ABSTRACT
Recent and ongoing criticism of educational research has led to a cry for more evidence based practice (EBP) built on scientifically based research (SBR) that uses randomised controlled trials (RCTs). This continuing criticism has been characterised by perceptions that there are serious epistemological, ontological and methodological problems which must be addressed. Whitty (2006: 161), for example, points out that there has been a whole series of reviews and criticisms indicating that educational research lacks rigour, fails to produce cumulative findings, is theoretically incoherent, ideologically biased and irrelevant to schools, lacks the involvement of teachers, and is poorly communicated and expensive. Similarly, educational research into the use of IT in education has been criticised as lacking a theoretical perspective and a sense of history, for being focused on the enabling of technology at the expense of its impact on human endeavour, and for being methodologically problematic (Underwood 2004).
