Understanding Research on Teaching the English Language Arts: An Introduction for Teachers

In everyday life, we often do research to find practical solutions for immediate problems; we look for something that “works,” even if we don’t really know why it works. The immediate purpose of academic research in education, however, is to seek empirical evidence for explanatory generalizations, or theories, about the relationships among teaching practices, learning processes, and educational outcomes. The larger purpose of academic research is the development of theoretical knowledge.