The Multifaceted Purposes of Educational Research

Every improvement in how we teach, assess, or design curricula can be traced back to one source: research. Educational research is not just an academic exercise confined to journals and universities – it is the engine that drives how classrooms function, how policies are made, and how teachers grow. But why exactly is research conducted in education? The answer is more layered than most people realize. Educational research serves several distinct purposes, each contributing to the larger goal of making education more effective, equitable, and evidence-based.

What educational research is really for 🔗

According to the National Academies of Sciences, education research serves two core functions: adding to fundamental understanding of education-related phenomena, and informing practical decision-making. Both purposes are equally important. One builds the knowledge foundation; the other puts that knowledge to work. Broadly, the purposes of educational research can be grouped into four categories: generating new knowledge, solving practical problems, taking context-specific action, and training future researchers. Each of these deserves a closer look.

Generating new knowledge 🔗

The most foundational purpose of educational research is the creation of new knowledge – understanding how learning happens, what influences student outcomes, and what theories best explain human development in educational settings. This search for truth goes beyond solving immediate problems; it seeks to expand our understanding of human cognition, development, and the social dynamics of learning.

Consider two landmark examples. Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and Lev Vygotsky’s social development theory both emerged from systematic observation, experimentation, and refinement – not from guesswork. These theories did not just add to academic literature; they fundamentally reshaped how teachers approach instruction at different grade levels.

Basic research: knowledge for its own sake 🔗

This type of knowledge-generating inquiry is often called basic research (also known as fundamental or pure research). Basic research is driven by curiosity and the pursuit of understanding, without necessarily targeting an immediate practical outcome. In education, it might explore how memory consolidation works during sleep, or how early childhood experiences shape long-term learning dispositions.

Basic research is the theoretical backbone of the field. In education, basic research is used to develop new pedagogic theories that explain different behaviors by teachers and students within the learning environment. Without it, applied and action-oriented research would have no conceptual foundation to build on.

Solving practical problems through applied research 🔗

While basic research asks “how does this work?”, applied research asks “how do we fix this?” Applied research in education is directly focused on solving specific, real-world challenges – falling literacy rates, ineffective teaching methods, high dropout rates, or poor student engagement in specific demographics.

Applied research is oriented towards identifying practical solutions to specific problems. It builds on the foundational knowledge generated by basic research and uses it to develop interventions that can be directly implemented. For example, a basic research study revealing how children develop number sense can inform an applied study that designs and tests a new mathematics curriculum for primary school learners.

The two types are not in competition. Applied research can also highlight gaps in our understanding, pointing out areas where basic research is needed – making the relationship between the two genuinely reciprocal. A distinction has often been made between basic research to discover new knowledge and applied research to solve practical problems, but this simplistic split doesn’t capture how research actually works. Most educational researchers pursue a range of goals simultaneously – descriptive, predictive, developmental, and action-oriented.

What applied research looks like in practice 🔗

Applied educational research addresses questions like: Why are students in a particular district underperforming in science? What teaching strategies reduce absenteeism? How effective is a newly introduced bilingual education program? Educational research is a type of systematic investigation that applies empirical methods to solving challenges in education, adopting rigorous scientific processes to gather and analyze data. The findings are then used to directly improve practices, reform curricula, or guide institutional policy.

Action research: taking targeted action in specific contexts 🔗

Applied research is typically conducted by researchers external to the classroom. Action research, however, brings the research process directly into the hands of practitioners – most often, teachers themselves. It is context-specific, participatory, and designed for immediate improvement.

Action research is a process for improving educational practice. Its methods involve action, evaluation, and reflection. It is a process to gather evidence to implement change in practices. The key distinction is that action research doesn’t wait for external validation before implementing change. It is iterative: a teacher identifies a problem, plans an intervention, implements it, observes the outcomes, reflects, and revises – then repeats.

A straightforward example: a secondary school teacher notices that her students consistently struggle with essay structuring. She redesigns her feedback approach, introduces peer-editing sessions, and collects data on student performance over a term. She reflects on the results, adjusts her method, and trials a new iteration. That is action research – embedded in everyday teaching, driven by a real classroom problem.

Why action research matters for teachers 🔗

Through action research, educators become active participants in their career-long professional development as they gather data to address emergent classroom issues. Research published in Frontiers in Education found that teachers who engaged with action research reported improvements in their pedagogical content knowledge, greater capacity to reflect on data, and stronger opportunities for professional collaboration.

Action research is experiential and cyclical – it allows educators to explore a problem of practice through the literature, understand people’s lived experiences through data collection, and then collectively co-create solutions. Unlike traditional professional development that delivers generic training, action research is personalized to each teacher’s specific classroom context.

Importantly, the credibility of action research knowledge is measured by whether the actions arising from it solve problems and increase participants’ control over their own situation. This makes it a uniquely practical and empowering form of inquiry.

Training future researchers 🔗

A purpose of educational research that often goes unacknowledged is its role in developing the next generation of researchers. Research is not just a product – it is also a process that builds critical skills. When student teachers, graduate students, and early-career educators engage with research methodology, they develop the analytical thinking, systematic inquiry habits, and evidence-based decision-making abilities that make them better educators and scholars.

Studies show that trainees who design research projects and collect data report improvements in their teaching self-efficacy and capacity to make instructional decisions. The process of doing research – even at a small scale – builds confidence and professional identity. In fact, learning action research concepts has been found to result in the development of researcher and teacher identity in pre-service educators.

Recognizing the pillars of research purpose helps educators appreciate the value of their own engagement with research – whether reading peer-reviewed journals, participating in professional development, or conducting classroom inquiry. Training in research methods is not just preparation for an academic career; it is preparation for reflective, evidence-informed teaching at every level.

Research training and educational policy 🔗

Educational research should have three objectives: to explore issues and find answers to questions for academics, to inform policy for policy makers, and to improve practice for practitioners. Training researchers who understand all three of these orientations creates a professional class capable of bridging classroom realities with institutional and governmental decision-making. When teachers become consumers and producers of research, they are better positioned to advocate for evidence-based policy changes that reflect what actually happens in schools.

How these purposes connect 🔗

The four purposes of educational research – knowledge generation, problem-solving, context-specific action, and researcher training – are not isolated categories. They form an interconnected system. Basic research generates theories. Applied research tests those theories against real educational problems. Action research adapts findings to the immediate classroom context. And throughout all of it, the process trains educators to think more rigorously and act more deliberately.

Education research with the direct aim of aiding educational practice, decision making, and policy must meet scientific principles for rigor, but it also has an action orientation. This dual nature – scientific and practical – is what makes educational research uniquely valuable. Educational stakeholders rely on research to make informed decisions that ultimately affect the quality of schooling for their students. Whether those stakeholders are teachers designing a lesson, principals evaluating a program, or ministers drafting a national curriculum framework, research provides the evidence they need to act wisely.

What do you think? If a teacher in your school identified a recurring problem in student learning, which of these research purposes – applied research or action research – would be more practical for them to pursue, and why? And to what extent do you think training teachers to engage with research (rather than just consume it) would change the quality of education in your context?

References

1. https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/10236/chapter/6
2. https://distancelearning.institute/research/three-pillars-research-purpose-education/
3. https://atlasti.com/research-hub/basic-vs-applied-research
4. https://www.formpl.us/blog/basic-applied-research
5. https://innerview.co/blog/understanding-basic-vs-applied-research-key-differences-and-examples
6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7754301/
7. https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/gradactionresearch/chapter/chapt1/
8. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.754097/full
9. https://graduate.northeastern.edu/knowledge-hub/what-is-action-research-in-education/
10. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573746.pdf