d done enough — and other people had done enough — at that time, 1984 when I started writing, to try and start to pull it all together. My head was clear enough to say something about how kids learn, what it means to understand and what implications these have for teaching.

Richard White, Australia