Epistemological Visibility in Educational Sciences: A Corpus Analysis of Stance Articulation in High-Impact Research on Higher Education
Abstract
Introduction. Epistemological transparency remains a persistent problem in educational research: studies often report methods in detail but leave unstated the assumptions about knowledge, evidence, and validity that justify those methods. This article examines how epistemological stances are articulated in high-impact research on higher education and how they correspond to methodological choices in original research articles and literature reviews.
Method. The study is based on qualitative content analysis of 100 Scopus-indexed publications on higher education published in 2021–2025: 50 original research articles and 50 literature reviews, each cited at least 50 times. The coding framework was developed iteratively and covered lexical markers, methodological signals, quality indicators, and citational practices. These indicators were used to identify four epistemological orientations: post-positivist, interpretivist/constructivist, pragmatist, and critical/transformative. Inter-coder reliability was assessed using Cohen’s kappa and Krippendorff’s alpha.
Results. Explicit epistemological positioning was found in only one publication. Across the corpus, post-positivist orientations were most frequent (53%), followed by interpretivist/constructivist (33%), pragmatist (13%), and critical/transformative orientations (1%). The distribution differed sharply by publication type. Reviews were predominantly post-positivist (74%), with smaller shares of interpretivist/constructivist (24%) and pragmatist (2%) orientations. Articles showed a more balanced profile: interpretivist/constructivist orientations accounted for 42%, post-positivist for 32%, pragmatist for 24%, and critical/transformative for 2%. Reviews signalled stance mainly through systematic procedures, including PRISMA-based protocols, search strategies, quality appraisal, and reliability checks. Articles more often signalled stance through theoretical framing, methodological design, and the treatment of participants’ perspectives or practical outcomes. Borderline cases showed that methodological indicators alone cannot always establish epistemological stance, especially where systematic procedures are combined with interpretive, pragmatist, or critical aims.
Сonclusion. Epistemological stance is usually present in high-impact educational research, but it is rarely named. This implicitness leaves readers to reconstruct the philosophical basis of a study from methodological and rhetorical cues. Greater transparency does not require authors to declare allegiance to a single paradigm. It requires them to explain how their assumptions about knowledge and evidence shape the formulation of research questions, the selection of methods, the interpretation of findings, and the limits of the claims made.
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