Alternative Views of Educology

Some may argue that the domain of educology should be more comprehensive, and include the combined area of both circles in the Venn diagram of learning. If this were the case, education would also include discovery learning and compelled learning.

However, this broader view does not explicitly take into account human intention, i.e., each person's will. If one does not intend to learn, but is nonetheless guided by a teacher, this is defined here as compelled learning. Alternatively, if one intends to learn but there is no one to guide them, this is defined here as discovery learning.

Education is taken here as intended, guided learning. At least two persons are necessary for education: one who intends to guide the learning of another who intends to learn from that guidance. Education therefore is conducive learning.

Is there a term that includes discovery, conducive, and compelled learning? Perhaps this could be called non-accidental learning.

Justification of Definition of Educology

Educology is not restricted to quantitative educology, as some might argue. To do so, would be to exclude knowledge of uniques in education and knowledge of doings in education.

Qualitative educology and performative educology are also included in educology (see Steiner, 1988 and types of educology). She provides criteria for evaluating descriptive theory:  exactness, exclusivity, exhaustiveness, external coherence, extendibility, equivalence, chaining, and substitution (pp. 64-74).  Qualitative and performative educology are justified for inclusion in educology, both by the criterion of exhaustiveness (covers all relevant phenomena in education) and by the criterion of external coherence ("fit[s] in with extant theoretical knowledge" (p. 68)). Knowledge of uniques and knowledge of performances in education are included (exhaustiveness criterion). The three kinds of educology "fit in" with three kinds of knowing that Maccia and others have identified, the difference being that knowledge consists of recorded signs of knowing (external coherence criterion).

Recorded signs of knowing about learning can be iconic, indexical and symbolic, and such signs can be preserved in a variety of media (print, audio/video recordings, holograms, etc.). Such recorded signs need not be restricted to propositional knowledge (warranted assertions, explanatory theories, justificatory arguments). See Maccia (1988) for discussion of these further kinds of knowing (how and that-one). Also see Peirce's definition of symbolic signs (and his Collected Papers).