Culture of Paradigms in Education and in Educational Psychology

Introduction

The term paradigm is central for this book offering contrasting interpretations because of diverse values, assumptions, misunderstandings and multiple meanings. In exegesis of the data, it was considered that the notion of paradigm in contemporary research is perhaps one of the most controversial issues generating a contemporary landscape of multiple scholarly associations and multidimensional philosophical and methodological assumptions intersecting one another (Trif, 2019). This chapter aims to explore the notion of paradigm based on different ontological and epistemological commitments at the interface between educational sciences and educational psychology and it also provides an introduction to the scientific discourses examined in the book in order to extend the communities of practices. Literature in the fieldwork contains multiple pre-established outcomes concerning the paradigms. Kuhn’s hypothesis about how are produced the revolution in science are currently examined in the scientific discourses. It is a distinctive, coherent and comprehensive explanation regarding how different phases of science development succeed one after another and about the differences between the empiric sciences and mature sciences-based logic-mathematical apparatus. Thomas Kuhn’s book addresses over 21 meanings of the term paradigm. Two of these interpretations of the term paradigm are frequently used in the wide literature: model or cognitive representation and pattern.

On the other hand, there are multicriteria challenges of the term paradigm based on the results of various approaches linked to the different genres, forms and characteristics of knowledge. The academic communities have transformed the prototype of Kuhnian explanation into a continuous process of redefining paradigms in function of scientific interests, scientific requirements or new networks of integrated knowledge. The multitude of critical exegesis demonstrates the fact that the professional vocabulary denotes a mixture of dynamic, alternative, polarized, innovative and scientific based simulation wording on paradigm. These arguments allow for two metamorphoses of literacy developments: a) the role of paradigm in sciences and b) features of paradigm in education sciences and in educational psychology.

The term paradigm could be considered a powerful notion that evidences exceptional ways of connecting, establishing communicating interchanges and behaving in knowledge. Different forms of literacy include multiple and sophisticated results of academic market and of the activities conducted in the scientific environment. The collection of theoretical position brings together two perspectives that permit a professional exegesis both in terms of intellectual topic and of practical position in the classroom. Firstly, it is generally accepted to connect the typical and unconventional meanings of the scientific – educational sciences and educational psychology discourses that deal with the paradigm issue. This is related to the special interest towards the cognitive development in the areas investigated. Secondly, there seems to be explicit needs in order to explore the complex case studies from the classroom in terms of paradigm.

These considerations can be used in relation with the following summarized relevant lines of the context exegesis: change of the nature of knowledge, change of types of knowledge, change of students’ generations (characteristics), the danger of accepting folk education or pedagogy and folk educational psychology, taking into account the differences between prospects in sciences and the unexpected results of (laboratory) sciences as well as the differences between the results of sciences and the curriculum, association of hard paradigms and creative directions across science genre.

The organization of the meta-analysis from this introductory chapter offers an unlearned lesson about how to solve the critical moments from the classroom by reflecting critically in terms of paradigms’ multiliteracy. Beyond the fact that it is a genuine part of the book, the relationship between the hermetic theories or concepts – the case of paradigm – and everyday life of the classroom is considered a very sophisticated or impossible topic and it is ignored. There are not researches conducted in area of explicit exchanges between classroom life and paradigm; there are only some intentions to stratify scientific container by evidence or by functional characteristics of the observations that are recorded.