`This book, edited by Jean Rudduck and Donald McIntyre, provides an insightful analysis of the key issues, involved in attempting to take stock of what should be the main purposes of educational research and how well the research that has been conducted has met these purposes..Overall, I found this book immensely interesting. It is published by Paul Chapman as one of the BERA Dialogues Series. This series is intended to provide a forum for a scholarly analysis of a theme that will be of interest to the international research community. This book fulfils this aim admirably and I can recommend it to anyone with an interest in educational research' - British Journal of Educational Psychology

`of use and interest to those presently engaged in educational research and evaluating educational policy. It certainly provides food for thought for all those in educational research community' - Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning

During the last few years there have been increasingly vigorous debates about the adequacy of educational research in the UK. Is it worth the money spent on it? Is it influenced enough by the user communities who ought to benefit most from it? Does it focus on the right kinds of questions? How does it compare with research in other possibly comparable fields, like medicine and engineering? Does it draw adequately on new developments in related social sciences? Is it effectively organized? Are there too many inadequately qualified people doing educational research? These are some of the questions that have been hotly debated, mainly within the educational research community itself.

This book brings together many of the major figures in British educational research. Four central chapters, based on previously unpublished recent reviews of the current state of educational research and of the future directions it should take, are the focus of critical commentaries from many different perspectives. In the opening chapter the two editors, both recent presidents of the British Educational Research Association, explain the context of the arguments, and in the final chapter synthesize the issues involved. Major changes in the conduct and organization of British educational research must be anticipated in the next few years. This book sets the scene for those changes