Category: Qualitative Research

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IMAGINATIONS

 

 

 

Sociological imagination

enables us to grasp the connection between history and biography. Wright C. Mills (1959) as cited in Henslin, J. M. (2015)  Essentials of Sociology:  A down-to-earth approach”  11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

 

Eisner: Educational Imagination

Erickson: Educational Imagination (in Moss et al, 2009, p. 504
“When I say a study has an educational imagination, I mean it addresses issues of curriculum, pedagogy, and school organization in ways that shed light on–not prove but rather illuminate, make us smarter about–the limits and possibilities for what practicing educators might do in making school happen on a daily basis. Such a study also sheds light on which aims of schooling are worth trying to achieve in the first place–it has a critical vision of ends as well as of means toward ends. Educational imagination involves asking research questions that go beyond utilitarian matters of efficiency and effectiveness, as in the discourse of new public management (see Barzelay, 2001), especially going beyond matters of short-term “effects” that are easily and cheaply measured.

Dialectical imagination

<class=”quote”>Dialectical imagination (Jay, 1973) is the ability to view the world in terms of its potential for being changed in the future, and hard-won ability in a world that promotes positivist habits of mind acquiescing to the status quo.”  p. 109
Agger, B. (1991). CRITICAL THEORY, POSTSTRUCTURALISM, POSTMODERNISM: Their Sociological Relevance. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 105–131. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/10.1146/annurev.so.17.080191.000541

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Mirka’s validity and aporia

The credibility of research or findings might have more to
do with choices researchers make rather than established and
documented procedures. p.606

even the most rigorous implementation or direct application of textbook analysis approaches does not guarantee increased value of research, trustworthy conclusions, representativeness, or validity. Mechanical application of analytical steps and decontextualized implementation of analysis processes might still avoid the question
of responsibility and decision making, even though situatedness and complexity of analysis processes ask researchers to decide when, how, and why to begin and conclude analysis or other interactions with the data. p.607

“The decision to conclude data analysis is, therefore, always arbitrary and uncertain. There exists no exact way to know or illustrate when analytical processes are finished, saturated, and explanatory of the entire data set. Similarly, it is impossible to say when new themes, linguistic elements, discourses, or insights will no longer emerge or cannot be further identified. At the same time, there exists urgency to report the findings, publish, and write summary reports to funding
agencies. It is with uncertainty that researchers decide analysis does not need to be continued or no more analytical insights might emerge at the moment. This decision becomes even more challenging if researchers continue to interact with data and study participants after systematic or “official” data collection has ended.” p.607

 

Koro-Ljunberg (2010).  Validity, Responsibility, and Aporia. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(60). DOI: 10.1177/107780041037

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Resource Officer Study

A year ago, after the tragic school shooting at Parkland, schools here, in Hernando County, had sheriff deputies posted every day. I was worried, thinking there is intelligence that our county is next. Soon, the sight of a sheriff car and a uniformed officer (a young woman) meeting us parents at Chocachatti every morning and afternoon became the new norm. I remember coming to talk to her about the parking on the lawn situation and the draconian tardy policy. We chatted. She seemed nice, but very much “servant of the law” like with her professional demeanor and formal speech.

A couple of months ago, I received an email from GCA informing us that they almost closed because they could not afford to pay for a resource officer mandated by the new law. The problem was resolved, they said, and this is how I met the incredibly friendly deputy who always smiled a huge smile, seemed to know each kid’s name after a month, and recently even helped my son with a math assignment (not that he needed help, she said she was “just bored”).

I became curious: how do school shootings, new laws, and friendly smiles shape our schools? What do children think when they see a uniformed, armored and armed sheriff deputy every day? What do teachers think? And what of the shooter drills that also, alas, became a regular activity in all area schools? How is our education being impacted? And who are they, resource officers who call my son “Batman” because he used to have a Batman backpack last year, and help my other son with academics?

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Politics, Neoliberal academy, and, and, and

I have been trying to stay away from politics, but it is a difficult thing to do–they sip through interactions with others. I hate it because it demands of me a political stance, and I resist it because I know the world is much more complicated than that. I could care less where I stand–I have become wary of choosing packs and having to conform to the conventions, expectations, and rules that come with its membership. I tried belonging–grew up as a Soviet, then later, I was a Christian; enough said–I do not like memberships.

…I am not a troublemaker, I am simply curious. And now, way beyond my passionate twenties, I no longer want to change the world–I just want to make it better, help everyone co-exist, find ways for everyone to get along and thrive somehow. Yet, Trump’s election broke me–I became so emotionally invested that the night Trump won, I felt dead. Specifically, what died was the part that believed in human’s virtue, respected opposing points of view. In its wake, I felt disgust, disbelief, disappointment with other fellow humans, and anger.  With time, the pain had subsided, but not the disgust, nor the constant awareness of my ethically problematic position as a Russian national and a permanent resident of the United States. Once again, I feel like I am forced to choose camps, and I refuse to do it.

When I became aware of the term “neoliberal academy” about a year ago, I knew in which camp I belong. My enculturation into the academic persona was easy–I am easily persuaded and sensitive to the affective power of the written word, and academic literature is no exception. When I read, I always search for the protagonists, the antagonists, for stances, philosophies, messages, and so forth; I like to know where I step next.

Neoliberal is bad. The principle of parsimony is impotent. Complexity and ambiguity are the answer. If I had a bow, I’d slap it on this neat package and put it on display to enjoy it.

Today, I question the evilness of neoliberal. What would my world, my time look like without the efficiency, the productivity of the neoliberal paradigm? Would I be able to reconcile my yearning for a simpler life on a small farm with my desire to be a part of bustling city life, the modern conveniences and comforts afforded by financial security? How do I work out the gravitational pull of adventure and cultural explorations through food and long-distance travel while I worry about the pollution I create when I fly or drive, or enjoy imported foods? I am as much a product of the environment as the producer of the environment. I am a phenomenon, and so is the neoliberal order, and the ecologies, and the species, and all the things, concepts, and events that I hate, love, or constantly interrogate in order to decide whether I should hate or love them.

I am entangled with politics and world orders, but I do not need to hate them, love them, or devote my life to changing or preserving them–I want to live in the moment, becoming with the world around me as it becomes with me. I do not want to be anxious about my employability after graduation–I want to stay curious and see where it takes us as a family.

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Epistemology as clothes

In the beginning of postqual, I realized that my epistemologies change as I progress through the day and perform the numerous roles as a mother, a wife, a neighbor, a friend, a student, a daughter, and so forth. I have been “sitting” on this discovery for over a month and made it my own. I asserted this belief since then several times and even came up with a narrative: “If I were not a postpositivist in the kitchen, my family would go hungry. If I was not an interpretivist with my husband, I would be divorced. With my kids, I am a constructivist. I have to be!” and so forth… Today, while driving home, I thought that I should call myself on these assumptions so I thought of a study:

Method: progress through the day and take note of what type of knowledge I typically encounter and what epistemological beliefs help me process the information, and in what way. I will create a map, then try to create an outfit, a costume (or at the very least, a hat, or an accessory depending on how strong the belief is) to represent (constructivism? already?) each belief.

If clothes help construct our identities and are the material part in our performativity, then why not tap into the potential or wardrobe research?

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Geological nature of autism research

Today, I “accidentally” came across an article by Marcelina Piotrowski “Writing in Cramped Spaces” (2017). Jenni had posted several other articles from the special issue of Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, 8(3) in the module “Doing PostQual I” and I became intrigued by the other articles in the roster.

Piotrowski’s writing is thorough, very well documented and organized. She is talking about cramped spaces and links medicine, literature, geography, ecology, art, and philosophy to  explain postqual and intersciplinary research. By doing so, she actually illustrated the concept with her own writing. On the highlighting index, this article received the brightest, most highlighted marks.

This read came at an excellent time–I struggled to start writing the lit review for our first POI study publication, and Piotrowski’s work helped me on two fronts: she began her writing with the discussion of disciplinary research–a direct hook to POI study, and explained why writing can become problematic. I  feel better, I can try putting that lit review together.  A post from earlier today captures some of my struggles as I try to figure out  how I am getting lost in exploration of the wildnerness of postqual and methological, political, and cultural dilemmas of educational research and yet, hearing my mom call me to dinner from three feet away. Of course I am having all these epistemological adventures in my head, without leaving the backyard!

Anyway, at the end of the article, when Piotrowski started pulling in ecology as an illustration of ecology as emploed by  Guattari, I thought about using geology and archeology to write about autsim. Autism is a multidisciplinary concept, but somehow, it is very much territorialized within each discipline. If you assemble all the plains of research together, you will end up with a very crude sculpture of Autism. I want to see if I can dig up some archeological artifacts buried in layers of sediment of research produced by multiple fields and their epistemological traditions. It would be cool to do a postqual meta analysis of autism research. Map it, take it apart. See at what point the division in to high and low autism came to be. The DSM wars, the methodologies used. It would be neat to take on geology or archeology as a guide because sediments are formed by the climate, geological, and biological activities. So I can at least map the climate of the culture, scientific methodological rock samples, and play with it some more to develop my methodology of inquiry as a parallel to geological and archeological research. I could do a survey of literature by year of publication. Tons of work, but maybe well worth it.

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Mixed and Mixology

I cannot get out of my head the recent round of interviews my department conducted for two new openings–one for the mixed method position, the other for quant. In a way, the event has made an impression on me…It brought the sense of urgency and with it the potential of generative anxiety, the good kind that motivates. Dr. Dedrick kept offering little comments on the process–receiving nearly a hundred of applications to finally narrowing the search down to a handful of candidates, arranging for the final interviews, flying the finalists in, showing them around, meeting the faculty, administrators, and students… I wonder if someone enjoys this… I panic just thinking about how one day I may be in this position… mixed methods would be amazing…

And then I think about how I fell in love with research methods when I took my first RM class as psych undergrad, then the second… they were quant classes, too. At USF, I discovered qualitative and philosophy. How I have grown. This semester I am taking advance measurement class, single case experiments class, and a post qual class, and all I can think about how different and yet, the same they seem. At least qual does not pretend that the researcher is not a crucial part of the study. Subjectivity is a feature, not a condition that needs to be kept in check… Last night Dr. Ferron explained the essence of the statistical approach to analysis in such easy, palatable terms (both Dedrick and Ferron do that–they make quantitative methods friendly somehow, not so sterile) that I must question why do we have so many purists in research methods? Of course, it is a rhetorical question–there is a great deal of culture in academic training among other things.

In stats, we compare our observed scores to theoretical curves to prove or to disprove our null hypotheses. We design our studies using the logic tied to assumptions of normality, homogeneity of variance, independence… then there is a neverending tug of war between type I and type II errors that must be balanced well enough to convince the others who (also thanks to their training) only loosely (empirically or theoretically, or somewhere in between) agree on thresholds between statistically significant and not significant  results. And what of the general convention of 0.05 alpha? Arbitrary, but widely accepted. The data conceived, then collected, then analyzed as a model–observed scores, true scores… some of the concepts are “squishy” (in Dr. Dedrick’s own words).

It is ALL so damn squishy!

Barad’s application of quantum physics acknowledges and celebrates the squishiness. I like it. So as I think about “mixed methods” designs, they are just like a trail mix–the chunks that never quite blend together. Within most designs, quant and qual carefully observe their methodological boundaries. The methodologies are preserved and limited by conventions and traditions that decide what a researcher can and cannot do. Researchers are obliged to stick with conventions or else be scrutinized in terms of rigor, validity, integrity. They must be bold enough to answer methodological examination from BOTH qualitatively and quantitatively oriented peers. The risks are obvious. But what of risks? RISK is a construct, it does not have to be a variable or a sure limitation of research. Does it? Just think: risk, too, is a highly subjective term. It is socially constructed, much like validity, objectivity, and other measures that weigh a study and pronounce its value. So what if it is dealt with reflexively? I have nothing yet, just an abstract vision (which is yet, somehow, seems solidified) of my future employment as a methodologist.

I should totally try and conceive MIXED methodology designs as a cocktail, liquid and blended, not mixed like the trail mix.

So what if I do a single case experiment but analyze it qualitatively AND quantitatively?

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My first impressions of Barad

Reading the first chapter of the “Entangled Beginnings.” OMG, I had to stop and write my first impressions out because her words are so profound. In the first portion of the chapter, as she rounds up her argument about how the Quantum Mechanics Theory is being used in other contexts, such as the play that features the meeting of two famous physicists in Nazi Europe. She makes an importnat disctinction between the purpose of the play and purpose of the actual quantum physics studies. Barad goes on to hypothesize why we as a race are so smitten with QM, and I now totally get it: we simply do not understand it, but are drawn to it because of its potential to explain the numerous messy connection, relations, structures that traditional science and qualitative methods cannot explain. Or even worse, due to political reasons:

“Public fascination with quantum physics is probably due in large part to several different factors, including the counterintuitive challenges it poses to the modernist worldview, the fame of the leading personalities who developed and contested the theory (Einstein not least among them), and the profound and world-changing applications quantum physics has wrought (symboized by the development of the tomic bomb)” p.6.

Because ” The interpretative issues in quantum physics (i.e., questions related to what the theory meansand how to understand its relationship to the world) are far from settled.” p. 6

Barad’s next point about how we just use QM concepts, though we do not even understand them, hits very close to home. This the question of rigor and integrity. This is why I raised my brown at Manning’s (very liberal) use of music theory when she first introduced the Minor Gesture, this is why Hein’s reference to sound as a molecular structure (which he, in turn, seems to have picked up from Deleuze) is misleading. I think in our pursuit of crossing interdisiplinary boundaries we forget to check facts or at least make an attempt to gain some expertise in the field we seek to incorporate in our studies. Great point, Barad!

She next brings forth the problem of analogical thinking that results in “unsatisfactory understandings of the relevant issues” This one cuts me deep because my sense-making strategy is amost exclusively dependent on creating analogies. Guilty as charged, for sure. So how do i change that?

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Methodologists: Who needs them? POST TQR thoughts

From: Anna Gonzalez <annagonzalez@mail.usf.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2019 2:16:21 PM
To: Wolgemuth, Jennifer
Subject: A few thoughts about Methodologists: Who needs them?

It is a bit long, so I bolded the word conclusion  🙂

This was my first conference ever. The “Methodolosts: Who needs them?” presentation was the first and only session I was able to attend. It was an excellent experience, and I am glad I made it.

Methodologists… who needs them? The title meant to stimulate thought and to incite a debate. It accomplished both. People argued and framed the discussion around another question: What is the purpose of research? Is it about answering the research questions, or about asking them? If we can answer that, then we can answer who methodologists are and maybe even figure out who needs them.

In me, the presentation stirred up pride: as one of the USF tribesmen, I was thrilled to see so many people come to hear what the leaders of my qualitative clan had to say. I loved the tour into their thinking headquarters and appreciated the invitation to think with them. I could not be more pleased!

Yet, I also felt like a homeowner who discovered cracks on the stucco and opened her eyes to the reality of a possible sinkhole. I WANT to be a methodologist, but the ground on which this vision stands is apparently shaky, and so I felt frustration and fear of uncertainty for my future.

I know some people in the room were just as conflicted about their thoughts on the matter. Others immediately picked a camp. On the drive back, my co-presenters and I reflected on the experience and even argued a little bit. One student expressed her discomfort with the presentation because it brought USF’s dirty laundry out for everyone to see. It made her feel vulnerable and irate. I disagree–transparency in education is important.

I am still reflecting:

Thirty years ago, my 4th-grade teacher called me a “class advocate” for sticking up for troublemakers. She did not mean it as a compliment. Ten years ago, a very close friend called me a contrarian, and I agree–I love a good debate. Yet, as my husband frequently points out, I like to argue both sides. He finds it frustrating; I, on the other hand,  believe this is how I make sense of things. Some people argue to prove they are right. To them, having a winning opinion is important. I argue because the process helps me to organize information retrieval, to weigh facts, and eventually to arrive at a conclusion or another argument. I could care less whether I prove anything to my opponents: opponents are just helpers, anyway. Of course I like being right, but I enjoy the process of sense-making even more. I am no advocate, I am a discoverer. So how does this relate to the question of who needs methodologists?

Well, I argued every side I could come up with. I enjoyed the stimulation. I also loved the chance to demonize our neo-liberal education and the conditions it creates (it appears I am more of a socialist than I think. Oh wait. I was actually born and bred one, although I cannot say I hate the capitalism entirely–otherwise, why am I here, in the U.S.? Sigh…clearly, it is complicated.) I loved playing “find the label” because it is an exercise in the identification of ideological oppression and a chance to analyze linguistic phenomena (I am thinking Derrida).

Then I read this article and it occurred to me that I do not have to be a social microbiologist all the time. Apparently, astronomers get to have fun, too! In fact, swapping a microscope for a telescope sounds like a welcome change of a perspective. From humans to aliens, just like that…

Conclusion: 
I cannot shake the feeling that the question “who needs them?” promotes the neo-liberal order because it uses the language of demand and supply. This certainly explains Manning’s shift from major to minor (gesture) I felt while contemplating the topic. It soured my inquiry with fear, and I did not care for the shift. Knowing you, you probably did this on purpose, to set the mood. Clever!

…or maybe the person who suggested that methodologists know whether they are methodologists was correct? I wonder… perhaps, for many of us, this presentation was about an identity crisis rather than the utility and purpose of research, as Johnny Saldana had me believe at first. I deem it appropriate, then, to conclude that our post-presentation exchange in the room was the product of a generational (in academic, not chronological sense) divide, not ideological or even personal differences.

So much to ponder, so little time…

I want to thank you and your colleagues for your courage and leadership. God bless us, everyone 😉

Anna

 

On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 2:32 PM Wolgemuth, Jennifer <jrwolgemuth@usf.edu> wrote:

Thanks Anna! Glad you were there!

Being provocative was surely one of the aims. And if so, it succeeded wildly.

For me, bravery had nothing to do with it. This is a large part of my scholarship — I seek to open up spaces of discomfort and discord, to provoke, trouble, and unsettle. Not everyone likes that, not everyone is as attracted to difference as you (in both the literal and Deleuzian sense). At the same time, what a great opportunity to reflect on divisions between what we allow to be public and what we relegate as private. Also on shame and disgust. I love that one student felt ashamed. I do think that pedagogy and learning is a kind of sullying. Spitting in people’s soup so that they can no longer eat it unproblematically. Infecting them with ideas. Perhaps that student is the one who got the most out of the session!

You can be a methodologist if you want to. And, we should talk about your career aspirations at some point.

Cheers,

Jenni

Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Measurement and Research
Educational and Psychological Studies | College of Education
Affiliate Faculty Women’s and Gender Studies
University of South Florida
office:  +1 (813) 974-7362
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Why I draw to transmediate text

This is not about making art or communicating ideas. I did not draw to express myself. In fact, I do not feel comfortable being judged as an artist because I was not trained in the fine arts.

I look at the sketch and see numerous mistakes. It is obvious I had no idea what to do with the nose… the color and shading look odd…  I used a photograph as a reference, but did not finish the arms…. they are underwater, and I lack the skill to make look believable. Positively, this is not about art or the activity of art making.

I was reading a chapter from “The Minor Gesture,” and became drawn to the concept of body-world split referenced by Manning as a “neurotypical account of experience.” When I think of my body, it is always different from the world. Why not?