ETEC 500 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

The beginning elements of the course introduces basic understandings about research by asking the question “What is good research?” The second task was to examine research paradigms based on an article written by Sipe and Constable’s where metaphors are introduced to explore positivistic, interpretivist, critical theory and deconstructivist paradigms.

January 6th, 2012

Define ‘good research’:

Characteristics of good research – is of interest and importance to more than just the researcher. It advances discovery in an area of endeavour. It is focused, precise, detailed and carefully planned. It is completed accurately and furthers thinking, in thoughtful and thought provoking ways. It is respectful of others.

Non-characteristics of good research – reflect items that you would not find – characteristics such as -self serving, all encompassing, conclusive or individualistic.

An example of good research – perhaps work done and written by Seymour Papert or David Jonassen comes to mind, but I can’t be more specific to one individual item.

Define what ‘good research’ means to me.

Good research for me, is like going on a canoe trip. You prepare and research the route, materials you need, safety measures to take, who will travel with you and plan out all the details. Once everything is ready, the moment arrives to put the canoe in the water. You may know where you are going and have a destination in mind, but there are lots of things that can change your course or interrupt your journey. There may be interesting side trips that will extend your time on the trip. There will be long, sometimes tedious hours at the paddle and brief moments of exhilaration. There may be hidden elements under the water to watch out for. In the end, you can look back to review what you did, complete the scrapbook story of the journey, and reflect on how to do things differently for the next canoe trip. You can share your trip story with others so they can avoid the pitfalls, challenges, or aim for similar breathtaking views. But your journey is only your journey and cannot be duplicated in exactly the same way ever again.

January 12th

Literature Reviews

I was lost in the hyperworld but in my wanderings I found this interesting presentation about literature reviews. There are 2 clips that I found helpful to heighten my awareness of what literature reviews are all about..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IUZWZX4OGI&feature=related

January 27, 2012.

Issues and Challenges with Ethnographic Research

The first challenge, based on my recent experience with interviewing, is the time commitment this will take. From just one interview with one subject, several hours were ‘consumed’. Multiply this by several interviews with several subjects, I can see why this type of research involves fewer subjects than quantitative research.

Another challenge is contained in the nature of making, reviewing and categorizing field notes. The how, when, where, and what to include in the notes is a continual process of decision making. Keeping personal opinion and bias out of the equation can certainly be challenging if the researcher is in a participant observer role.

Finally, I reflected on my interview experience in terms of validity. Within the text there is reference to Maxwell’s criteria for validity of qualitative research (in chapter 14) and I tried to apply these to my interview. While I may have achieved some descriptive validity and evaluative validity, I could not make any claims of interpretive or theoretical validity. I found the strategies for ensuring validity of qualitative research that are listed in the text, both helpful and challenging.

My next step is to figure out how qualitative researchers collate and categorize all the collected information. I don’t know if it connects to this question, but I have read a bit about grounded theory and plan to investigate this further.

February 3rd.

Listening to the Voices

Reflecting on the article and historical images from the archives, my response was:

When I examined the images, I listened for the voices of the ‘others’ as Sandwell suggested.
“Whose voices are being represented in this document?”
“What can you infer about the people represented in this document?”
“What can you tell about the relations between the people represented in the document from the voices that we hear?”

Firstly, the voices I heard are those of the white, middle class, North American educated individuals. The students and teacher appear orderly, neatly dressed (neatly patched pants on one student), attentive and obedient.

The room is not particularly well-equipped by today’s standards (few posters, graphics, anchor charts, books, manipulatives, etc) but has the ‘latest’ thing. I can infer that the children are focused on the television since it is a fairly new item in their classroom and school. It is placed on a table that appeared to have been moved into that location since it is in front of a chalkboard that looks like it is frequently used (dusty, writing on it). The table could have been used as the teacher’s desk since there does not appear to be any other desks or tables in the room, or perhaps this room was set up just for ‘tv lessons’.

From the image I can see that the relationship of teacher to student is that of ‘sage on the stage’ and students are in the role of ‘sit and get’ receptacles for knowledge. They are similar in age and girls/boys are intermingled so class, gender, age are not issues in this classroom.

What does it mean?
Well, for me, it means that the voices of Piaget, Dewey and Vygotsky had not been ‘heard’ or heeded. The voices of conservative, white, dare I say ‘Protestant’, middle class society was very evident in the classrooms of the time.

Reference:
Sandwell, R. (2003). Reading beyond bias: Using historical documents in the secondary classroom. McGill Journal of Education, 38(1), 168-186

February 15, 2012.

Survey Says….

My investigations into surveys relating to teachers and technology led me to the ISTE website and linked me to an interesting survey connected to the technology competencies based on the NETS standards. (http://www.cesa6.k12.wi.us/products_services/elearning/netspreservey.cfm)

Other survey sites gave me additional insights into how to write good questions and details about how to sequence the survey questions. All good information, but not necessarily applicable in every survey. In a true survey, you would start with easy questions leading to more difficult ones.

I chose to make the survey questions connect to student learning using technology as it ties to pedagogical practice. As I have discovered, it is not easy writing good survey questions that get to the root purpose of the survey. The answers you get may not be the ones you were looking for.

March 6, 2012.

Guide to Writing Literature Reviews

Thought I would share this article titled “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review”. Although we are not writing dissertations, there are useful items in this article that may come in handy as we work toward our own lit reviews. There is a section on common mistakes made in reviewing research literature.

Interesting if you are interested: http://pareonline.net/pdf/v14n13.pdf

 March 10, 2012.

Sharing an Organizational Chart

I  struggling through the analysis and synthesis of the 3 articles and chose to set up an organizational chart similar to the one used by MacArthur et al. Since it was a ‘work in progress’ I shared it with my classmates. It helped others who were also struggling. They added and provided additional insights to the chart and shared information back with others.

Reference:
MacArthur, C. A., Ferretti, R. P., Okolo, C. M., & Cavalier, A. R. (2001). Technology applications for students with literacy problems: A critical review. The Elementary School Journal, 101(3), 273-301. [pdf] http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002248

April 6, 2012.

Ethical Research – Codes and Guidelines

In the APA guidelines, the section on ethics talks about conflict of interest, objectivity, and bias. This connected with one of the studies I examined where the researcher explicitly stated that she was not in a position of authority over the research participants. This made me rethink my own research proposal in terms of who should participate. Since I am in a position of authority over students, in terms of providing marks for completed portfolios, I should not have students from my class participate in the study. Their efforts would not necessarily be the ‘norm’ since they are worried or focused on the grades.

I then revisited a few of the other articles I reviewed to see if this position of authority was stated in other reports. For some it was seen implicitly, but I think this needs to be one consideration in all research.

I came across the ethics code for the APA and found it interesting and insightful. They outline 5 principles and 10 standards for their members to follow. One states that they need to “respect the dignity and worth of all people, and the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination.” When reading articles for my lit review, I found some practices that were obvious in their lack of respect, particularly for the right to privacy. One researcher used a previous class of student’s marks as a comparator for the study group who were in the same course with the same instructor. There was no indication that permission for this group had been sought or received, but for the study group it was explicitly stated.

This made me wonder if these researchers just went ahead and used the marks from the previous class just because they thought it provided a good comparison and they happened to have the marks because they were part of the staff involved with the course. It made me very aware of my responsibilities with student grades and maintaining confidentiality and privacy for critical information – if they will be used as part of my research (since portfolios in faculties of ed are part of students’ overall grades), then permissions need to be explicitly gained and stated in the research report.

Reference
Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx