ABSTRACT
‘These research findings are just obvious,’ glares the critic. On the receiving end of such criticism, the seminar presenter feels a mixture of anguish and momentary worthlessness. Can it be the case that educational researchers, especially those whose base draws upon the discipline of scientific psychology, spend years striving to advance propositions already known to all thinking people? Were such notions known already to the intelligent person in the street even at the time our great-grandparents were alive? If what we do is validate truisms, then are we not wasting our energies? Houston (1983: 208) stated this cogently: ‘A great many of psychology’s principles are self-evident. One gets the uneasy feeling that we have been dealing with the obvious but did not know it.’
