Going Forward: Research Issues and the Future

Abstract

This chapter analyses some of the key themes and issues that emerge from the review of research and development presented in the previous chapters. It goes on to examine issues relating to research methodologies, exploring the question of how educational informatics might effectively be progressed. A parallel is drawn between broad dimensions of difference relating to perspectives and approaches observed in this review, and dimensions of difference observed in relation to cognitive styles. These differences have implications for the nature and level of what is considered acceptable evidence on which to progress. They may also underlie conflicts sometimes experienced between proponents of different approaches to research constituting, in their extreme form, the phenomenon of paradigm.wars. The model of learning developed throughout the previous chapters is further extended to include key aspects of these differences, and to take into account the need for dialectic exploration of the nature and causes of disagreements and differences.