Interviewing objects: including educational technologies as qualitative research participants

This article argues the importance of including significant technologies‐in‐use as key qualitative research participants when studying today’s digitally enhanced learning environments. We gather a set of eight heuristics to assist qualitative researchers in ‘interviewing’ technologies‐in‐use (or other relevant objects), drawing on concrete examples from our own qualitative research projects. Our discussion is informed by Actor‐Network Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, as well as by the literatures of techno‐science, media ecology, and the philosophy of technology.     

Learning by restorying

In this paper, we introduce restorying, a pedagogical approach based on social constructivism that employs successive iterations of rewriting and discussing personal, student-generated, domain-relevant stories to promote conceptual application, critical thinking, and ill-structured problem solving skills. Using a naturalistic, qualitative case study design, this study describes and analyzes how restorying promoted learning and transfer for master’s level students in two sections of a conflict management class. Data sources included course documents, course assignments, class observations, interviews, focus groups, and surveys. An inductive analytic approach using constant comparative methods was employed for analyzing qualitative data, and course section assignment performance averages were calculated for analyzing quantitative data. The restorying approach emphasizes learning new content through personal story application and story sharing among course participants. The restorying approach offers a potentially viable alternative for those not satisfied with conventional case studies. Conventional case studies may fall short in providing the desired range or complexity of problem space elements or may embed problems in contexts that are not learner relevant. Moreover, the sustained analysis of a past personal experience may result in deeper internalization of domain content and transfer of learning. While restorying may not be appropriate for some learning contexts, it holds promise for settings that can incorporate the key elements and address the adoption considerations described in this paper. The restorying approach invites one to consider how personal, student-generated, domain-relevant stories may be employed, shared, reflected upon, revised, expanded upon, and redeployed to promote achievement of desired learning outcomes.     

Multiple Identities in a Multicultural World: A Malaysian Perspective

Recent research in second-language acquisition has revealed that the language learning process is a complex interplay of many variables in which social roles, relationships, power relations, and identities are constantly reconstituted. Most research studies on language and identity have been conducted in predominantly English-language native-speaker settings (McKay & Wong, 1996; Peirce, 1995). This article presents the findings of my doctoral research study on the relation between language and sociocultural identities of English as a second language (ESL) learners in a multicultural society in Southeast Asia. Using a qualitative research approach, 14 Malaysian participants were interviewed using critical ethnography research methods (Carspecken, 1996). They also had to write a personal narrative and complete a questionnaire. The findings reveal that in a multicultural, postcolonial society such as Malaysia, identity issues are far more complex and multilayered. Identity shifts take place frequently in strategic and nonstrategic ways as the participants find their way in society in search of acceptance and belonging.     

Troubling criteria: A critical commentary on Furlong and Oancea's framework for assessing educational research

Furlong and Oancea's influential framework for assessing the products of applied and practice‐based educational inquiry raises some important issues about the criteria by which research should be judged. They begin by outlining the current significance of the issue, and some of the uncertainties surrounding the definition of applied and practice‐based inquiry. They then present four sets of criteria by which such research can be assessed, covering, in shorthand terms, epistemic, technical, practical and economic dimensions. The issue of assessment criteria has recently been highlighted by public criticism of the quality of educational research, by attempts to incorporate qualitative work into systematic reviews, as well as by the continuing disputes generated by major methodological divisions among qualitative researchers. In this article, several aspects of the framework offered by Furlong and Oancea are examined. To start with, there is a discussion of the mode of argument they employ, and of how they define ‘applied and practice‐based educational research’. It is argued that explicit justification is not presented for some key, and controversial, elements of the argument. One of these is the idea that a new social contract is required between educational researchers and the funders and non‐academic users of their work. The nature of the proposed contract is examined, through a discussion of to whom educational researchers should be accountable, how, and for what. It is argued that the typology of research offered by Furlong and Oancea is inadequate, and an alternative is proposed. The ways that the authors formulate the four sets of criteria by which research should be judged are also examined in some detail. It is suggested that there are potentially serious conflicts amongst these criteria, and that by no means all of them are appropriate standards in terms of which educational researchers, of any kind, should be held accountable.     

Developing a ‘Semi-Systematic’ Approach to Using Large-Scale Data-Sets for Small-Scale Interventions: The ‘Baby Matterz’ Initiative as a Case Study

The appropriateness of using statistical data to inform the design of any given service development or initiative often depends upon judgements regarding scale. Large-scale data sets, perhaps national in scope, whilst potentially important in informing the design, implementation and roll-out of experimental initiatives, will often remain unused for small-scale interventions involving only small numbers of service users or participants. This can be the result of legitimate concerns regarding representativity and rigour. Whilst large data sets may allow for strong claims to made regarding trends and tendencies with the population, a small scale intervention involving perhaps only tens of participants will not offer the opportunity to devise developmental rationales that are supported by such statistical rigour. This creates a situation in which important pilot studies and ‘suck-it-and-see’ interventions are conducted in a basic empirical fashion that does not draw upon the informed reflection that large scale data makes possible. This article will argue that such a situation is not necessary. Through graduated and selective engagement with large-scale data sets it is possible to make good use of what they offer to inform the design and up-scaling of small pilot interventions. The discussion will focus on the case of a small intervention involving just nine parents and their babies conducted in Liverpool schools. More specifically it will consider the ways in which one national data-set, the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), can be used to develop this project. It will do this by way of profiling the MCS in order to both select out those aspects that could or should not be used and those aspects that could be used beneficially to inform the development of the initiative. In the process it will devise a set of criteria that could usefully be adapted for use by others in relation to service situations in which similar issues of scalar mis-match between available data-sets and service design exist.     

Understanding Art: Preparing Generalist School Teachers to Teach Art with Artworks

This article focuses on ways of building preservice primary teachers' confidence in teaching art with artworks and, in particular, on how to develop their pedagogical content knowing. It is suggested that through opportunities offered for engaging in observational and reflective practices with artworks an initial groundwork is set that can challenge pre‐service teachers' preconceptions about art and promote an aesthetic form of inquiry. A qualitative approach was followed which included in‐depth interviews with twenty pre‐service teachers regarding their attitudes and knowledge towards artworks. The findings indicate that enhancing teachers' abilities to practice factual inquiries and then move on to interpretive inquiries of artworks can help them learn how to learn about artworks and how to organise meaningful art viewing activities with children. Issues relating to the participants' level of aesthetic understanding are also discussed as participants were asked to engage with artworks and their aesthetic encounters were documented.     

Applying Quality Indicators to Single‐Case Research Designs Used in Special Education: A Systematic Review

This study examined how specific guidelines and heuristics have been used to identify methodological rigor associated with single‐case research designs based on quality indicators developed by Horner et al. Specifically, this article describes how literature reviews have applied Horner et al.'s quality indicators and evidence‐based criteria. Ten literature reviews were examined to ascertain how literature review teams (a) used the criteria recommended by Horner et al. as meeting the 5‐3‐20 evidence‐based practice (EBP) thresholds (five studies conducted across three different research teams that include a minimum of 20 participants) to assess single‐case methodological rigor; and (b) applied the 5‐3‐20 thresholds to determine whether the independent variables reviewed qualified as potential effective practices. The 10 literature reviews included 120 single‐case designs. This study found that 33% of the reviewed single‐case designs met Horner et al.'s quality indicator criteria. Three of the literature reviews concluded that examined practices met criteria to qualify as an EBP. Recommendations related to quality indicator criteria and EBP established by the literature review teams as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Environmental Education in Teacher Training: a case study of seven German Colleges and universities and its outcomes

This paper consists of two parts, the first one sets out the place of the case studies in the context of environmental education in German colleges and universities [1]. The case studies reported here should initiate inter‐university discussions on the objectives of, and the ways to incorporate, environmental education into the training for the pedagogical professions at German academic institutions. The second part tries to deduce generalisable aspects from the studies carried out in order to make some provisional conclusions about environmental education in pre‐service teacher education and the necessary research work in this field. Here use is made of the EEITE characteristics which Country Project Representatives agreed during their Summer Conference in 1993 as criteria to analyse the outcomes of the case studies [2].     

Environmental service learning: outcomes of innovative pedagogy in Baja California Sur,Mexico

This article reports on a longitudinal study of a two‐semester middle school environmental learning course that departs from traditional Mexican expository pedagogies through the incorporation of experiential and service learning approaches. In the short term, course participants acquired a heightened awareness of environmental issues, augmented their environmental perceptions and consciousness, and complemented all this with environmentally responsible behaviours. Two years after completing the experiential course, students retained pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviours and unexpectedly exhibited an expanded role in intergenerational learning. The research adds to the handful of studies in this cross‐disciplinary field through qualitative methodologies that refine our understanding of the outcomes of experiential environmental learning.     

The narrative approach in research and its use for policy advice

ABSTRACT

Recent developments in Europe show that policymakers acknowledge the role of qualitative research in evidence building. A number of qualitative research studies, including narrative inquiry, have been contracted out to gather information into selected policy issues. The management of career transitions and lifelong learning has become a focus of research and policy interest in many countries. Based on the findings of two Cedefop studies, which included the collection of narrative interviews among mid-career adults in several European countries, this article argues in favour of narrative inquiry as a tool to inform policymakers and influences policies, for example in the field of career guidance and counselling and lifelong learning. A selection of narratives is provided as an example to show how unique situated knowledge within the context of mid-career adults’ life is influenced by existing policies or implies that policies need to be changed. By providing snapshots of the findings from these two studies and exemplify their informative value for policy, the article advocates for the usefulness of narrative inquiry. The presentation of qualitative data humanises the commonly found statistical representations of individuals’ life circumstances and enables imagination and meaning making.     

Limitations of language: developing arts‐based creative narrative in stories of teachers’ identities

This paper is based on a multidimensional study employing a heuristic methodology termed ‘creative narrative’ that combines arts‐based methods with narrative inquiry. Six female teachers’ narratives of identity are explored through artistic, visual images to illuminate if and how they story ‘unconscious’. The creative narratives, illuminated through a multi‐layered extract from one creative narrative, illustrate various ways in which the participants imputed meaning and power to tacit and non‐conscious influences which were emotionally potent but previously hidden from themselves and others and that continued to affect their professional identities. The paper argues that such unconscious or non‐conscious dimensions to teachers’ lives are crucial to the experience and exercise of professional identity and yet are largely absent from our understandings and outside the capture of narrative inquiry as it is presently conceptualized. Narrative inquiry should strive to extend its theoretical boundaries and incorporate non‐verbal arts‐based research methods in order to go beyond the limits of language and capture the meaning of lived experience in more holistic ways.     

提高图书馆利用率与教学的密切关系

本文通过论述高校的教学方式及高校图书馆为读者提供学术性服务的层次与能力,对大学生读者利用高校图书馆的影响,阐述了高等院校应当加强教学改革,推动大学生走进图书馆,高校图书馆应提高自身为读者服务的层次与能力,吸引大学生走进图书馆。通过图书馆的学术性服务活动与系的教学活动的紧密结合,提高图书馆利用率,大幅度提高教学质量。     

Principles and practices of designing narrative distance for transformative learning experiences

Narratives have a unique ability to grant listeners emotional and cognitive space in a way that encourages them to choose how they will make sense of a story. This effect, called narrative distance, also has the potential to help create transformative learning experiences. This article is a qualitative research study of experts who regularly design for narrative distance. Six experts from a variety of fields were interviewed about the principles and practices of designing for narrative distance with the purpose of discovering ways that instructional designers can better facilitate transformative learning experiences. A variety of principles and practices on how to create narrative distance are categorized under four themes: cognitive space, emotional space, invite change, and meaningful content. General comments are also given on the application of these insights to instructional design along with further suggestions for research.     

THE FELLOWSHIPS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF RELIGION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed through the stories they tell about their work. Implications are drawn both for the conduct of qualitative, cultural study and for religious education.     

Sustainable development in early childhood education: in‐service students' comprehension of the concept

The purpose of this article is to explore day care attendants' comprehension of the concept of sustainable development (SD) and to analyse the associated pedagogical practices at their place of work in pre‐schools. The empirical data comprise written exam reports from 32 practising day care attendants attending an in‐service education course. The participants study early childhood education (ECE) part time at Mälardalen University, Sweden, and the rest of their time they work in their pre‐schools. The analysis was based on a qualitative content analysis approach, and the results show a multi‐faceted understanding of the concept. SD was seen as a holistic approach, an environmental issue or a democratic issue. The article explores how these different ways of approaching the concept relate to different attitudes and day‐to‐day practices in the pedagogical programme in the pre‐schools.     

教育叙事研究:是什么与怎么做

目前教育叙事研究作为一种质的研究方法被广泛运用于教育研究领域.然而对于教育叙事研究是什么却存在着误解.教育叙事研究与教育叙事的本质区别在于其具有的研究气质.本文对如何做教育叙事研究的一般操作步骤进行了论述,一般而言做教育叙事研究有三大步骤:做好准备工作走进参与者生活——收集整理叙事材料——撰写研究文本.此外,做好教育叙事研究还要注意以下几点:由理论语言到生活化语言;研究者要与参与者保持交互主体关系;保持做研究的科学严谨态度.     

Restorying as political action: authoring resistance through youth media arts

ABSTRACT

This article explores the lived realities for young people growing up and learning in a climate of racial discrimination, religious intolerance, misogyny, and xenophobia, and how school-sponsored and school-supported uses of digital media can afford young people opportunities to navigate their experiences of social injustice and resist exclusionary discourses and practices. In a collaborative inquiry into the practices of two youth media producers, we explore how these counternarrative efforts are forms of restorying, in which young people write themselves into existence in ways that can reconfigure school spaces. Framed in Black feminist and critical cosmopolitan perspectives, this article considers how young people use new media tools in school to engage the narrative imagination and build the worlds they want to live in, simultaneously representing the political histories and realities of their everyday worlds and imagining alternative futures. We explore the ways schools can create opportunities for youth to engage in these new media practices that re-author themselves and the institutional spaces they encounter – and how these opportunities are situated within broader intersectional forms of systemic inequity and oppression.     

Capturing visual metaphors and tales: innovative or elusive?*

Despite the exponential growth of visual research in the social sciences in the last three decades, continuing empirical enquiries are arguably more relevant than ever. Earlier research employed visual methods primarily to investigate distinct cultural practices, often seeking the views of marginalized, challenging or hard-to-reach participants. In this study, non-British postdoctoral academics took photographs that visually or symbolically represented the highlights of their academic acculturation experience as international PhD students in the UK. The semi-structured interviews of academic and non-academic related experiences that made a significant impression revolved around participants’ visual metaphors. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a widely employed inductive qualitative technique, was utilized, with visual data complementing the narrative evidence. This innovative method both aesthetically and insightfully enhanced the representation of participants’ lived experiences and was instrumental in validating participants’ narratives. Additionally, this article examines the pragmatic utility of employing metaphors in a photo elicitation technique (also critically reflected upon by the participants who are academic researchers themselves). The paper therefore offers a collective reflection not only on the features and advantages of this approach, but also on the key challenges and some recommendations to inform contemporary visual methods practice.     

Exploring neglected narratives: understanding vulnerability in narrative inquiry

Framed by a question around vulnerability in narrative inquiries, we show the multiple ways that vulnerability is evident in narrative inquiry. We take up the concerns around vulnerability to show how, as narrative inquirers, we are searching to find ways to think with vulnerability and with what others have called neglected narratives. Drawing on one study with Aboriginal youth and their families, we make visible how questions of vulnerability need to be considered in framing of research puzzles, selecting participants, and moving from field to field texts to interim and final research texts. In composing final research texts, we struggled with the notions of vulnerability that are placed on Aboriginal youth by labels and single stories. These assigned vulnerabilities lead to interpretations that could create experiences of judgment. We returned again to the importance of making experiences visible, in order to shift understandings of who Aboriginal youth are, and are becoming, in a complex world that will not write over or ‘erase their Indianness’ nor their or our vulnerabilities. We showed the ways questions of vulnerability are inextricably interwoven into narrative inquiry.