Abstract
In our contribution, we want first and foremost to provide arguments in favour of adopting a specifically educational research methodology, which we provisionally call development-oriented educational research. The starting point of our considerations is the current research methodological profile of educational science, which, despite all efforts to overcome it, is still characterised by a polarity that has resisted most integrative forces to date. With a view to the specificity of the subject field of educational science, we will attempt in this paper to substantiate developmental research as a research methodology that not only complements the current profile, but also makes it more specific to the discipline. In doing so, we will include development-oriented research strategies from other disciplines in our considerations and offer initial thoughts for the conception of a developmental research. In our argumentation, social or practical justifications are just as important to us as arguments inherent in science, which are in any case closely related or interdependent, especially in educational science due to its subject matter.
