What would it take for educational research to serve both truth and welfare?
In this episode of Epistemic Alchemy, Dr. Mohammed Raei speaks with Jean-Luc Patry, Professor Emeritus of Educational Research at the University of Salzburg, about the intellectual foundations of sound educational inquiry. Patry argues that statistical sophistication alone cannot compensate for weak theory, inadequate assessment, or an unclear metatheoretical foundation. Good theories, he suggests, require good metatheories, and theories must be investigated using methods adequate to the questions they seek to answer.
The conversation introduces VaKE, or Values and Knowledge Education, a constructivist and collaborative educational approach that combines inquiry-based knowledge acquisition with dilemma-driven moral argumentation. Rather than prescribing particular values, VaKE helps learners examine how they justify their moral preferences. Patry discusses its application across more than a dozen countries, its use with learners from approximately age ten onward, and its extension into business education.
The episode also considers situation specificity and its implications for replication, critical multiplism as a response to the limitations of any single research method, and the often-overlooked distinction between superordinate object theories and genuine metatheories. The discussion concludes with MaaKE, or Moral Action and Knowledge Education, which extends the work from moral cognition toward moral behaviour.
Listen to the episode: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-7ycvk-1b323a0