A Model of Science: Lakatos and Scientific Research Programmes

Chapter 1 described a field of study, Science Education, located within a much wider domain of enquiry that is concerned with aspects of learning, development, cognition, and coming to knowledge. As part of the discipline of Education, Science Education is classified as belonging to the social sciences, usually seen as being significantly different from the natural sciences. However, Chapter 2 explored different approaches to research, and it leads to a view that the demarcation of what is, or is not, considered science is perhaps best understood without regard of such labels (as ‘physical, ‘natural, ‘social’, ‘human’ science). The conclusion is that educational enquiry may (but need not necessarily) be scientific: just as enquiry into energy sources, transmutation of elements, or the origin of species may (but need not necessarily) be scientific. This chapter presents an account of the model of science as research programmes offered by Imre Lakatos as a way of evaluating research traditions (in any sphere) and so determining if they are ‘progressive’ and therefore ‘scientific’. The chapter explains the origin of Lakatos’s model in the debate between, in particular, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, and introduces the central features of the Lakatosian model that will be adopted and applied in the subsequent chapters.