The philosophical foundations of prescriptive statements and statistical inference.
From the perspectives of the philosophy of science and statistical inference, we discuss the challenges of making prescriptive statements in quantitative research articles. We first consider the prescriptive nature of educational research and argue that prescriptive statements are a necessity in educational research. The logic of deduction, abduction, and induction in philosophy of science are briefly reviewed, and the logic of prescriptive statement is specifically considered. The inductive nature of statistical inference is examined for both classical frequentist statistics and Bayesian statistics. To conclude our discussion, we recommend conducting replications and building "research programs" in educational research. We also make recommendations on what to write in the discussion section and what evidence is required to make an appropriate prescriptive statement.
Duke Scholars
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Related Subject Headings
- Education
- 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
- 3904 Specialist studies in education
- 1701 Psychology
- 1303 Specialist Studies in Education
Citation
Published In
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Education
- 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
- 3904 Specialist studies in education
- 1701 Psychology
- 1303 Specialist Studies in Education