Overview
Education, Universities and Educology (2015) uses educological descriptive theory (well-defined terms) to dispel ambiguity and bring clarity to discourse about education that is used to organize departments, colleges and/or schools of education in universities. Christensen argues that the ambiguous use of the term education to denote a field of phenomena (one in which there is teaching and intentional guided studying) and the fund of knowledge about that field (educology) creates confusion. It is the same confusion that would be created if the term sociology had never been coined and the term society was used to denote communities of people and also to denote the fund of knowledge about those communities. Education is the object of knowledge for educology, just as society is the object of knowledge for sociology.
Implications for Departments, Courses and Programs
Once the distinction is established between education as a field of phenomena and educology as the fund of knowledge about that field, there are implications for the appropriate
(1) renaming of departments, colleges and schools of education in universities as departments, colleges and schools of educology,
(2) renaming and revising of descriptions of education courses and programs as educology courses and programs,
(3) organizing of academic staff as, not a faculty of education, but a faculty of educology,
(4) implementing of instructional programs to study intentionally under guidance educology,
(5) reconceiving of the conduct of educational research as educological research,
(6) allocating of resources and funding for the teaching of educology, the extension of educology through research and the dissemination of educology to interested parties.
Implications for Courses in Methods for Conducting Research about Education
One of the major implications for the curriculum offered in departments, schools and colleges of educology is to reconceive courses in educational research as courses in educological research. Those courses should provide instruction in
(1) the distinctions among meta-educology, educology and education,
(2) the methods appropriate for conducting analytic, empirical and normative research,
(3) the methods appropriate for developing educological descriptive, explanatory and normative theory,
(4) the methods appropriate for producing philosophical, historical, jurisprudential, scientific and praxiological educology.