Research and Common Sense For Educational Psychologists

Research and common sense are usually complementary skills of an Educational Psychologist. For so many generations, men strived to acquire competencies and relevant information without using the scientific skills or education and without passing through the scientific procedures. This process of gaining knowledge by means of natural methods based on gift came to be known as common sense. Today however, the most common and reliable method of acquiring this kind of knowledge is through scientific research. These two methods have got some differences and similarities in terms of procedures of collecting information and analysing it in order to get to the new knowledge of the situation in the environment.

Definition of Common sense

“Common sense” has evolved in time in terms of its philosophical meanings and terminology. It was first defined by a Greek philosopher, Aristotle as a capability of the animal soul (Greek psukhē) which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive characteristics such as movement and size, which are common to all things, and which help people and other animals to distinguish and identify things. It is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thinking, but works with both.

Common Sense

Research has shown that common sense has been for a long time assigned to the dustbin of history by philosophers, scientists, behaviourists, and critical theorists; however it appears common sense is a notion that refuses to die and be buried (Pinker, 1997).

While it is sometime necessary to correct the mistakes of common sense, it remains our primary portal to the world of experience and link to other minds, and as such plays a crucial role in cognition and decision-making (Simon, 1987; Crossan et al, 1999; Patton, 2003). Common sense thinking is generally directed towards immediate pragmatic goals. Its aim is generally to understand here and now in order to act efficaciously in the given context.  But what do we mean by common sense?

Bridgeman(2012), defines common  sense as “sound and prudent  judgment based on a simple  perception of the situation  or facts,” but common sense  is often based on relatively  narrow and simplistic  assumptions about the  world, as well as prejudice,  which can lead to  erroneous conclusions. Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by (“common to”) nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate. “Good sense” is sometimes seen as equivalent to “common sense”, and sometimes not.

Redekop (2009) defines the common sense as the untutored cognitions, intuitions, or mental instincts that are elicited in the course of everyday experience, and help to structure our experience. The common sense comes

  “as the result of innate, hardwired mental mechanisms that produce the ―self-evident truths that all healthy human beings perceive just by being in the world – things like the existence of external objects that persist even when we are not observing them, the existence of causal relations between observed events, the existence of human responsibility and intention, basic moral intuitions, an ―instinct for language and basic numerical properties, certain logical inferences, and much more” (p. 3).

However, the definition which seems to be more practical as far as educational psychology and the classroom situation are concerned is given by the Oxford dictionary which defines the common sense as “the ability to think about things in a practical way and make sensible decisions” (Hornby, 2010: 243). This implies that the common sense can help people or professionals such as teachers to take the correct decision in their daily activities.

Strength of common sense is in that, it is involved in any decision making and there is no single appropriate decision which does not require the use of common sense (Smith, 2007). The common sense develops at the early age of life in humans and constitutes the foundation of most decisions we make.

Besides this people tend to be very sure and confident of what they do if they are result of their common sense as Redekop (2009) emphasises to say: “… as Reid was at pains to show, empirical analysis of our mental operations reveals that we do in fact rely on a variety of ―principles of common sense that cannot be proven but without which we would not be able to make sense of anything at all” (p7).

Limitations of Common Sense

However, the common sense has its limits in that it uses the intuition and people perceive it as true facts or truth itself while further research on its facts sometimes reveals the opposite to it. This is in line with Bridgeman (2012) statement saying that“… but much of what goes as common sense is actually based on common misunderstandings, urban legends, or outright nonsense”(p.1).

Moreover, According to Bridgeman (2012) even if common sense can be regarded as “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts,” it is often based on relatively narrow and simplistic assumptions about the world, as well as prejudice, which can lead to erroneous conclusions. Apart from this, like Redekop (2009) points it out, going back to the ideas of Locke and others thinkers concerning the commons sense in the sceptical tradition they were worried about the way in which recourse to these innate ideas could easily lead to dogmatism and error.

This means that common sense alone cannot be relied upon in all the decisions made about different situations or else we may be exposed to numerous unnecessary mistakes. For this reason it becomes inevitable to explore other tools that can be used as a basis of the decision to be taken in a given profession.

Research

Research, according to Kombo and Tromp (2006) is all about looking for, examining, exploring and exploring a situation. The research in this regard must be systematic, objective, based on the empirical evidence and carefully designed.

Kasonde (2013) defines research as a process of seeking information with aim of finding solution to a certain problem. This involves a careful interpretation based on scientific theory, the views of the research participants or personal experience of daily life.

This means that research can be regarded as a systematic way of finding the reality of the situation in order to find a solution to a problem. Research is very important in every day’s teaching activities and can be done in different ways. The information needed by a researcher, in educational psychology domain, may concern the schools, teachers or students or their interaction with the school environment and various approaches, which, when used with precaution, yield the needed results for the smooth going of the teacher’s or educational researcher’s activities. The approaches can include experiments, correlation studies and descriptive researches (Slavin, 2006).

However in classroom situation, being a complex environment with different individuals from different backgrounds and where some decisions are immediately required, sometimes the teacher does not have enough time for a systematic research. They need to find an alternative way or approach to get the information and interpret it in order to come up with a tangible solution as confirmed in the statement below.

       “Teachers who are intentional, critical thinkers are likely to enter their classrooms equipped with knowledge about research in educational psychology. Every year, educational psychologists discover or refine principles of teaching and learning that are useful for practicing teachers. Some of these principles are just common sense backed up with evidence, but others are more surprising. One problem educational psychologist’s face is that almost everyone thinks he or she is an expert on the subject of educational psychology. Most adults have spent many years in schools watching what teachers do. Add to that a certain amount of knowledge of human nature, and voila!Everyone is an amateur educational psychologist” (Slavin, 2006: 9).

 It is in this regard that the common sense comes to play a very important role in the classroom-based decision making.

The relationship between research and common sense

The goals of research and common sense are different. Common sense is mainly concerned with immediate action in context; research is mainly concerned with achieving some understanding which – to some extent – is independent of persons and context, and in this interest may eschew the need for guiding immediate action.

Research relies more on extensive collaborative and competitive work towards unarguable agreement. Common sense is certainly collaborative (even collusive), but when differences arise, agreements to differ are common. In the common sense world, persons think as they do; in the scientific research world for example, knowledge is what it currently is.

If we would however only depend on our common sense, such as experience or general knowledge, rather than on scientific research and statistics in psychology, the likelihood of falsifying our results presumably influencing our hypothesis is to a large extent. As no data or facts are available the results of the hypothesis are based merely on assumptions rather than on analysed research studies, therefore being biased as it is entirely opinion based. Nevertheless one might argue that having an opinion based result is the goal of research due to the fact that at the end of the research one supports his or her thesis with an opinion.

The Difference Between Research and Common Sense

The difference between an opinion on results taking from research or from common sense would be that research allows an objective perspective whereas common sense is influenced by different factors such as personality, mood, external influences, etc. hence being subjective. It is not said that scientific research is flawless as experiments or tests could also be flawed through external or internal influences such as participants taking part, wrong application of scientific instruments, wrong evaluation of data, etc.

But in comparison to common sense, the research based opinion does not limit our knowledge but rather widens it as many things are still unclear. Our common sense is limited to the outskirts of our knowledge as we retrieve it from our personal experience rather than newly obtained facts. Overall scientific research and statistics is essential in developing a balanced overview and opinion of the results in order to prove a hypothesis. It is less subjective and is more reliable than common sense as the influences in experiments can be controlled in a controlled environment whereas external influences, false judgement, etc. is able to entirely falsify common sense (Lefeza, 2011).

The common sense and research can be used together to produce better and more reliable result that either of them alone. Slavin ( 2006) points out that As the case of Mr. Harris illustrates, no theory, no research, no book can tell teachers what to do in a given situation.

Making the right decisions depends on the context within which the problem arises, the objectives the teacher has in mind, and many other factors, all of which must be assessed in the light of educated common sense. For example, research in mathematics instruction usually finds that a rapid pace of instruction increases achievement. Yet a teacher may quite legitimately slow down and spend a lot of time on a concept that is particularly critical or may let students tale time to discover a mathematical principle on their own.

It is usually much more efficient (that is, it takes less time) to teach students skills or information directly than it is to let them make discoveries for themselves; but if the teacher wants students to gain a deeper understanding of a topic or to know how to find information or figure things out for themselves, then the research findings about pace can be temporarily shelved. “The point is that while research in educational psychology can sometimes be translated directly to the classroom, it is best to apply the principles with a hefty dose of common sense and a clear view of what is being taught to whom and for what purpose” (p. 44).

In the interests of knowledge, scientific research for example tries to go behind things as they seem. To detect, control and understand the behaviour of entities, it creates artificial events (experiments) so as to isolate the effects of various entities. For this reason, experiments are, from the everyday point of view, thoroughly impractical. They work only in contrived circumstances. Common sense is more concerned with coping with things as they are, in all their awkward combinations.

The worth of research in decision making over the use of common sense

Why do many psychologists prefer research to common sense? In answering the outlined question it is prudent to look at the suggested reasons below.

First, a research which leads to theories generation tends to be more internally consistent than common sense. That is, a theory usually doesn’t contradict itself. Common sense, on the other hand, often contradicts itself (“absence makes the heart grow fonder,” but “out of sight, out of mind”). Researchers find it easier to make clear, consistent predictions from a consistent theory rather than from inconsistent common sense (Bhaskar, 1989 and Collins, 1992)

Second, researches which generate theories tend to be more consistent with existing facts than common sense. Often, theories are constructed by systematically collecting data and carefully analysing the data for patterns. But even when facts do not play a dominant role in giving birth to a theory, facts will usually shape the theory’s development. Generally, if deductions from a theory are incorrect, the theory will be changed or abandoned. Thus, unlike common sense, theories do not ignore facts. Consequently, a hypothesis based on an established theory is a more educated guess and should have a greater chance of being correct than one based on common sense (Bhaskar, 1989 and Collins, 1992)

Third, researches are not restricted to making common sense or intuitively obvious predictions. Conducting research generate theories that can make predictions that are counter-intuitive. For example, social learning theory predicts that rewarding a child for a behaviour could make the child like doing the behaviour less (because the child may decide that he or she does the behaviour because of the reward, rather than because the child likes it). 

Because theories are not limited to making predictions that are consistent with common sense, a theory may suggest controversial, new ways of viewing the world. For instance, Darwin’s theory of evolution had us look at apes as relatives, Einstein’s theory of relativity had us look at matter and energy as being the same thing, Freud’s theory had us look at ourselves as being motivated by forces of which we weren’t aware, and Watson’s theory had us look at ourselves as a set of reflexes.

Fourth, research summarises and organises a great deal of information. Just as the plot of a movie may connect thousands of otherwise unrelated images, research connect individual facts and give them meaning. That is, research tries to explain facts. The ability of theories to connect facts means that for example theory-based research will not produce isolated bits of trivia. Instead, the findings will fit into a framework that connects many other studies. In other words, the facts revealed by theory-based research are not merely of interest for their own sake, but also for how they relate to the theory’s explanation of how the world works.

Fifth, research gives to individual facts a meaningful context, contrary to common sense theories focus research. Because many researchers try to test theories, findings from theory-based research are not only relevant to the theory’s explanation of events, but also to the findings of other researchers. Because progress in scientific research for example comes from researchers building on each other’s work, the importance of a theory’s ability to coordinate individual scientists’ efforts should not be underestimated.

Sixth, research conducting is often broad in scope. Because it can be applied to a wide range of situations, researchers can generate a wide variety of studies from a single theory. For example, social learning theory can be applied to prisons, businesses, advertising, politics, schizophrenics, smokers, librarians, mad dogs, and Englishmen. Similarly, Freud’s theory of the unconscious can be applied to virtually any situation while common sense can likely only to be applied to very few situations.

Common sense is mostly based on opinions, maybe individualistic or naturalistic, lack objectivity and sometimes does not carry notions of being factual. Examples could include:

• People marry because they love each other vs. people marry because it is a social expectation
• People are unemployed because they are lazy and don’t want to work vs. the structure of employment has changed
• Humans are poor because they do not budget properly vs. Humans are poor because of low wages and low benefits
• People commit suicides because they are unhappy vs. rates of suicide are socially distributed and can be attributed to social factors such as unemployment, religion, and urbanisation.

Finally, research generate theories which are often more testable than common sense. That is, by talking about variables that can be objectively measured and by making specific predictions; a good theory is easy to test. As exemplified above unlike use of common sense, research is a very useful tool for developing ideas that are used in decision making and tying those ideas to existing knowledge. Without research based on theory, psychology would chaotically move in every direction with little purpose, like a chicken with its head cut off. Indeed, theory-based research is responsible for much of psychology’s progress which guides our sound decision in the education system.

CONCLUSION

Common sense and research, both involve an attempt to understand various aspects of educational been before a teacher makes decisions. However before a decision is made, research, but arguably not common sense, involves an explicit, systematic approach to finding things out, often through a process of testing out preconceptions. In another angle it could be argued that both research and common sense rely on fundamentally concrete modes of thought.

Reasoning is done with imagined entities and events, but imagined entity of researched works turned to be different from those of common sense. Both research and common sense share, or at least so suppose, the same common ontology of space, time, object, and action (that is, the same basic dimensions of thought). But they use them differently, and attribute entities and events different to them.

REFERENCES

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Redekop, B. W. (2009),Common Sense in Philosophical and Scientific Perspective. Management Decision, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 399-412. Virginia: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

http://www.ask.com/question/why-is-research-better-than-common-sense date retrieved 15/05/14

http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/L’Explication_scientifique/La_Science_et_le_sens_commun/retrieveon 12/04/2014