Educational Psychologist

ISSN: 0046-1520 (Print) 1532-6985 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hedp20

Outgoing Editor's Statement: A Perspective on EP

and Debates in Education

Clark A. Chinn

To cite this article: Clark A. Chinn (2016) Outgoing Editor's Statement: A Perspective
on EP and Debates in Education, Educational Psychologist, 51:1, 3-6, DOI:
10.1080/00461520.2016.1160782

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Published online: 14 Apr 2016.

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 51(1), 36, 2016
Copyright Division 15, American Psychological Association
ISSN: 0046-1520 print / 1532-6985 online
DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2016.1160782

EDITORIAL

Outgoing Editors Statement: A Perspective on EP

and Debates in Education
Clark A. Chinn
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers University

In this first issue of Educational Psychologist (EP) edited
by Kathryn Wentzel, I am very grateful for this opportunity
to share some reflections on my past term as Editor. This is
an occasion to reflect on the journal during my term, to dis-
cuss what I see as some trends in our field, and to give
thanks to the many colleagues who have supported the
journal.
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST DURING THE
PAST 5 YEARS
I begin with a few remarks about EP during the past
5 years. In the proposal I submitted in 2008 to be consid-
ered for Editor of EP, my vision for the journal included
five goals, all which I perceived as extensions of goals that
had already been pursued by my predecessors:
 Focusing on theory needed to explain processes of
learning, teaching, and motivation in formal and
informal educational settings
 Promoting educational psychology as a theoretically
and methodologically diverse discipline
 Addressing methodology for research in complex
learning environments
 Building bridges between educational psychology and
allied disciplines
 Encouraging greater participation by international
scholars
Broadly, I believe that these goals have been achieved
during my term; at the least, I have diligently worked to try
Correspondence should be addressed to Clark A. Chinn, Graduate
School of Education, Rutgers University, 10 Seminary Place, New
Brunswick, NJ 08901. E-mail: clark.chinn@gse.rutgers.edu
to achieve them. The manuscripts published in EP during
these past 5 years represent a broad range of topics, theoret-
ical approaches, and associated methodologies. The pub-
lished articles have continued EPs long history of
advancing theory that explains processes of learning, teach-
ing, and motivation in applied settings. Many authors have
advanced theory that explains processes of learning and
motivation in classroom settings; others have examined
nonclassroom settings such as museums and zoos, college
admissions, and social media (e.g., wikis). The theoretical
and methodological diversity of our field has been evident
in papers that advance long-standing theories in the field,
such as work on achievement goal theory in motivation, as
well as in papers that advance somewhat newer approaches,
such as situative theories and methodologies.
As Editor, I sought to strengthen linkages between EP
and the learning sciences, as well as between EP and other
allied fields. EPs authors have represented diversified areas
of expertise, reflecting the many areas in which educational
psychology interfaces with other fields, and I believe that
EP has profited greatly from the work of these outstanding
scholars. These linkages also have been reflected in EPs
Editorial Board. At the same time, I have striven to uphold
the established arenas of EPs excellence; EP authors dur-
ing the past 5 years have continued EPs outstanding tradi-
tions of advancing theory in areas including motivation,
transfer, learning theory, literacy, and learning in the
disciplines.
EP has become an increasingly international journal,
with a significant increase in international Board members
over the past 15 years. During the same time, EP has seen a
steady, substantial increase in the number of articles auth-
ored and coauthored by scholars outside North America, an
increase that has continued unabated during the past
5 years.
4 CHINN
I believe that these moves have been healthy for EP. EP
remains one of the top journals in education in its impact.
Among all educational journals, EP has been second during
the past 2 years according to the widely used 2-year impact
factor rankings, behind only Review of Educational
Research. The success of the journal has arisen from the
work of numerous scholars within the field and within the
American Psychological Associations Division 15, and I
express my appreciation for their contributions in the final
part of this statement.
REFLECTIONS ON THE FIELD
Next I would like to share some of my reflections on the
directions of our field. What trends in the field have I
noticed as Editor, considering the full range of submissions
to the journal? As one trend, I could point to steadily
greater attention to social dimensions of learning and moti-
vation, ongoing interest in the contextual and situated
aspects of learning and motivation, efforts to better explain
the complex dynamics of classroom learning, interest in the
interfaces between learning and assessment, work advanc-
ing our understanding of discourse in education, and atten-
tion to critical theoretical approaches to educational
psychology. Submissions to the journal have sought to
deepen and improve explanations in all these areas.
But overall, most striking to me is the ongoing diversi-
fication of theories and methodologies, without clear reso-
lution. While work on situative and participationist
theories continues apace, work in more traditional lines of
psychological analysis such as achievement goal theory
and self-regulated learning has also continued to blossom.
While work on social theories (e.g., work on coregulation
and shared regulation of learning) has flourished, deeper
analyses of individual cognition have also been advanced.
While some researchers have advanced and investigated
methods for learning through inquiry and problem solving,
others have advocated methods of direct instruction. Fun-
damental differences among theorists have emerged both
in their commitments to the core constructs of their theo-
ries and in their methodologies. In fields that are already
marked by a proliferation of terms and definitions, our
analyses have been further complicated by even more new
approaches to analyzing motivation, epistemic cognition,
coregulation of learning, and other constructs. Methodo-
logical differences persist, without consensus, on the rela-
tive value of experimentation, randomized clinical trials,
case studies, ethnographies, and other methods in develop-
ing our understanding of learning, teaching, and
motivation.
In a climate of enduring disagreements, one natural
response is to strive for ways to settle the disagreements as
quickly as possibleto resolve them through integrative
analyses or by finding ways to reach swifter consensus on
one approach or another. It can seem appealing to try to set-
tle issues quicklyperhaps through means such as seeking
a consensus of leading experts on how core terms are to be
used. My inclination as Editor (supported by the inclination
of many of our Board members and reviewers) has been to
take the opposite approachand instead to deliberately
encourage diversity in theoretical and epistemic positions.
My understanding of productive social processes of sci-
ence has been influenced by the work of the philosopher of
science Miriam Solomon, particularly in her book Social
Empiricism (Solomon, 2001). Solomon argued through a
series of historical scientific cases that progress in science
has often been disrupted and delayed because of efforts to
resolve disputes too quickly, to reach consensus before the
various empirical and nonempirical grounds for resolving
the dispute are decisive enough to clearly support one side
or another or any particular integrative theory. For example,
when medical researchers neglected early findings that
viruses caused some forms of cancer, this neglect not only
slowed recognition of other cancers caused by viruses but
also led to neglect of research on an important mechanism
by which nonviral cancers developa mechanism readily
illuminated by study of viral cancers. Solomons historical
analyses support the position that progress is often dis-
rupted because ideas that we now realize to have been
highly productive were prematurely rejected.
Therefore, I would argue that what the field needs is not
to decide on one or another of these perspectives quickly or
to settle too easily on an integrated theories but rather to
promote rigorous, ambitious development of different per-
spectives so that their strengths and weaknesses can be
extensively probed and the phenomena that they can best
explain be developed. This approach mandates that propo-
nents of the different perspectives work rigorously to
deepen their theories and extend their empirical reach so as
to make the best possible case for their perspectives. It is
not sufficient for rival theories to make general criticisms
and provide broad-brushstroke manifestos; the field will be
best served if all theorists strive to provide detailed
accounts of an expanding range of phenomena, each
according to their own epistemic approaches.
Different theoretical approaches often take different epi-
stemic stances about proper methods for conducting inquiry
and standards for evaluating theories and other products. In
my view, these differences should not necessarily lead the
field to conclude that rival methods and standards are
incommensurate (Kuhn, 1962) so that each paradigm must
be left to its own. Rather, I would arguefollowing argu-
ments of philosophers such as Goldman (2010) and Laudan
(1990)that it is possible to reason about the relative mer-
its of different methods and standards, and this debate
should be encouraged; further, the history of science shows
that empirical research can sometimes enlighten researchers
about the strengths and weaknesses of methods (e.g., empir-
ical medical research showing the need for double-blind

clinical trials). The pages of EP are a natural home for such
philosophical and empirical discussions about methods and
standards.
None of these arguments are meant to discourage
attempts to develop integrative positions or analyses of
commonalities and differences across perspectives. For
example, there is certainly an important role for theorists to
analyze similarities and differences across terminologies,
and even to propose new common terminologies. But, on
my analysis, the field should not be in a rush to close in on
a single accepted position. Science develops well-grounded
consensus over the longer haul, not by fiat in the short run
(Solomon, 2015).
Some disagreements among theories may prove to be a
matter of different but not incompatible perspectives. In
Scientific Perspectivism, the philosopher Ronald Giere
(2006) argued that different methods of scientific observa-
tion yield results that are inextricably tied to the method of
observation. For example, in neuroscience, CAT scans pro-
vide a perspective on the structure of the brain that is
shaped by the nature of X-rays and their interaction with
various kinds of tissue, the design and operation of the
detectors, and the elaborate computer program that converts
relative linear intensity data into two-dimensional black-
and-white images (p. 56). In contrast, MRI images are pro-
duced using methods that can be understood only in terms
of quantum mechanics, and final images are strongly influ-
enced by decisions involving trade-offs between speed of
measurement versus sensitivity of detecting differences in
tissue composition (p. 56). In sum, scientific observation
does not simply produce images of the brain. One has
images as produced by CAT or MRI or so forth. One cannot
detach the description of the image from the perspective
from which it was produced (p. 56). Giere provided other
illuminating examples of such perspectival differences
from different fields of science.
According to Giere, claims about what is observed
emerge from an interaction of measurement systems and
the thing being measured. Seemingly contradictory
accounts of phenomena may sometimes arise from such
perspectival differences, with each account accurately cap-
turing the phenomena according to its own observation/
measurement system. However, on Gieres analysis it is
also possible for differing accounts to be genuinely incon-
sistent, not just different in this perspectival sense, and in
such cases there is a need to try to resolve the inconsistency.
If two neuroscientists using different methods locate the
exact same form of higher order thinking in opposite parts
of the brain, they have a genuine inconsistency not attribut-
able only to perspectival differences.
Some disagreements in education may be perspectival in
character. Students learning in a classroom may be viewed
through different observational/measurement systems (e.g.,
a situative theory of motivation using ethnographic meth-
ods of observation vs. an achievement-goal theory of
OUTGOING EDITORS STATEMENT 5
motivation employing self-report measures). Each perspec-
tive may accurately render the system as seen through its
theoretical and measurement lens, and on its own levels of
analysis. (It appears to me that Sfard, 1998, and Greeno,
2015, offered similar analyses of some rival educational
theories.) If this analysis is correct, another task for educa-
tional research is to uncover which differences among our
theories are perspectival in Gieres sense and which are
genuine inconsistencies.
In debates where the differences between theories
prove to be largely perspectival, it may still be the case
that one theory is more practically useful than the other.
For instance, if theorists were to agree that the differen-
ces between situative and achievement-goal theories of
motivation were perspectival, it might still be the case
that one approach or the other could be more fruitful
for guiding the design of learning environments (cf.
Nolen, Horn, & Ward, 2015), perhaps in ways that both
groups of theorists might eventually agree foster a
healthier motivational climate in the classroom. Differ-
ences in such practical uses of different theories should
also be the target of extensive empirical research and
argumentation.
In summary, my stance on the many debates in our
field has been: Let those debating perspectives develop
vigorously, and let them engage with each other in vig-
orous discussion, at every level of engagementinclud-
ing the empirical, the ontic, and the epistemic. The field
is well served neither by premature closure nor by iso-
lated development. EP has hosted many of these debates
throughout its history; indeed, this is one of EPs vital
roles.
THE MANY WHO CONTRIBUTE TO EP
Finally, I turn to acknowledging and expressing my grati-
tude to the many scholars who support EP and to whom I
owe enormous thanks. I would like to begin by thanking
Division 15 of the American Psychological Association for
entrusting me with the stewardship of the journal and for
their support of the goals that I laid out in my proposal. It
has been wonderful to work with the leadership and mem-
bership of the Division. Each of the Presidents of the Divi-
sion during my editorship has provided the journal and me
as Editor with strong support, as has the Divisions Publica-
tions Committee. The Divisions Director of Communica-
tions, Wade George, has been ever ready to provide
marketing expertise.
I thank the Editorial Board for their outstanding service.
The Board members careful, thoughtful reviews have pro-
vided detailed guidance for the authors, as well as for me as
Editor. The Board includes eminent scholars who have their
own editorial and leadership responsibilities, yet they have
contributed unstintingly to EP.
6 CHINN
EP depends not only on its Board but also on the many
ad hoc reviewers who generously donate their time and
expertise to provide careful reviews of manuscripts. The
journal could not have managed the extremely wide variety
of submitted manuscripts without the expert contributions
of these many colleagues, who come from a variety of fields
and specializations within psychology, education, and
philosophy.
I have been gifted with two outstanding Editorial Assis-
tants through my term. In the first half of my term, the jour-
nals Editorial Assistant was William Pluta. In addition to
handling the daily work to perfection, William shepherded
EP through our transition from Editorial Manager to Schol-
arOne. In the second half of my term, Ronald Rinehart has
served the journal with equal skill and aplomb, keeping
everything on track and facilitating the transition to the
new editorial team.
I could never have gotten off the mark as Editor without
the able mentorship of my predecessor, Gale Sinatra. Gale
thoroughly prepared me to take on this work and was an
ongoing source of advice and assistance. And at the end of
my term, it has been a very great pleasure to work with my
successor, Kathryn Wentzel, during the transition to her
editorship.
The authors of both published and unpublished manu-
scripts deserve tremendous thanks from our community.
The quality of work in EP depends on the great creativ-
ity and talent of its authors. I have been most impressed
with the willingness of authors to engage in extensive
revisions; authors repeatedly met the challenges of push-
ing their theoretical analyses further and incorporating
more extensive evidence. In addition, I deeply appreci-
ate (and will always cherish) the graciousness with
which many authors responded to unfavorable decisions,
sincerely thanking the reviewers and me for our input to
their own thinking.
The team at Taylor & Francis has been stalwart in
their constant, professional support. Cathy Ott has been
the Production Editor throughout my term; she has
meticulously prepared each of our issues and has fre-
quently gone far beyond her ordinary duties to ensure
the success of EP.
Working with the Guest Editors of the seven special
issues during my term has been an exciting intellectual
enterprise. I have learned a great deal through thorough-
going discussions with the guest editors as well as from
the authors of the special issues. I heartily thank all of
the Guest Editors for their intense work to produce the
best possible special issues: College and University
Admissions (Robert Sternberg, Liane Gabora, and Chris-
tine Bonney), New Conceptualizations of Transfer of
Learning (Robert Goldstone and Samuel Day),
Theoretical Underpinnings of Successful Computer-Sup-
ported Collaborative Learning (Paul Kirschner and Gijs-
bert Erkens), Understanding the Public Understanding
of Science: Psychological Approaches (Rainer Bromme
and Susan Goldman), Engagement in the Context of Sci-
ence Learning (Gale Sinatra and Doug Lombardi), The
Relevance of the Situative Perspective in Educational
Psychology (Julianne Turner and Susan Bobbitt Nolen),
and Psychological Perspectives on Digital Games and
Learning (Michael McCreery, Sharon Tettegah, and
Fran Blumberg).
Through my work as Editor, more than ever I have come
to grasp that scholarship is a fundamentally social process.
The stature of EP has emerged from the nexus of an excep-
tional community of authors, board members, reviewers,
editors, guest editors, and Division leaders and members,
all of whom have worked collectively to support new theo-
retical advances in our field. I am honored and grateful for
the opportunity to have been a part of this community, and
I look forward to continue to work with the community in
new roles. Looking ahead, I am excited to follow EPs
bright future under the superb leadership of Kathryn
Wentzel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Sarit Barzilai, Ravit Golan Duncan, and Toshio
Mochizuki for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of
this manuscript.
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Giere, R. N. (2006). Scientific perspectivism. Chicago, IL: University of
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Goldman, A. I. (2010). Epistemic relativism and reasonable disagreement.
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Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL:
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Laudan, L. (1990). Demystifying underdetermination. In C. W. Savage
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