Methods of research in the course work on the history of pedagogy

The selection of research methods depends on which area of pedagogy will find its coverage in the course work. For each branch of pedagogy, special methods and general methods can be used. For a historical review, a consistent analysis of events in the foreshortening of that object, which is taken as a basis for the study, will be required. For example, in the process of studying the humanistic ideas of Leo Tolstoy in pedagogy, the methods of research in the course work will facilitate the conduct of both theoretical research and practical, historical-genetic analysis.

Historical analysis is conducted to establish a chronological chain of events, facts that have been obtained from literary sources, archival materials. Between the links of the chain it is necessary to trace the cause-effect relationship, to analyze the sequence of the events studied. Genetic analysis presupposes the study of the previous experience, which developed in the pre-scientific era. For example, it is possible to carry out an analysis of the origin of humanism and its manifestation outside the work of Tolstoy. The signs of a humanistic attitude in the pedagogy of the past and the present are being studied, analogies are being made with the pedagogy of Tolstoy. Any genesis has stages of its development, therefore, a sequential predisposing stage is described, within which the conditions that gave rise to the phenomenon are analyzed; Stage of nucleation, maturation, stabilization and extrapolation, i.e. Design for the future.

Methods of research in the thesis work are supplemented by an analysis of the historical and pedagogical process from the standpoint of psychology, philosophy, and culturology, which allows the researcher to present a voluminous vision of the object, to draw conclusions about the driving force behind the development of the subject of research. Working with sources of a different nature allows the student to use the analytical-search method as the main one.

The methods of research in the course work on the history of pedagogy can be not only highly specialized, but also general. It:

1) Methods of empirical research: observation, comparison, classification, experiment.

2) Methods of empirical and theoretical research: abstraction, analysis, synthesis, modeling, deduction and induction, periodization.

3) Methods of theoretical research: historical and logical methods, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, idealization, axiomatization.

Research methods in the course work can be combined or used strictly one group of methods. If the student pursues the goal in the future to use historical material in another scientific work, then only methods of theoretical research are used, and empirical research is supposed to be carried out in a thesis or a master's thesis.

The relevance of the topic of the course work of historical and pedagogical orientation can become the basis for the selection of research methods. Historical data collected and analyzed by the student should go back to modern pedagogical knowledge: saturate it, give grounds to innovations, establish continuity between old and new knowledge. In the history of pedagogy there are many ideas that make scientific and pedagogical capital accumulated in the works of the classics of pedagogy, philosophy, culture at different stages of the development of society.

Research methods in the course work indicate the breadth or specialization of the subjects of historical research in the field of pedagogy, the use by the author of comparisons of various areas of pedagogy, or the study of the development of one area of knowledge, one specialist who became the founder of a specific educational methodology.