Research Adds to Our Knowledge
Educators strive for continual improvement. This requires addressing problems or issues
and searching for potential solutions. Adding to knowledge means that educators
undertake research to contribute to existing information about issues. We are all aware of
pressing educational issues being debated today, such as the integration of AIDS education
into the school curriculum.
Research plays a vital role in addressing these issues. Through research we develop
results that help to answer questions, and as we accumulate these results, we gain a
deeper understanding of the problems. In this way, researchers are much like bricklayers
who build a wall brick by brick, continually adding to the wall and, in the process, creating
a stronger structure.
How can research specifi cally add to the knowledge base and existing literature?
A research report might provide a study that has not been conducted and thereby fi ll a
void in existing knowledge. It can also provide additional results to confi rm or discon- fi rm results of prior studies. It can help add to the literature about practices that work or
advance better practices that educators might try in their educational setting. It can provide
information about people and places that have not been previously studied.
Suppose that you decide to research how elementary schoolchildren learn social
skills. If you study how children develop social skills, and past research has not examined
this topic, your research study addresses a gap in knowledge. If your study explores
how African American children use social skills on their way home from school, your
study might replicate past studies but would test results with new participants at a different
research site. If your study examines how children use social skills when at play, not
on the school grounds, but on the way home from school, the study would contribute to
knowledge by expanding our understanding of the topic. If your study examines female
children on the way home from school, your study would add female voices seldom
heard in the research. If your study has implications for how to teach social skills to students,
it has practical value.