A cognitive approach to research and education

Abstract

What do we mean by research? How could we explain it in terms of a semantic network? Do we need to make research to learn? Is it necessary for our own education as a researcher? Does it make a substantial contribution to educating ourselves? Do researchers need teaching to improve their research. What kind of methods could we use for research and education? Can we use some methods for both? Teaching is inter-activating your knowledge to make other minds learn; interactive reaction of learners can trigger an unexpected association between what you know and also yield new questions on that matter. Such as instructing, publishing papers and books, conferences, discussion forums, public debates, etc. Research is going in depth with the subject matter at hand. It is accumulating knowledge about the issue at hand, and then representing it. Research requires description of the question at hand through a philosophical worldview and requires also methodologies beforehand. Nevertheless, research is, in a way, gaining specific knowledge about a specific case. Learning sorts are, among others, learning by discovery, analogy, research, design, instruction, being taught, experience, repeating, e-learning, etc. Nonetheless, you test/measure your research by a learners group, when it is relevant. You can use learners also as participants since it is more economical and efficient. Can we imagine research without education? Some researches are not directly relevant to education, for its being a specific matter outside of education, though the results also can be used as case examples for education. Eventually, education and research are inter-related. Nevertheless, they stimulate each other. Could education without research be fruitful, at all? We can imagine it somehow only for a learner in the case of didactic teaching, though it might be even better if there exists research about that matter. Nevertheless, for the rest there is always a relationship between research and education. Finally, the cognitive structure of education and research is interwoven. They cannot exist without each other, which supports issue-based learning that uses analogy which is a very creative cognitive attitude. Educators should exploit students’ entire capabilities. Creative education employs multiple mental skills.