Finding Empathy in Historical Inquiry and Data Management Through an Educational Research Example

In historical inquiry, researchers identify the research questions, specify the domain which relates to the research questions, and familiarize themselves with how the documents are structured and managed in the host library. In collecting data, researchers don’t need to constrain themselves with how documents are labeled by the archivists. They can break the boundaries of the labeled documents and find out how seemingly unrelated documents are actually inter-related. In analyzing data, positivists and constructionists view history differently, which results in different approaches to how historical data can be analyzed. Positivists believe in transparency and universal truths across the historical data through data generalization and inference. In addition to generalization and inference, researchers should situate themselves in the historical context, establish empathy to feel the historical moments, and interpret data in the historical context. Revisiting and evaluating the process of a historical inquiry allows researchers to find out the patterns of historical events and the important points that might be missing in the field. This also provides a chance for researchers to evaluate the hosting, storage and management of historical data and identify the ways which can help improve data management so that future researchers can easily access the data.