Educational Research In The Vision Of Complexity Paradigm

Simplicity Paradigm, which was formed in the development of modern natural science, has become a deep-rooted belief of Identity Theory and Epistemological principle. However, when the humanity and social sciences were building themselves by copying the principles of classic physics, Simplicity Paradigm met crisis in physics which had been the most successful field. Since 20th century 40s, theClassical System Theory formed a new scientific research methodology——System Paradigm.Due tosheltering the concern of parts and personality, the System Paradigm achieved "an overall return to system", thus it didn't fundamentally break away from the framework of Simplicity Paradigm. Since the beginning of the 1980s, as the rise of Complexity Science, the Complexity Paradigm achieved the integration and transcendence of both Simplicity Paradigm and System Paradigm. Therefore, a new picture of the world and history has been painted. As a result, Simplicity Paradigm, System Paradigm and Complexity Paradigm constitute three steps of the development of scientific methodology.Educational activities have entered the formalization stage from the original non-formalization stage, experiencing the appearance of educational entities. At the stage of formalization education, educational activities were increasingly standardized from the ancient educational entities to the modern schools, and eventually formed an education system whose type and level are complete. As the System Paradigm rose, the various features of education system have been discussed in depth, such as structure, functions, etc, but it didn't fundamentally change the deep-rooted "imprinting" effect of Simplicity Paradigm in education. Dominated by the Simplicity Paradigm, education system has become increasingly mature, tight and institutionalized. Institutionalized education ignored the inherent complexity of education system, and it became increasingly close, uniform and mechanical, thus it was difficult to adapt to the needs of modern society. As Complexity Paradigm rises, we can be concerned about the inherent complexity of education system.The educational system is a complex system, whose complexity stems from the tremendous size, rich levels and structures, the non-linear interaction among the key factors within the system, from the material's, information's and personnel's exchange between the open education system and other social subsystems ,and also from the wisdom, dynamism, limited reason of people in education activities. The complexity of the education system was represented by the following aspects: the education process is not reversible and continuous, the uncertainty and contingency within education system can not be removed, education activities can not be reverted and education system possesses self-organization functions.The complexity of the education system requires us to use Complexity Paradigm for educational research, so this article inspected many characteristics of Complexity Paradigm for educational research. The rise of "qualitative research methods" represents the trend towards complexity in the paradigm for educational research. The article criticized the education phenomenon dominated by Simplicity Paradigm, and made a reconstruction with Complexity Paradigm.