Theory Building in Educational Research

Nigel Kettley is an academic holding various degrees in sociology and education; holding a Ph.D. in sociology of education. Academic Director & University Senior Lecturer (Institute of Continuing Education) in Educational research and Social Science, Cambridge. Governing Body Fellow, Wolfson College; an active researcher in many fields like social stratification, educational practice, and theory building. The author's research interest falls in the fields of history of educational attainment; public policy in higher education; gender and social class theory; and mixed-method research and theory building.

Social science covers many fields like psychology, education, politics, geography, art, heritage, and others. Research students benefit from the many methods mentioned herein in conducting research for the fields above. Researchers, in general, may use the advanced knowledge here about the pros and cons of various research methods; areas of defects in the application, and how to avoid these defects. More important here the author defines what unproductive research that is for any individual working in the research field to avoid time and money waste. If you are involved in criticism this book gives you a wide range of knowledge to use in your work whether you are a writer or a critic as the author covers the proper way to criticize any theory in social science. Finally, if you are a Ph.D. student conducting comparative research on the way of theory building in different fields ( refer to the book reviews of theory building in my other articles); or need the knowledge about the proper procedure and theory-building process then this book is a brilliant resource.

The book is written in high-level English. The book theme is centered on the alternative theory-building model STTB synthetic and transformative theory building. This model seeks to delineate a set of criteria to judge the power of explanations and to solve the crisis of theory building in educational research. Nigel describes the 4 F’s of the model (canons); the foundation of knowledge/frameworks for collecting data and analysis/fulfillment and future inquiry. As the author says that this model combines the educational studies logic with Cambridge school principles such as empiricism/ practicality/ anti-categorical / relationality/holism as a route for a strategy in theory building. The writer identifies the three problems an educationalist might encounter when adopting the STTB model. First, the model is de facto about resolving social problems. Explanatory products created from the application of STTB must rely on the ability and account for social behavior as empirically observed not inspiratory selected from data. Second, collective behavior patterns are the base to resolve the divergent results in data sets when developing conceptual and theoretical representations. Third, STTB model critics argue that elements of competing theories or paradigms can not be cross-pollinated or synthesized.

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