Experimental empirical research in pedagogy. Theoretical reflections and methodological order

Abstract

In this short essay we would like to trace the main phases through which an educational research is developed in order to reflect on some important questions for the researcher during a survey. In the last decades the national and international debate on this topic has been very heated and complex; this work doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive but it aims at delineating the most significant moment characterising a survey path and at underlining the value of researching in education as praxis – of though and action – demanding to be theoretically founded, on one side, and methodologically rigorous, on the other side. In this essay the quantitative approach will be privileged to highlight its peculiarities and importance in educational research; nevertheless this approach will be critically analysed and discussed in the light of the most recent reflections on the paradigms for social sciences research and the possibilities and limits of theoretical and methodological integration between quantitative and qualitative approaches.