Particularities of Educational Research.

Faced with research in the natural sciences, research in the field of education (as in all social sciences), has several peculiarities that relate precisely to the specificity of the phenomena studied. Following the development carried out by J. Arnal, Del Rincón and Latorre on this subject, we can establish the following characteristics of Educational Research.

Ø Educational phenomena, due to their complexity, present a greater epistemological difficulty, since they interact in a variety of variables that do not allow an accurate and accurate study such as that performed in the natural sciences. Important issues of educational facts (such as values, meanings, intentions and beliefs) are not directly observable or susceptible to experimentation. In the educational field, the behavior must be contextualized (Guba, 1982), this makes its generalization difficult, because it must be detached from the context.

Ø The diversity of existing paradigms, shaped by assumptions, theoretical perspectives and methodologies difficult to harmonize and articulate (Unlike natural sciences that are guided by integrated paradigms.)
Ø The variety of methodologies that are used, since the characteristics of educational events generate the instrumentation of multiple methods and research models. (Question related to the diversity of paradigms.)
Ø The multidisciplinary nature of educational phenomena means that their study requires the coordinated contributions of different disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, pedagogy, etc.

Ø The variation of educational phenomena in time and space does not facilitate the process of generalization and the establishment of regularities. This makes the scope of one of the objectives of science more complicated.

Ø The researcher (as in all social sciences) is part of the object of study that investigates. This means that they can not remain neutral and alien to the educational problem they are investigating, which does not mean that they should abandon the need to be as objective as possible.

It is necessary to clarify that the concept of educational research does not have a clear and defined framework to delimit what is properly considered of the discipline. This requires maintaining an open attitude towards its different modalities and carrying out a clarification effort. (Ministry of Education and Science, 1989, p. 20)