Alia
Vol. 17 No. 1 (2026): Educating for Complexity: Intersectionality, Decolonial Approaches to Teaching, and Practices of Care in Education
Educational research between interdisciplinarity and methodological rigor. Methodology as a connection strategy
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy
Abstract
The article develops the thesis of the methodology of educational research as a strategy of connection between scientific disciplines, theoretical frameworks, research practices, and application contexts. The complexity of the educational object leads to a critical examination of the use of interdisciplinarity; the different areas in which it is invoked are distinguished, and the focus is on scientific interdisciplinarity as a pragmatic project oriented towards shared research objectives. The conditions that make a real interdisciplinary integration possible are then discussed, thus arriving at the argument that research methodology can perform a function of logical architecture capable of connecting questions, theoretical frameworks, methodological choices, analyses, and interpretations. With reference to the principles proposed by the Committee on Scientific Principles of Education Research, the text explores the criteria of the so-called "good educational research" and highlights its role in ensuring epistemological solidity, argumentative transparency, and logical extension of the results. The conclusion is that epistemological, methodological, and critical openness constitutes the essential habitus for scientifically grounded and socially relevant educational research.
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