Intentions

I intend to post most of the text that i produce during the time that i am dedicated to the project of critically examining danish research in the fields of pedagogy and education.

At the moment (21.30 18.10.22) i am engaged with the following two hypotheses:

• H1: Danish qualitative studies in the field of pedagogy and education are often made to test falsifiable hypotheses.
• H2: Danish qualitative studies in the field of pedagogy and education that make general conclusions, mostly conclude with analytical statements of generalization on the basis of their results.

These so far entail reading 124 articles from two popular journals on the subject, that is, due to the implied relevancy of just about all the published articles of those two journals for the past five years.

These are the journals:

• Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Tidsskrift (DUT) - my translation: “Danish University-pedagogical journal”.
• Studier i Læreruddannelse og Profession (SLP) - my translation: “Studies in Teacher-education and Profession”.

When i am done with those hypotheses i have others planned, considering ideas like the following:

There is a general problem with regards to the accumulation of scientific knowledge (in the Popperian sense of a scientific tradition). This follows also from a lack of tendency towards criticism of theories. One seldom sees in a danish educational journal, the criticism of a theory of learning or a didactical framework. 

There is a tendency to make statistical claims with reference to studies which cannot support such claims (link to examples). An interesting although excruciating experiment could be made here where one simply collects all the claims in a handful of articles and tries imaging a reality in which all these claims are true. 

There is also a tendency toward using vague language. It seems to me that most of the unwarranted generalizations made in the articles i've read are plagued by extremely vague language. Many qualitative studies have concluding statements that are so vague that one would be hard pressed to explain why there needed to be a study made in the first place. For example: 

"Udvikling  af  gode,  tillidsfulde  relationer  er  vigtig  for at kunne åbne sig og refl ektere sammen med andre."

My translation: "The development of good, trustful relations is important for being able to open up and make reflections together with others." (Frederiksen, L. L., & Halse, E. (2022))

I doubt that anyone would disagree with such a statement. It seems completely, intuitively true. It is also a statement that comprises a lot of implied statements that are simply not testable. What standards would we use to determine the trustfulness of a relation, and how trustful and good would we require it to be in order to properly facilitate reflection? I cannot think of a study-design that would properly support the statement, nor do i think that it is important for such a statement to be supported. It makes sense enough that it can be used in everyday life.