Historical Evolution of Educational Research Methodology in Iran

This study focuses on the significant lines of development characterizing the history of educational research methodology in Iran. A “historical case study” employed to collect, verify, and synthesize evidence about the same as such appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Education. The results indicated that the educational research in Iran has experienced five, distinct yet, overlapping and simultaneously operating historical moments. The first is the pre-methodology (1919- 1985) stage, during which scholars carried out their investigations without a distinct systematic scientific method. The second (1985- 1994) is a period of rising quantitative approach, during which quantitative methods were becoming central in the education field. The third (1995- 2004) is characterized by insistence on the monopoly of quantitative, during which educational and other social science researchers relied primarily on quantitative methods and statistical inference understood as a means to test the proposed hypotheses. The fourth (2005–2014), is a replacement stage started with the wave of qualitative taking over the traditional and provoked the appearance of a new hegemony. The concern for quality stage (2015-2019) is the fifth when the threat of losing credibility and leaving a relativistic impression were considered by members of the research community. It is concluded that Iran’s educational research urgently requires mobilized and rationalized methodological pluralism with the ultimate goal of improving on existing pedagogical practices.