What Is Educology?
The term educology names the fund of knowledge about the field of phenomena denoted by the term education. Education is the field of phenomena in which someone teaches and someone studies intentionally under guidance some content to learn intentionally under guidance some prescribed range of knowing. Educology is the set of true statements about education, including statements about the relations among the elements, activities, processes and products of education. The distinction between educology and education is like that of sociology and society. It is not merely terminological. It is a logical and ontological distinction that has far-reaching consequences for how we conduct inquiry, how we organize knowledge, and how we communicate about educational phenomena.
The conflation of education (the field of phenomena) with educology (the fund of knowledge about the field) is one of the most persistent sources of confusion in discourse about education. When researchers speak of "the literature on education," they are speaking of educology – the total collection of statements made about the field of phenomena that constitutes education. When policymakers invoke "research on education" to justify a reform, they often fail to distinguish among research that produces knowledge about extant states of affairs in education (scientific educology), knowledge about effective practices and relations for achieving desired states of affairs in education (praxiological educology) and knowledge about worthwhile states of affairs in education (philosophical educology). They mistakenly elevate scientific educology to praxiological educology and/or philosophical educology without the intermediate normative educological arguments that would justify the move.
The Logical Structure of Educology
Christensen identifies three fundamental disciplines used in the conduct of educological inquiry (research), each governed by its own logic.
Analytic educological inquiry uses the principle of necessity reasoning (deduction) to verify statements that are necessarily true about education. Techniques of analytic educological inquiry include conceptual analysis (definition, explication, term substitution, etc.) and propositional analysis to determine the implicative meaning of concepts and propositions about education. Successful analytic educological inquiry produces well-defined terms (descriptive educological theory) that can be used to discern, describe and characterize aspects of the field of phenomena that is education. It also produces explanatory educological theory (by retroductive reasoning) about mutual effects of elements in education, and it produces (by deduction) empirical hypotheses (testable by observation) about mutual effects of elements in education.
Normative educological inquiry uses the principle of normative reasoning to produce evaluations of states of affairs in education, prescriptions for ethical actions to be taken in education and justifications for those evaluations and prescriptions. Normative educological inquiry produces philosophical educology, and it addresses questions such as what outcomes are worth pursuing with education, what obligations teachers and institutions have, and what kinds of education are consistent with fundamental human values.
Empirical educological inquiry uses the principle of observation to verify empirical statements about education. Empirical educological inquiry produces scientific educology (knowledge about extant states of affairs in education) and praxiological educology (knowledge about effective practices and relationships in education). Techniques used in empirical educological inquiry to adduce observable evidence include experimental observations and non-experimental observations (structured observations, surveys, case studies, ethnographies, etc.). Empirical educological inquiry uses descriptive educological theory (well-defined terms) to discern and describe aspects of the field of phenomena that is education, and it is typically oriented by normative questions posed by normative educological inquiry.
The Importance of Maintaining Distinctions
The practical importance of maintaining these distinctions is considerable. A failure to distinguish analytic from empirical claims leads to pseudo-empirical debates about what are actually conceptual questions — debates that cannot be resolved by collecting more data because they turn on the meaning of terms rather than the state of the world. A failure to distinguish empirical from normative claims leads to the naturalistic fallacy: the inference from "is" to "ought" without the normative argument that would license the inference.
Educology is a fund of knowledge. It is produced by educological inquiry, which is asking questions about education, posing answers, and adducing evidence to verify the answers as being true or false. The discipline (rule of verification) used in educological inquiry is determined by the kind of question that is posed – analytic, empirical or normative.
Meta-Educology
Above the level of educology proper, Christensen distinguishes a further level of discourse: meta-educology, which is knowledge about educology itself. Meta-educology asks: what kind of statement is this? Is it analytic, normative, or empirical? Is it well-formed? Does it satisfy the conditions required for its type? Meta-educological analysis is a form of logical audit — it checks whether educological claims are being made and evaluated by the standards appropriate to their kind.
This distinction of three levels of discourse – Level 0 (educational phenomena), Level 1 (educology), Level 2 (meta-educology) – is one of Christensen's most significant contributions to educological inquiry. It provides a framework for discerning and avoiding the category mistakes that pervade educological discourse and for organizing educology into a coherent integrated fund of knowledge about education.