To
the Professional, the Researcher, Research Group, Institution,
or Organization:
With
this letter we encourage you or your organization to become
collaborators in an exciting project that we have undertaken,
and which we feel is of interest to the scientific and professional
community both in our country of Spain as well as abroad.
For
some time now, certain of us who are university professors
have been in contact with professionals in the area of Educational
Psychology, and we have noted the need to strengthen ties
between our two sectors, especially in regard to research
tasks.
Research,
in its most traditional sense, has been considered a task
belonging exclusively to the university environment and
to university staff. However, trends of knowledge and of
society itself show us that in this changing reality, applied
professional knowledge is as important as that generated
by the professional academic community. Nonetheless, such
applied professional knowledge has on some occasions not
been given its due consideration, but has been relegated
to a lower status, as "lacking sufficient rigor and
the systematization of scientific knowledge." Meanwhile,
the perspective of the applied professional has essentially
labeled academic knowledge as "theoretical, out of
context with professional practice, and too systematic and
rigid to be adapted to daily problems or offer solutions
in the professional context."
This
situation has produced a certain philosophical and practical
gap between the two types of knowledge in Educational Psychology.
At the conceptual level, the problems, interests, objects
of study and efforts within the academic knowledge sector
seem far from those defined by the sector of professional
knowledge. Likewise, professional knowledge, constructed
"in situ", is often considered more important
and effective for professionals than that generated by the
academic environment. At the empirical level, the decision-making
process used in solving daily problems in educational psychology
-- the explaining, evaluating and intervening in the problem
being addressed -- is in many cases apart from or even contrary
to that postulated from academic knowledge.
These
classic mismatches between the arenas of conceptual knowledge
and professional practice have had additional effects. As
a consequence to facts described above, in the realm of
research we continue to observe a real gap between academic
and professional approaches in educational psychology, a
senseless gap based more on custom than on any epistemological
justification.
Once
again, mistrust appears between the two types of research.
Academic researchers define objects of study and use paradigms
and methods which are unknown or not adequately understood
by practicing professionals. On the other hand, professionals
who carry out research in their applied professional work
are very scarce.
Nonetheless,
theoretical and practical evidence continues to show, rather
consistently, that in professional practice nothing can
take the place of research as an exercise in reflection
to address the descriptive analysis of problems, evaluation
of their characteristics, intervention for their resolution,
and assessment to determine the effectiveness or appropriateness
of the process undertaken. It is inconceivable that, already
in the 21st century, we should continue to work with obsolete
or insufficiently tested theoretical models, to perform
evaluations with instruments pending validation, or intervening
educationally without sufficient evaluation of the real
effects and usefulness of such interventions. Likewise,
for applied academic researchers, the reflection process
contributed by the filter of practice in educational psychology
is extremely valuable, as well as being a field for theoretical
and empirical validation, irreplaceable for academic knowledge
constructed at the very beginning of events.
This
being the state of affairs, a group of both university professionals
and practicing professionals in Educational Psychology have
come together to make at least a small move toward changing
this tendency. For this purpose, we have designed several
initiatives which are already in development. We have created
a website (www.investigacion-psicopedagogica.com) where
the different initiatives are outlined:
1)
a research group formed by researchers and professionals,
called "Psychoeducational and Psychopedagogical Research"
(HUM-746).
2)
an online popular science magazine in order to guarantee
a closer cooperation of both groups in the research task.
3)
the "Andalusian Association of Educational Psychology",
formed also by professionals of both groups, as a forum
for meeting, interchange of information and experience,
debate, and ongoing, joint professional development over
time. Among the initiatives mentioned, at this time we are
asking for collaboration in carrying out the second: The
Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology".
