| Education 867-5 Qualitative Methods in Educational Research: Knowing, Doing and Being |
| Dr. Suzanne de Castell | Office: Dean's Office |
| Phone: 778-291-3149 | email: decaste @ sfu.ca* |
| Cher Hill | email: chill @ sfu.ca* |
*(note, no spaces in real email address)
Tues. 4:30-9:20 - EDB 7610 Class e-List: r-list@sfu.ca
This course is about the "doing" of qualitative research as a practical, ethically regulated engagement in "knowing, doing and being". Investigating, interrogating and interpreting values, meanings and purposes unspoken and taken largely for granted in the course and conduct of everyday life is what distinguishes the study of human action from all other forms of inquiry. It is because questions of value, significance and agency form the core of such inquiry that, for qualitative researchers, epistemological and ethical issues converge in the very idea of what it is to conduct research.
Class activities will provide a guided apprenticeship into basic research practices, including observations, ethical review, fieldnotes, interviews, data interpretation, analysis, reporting and write-up. Students will read exemplary research studies, and will propose and initiate a study of their own. Questions such as "What kind of story does this research tell?", "Whose story is told, how, by whom, and for whose benefit?", How can qualitative research pursue 'validity'?, will guide a comprehensive inquiry into contemporary qualitative research methodologies, methods and processes in education. We will also consider ways in which research practices are technologically reconfigured, and how this technological re-mediation might impact upon qualitative research methods and practices.
Required Readings:
How to Research. Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, Open University Press, 1996. ISBN: 0335194524 (pbk).
Qualitative Research Design. Joseph A. Maxwell. Sage Publications. ISBN: 0803973292 (pbk)
Selected readings (provided by instructor).
Recommended:
Denzin and Lincoln (2005) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (Third edition)
and one of the following, to be selected by each student:
Paul Willis (1977) Learning to labour;
T.L. Taylor (2006) Play between worlds: Exploring on-line game culture;
Shirley Heath (1984) Ways with words;
Dorothy Smith (1987): The everyday world as problematic,
Judith Whyte (1986) GIST: The story of a project;
Richard Ekins: (1998) Male/Femaling
Peter Hoeg (1995) Borderliners;
Alison Jones (1995) At school I have a chance;
Erving Goffman (1961) Asylums;
Laud Humphreys (1970) Tearoom trade,
Malinowski: Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922);
H. Becker et al (1961) Boys in white
(or suggest an alternative qualitative study)
Evaluation will be based on:
(1) Field Journal (20% of final mark)
(2) Methodology workshop (20% of final mark)
(3) Book-of-the-week show and tell (10% of final mark)
(4) Mini-Research Project (50% of final mark) Includes the following elements: proposal--required but not graded; peer proposal reviews: 10%; project final presentation: 20%; and research write-up =20%.
Methodology Handouts
Performance Ethnography - Robert
Participatory Action Research - Sadie
Indigenous Methodologies - Mary
Life History - Gabriela and Caroline
Autoethnography - Kristin Kozuback
Course Schedule:
| Sept 2nd | Introduction to the course |
| Sept 9th | Preparation and "Paradigms... |
| Sept 16th | Purposes and Projects |
| Sept 23rd | Into the Field....Observation, Fieldnotes, Learning to "See" |
| Sept 30th | "Ought/Not": Research, Ethics and Controversy |
| Oct 7th | Research Proposals and Peer Review |
| Oct 14th | Tools and Techniques |
| Oct 21st | Coding, conceptualization |
| Oct 28th | True Stories |
| Nov 4th | On Being: The Subject of Researcher Identity |
| Nov 11th | Remembrance Day, University closed. |
| Nov 18th | Coming Back to Purposes |
| Nov 25th | Research presentations (Last Class) |
| Dec 2nd | Research project write-up due |
Sept. 2nd: Introduction to the course, its major themes and assignments, and a challenge...
"From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term 'research' is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The word itself, 'research', is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary." Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, p.1
Activity: (in class) Observing Objects, writing descriptions
In class reading: Chapters 2 (Starting) and 4 (Reading) in Blaxter et al How to Research
Discussion/Actions: What will I research for my class mini-project? What research method will I focus on for my seminar presentation? What do I need to know next? What book should I review for "book-of-the-week"? Where do I sign up!?!
Homework:
Reading:
Blaxter et al How to Research (skim to overview the entire text, and select one or more activities for in-class work.)
*"The discipline and practice of qualitative research", 17-32 in Handbook of qualitative research, Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications, 2005
*"On Tricky Ground:"Researching the Native in the Age of Uncertainty Linda Tuhiwai Smith, pp85-108 in the Sage Handbook
*Reconstructing Culture in Educational Research Ray Mc Dermott and Herve Varenne, (2006) pp.3-31 in George Spindler and Lorie Hammond (Eds) Innovations in Educational Ethnography. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Discussion preparation: Make sure you have carefully read the 3 articles, so that for next class you are prepared to discuss, with reference to these readings, the question of what your own research assumptions are. What, more specifically, is the 'unit of analysis' of your OWN proposed research?
Fieldwork: Fieldwork#1: Observation
Observing living things---go to a petshop or park or wherever you can conduct a short (2x 3 minute) observation of a living creature. This can be your own pet. Write a short (one page max) description of what you see. You may add a hand-drawn sketch or photo. (This will be the first entry to your fieldwork journal)
Action: Sign up for a methods focus for your methodology workshop, and decide on the topic for your mini-research project.
Sept. 9th: Preparation and "Paradigms..."
"Of course most indigenous people and their communities do not differentiate scientific of 'proper' research from the forms of amateur collecting, journalistic approaches, film making, or other ways of 'taking' indigenous knowledge that have occurred so casually over the centuries. From some indigenous perspectives the gathering of information by scientists was as random, ad hoc, and damaging as that undertaken by amateurs. There was no difference, from these perspectives, between 'real' or scientific research and any other visits by inquisitive and acquisitive strangers." Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 3
Discussion: "Typologies" and "Paradigms" of qualitative research: Establishing a field...? What your own research assumptions are. What, more specifically, is the 'unit of analysis' of your OWN proposed research?
Ethnography as central: the idea of trying to understand things 'as they are', of a researcher stance of open-ness.
*Reading: Basic skills: (in class) Practicing 'good enough' reading: 5 minutes on "Deconstructing the Qualitative/Quantitative Divide", 159-174 in Martin Hammersley: What's Wrong with Ethnography?, Routledge,(1992)
*In class reading: "Ethnography": a collaborative reading of intro, Hammersley and Atkinson Ethnography text
Solo Activity: (in class) nonparticipant observation. Leave the classroom and take to the halls. Your purpose is to actively consider what an 'institutional ethnography' of a specific place, (SFU), might look like. For the next 30 minutes, your task is to observe and document, in your fieldwork journal, what appear to you to be examples, instances, or 'cases' of "institutional subjectivity", to take note of whatever you observe that could illustrate an institution's (e.g. a University's) formation of its human subjects. Write a fieldnote. Include a sketch. Any location at SFU is fine, endeavour to remain ethically careful and be realistic about what you can do in the time (30 mins)
Homework:
Readings
"But its important data!: Making the demands of a cognitive experiment meet the educational imperatives of a classroom" Marilyn Quinsaat pp 292-301 in MCA
"Resepectful research..." Sheila Te Hennepe, (1998) in de Castell/Bryson, Radical Interventions, SUNY Press
"Research as Praxis", Lather, P: (1986) Harvard Educational Review 56, 257-277
Participant observation. Select any activity in which you are a participant, create an observation protocol for conducting a 10 minute observation of that activity (informal/rough outline of what you will look at/for, how, etc) and write a 2 page fieldnote on that observation, descriptive (1page), analytical (1/2 page) researcher note (1/2) page). Bring to next class.
Sept. 16th: Purposes and Projects
"Many community projects require extensive community input. The implications of such input for impoverished communities under stress can be enormous. Every meeting, every activity, every visit to a home requires energy, commitment and protocols of respect....Idealistic ideas about community collaboration and active participation need to be tempered with realistic assessments of a community's resources and capabilities" Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 140
Discussion: For whose benefit is the research I propose to do? How will that work? What demands does my research place upon others?
Activity: 15 minute freewriting exercize: your proposal
Lit Review!: (in class) Write a brief response log in relation to one of the week's readings, consisting of (in sentence, NOT note/bullet form:
3 main points-description, one sentence each
3 critical points (analysis, evaluation-one sentence per point)
1 "key", or "burning" question (one sentence)
Homework: Interviewing face to face. On a subject relevant to your proposed project, conduct a short (15 min) face to face interview, take notes during and write fieldnotes after.
Reading:
"Observational techniques" Patricia and Peter Adler, 377-392 in Handbook
"Sheep do have opinions" Vinciane Despret, pp. 360-369 in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, Bruno Latour ad Peter Weibel, (Eds.) MIT Press, 2005.
About Pigs. Jocelyn Porcher, Thierry Schweitzer, pp380-383 in in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, Bruno Latour ad Peter Weibel, (Eds.) MIT Press, 2005.
"The Acquisition of a Child by a Learning Disability", Ray McDermott, in Understanding Practice, Lave and Chaiklin (eds) pp269-305, Cambridge University Press, 1993
Sept. 23rd Into the Field....Observation, Fieldnotes, Learning to "See"
"Observations made of indigenous women...resonated with views about the role of women in European societies, based on Western notions of culture, religion, race and class. Treaties and trade could be negotiate with indigenous men. Indigenous women were excluded from such serious encounters..." Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 8
Activity: Interviewer/Interviewee: Videotaping an "Ethnographic" Interview
Writing: (in class): Write a brief response log in relation to one of the week's readings, consisting of (in sentence, NOT note/bullet form:
3 main points-description, one sentence each
3 critical points (analysis, evaluation-one sentence per point)
1 "key", or "burning" question (one sentence)
Discussion: Seeing 'the world that is there', and questions of perspective. How do these articles add to (or call into question) your current approach to observation? The importance of fieldnotes. How will I record fieldwork data for my mini-project? Refining your protocols.
Homework: Identify what you think may be for your mini project 5 useful articles for your project lit. review. Write short annotations of these 5 sources, using the framework we have practiced.
Reading:
"Politics and Ethics in qualitative research", Maurice Punch, 83-104 in Handbook (op cit)
Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (chapter on betrayal) Kamala Visweshwaren
Katz, S. (2000) Can a Teacher Ever Know Too Much? Ethical Considerations of Practitioner Research with Students in Gangs, Educational Foundations, 14, 5-22.
SFU ethics Review Form (http://www.sfu.ca/policies/research/index.htm)
Ethics and politics in qualitative research, Christians, 139-164, in
Handbook (op cit)
Sept. 30th: "Ought/Not": Research, Ethics and Controversy
"Many researchers, academics and project workers may see the benefits of their particular research projects as serving a greater good 'for mankind', or serving a specific emancipatory goal for an oppressed community. But belief in the ideal that benefiting mankind is indeed a primary outcome of scientific research is as much a reflection of ideology as it is of academic training. It becomes so taken for granted that many researchers simply assume that they as individuals embody this ideal and are natural representatives of it when they work with other communities. Indigenous peoples across the world have other stories to tell" Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 2
Discussion: What ethical issues are raised by your proposed research and how do you intend to address these?
Activity: SFU ethics Review Form (http://www.sfu.ca/policies/research/index.htm)
Reading:
"Paradigms and Prejudice", in Mind Culture and Activity, pp. 100-116
"A Method from Marx", Dorothy Smith: The everyday world as problematic
"Finding New Worlds" pp. 1-19 in T.L. Taylor (2006) Play between worlds: Exploring on-line game culture;
Homework: Prepare research proposal for submission next week (see guidelines below)
For reasons of scheduling LATE SUBMISSIONS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE
GUIDELINES FOR MIN-RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Use the CSSE (Canadian Society for the Study of Education) guidelines for conference proposals. Specifying 1. objectives, 2. perspectives, or theoretical framework, 3. methods and/or techniques of investigation, 4. data sources, 5. results and/or conclusions and/or anticipated outcomes, 6. educational significance, policy and/or practice implications of the research, describe a study you propose to undertake as the major project for this course. Pay particular attention to methodology. 3 pages double spaced maximum (not including references).
Bring to class or email your proposal, in time for class, to each for your 2 peer reviewers and to the instructor.)
Oct. 7th: Research Proposals and Peer Review
"research is highly institutionalized through disciplines and fields of knowledge, through communities and interest groups of scholars, and through the academy...research activities are carried out by people who in some form or another have been trained and socialized into ways of thinking of defining and making sense of the known and the unknown....." Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 124
(!SUBMIT PROPOSALS!)
Activity: Collect, arrange and distribute research proposals for peer review
Discussion: Peer Evaluation Processes
Reading: Working with Interviews, Observation, Documents, Visual Methods. Part 4 pp 353-479 in the Handbook (sec 1., sec 3)
Additional sources for visual analysis:
info on interesting open source on line video data analysis program, transana, (like MAP) http://www.transana.org/about/news.htm
Choosing qualitative data analysis software (paper on line) http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ChoosingLewins&SilverV3Nov05.pdf
Handbook of Visual Analysis Theo Van Leeuwen (Editor), Carey Jewitt (Editor)
Doing Visual Ethnography : Images, Media and Representation in Research, Sarah Pink
What's New Visually, Douglas Harper
Visual Methodologies : An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, by Gillian Rose
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Hardcover), by Edward R. Tufte
Video-Analysis: Methodological Aspects of Interpretive Audiovisual Analysis
in Social Research, Hubert Knoblauch, Bernt Schnettler and Jurgen Raab, pp
9-26 in Video Analysis: Methodology and Methods (Qualitative Audiovisual
Data Analysis in SociologyÓ Huber Knowblauch, Bernt Schnettler, Jurgen Raab
& Hans-George Soeffner (eds) Peter Lang Press, 2006
Homework:
Write short (500 words max) critical evaluations of 2 student proposals, focusing on research methodology. n.b.: Reviewers are asked to engage with questions about the educational value of the proposed research, as well as with questions of methodology "proper". You will be asked to rank these proposals, using a scale to be established in class (Submit reviews at next class, again, late submissions cannot be accepted for reasons of time.)
Important Reminder: MAKE SURE YOU have by now completed and submitted Ethical Review form. There is no room for delay here so please contact me in good time if you are experiencing difficulties.
Oct.14th: Tools and Techniques:
The unassisted hand and the understanding left to itself possess but little power. Effects are produced by means of instruments and helps. - Francis Bacon
Activity: Focus group! Experience the chaos of a real live focus group: chills, spills and surprises...
Discussion: Technological re-mediation of educational research (bring examples)
Homework: Field work
Reading:
Practical consideration" (pp. 19-43), and "Criteria for evaluation" (pp.
293-312). Corbin, J. M., & Strauss A. L. (2008). Basics Of Qualitative
Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
"Coding procedures/Open coding" (pp.57-74) in Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques Anselm Strauss and Julia Corbin (Sage 1990)
Ch 1 "Varieties of data" and ch 2 "Concepts and Coding" in Coffey and Atkinson, Making sense of qualitative data pp. 26-53
"Analyzing talk and text" Anssi Perakyla, Handbook
Oct 21st: Coding, conceptualization
"Methodology is important because it frames the questions being asked, determines the set of instruments and methods to be employed, and shapes the analyses.... Methods become the means and procedures through which the central problems of the research are addressed." Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 143
Activity: Working with transcripts
Discussion: TBA...post-structuralist critiques of post-positivist research?
Homework: Write a short (2 page max) description of the main conceptual core/codes of your proposed research project. Bring this to next class.
"Concepts of Ecological Validity: Their Differing Implications for comparative cognitive research", Michael Cole, Lois Hood and Raymond P. McDermott, (eds.) 49-56 in Mind, Culture and Activity: Seminal Papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Ch 3 "Narratives and stories" and Ch 4 ("Meanings and metaphors") in Coffey and Atkinson, Making sense of qualitative data pp. 54-108
"Grandmother's Story" Trinh Minh-Ha Framer Framed and "Why a Fishpond?"
Oct. 28th: True Stories
"This book acknowledges the significance of indigenous perspectives on research and attempts to account for how, and why such perspectives may have developed. It is written by someone who grew up within indigenous communities where stories about research and particularly about researchers (the human bearers of research) were intertwined with stories about all other forms of colonization and injustice." Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 31
Discussion: What does "validity" mean in your own proposed research? Explain and justify this conception of validity.
Write: (in class) A short paragraph or two on the question of validity in yr own research (below)
Methods workshop: "Triangulation": Questions, tasks and justifications
Homework: Who are you in your own research? How and why does this matter/not matter? Write this up in a paragraph or two (Fieldwork journal entry) to bring to class.
Reading:
George Spindler (2006) *Living and Writing Ethnography: An Exploration in Self-Adaptation and its Consequences. Pp. 65-81 in George Spindler and Lorie Hammond (Eds) Innovations in Educational Ethnography. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
de la Luz Reyes, Maria, (1998) Chicanas in Academe, deCastell/Bryson, Radical In<ter>ventions
Francisco Ibanez (1998) "From Confession to Dialogue" pp107-130 in Radical In<ter>ventions (op cit)
And Recommended:
Daniels, Arlene K. (1967) The Low-caste stranger in social research in Ethics, Politics and Social Research, Gideon Sjoberg (Ed.)
Michelle Fine, Working the hyphens: Reinventing self and other in qualitative research, 70-82 in Handbook of qualitative research (op cit)
"Queer Ethnography" de Castell and Bryson (1998) in Taylor et al, Sexualities and Social Action, Univ. of Toronto Press
Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research, pp. 516-529. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Nov. 4th: On Being: The Subject of Researcher Identity
"Consent is not so much given for a project of specific set of questions, but for a person, for their credibility" Decolonizing Methodologies, p. 13
Activity: Symposium on "Researcher Identity: Who am I in my own research?"
Homework: Prepare your final presentation: 15 mins presentation time, 5 mins discussion, 5 mins break/set up between presenters. Practice your presentation until you are confident you can adequately explain your mini research project to your audience within the time allotted, making sure it is sufficiently engaging to ustify requiring peoples' undivided attention to you, your ideas, and the work you have done.
Reading: The "research Spiral" (p. 10) and Blaxter ch 8 & 9
Discussion: research purposes
Nov. 11th: Remembrance Day, SFU closed, no class.
Nov. 18th: Coming Back to Purposes: Educational Research as Interventionist Praxis
George Herbert Mead long ago argued that in a democracy, there should be little place for experts like educational researchers to stand apart from the problems they are trying to solve. Every attempt to direct conduct by fixed categories like kinds of person tied to measures of school performance should not only fail, but fail perniciously. For Mead (1899), expert knowledge is better seen as a 'working hypothesis' that must enter a community of practice and jostle apparent knowledge until it takes root in a reorganization of what people can do with each other: "Reflective consciousness does not them carry us on to the world that is to be, but puts our own thought and endeavour into the very process of evolution" (p371). McDermott and Varenne, Op Cit, p. 27
Activity: TBA
Nov 25th: Project Presentations: Graduate Student Research Symposium (last class)
Dec 2nd: Research project write-up due
Final project write-up, which should take the form of a 12 page (max, not including references) article reporting on your research. Papers to be submitted by email to decaste@sfu.ca by Dec. 2nd, Make sure you keep a copy.
If you have a physical, psychological, neurological or learning disability
that you think might require classroom or exam accommodations, please let me
know as early in the semester as possible so that your needs may be
appropriately met. Please note that you will need to provide disability
related documentation to and register with the SFU Centre for Students with
Disabilities (1250 Maggie Benston Centre).
.