Data Return: The Sense of the Given in Educational Research

Abstract

Educational research is dominated by a particular model: data is gathered and analysed. Much literature on methods concerns either ways of processing data, or ethical issues regarding its collection and handling. The present paper looks beyond these matters to the taken-for-granted idea of data itself. What can be meant by ‘data’? How does this connect with ideas of the given? What is the place of giving in education—in teaching and learning, in research itself? These issues are explored in the light of information technology’s impact on research, uncovering ethical dimensions that the seeming naturalness of data otherwise obscures.