Pasteur's Quadrant as the Bridge Linking Rigor with Relevance

Abstract

A tension exists between educational practitioners and researchers, which is often attributed to their dichotomous and oftentimes polarizing professional ideologies or Discourse communities. When determining what works in education, researchers tend to emphasize evidence-based practices (EBPs) supported by research that is rigorous and internally valid, whereas practitioners tend to value practice-based evidence (PBE) that is relevant and externally valid. The authors argue that these separate mindsets stem from the classical view of research as being either rigorous or relevant. In his canonical Pasteur's Quadrant, Stokes (1997) proposed that rigor and relevance are complementary notions that, when merged, further the production, translation, and implementation of instructional practices that are both rigorous (i.e., evidence-based) and relevant (i.e., practice-based). The authors propose educational design research (EDR) and communities of practice (CoPs) as frameworks through which to realize the promise of Pasteur's quadrant.