Abstract: That a discipline is called a science lies in its systematic and distinctive educational methodology. In terms of the development of pedagogy's disciplines, research methods determine the scientific property of pedagogy. It will contribute to the improvement of China's educational research by analyzing the employment of basic paradigms of international educational research methods, discussing the problems in our educational empirical research paradigm and exploring its development tendency. Either theoretical paradigm or empirical paradigm enjoy its own methodological status among the educational research methods system. At present, the western system of educational research methods is overwhelmingly characterized by empirical methods. International educational research tends to employ quantitative research, qualitative research and the mixed research by integrating both. However, in China, the problem of simplification remains in the educational research paradigm, and theoretical research is still China's main research method. Empirical research, though, has highlighted, its proportion is much less. Thus, the systematic and normative construction should be reinforced in our educational research methods. We should adopt more empirical research and advocate the diversification of research paradigm. Moreover, it's important to enhance the improved quantitative and qualitative research and explore the mixed research.

Key words: educational research, research paradigm, empirical research