Deductive Reasoning in Introductory Educational Research: A Survey of Theoretical- and Cognitive-Content from Selected Logic References.

This document, which consists of three parts and a summary, surveys a) the structure of theoretical systems, b) the functions of theoretical systems, and c) the formal logical methods of the theoretical scientist in order to find approaches to educational research. Emphasis throughout is placed on the discrimination of concepts-by-intuition from concepts-by-postulation. Part I is a discussion of the parts of a theoretical system including primitives, concepts, postulates, thoerems, and hypotheses. Part II indicates that the primary functions of a theoretical system are to predict what kinds of data are needed to solve a problem and whether the data obtained are reasonable. In part II formal logical methods of the theoretical scientist are stated, including a) method of definition, b) method of hypothesis, c) method of espistemic correlation, and d) method for verifying theories. Also described in this section are three methods of proof a) sentence reasoning, b) indirect proof, and c) class reasoning. The author concludes the summary with two approaches to educational research. Tables and a three-page bibliography are included. (PD)