comps reading - Handbook of Research on Educational Communication and Technology Ch.39 Qualitative Research Issues and Methods

It's been a while since last post, the one on 24th Aug. For one reason, I was busy in using google site to build my resume, as mentioned earlier, though not much progression since then. On the other hand, I think I need to apologize for myself being procrastinated over and over again. It almost tool me one week to finish another comps reading: Handbook of Research on Educational Communication and Technology-Ch.39 Qualitative Research Issues and Methods: An Introduction for Educational Technologists. Though it is a big book and the chapter I read was really many pages long, yet I admit these are only excuese. It's really only a matter of being persistent and concentrated enough to determine if you can succeed.

Anywyay, here's the excerpt, three pages long in MS word. Though lengthy it is, I think this does provide a comprehensive overview for qualitative study in our field. With other revelant textbook handy, now I don't think I need to print the CH.39 out. In a way, I save some small money, which is always something I did as usual.

1. Borg and Gall (1989) name the two approaches (i.e. qualitative and quantitative) positivistic and naturalistic, comparing them on the dimensions of the vision of the nature of reality, the relationship of the researcher to the research subject, issues of generalizability, discussion of causality, and the role of values (P.1046).

2. Early research efforts often used qualitative methods to evaluate and describe the use of media in the classroom (P.1047).

3. Although not researchers per se, instructional systems designers have always used the qualitative methods of surveys, interviews, and observations during the front-end analysis and evaluation phases of development. […] Driscoll (1995) suggests that educational technologists select research paradigms based on what they perceive as the most critical questions. […..] Many teachers, trainers, administrators, managers, community members, and instructional leaders contend that the evolution of new technologies will continue to change the nature of teaching, training, instruction, and learning (Ambron & Hooper, 1990, 1998; Lambert & Sallis, 1987; Schwartz, 1987; Schwier, 1987; U.S. Congress, OTA, 1988). (P.1048)

4. Qualitative Research Methods:

(1) Grounded theory

(2) Participants Observation

(3) Nonparticipant observation

(4) Interviews—Goetz and LeCompte (1984) describe three techniques for structured interviews: confirmation instruments, participant-construct instrument, and projective devices (P.1057).

¨ Confirmation instruments verify the applicability of data gathered from key-informant interviews or observations across segments of the population being studied.

¨ Participant-construct instruments may be used to measure degrees of feelings that individuals have about phenomena or in having them classify events, situations techniques, or concepts from their perspectives.

¨ Projective devices such as photographs, drawings, other visuals, or other objects may be used to elicit individuals’ opinions or feelings, helping researchers clarify what is going on in the situation.

(5) Documents and artifacts analysis (P.1058)

¨ Goetz and LeCompte (1984, P.155) provide guidelines for artifact collection, identifying for activities in this type of method: locating artifacts, identifying the material, analyzing it, and evaluating it. They recommend that the more informed the researcher is about the subjects and setting, the more useful artifacts may be identified and the more easily access may be gained to those artifacts.

¨ The meaning of artifacts is often intensely personal and subjective, so that verification of findings through triangulation is recommended.

5. Overall approaches to analyze qualitative data—based on the philosophical approach underlying the study (P.1059). Miles and Huberman (1994) outline three overall approaches to analyzing qualitative data:

¨ An “interpretive” approach would be phenoniological in nature or based on social interactionism.

¨ A “collaborative social research” is often used by action researchers in partnership composed of members of many, and sometimes opposing, organizations.

¨ “Social anthropology” relies primarily on ethnography, providing detailed and rich descriptions across multiple data resources. Goetz and LeCompte (1994) call this “recursive approach.”

6. Miles and Huberman (1994, P.10) state that qualitative data analysis consists of “three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.”

7. Researchers may derive patterns in ways Goetz and LeCompte call “analytical induction (P.179),” reviewing data for categories of phenomena, defining sets of relationships, developing hypothesis, collecting more data, and refining hypotheses accordingly. Those using a grounded-theory approach may employ “constant comparison.” […..] Field notes consist of observations and the researcher’s interpretations. Bogdan and Biklen (1984) call former content “the descriptive part (P.108)” and the latter “the reflective part (P.121).”

8. Coding data (P.1060):

(1) Miles and Huberman (1994) suggest that data can be coded descriptively or interpretively.

(2) Bogdan and Biklen (1992) recommend reading data over at least several times to begin to develop a coding scheme.

(3) Goetz and LeCompte describe coding to form a taxonomic analysis, a sort of outline of what is related to what, and in what ways.

9. Criteria for evaluating qualitative studies (P.1063)—validity can be created in three ways:

(1) multiple observers in teams can cross-check data and patterns continually

(2) the researcher can refine and test propositions and hypotheses throughout the study, in a grounded-theory approach

(3) the researcher can write using “verisimilitude” or “vraisemblance” (P.383), or writing that makes the world of the subjects real to the reader; the reader recognizes the authenticity of the results. (member check)

10. Lincoln and Guba (1985) agree with others that conventional criteria are inappropriate for qualitative studies and that alternate criteria do exist: a) credibility; b) transferability; c) dependability; and d) confirmability. Erlandson et al (1993) describe the following techniques for ensuring the quality of a qualitative study (P.1064):

(1) prolonged engagement

(2) persistent observation

(3) triangulation

(4) referential adequacy

(5) peer debriefing

(6) member checking

(7) reflexive journal

(8) thick description

(9) purposive sampling

(10) audit trail

comps reading - The Intellectual Work of Change

This paper deals with why educational changes are challenging for teachers, analyzing from four aspects, and how teacher participants in this research view and cope with educational changes.

To start with, the authors pointed out four aspects that can help understand why educational changes are difficult for teachers:

(1)The technical perspective: “If a teacher isn’t able to do it, it can’t be done!” Successful change in this respect means learning how to master a new and technically complex curriculum or a demanding new set of teaching strategies (P.116, Hargreaves, Earl, Moore, & Manning, 2001).

(2)The cultural perspective: “If a teacher doesn’t know how to do it or doesn’t ultimately feel confident doing it, it can’t be done!”

-The cultural perspective is concerned with the meanings and interpretations teachers assign to change (P.117).

-Elmore (1995) argues that the problem of educational reform is one of “changing the core of educational practice—how teachers understand the nature of knowledge the student’s role in learning, and how these ideas about knowledge and learning are manifested in teaching and class work.”

-Change, in this respect, has its indispensible human side, as well as its technical one (Evans, 1997). This human dimension of understanding educational change is both intellectual and emotional in nature.

-Meaning, motivation (“Whatever the change was, it presented teachers with a problem, need, or sense of dissonance that they felt to be compelling and were motivated to resolve.”), and relationships (i.e. proper supports) are all at the heart of the change process.

(3)The political perspective: “If a teacher won’t do it, it can’t be done!”

-concerned with how power is exercised over others or developed with them, the ways that groups and their interests influence the innovation and reform process, and how the ends of education address, comply with, or challenge the existing distributions of power in society.

-raises questions about who is in charge if change and about whose agenda the change itself serves.

-When the change is educationally or morally suspect, resistance can be a great professional virtue (Maurer, 1996)

(4)The postmodern perspective: “If the teacher has too much to do, it won’t be done well.”

-Postmodern society is synonymous with chaos, uncertainty, paradox, complexity, and ongoing change.

-Changes are opportunities; problems are their friends (Fullan, 1993)

-In the meantime, change in postmodern society can become an obsession rather than an
opportunity.

Followed by the four analyses, the authors presented their research results. This seems to be a qualitative case study, employing interview method to acquire their data. Teachers are their research participants. In this section, the authors, based on their research and data gathered from interviewing their teacher participants, explicated three phases of implementing educational changes.

1.understanding change: meaning and mastery

(1)The intellectual work of educational change involves establishing moral and philosophical clarity and agreement about what the change means (Tom, 1983; Sockett, 1989; Sergiovanni, 1990)

(2)Many teachers found (new) policy documents too “nebulous” and “far too involved,” without “a clear focus.”

(3)Teachers need to decode the language of the policy documents and determine if the policy’s intentions were in line with their own social and educational mission.

(4)Another teacher complained that “we use too much jargon, and we are afraid to decide what it means.”

(5)Some teachers employed “doing it already” approach, which can offer them personal and professional reassurance, but it can sometimes also lead to smugness and complacency, preventing teachers from forging ahead.

(6)Some teachers explored the differences between their own practice and the policy recommendations more actively by pinpointing where the gaps were (i.e. gap analysis). Such deciphering and sense-making process was best undertaken collaboratively with colleagues.

2.Deciding to change: urgency and energy
The power of social relevance was most obvious in teachers’ willingness to integrate curricula and establish relationships across traditional boundaries.

3.Developing capacity to change: agency and opportunity

(1)teachers as learners are at the center of educational change.

(2)Successful implementation requires opportunities to clarify policy initiatives and understand reforms (declarative knowledge), opportunities to develop procedural knowledge associated with the innovation, and opportunities to explore new routines and modify practices (Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999)

(3)Teachers found many ways to create the conditions for their own learning (for new policy):

-using their own practical knowledge and experience to think through the changes so that they made sense in the classroom

-Teachers grounded learning outcomes in the practical world of their students and in their own accumulated knowledge and experience about what does and does not work with students. They built integrated units on this foundation of practical knowledge before considering how these units connected to the outcomes. Outside-in knowledge made sense only when it was filtered through inside-out experience.

-By engaging in explicit professional learning about new practice and strategies in an embedded way, both within workplace and workshops and other events.

-By coming together to share ideas, engage in problem solving, undertake joint planning, pool expertise and resources, and explore ways of integrating their work more effectively.

Overall, solutions to implement educational changes effectively could be as follows (excerpt from the paper):

(1)more time, more human resources, better professional support

(2)changes in how policymakers present reform: e.g. clear outcome statement

(3)educational reform must become considerably less schizophrenic