I've posted a short article on research in education on the U of Manitoba's LTC Research Blog: "We have a challenge and proposed direction of better educational research. Yet the methods are in dispute. Perhaps more significant - even when methods are largely agreed upon, the outcomes of research fail to touch and substantially impact academic activities. Our collective understanding of “good teaching and learning” clashes with systemic structures and procedures."
...and it serves to remind me of Stephen Downes' excellent discussion from 2005 on research with regard to theory verification (which relates well to our activities as educational researchers, but raises the question of to what degree we need methodologies based on epistemology or if verification is a function of progressive iteration in the hands of many practitioners): "The best argument Jonassen can advance for his theory is to describe the theory; the question of fit is determined, over time, by the cumulative experiences of a multitude of practitioners against nebulous and undefined criteria. And the determination of whether problem-based learning is widely accepted will depend as much on whether we decree that the desirable output of the educational system is improved economic performance in a market based economy, or adroit adaptation in a rapidly changing environment."