Concluding remarks on research quality

1. Concluding remarks on research quality • First, it is of little use to build up a set of fixed criteria for what is good research in education, since research is also about changes in such criteria. However, there is a need to put issues of quality on the agenda where one major question to discuss among researchers as well as policy-makers are - what are the appropriate issues of quality? / A way to do it now is to invite researchers – including ourselves – to present notions of quality and how these are dealt with in research./ • Second, our notions of different fields of study need to be clarified in one way or another. In order to avoid fragmentation and perspectivism such distinctions have to be based on collective discussions. Where do we find arenas for such discussion? How do we – in different research contexts – understand, and define, differentiation within the educational sciences – how do we organise these differences? • Third, there is a need to continuously upgrade research discussions in reasonably defined fields of study. What are current research standards and significant results? Such crucial task is based on notions of distinctions within the research field. • In sum we – at our universities, colleges and departments – need to put forwards an agenda for dealing with quality issues in educational research and to discuss different strategies to deal with these issues.