The Drive towards Application of Pragmatic Perspective in Educational Research: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

With increased attention to the importance of educational research theories and practice in recent years, a concern has arisen about the methodological and theoretical conflicts in research. Far seen is a proliferation of other types of research theories (such as positivist, constructivist, and critical theory) and other methodologies (such as mixed methods), all of which involve research disagreements. This situation not only reduces the efficiency of each methodology and theory in the development of knowledge, but also presents a challenge in selecting the most appropriate methodology for a particular research. As such, the need has therefore been to have a research paradigm that can accommodate a variety of research methodologies and use them to achieve a deeper level of understanding about a particular phenomenon. This paper proposes an intermediary perspective (that is, pragmatism) for integrating different research methodologies even when their strengths and emphases differ substantially. The increasing demand for a pragmatic perspective in educational research is based on the idea that: Pragmatism is better equipped than any other approach because of its power of complementarity whereby the weakness of one methodology is complemented by the strengths of the other methodology; pragmatism is a foundation of mixed methods; it can be easily adopted to yield better research outcomes; and it is based on the need to enrich the research data produced. Although a number of challenges to using this perspective remain, the potential insights generated by its strengths in educational research are substantial.

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“…The research was positioned within the pragmatism paradigm which assumes that there are multiple realities, many different ways of interpreting the world and therefore understanding research (Guba & Lincoln, 1994;Hammond, 2013;Kalolo, 2015;Kivunja & Kuyini, 2017;Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007;Shannon-Baker, 2016;Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2015). In order to more effectively examine the issue under investigation, the Concurrent Triangulation Mixed Methods Design was adopted in which both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used for the purpose of breadth, depth of understanding and corroboration (Creswell, 2009;Wiersma & Jurs, 2005).…”

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“…A origem etimológica do termo pragmatismo, que vem do grego prâgma (que significa prática, ação), já nos serve de pista para a forte orientação interventiva dessa abordagem, cujas raízes remetem à filosofia de William James e John Dewey (Creswell, 2014). No campo da investigação, o paradigma pragmático convida o investigador a comprometer-se profundamente com a prática, visto que só se pode chegar à verdade através de uma ação contextualmente situada (Kalolo, 2015;Pereira & Oliveira, 2021).…”

“…Considerando que um paradigma reflete a visão do investigador sobre o mundo (Pereira & Oliveira, 2021), a escolha pela abordagem pragmática pareceu-nos adequada para ancorar a nossa investigação em curso. Isso porque esta perspetiva, pautada na possibilidade de utilização de uma pluralidade de métodos (Pereira & Oliveira, 2021) em prol do desenvolvimento de soluções concretas para necessidades da realidade (Kalolo, 2015), era o que precisamente nos interessava, tendo em vista o objetivo de construir um dispositivo para a aferição das CD de alunos de forma contextualizada. Kalolo (2015) defende os benefícios do pragmatismo para a investigação no campo educacional, nomeadamente a ênfase dada à utilidade e validade do conhecimento produzido mediante a sua contribuição para as necessidades de um contexto específico.…”

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“…Está, por conseguinte, aberto a uma pluralidade de métodos, quer qualitativos, quer quantitativos. Enquanto paradigma de investigação privilegia a resolução de problemas práticos e valoriza as soluções com impacte na prática (KALOLO, 2015). Estas soluções pretendem resultar em benefícios e nesse sentido não são independentes de valores.…”