Category Archives: research examples

creating data using theoretical ideas

This example illustrates how methods can be informed by a theoretical connection, and can lead to creative data collection. The key, of course, is the soundness of the theoretical connection upon which the method is based.

As part of a large research project in Chicago, Professor Sampson walked through different neighborhoods this summer, dropping stamped, addressed envelopes to see how many people would pick up an apparently lost letter and mail it, a sign that looking out for others is part of the community’s culture.

In some neighborhoods, like Grand Boulevard, where the notorious Robert Taylor public housing projects once stood, almost no envelopes were mailed; in others researchers received more than half of the letters back. Income levels did not necessarily explain the difference, Professor Sampson said, but rather the community’s cultural norms, the levels of moral cynicism and disorder.

Read more about this in a discussion of the cultural of poverty and at the website for the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.

Storymapping

Using a combination of GIS technology and social science, there are strategies being developed to connect narrative to place.

Some of this work is being supported by the Center for Digital Storytelling with a project called UR Hear that integrates urban research, storymapping, community-based service learning, and asset-based approaches to community development.

An example of using GIS for doing local history is the Cedar Cottage Virtual Walking Tour created by the high school students at Gladstone Secondary In Vancouver, BC. The project uses Google Maps to create an historical and current picture of what the Cedar Cottage neighbourhood has been and is–clicking on a marker on the Google map takes you to historical photos and descriptions of places, interviews with current residents and business owners, and results of community surveys.

Poetry and representation

In Realism, Naturalism and Dead Dudes by Suzanne Baff reports on a research study that resulted from a qualitative research course she took with me. Originally, this research was represented entirely in poetry, but to be published the journal required some prose be written around the poetry to orient the reader.

Baff, S. J. (1997) Realism and Naturalism and Dead Dudes: Talking About Literature in 11th Grade English. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), 468-490.

Another approach used in interpretive research is poetic transcription (Baff uses this technique but also uses poetry rather than prose as well). Corrine Glesne illustrates forms of poetic transcription in That Rare Feeling. This excerpt illustrates two forms of poetic transcription she discusses.

Glesne, C. (1997). That Rare Feeling: Re-presenting Research Through Poetic Transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(2), 202-221.

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Ethnographic Case Studies

Here are links to the five elementary and middle school ethnographies that focus on the impact of state mandated testing on teaching and learning. In each case, one researcher spent a year doing participant observation with the team of 3 or 4 researchers involved in teacher, parent and administrator interviews.


Creating a Culture of Preparedness: One Suburban School’s Experiences with High-Stakes Testing

Make It a Great Day or Not. The Choice is Yours: Teaching & Learning Amidst Low Test Scores in an Urban Middle School

Hemlock’s Stand: One Urban Elementary School’s Efforts to Raise Test Scores

Doing the Best on the Tests: A Suburban Elementary School’s Response to High Stakes Test

Finding a Path In A High Stakes Environment: One City Elementary School’s Experience with State Standards & Testing