ABSTRACT
In some places there is impatience with educational research. In others there is almost a mystique about it. This chapter looks at this concept and explores what the place of research is in relation to other kinds of writing about education. It describes between three kinds of writing about education: research proper, writing that illuminates through personal experience, and policy papers. Some of the writing about education that is most worth reading is the expression of personal or imaginative experience. The historical dimension is also indispensable in the study of education, and the word research is more appropriate. If one confines the term educational research to the area where the scientific analogy is broadly acceptable, the whole effort to understand through analytical reflection on the experience. The historical dimension is also indispensable in the study of education, and here the word research is more appropriate.
