La Ciencia de la Educación ante las diversas opciones metodológicas de índole disciplinar

Traditionally, the science of education — and the disciplines in which it is diversified — has been classified among the social sciences. This characterization is insufficient to address educational phenomena, which are increasingly mediated by technology. Thus, because it is human-made, which broadens its possibilities, it has a dual character, so that it is also a science of the artificial. By means of the domain of the artificial, the science of education is Applied Science: it uses designs to solve concrete problems. Its status as a science of design opens up new possibilities for tackling the problems of the science of education. One problem, which defies disciplinary specificity, concerns methodological options for dealing with the structural and dynamic complexity of educational phenomena. Here the different methodological proposals for overcoming the fragmentation of knowledge are analysed: interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and crossdisciplinarity. The levels of integration that they involve are considered. Furthermore, since the science of education is an applied science in which the solution of problems concerns practice in a social environment, conceptual and methodological integration may involve areas beyond the academic sphere.