Response to Readings from 1.6.09

What is the difference between a conceptual article and a theoretical article? These two words always seem to be hanging around each other in the same sentence like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb but I don't know what the difference is. I looked up concept in the dictionary: A general idea or understanding, esp. one derived from specific instances or occurrences; a notion or thought. Then I looked up theory: a system of assumptions, accepted principles, and rules of procedure devised to analyze, predict, or otherwise explain the nature or behavior of a specified set of phenomena; an assumption or guess based on limited knowledge or information.

So it sounds like a conceptual article presents ideas derived from observations of specific experiments or settings. A theoretical article sounds like concepts organized and strung together and accepted as a system, still based out of observations, but with a more descriptive and possibly predictive function. It seems odd to me that theoretical articles should be inescapably related to application and suggestions for practice. Why would you talk theory without application? However, both articles suggested that we have few articles published about distance education that directly address how-to's for distance education based in sufficient research.

The most interesting comment I found was in the second article (from Handbook of Distance Education) which said, "It is evident that publication of experimental research in the field of distance education is not yet held to the standards of experimental research in other fields of social science." I found myself wondering why it would be different in distance ed than in other fields. Is it possible that if your new idea is flashy/interesting/groundbreaking enough, people will pay less attention to your methods or even the specifics of your results? Today in my 652 class about assessing learning outcomes, my professor quoted Dewey as suggesting that when we get into the realm of things that are difficult to assess in education, we still attempt to improve through creating activities or events. We simply make decisions based on what we believe will be somehow beneficial. This sounds like distance education...until we've figured out exactly how to measure and test what parts are effective, we just keep trying stuff that we think is beneficial.