ABSTRACT
Vociferous criticism of education research as “shoddy,”“not scientific,” and “low quality” has prompted a debate.1 Some have rushed to repair the field of education research2 and others have rushed to defend it. For both sides, the primary focus has been whether critics are right when they charge that education research is not of sufficiently high quality. Lost in this dispute is the opportunity to move the field of education research forward by building on the strengths of the past. We suggest that taking up the question of what the field has done well is a useful complement to the debate over what it has (or has not) done poorly.
