Description - An Introduction to Educology by James E Christensen
Education has the same relationship to educology as (1) society has to sociology, or (2) living organisms have to biology, or (3) disease has to pathology. Education is a field of phenomena. Educology is the fund of knowledge about the field. In the field of phenomena denoted by the term education, people play the roles of teachers and students. Teachers provide opportunities, guidance and help to students to study intentionally some content (some fund of knowledge and/or some range of knowing) with the purpose in mind that the students extend their range of knowing. Teachers and students always conduct their activities within some time frame and within some physical, social and cultural setting. Members of the wider society and culture take an interest in, have expectations for and make demands on what teachers and students do and achieve. And what teachers and students do and achieve affects the wider society and culture, and the wider society and culture affect activities of teachers and students. Educology is the set of recorded true statements about the structure, function and purpose of education. It is knowledge about the people (teachers and students) who participate in education, the relations among the people, the people's intentions, their activities, the results of their activities and the mutual effects of people participating in education and the wider physical, social and cultural environment in which the education takes place. Educology is organized knowledge about education. It has system, and the system has structure, function and purpose. Educology is a system which consists of a structure of mutually implied true statements. The mutually implied true statements provide descriptive, explanatory and normative educological theory. Educological theory connects and organizes educological facts. Descriptive educological theory consists of well-defined terms which clearly denote distinct categories of roles, activities, processes, relations, objects, events, occurrences, happenings and purposes in education. Explanatory educological theory consists of statements which use the well-defined terms from descriptive theory to describe the controlling conditions for resultants in education and to predict resultants from specified controlling conditions. Normative educological theory consists of statements that provide evaluations and prescriptions for states of affairs in education and justifications for the evaluations and prescriptions. The purpose of educology is to provide a fund of knowledge which can be used to develop an understanding of what happens in education, why it happens and what rational action can be taken (1) to achieve desirable states of affairs in education and desirable outcomes from education and (2) to eliminate and/or prevent undesirable states of affairs in education and undesirable outcomes from education. Education is located in the existential, observable world of phenomena. We can observe people at work as teachers and students, and we can observe students as they provide exemplifications of their newly acquired range of knowing. In contrast to education, educology is located in the realm of recorded true statements about education. The statements are located in any medium suitable for recording and storing sentences - printed books, journals, research reports, audio recordings, audiovisual recordings, computer memory storage, etc. Educological discipline, educological inquiry and educological knowledge are separate, discrete categories with entirely different distinguishing properties. There are the rules for the activity - the discipline for forming educology. There is the activity - the educological inquiry which produces educology. And there is the product of the activity - educology, the recorded true statements about education.
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