Educational Improvement Science: The Art of the Improving Organization

Abstract

To advocate educational improvement science (EIS) as an emerging transdisciplinary field, I reflect on the three major pathways of educational advancement in human history, discern the misuses and pitfalls of reform, and theorize how education can be improved to better serve its mission. Employing a multiperspectival approach, I critically re-examine educational reforms and improvements worldwide and conceptualize the emerging transdisciplinary field through an extensive literature review, etymological analysis, international comparisons, and socio-historical, -cultural and -philosophical reflections. In this paper, I advance the concept of neo-improvementalism for EIS by elucidating its philosophical assumptions, disciplinary fundamentals, and theoretical frameworks through historical and comparative lenses. I identify and construct disciplinary knowledge of EIS comprising two categories, namely, subject matter knowledge and profound knowledge, adopted from improvement science. I then highlight three methodological approaches of EIS and the building of professional improvement communities empowering individual and institutional improvement capabilities. I propose that EIS is the art of the improving organization for classes, schools, and/or more broadly defined educational agencies. This study recognizes the significance of EIS and research thereon, especially discipline-building and exploration based on local characteristics in a global vision, and the cultivation of new frontiers of educational research and practices.