Attention-Directed Literary Education: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

A basic principle of the empirical approach to literary education is that educational decisions are informed by evidence that has been collected in a systematic manner from the classroom (or home) activities. However, the core field of literary studies has tended to base itself more on theoretical argument than on empirical data and this bias towards the theoretical has also found its way into the field of literary education. Many educators who have an extensive understanding of literary interpretation and wide historical and textual knowledge of authors, periods and schools of interpretation and production feel uncomfortable with the epistemology (and ultimately the terminology) of empirical research. This is understandable since the vast majority of literary education programs do not expose student-teachers to any empirical research paradigms and some even present arguments against them.