Doing Educational Research: Overcoming Challenges in Practice

Every educational research project has challenges and obstacles that need to be managed and overcome. This book uses real case studies employing a wide range of research methodologies and drawn from educational contexts across Europe to explore these challenges offering flexible and universal guidance that you can apply to your own research.

Published in partnership with EERA, this book is:

·    Realistic and informed: It explores a range of perspectives on educational research, from planning to data collection to international collaboration

·    Challenging: It integrates a holistic and critical view on the process of educational research

·    Culturally aware: It covers a variety of research projects from different countries and encourages you to challenge dominant perspectives in education

This is the first major English language textbook for postgraduate and postdoctoral education researchers that represents and explores the range of research traditions that exist throughout Europe and what they mean in practice.

Marit Honerød Hoveid is professor of pedagogy at department of education and lifelong learning at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her first degree Cand.Polit in Social Pedagogy is from the University of Oslo in 1989, and her PhD from NTNU in 2009. She has worked in teacher education for over 16 years but is now working with a disciplinary approach to pedagogy/education at NTNU. Her research is centered around foundational questions related to education, teaching and learning, and to methodology of research. Hoveid has a longstanding relationship with EERA, her term as secretary general ended in 2016. She is now a senior fellow of the Emerging Researchers group.

Lucian Ciolan, PhD is professor of Educational Research & Policy at University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, where he is also serving as dean. His main academic fields of interest include (but are not limited to): influencing decision-making through public / educational policy, cognitive neurosciences applied in behavioral change, learning research and teacher education. 

Starting with 2014, Lucian became member of the EERA Council, representing Romania and now he is president of ARCE – Romanian Educational Research Association.

Alongside his academic activity, Lucian was extensively involved in consultancy and capacity building programs in Europe and beyond, mainly focused on public policy and educational reforms. In this capacity, he is member of a professional network of trainers and consultants on policy change called International Centre for Policy Advocacy.

Angelika Paseka is Professor for Educational Science with a bias on school education and professionalism at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She holds a doctorate in Sociology and has a post-doctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) in Educational Science. She has been working in teacher education since 1992 at several institutions in Austria (College of Teacher Education/Vienna, University of Vienna and Linz) before changing to the University of Hamburg in 2010. Her current research interests focus teacher professionalism, uncertainty and family-school-partnership and she is expert in qualitative methods in educational research. She was for eight years council member of the Austrian Society for Research and Development in Education and in this time representing Austria in the EERA-council. She is co-founder and co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung as well as author and co-author of several publications.

Sofia Marques da Silva is Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal, in the field of Research Methodologies and Sociology of Education and member the Educational Research and Intervention Centre and INESC-TEC.  She holds a PhD in Educational Sciences since 2008 and has been doing research in the field of inclusion, diversity and youth and published at national and international level. She is the coordinator of the national project GROW.UP – Grow up in border regions in Portugal: young people, educational pathways and agendas” (FEDER/FCT) and the co-coordinator of Erasmus + Project #IBelong - Towards a Sense of Belonging in an Inclusive Learning Environment. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal Ethnography & Education (and was co-editor of international publications in education. She is convenor of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and board member of the Portuguese Society of Education Sciences, representing it in the EERA council. She is an expert of the European network NESET II (Social Dimension of Education and Training), the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency and of the Programme Committee for the specific programme implementing Horizon 2020. She is deputy coordinator of the initiative Portugal INCoDe.2030, coordinating activities on digital inclusion and gender gap in digital technologies.