Who says? : a biographical study of educational psychologists' beliefs about 'reliable evidence'

Abstract

This thesis describes a biographical research study in which eight educational psychologists took part in interviews with the researcher, who is also an educational psychologist, on the subject of 'reliable evidence'. As part of this process participants were asked to discuss the personal and professional influences that have shaped their epistemological positioning and practice as applied psychologists. The research is located within broader themes in the literature that encompass debates about the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the scientific tradition in psychology, evidence based practice, and the turn towards standpoint perspectives in the social sciences. It is argued that a broadly positivist epistemology remains dominant within psychology as a professional discipline and that this creates tensions for many practitioner-psychologists who find its assumptions incompatible with the majority, if not all, of their work. Thematic analysis of the interviews reveals that the participants see only a very blurred boundary between their personal and professional lives and that this influences their positioning on questions of methodology and the establishment of knowledge claims. There is scepticism amongst the participants about the value of concepts such as 'reliable evidence', and concern that 'science', as the British Psychological Society has defined that term, is of relatively limited use to them and their colleagues in educational psychology. Participants feel that the generic practice of educational psychologists - work that is principally with individual children and young people, parents, teachers and other professionals - is not valued as highly within their profession as research and systemsbased work that seeks to bring about change at an organisational level. This is because the generic practice of an educational psychologist requires a highly pragmatic 'real world' approach, whereas research and systems-based work are widely perceived to offer more opportunities to implement a rigorous and scientific methodology capable of generating 'reliable evidence'. The thesis concludes by proposing that a pragmatic epistemology can be applied to the research and generic practice elements of the work of educational psychologists through the adoption of the 'bricoleur' model, which could help address the disjuncture that educational psychologists perceive between those two aspects of their role.

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