Research paradigms. The first part of class was devoted to reviewing and practicing the language associated with the research paradigms identified by Mertens. As she pointed out in her introductory chapter, her designations are not the only way to classify the many different standpoints for doing research and the names are somewhat arbitrary. At the same time, I agree with her in stressing the importance of examining the assumptions, values, and methodological perspectives that underly ANY kind of research. Truly - we see what we look for - and we see it in terms of the questions we ask and the tools we use to "measure" and "see" it. So paradigmatic assumptions about ethics, the way the world is, how knowledge is made, and what methods can best explore and characterize the subject of our research is an essential move both in reading and researching.
We re-created thechart from Mertens, p. 11, Chapter 1 in our own words and in a more complete form, pausing to translate the jargony words into our own language. I strongly recommend that you pay attention to the different assumptions, learn the language to talk about the paradigms, and start thinking about where you fit as a researcher. You will want to consider what kind of research your assumptions /paradigm set you up to do. Thinking about what kind of knowledge the different paradigms produce - and who benefits and who controls that knowledge - is one of the major themes of exploration in this course.
Berlin and Literature review. The reaction paper is posted to the right. As you noted in class, our discussion was be-labored by clarifying and defining the terms. Berlin's terminology: Current-Traditional, Expressivist, and New Rhetorical (social constructionist) is widely used by compositionists, and you will want to be able to pull up the assumptions about writers-reality-readers and language that are associated with each. We talked about Berlin's work as an example of what a literature review could do "in and of itself" as a research method. We agreed that he had in fact used his literature review to create new knowledge - a new way of thinking about and "seeing" writing pedagogy. In our discussion of literature review we took some time to talk about composition studies resources for finding research articles, and discussed a variety of approaches. The tips for doing searches listed in Mertens are worth noticing.
Brodkey and Comparative Correlational research. We did not spend much time on Mertens except to note the differences between the approaches, and to point out that the statistical material is there as a reference should you choose to employ it. Much writing studies research is qualitative and remains comparative, as did the Brodkey study. In our discussion of the reaction paper for Brodkey, we noted that there was more than on way to think about which paradigm the essay "fit", and that to think deeply about a researcher's paradigmatic assumptions we need to look both at what the essay says (espouses) and what it "does" - how its (perhaps) unconscious) discursve moves position it within assumptions about ethics, the way the world is, what constitutes knowledge, and the "right" way to conduct research.
For example. Brodkey's essay focuses on the discursive construction of relationships, where different experiences of a relationship dependent upon the subject's positioning within/with respect to the discourse of power . In her study, the teachers chose to remain within the teacher discourse/subject positioning which gave them power over the content, tone, and language choices within the letters. When ABE students made moves to become peers, or the "leader" in conversations in terms of their own class-based discourses, the teachers resisted this move, and each in different ways, remained in the "teacher" subject position. Her apparent assumptions about reality are that there are multiple realites and "ways of being" grounded in historically-based cultural discourses. Her essay seemed to suggest a transformative paradigm which advocates for acknowledgment of unacknowledge discourses of class at work in the classrooom. This silencing of working-class student perspective makes it so many of their concerns (content) and ways of talking (tone) are not acknowledged in the more middle-class educational context.
At the same time, her student-teachers, subjects in her study, were not asked to interpret their responses - a move through which Brodkey "speaks for" a perspective (the teachers) which she has not allowed to speak for itself. So it's complicated. This clearly is an important piece in terms of calling teacher's attention to discursive difference and power, yet other power differences (between researchers and subjects) remain unaddressed.
For next week.
.We do not meet on February 17, President's Day. Our next class will be Feb. 24
Attend your conference.
Turn in your NIH certificate if you have not done so already.
Read: Mertens, Chapter 6: Survey methods. Anderson et al (2006 at right); Royster (1996) 555; Elbow (1999) 641.
I think we are pretty much caught up from our missed class. If you have questions, or would like to spend a little more time on material we worked through quickly this week - bring it up in your conference.
Have a great 2 weeks and see you on Feb 24.
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