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Qualitative Methodologies in Qualitative Methodologies in Teaching and Learning Teaching and Learning ResearchResearch

Dr. Paul TrowlerReader in Higher Education, Lancaster University

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Aim & Objectives• Aim: to stimulate ideas and enthusiasm about pedagogical

research in participants’ own areas of teaching and learning

• Objectives:participants will...• be familiar with key concepts in pedagogic research• demonstrate critical awareness of research approaches including ethnography, action research and evaluative studies

• be aware of issues in the design of pedagogical research projects

• choose appropriate data collection instruments and be aware of their limitations

• be able to apply phenomenographic techniques

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The day...• A combination of presentation and workshop activities

• 10-11 Key concepts in qualitative research and Research Design

• 11-11.30 The special characteristics of action research and evaluative studies

• 11.30-12.00 Phenomenography in pedagogical research• 12.00-1.00 Lunch• 1.00-2.00 Ethnographic research• 2.00-2.30 Studying workgroups - the meso level of

analysis• 2-30-4.00 Methods of data collection and analysis

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Qualitative Research• Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It involves rigorous data collection and analysis strategies that illuminate, and sometimes enhance, social practices. By a mixture of observing, asking questions, doing quasi-experiments and analysing text, qualitative research turns the world into a series of representations founded on the meanings brought to the world by people in everyday settings.

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So, qualitative research• Sometimes critical of positivist approaches• Makes limited claims• Usually invokes and illuminative, not engineering model

• Offers fine-grained, interpretive understanding

• But needs to be fit for purpose

See: • http://csalt.lancs.ac.uk/TQEF/references.htm• http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/trowler/ressite/writing.htm

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Brainstorm…

• Possible appropriate topics and purposes of research in higher education (action research, evaluative research or other)

• Which ones might be relevant to you?

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Project stages and planning issues• Framing the Research Issues• Lit review• Familiarisation • Writing research questions• Choosing the Research Design• Case study, survey, multi-method?• Research populations, samples, sites• Comparative?• Selection criteria• Access and ethical issues, incentives• Validity and reliability issues (plausibility)• Truth claims?• Designing Research Instruments and analysis techniques• Questionnaires, interview, observation schedules• Letters to participants - informed consent, ethical guidelines• Decisions about analysis - too much data, different sorts?• Collect data and begin initial analysis• Pilot study and analysis• Full data collection• Concurrent analysis and iteration with instruments• Theoretical development, conceptual tools• Looking for outliers• Look for intention/outcomes differences (action research)• If action research - • First action step to close intention/outcomes gap• Then collect and analyse more data• Second action step - continue as necessary• Final analytical and writing stage• Refinement of frameworks• Mapping, ordering, reducing, interpreting, using data• Validity, reliability, plausibility issues• Predicting reception and use issues• Reporting for different audiences

Getting the most out of your research

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Planning a study - an initial example: Plagiarism

Questions:• What would your research design be for this study of plagiarism?

• What problems might arise for the researchers, and how could these be tackled?

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Asking research questions

They need to be:• Clear, intelligible and unambiguous

• Focused but important• Operationalisable• Have a good answer to the ‘so what?’ question

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Writing your research questions….

• In pairs choose a topic (your own or from the brainstorm earlier) and write 3 or 4 research questions. Use flipcharts and please write big!

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Research Strategies 1. Action Research

• Action Research….

Action research involves the use of rigorous research methods to study the effects of deliberative actions with the intention of improving them. The results of the research inform changes to those actions with a view to closing any gap revealed between original intentions and outcomes. This research-action dialogue is reiterated until the project is concluded. The desired results of action research include both improved practice and the illumination of social practice.

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Evaluative Studies

Evaluative studies involve the use of rigorous research methods to establish the value of deliberative actions, usually with a view to revision of them. They involve the collection and analysis of data to answer the question 'how good is this?'. The word 'good' may be defined in terms of the intentions of planners, of the experiences and responses of participants, of the reactions of other stakeholders, in ways determined by the researcher, or by a mixture of these.

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Issues raised.....

• What special issues/problems for researchers might arise from the particular characteristics of:

1. action research and 2. evaluative research?

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Phenomenographyis the empirical study of the limited number of qualitatively different ways in which we experience, conceptualise, understand, perceive, apprehend etc, various phenomena in and aspects of the world around us. These differing experiences, understandings etc are characterised in terms of categories of description, logically related to each other, and forming hierarchies in relation to given criteria.

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Research Methods 1: Phenomenography

• is a relational, second-order perspective, which aims to describe the key aspects of the variation of experience of a phenomenon rather than the richness of individual experiences. It yields a limited number of internally related, hierarchical categories of description of the variation.

• (http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/iaul/Phenom_ISL_paper.pdf)• http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~bruce/anabib/phenind.html#O (annotated

bibliography)

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Some studies of variation in understanding in different disciplines

Field Topic Authors. See http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/iaul/Phenom_ISL_paper.pdf

biology photosynthesis Hazel, Prosser and Trigwell, 1996

computing programming Booth, 1992

economics Dahlgren, 1997

geology mapping McCracken and Laurillard, 1994

health science

Physiotherapy, aseptic technique

Davey, 1995, Abrandt, 1997

mathematics Crawford et al. 1994

music instrumental Reid, 1997

politics political power Theman, 1983

physics electricity andmagnetismsound mechanics

Johansson, Marton and Svensson, 1985; Prosser and Millar, 1989; Bowden et al. 1992, Linder and Erickson, 1989, Prosser, 1994; Millar, Prosser and Sefton, 1989

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An example: ways of conceiving the music object• [Music] as technique relates to the physical aspects of

playing the instrument as well as notational elements such as phrasing, accents or articulation.

• [Music as] sound and communication [is] related to the belief that each piece of music has an inherent meaning that is constituted by such things as style, period, harmony and composers’ intent. It is the [inherent meaning of the music] that is communicated to an audience.

• Music as personal meaning ... involve[s] aspects of [technique and sound and communication], but these aspects were reinterpreted by the participants through the notion that music is a way of expressing personal meaning and understanding of the world through music performance. It is the musicians’ ideas that are expressed through the music’s inherent meaning. (Reid, 1997, p.204)

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Deep and Surface Learning• Surface-level processing:

• covering the content• how much they have learnt• finding the ‘right’ answers• assimilating unaltered chunks of knowledge• learning verbatim

• Deep-level processing • the central point• what lies behind the argument• the whole picture• what it boils down to• the logic of the argument• points that are not clear• questioning the conclusions

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How to do it…Different kinds of data can be used, but usually..

• individual interview carried out in a dialogical manner.

• interviewee is encouraged to reflect on previously unthematised aspects of the phenomenon in question.

• interviews are transcribed verbatim and the analysis is carried out in an iterative manner on those transcripts.

• distinctly different ways of experiencing the phenomenon discussed in the interview are the units of analysis and not the single individuals.

• the categories of description corresponding to those differing understandings and the logical relations that can be established between them constitute the main results of a phenomenographic study. (Marton, 1992)

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Exercise

• Extracts from interviews with 2 university teachers

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Comments on the exercise• these two university teachers approached their teaching in

fundamentally different ways, with fundamentally different conceptions of what constituted teaching and learning within the context in which they are teaching. Lecturer A is trying to transfer his knowledge to the students. The intention seems to be to transfer knowledge and information.

• Lecturer A seems to have adopted an approach to teaching based upon what he does. The focus is on himself - the lecturer, and then what students do in relation to the lecturer.

• Lecturer E, seems to have a focus on what the students do and think and then what he should do in relation to that. This lecturer’s focus seems to be on the students. Lecturer E seems to be trying to develop and change the way the students think about and understand the concepts and ideas constituting the subject matter. His intention seems to be to engage students in the process of conceptual change and development.

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Conceptions of teachingTeaching is seen as: A: transmitting concepts of the syllabus B: transmitting the teachers' knowledge C: helping students acquire concepts of the syllabus

D: helping students acquire teacher' knowledge

E: helping students develop conceptions F: helping students change conceptions (Trigwell, Prosser and Taylor, 1994; Prosser Trigwell and Taylor,

1994).

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Limitations of phenomenography

• Small sample sizes• Distribution of conceptions/approaches• Basic information about participants• Recruitment and selection of participants

• The presumed orientations>approaches linkage (cognition>behaviour)

• Methodological individualism

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Research Strategies 1. Ethnographic Research

• Is the study of people in naturally occurring settings by means of methods which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities, involving the researcher participating directly in the setting in order to collect data in a systematic manner.

• Involves ‘thick description’ (Geerz, 1973)

• Uses multiple-methods

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Ethnographic Research

• See handout

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Problems with my study• Absence from data of senior managers

• inferences about aims of credit framework from documentation

• need to track contest over aims, policy etc at that level

• policy trajectory study/implementation staircase

• Absence of data from students - the need to infer issues concerning cultural capital and the credit framework, gender and pastoral guidance etc.

• The problem of methodological individualism

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Workgroups and the meso level of analysis

Tacit assumptionsnature of the subject – important issues (theory)

Implicit theories of teaching and learningconstructivist socialisation into English

Recurrent practicesinteractions with students

Rules of appropriatenesspeer assessment

Codes of significationquality procedures

Discursive repertoires‘teaching load’, ‘assessment load’

Identities in interactionTAs, medievalists, creative writing

Power relationsgender, formal authority, identities

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Data collection possibilities...

1. Interviews with peers, with students or others in higher education….

Please develop a bullet-point summary of:

• What they offer• What issues are associated with them

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Data collection possibilities...

2. Unstructured observation of social practices in higher education

Please develop a bullet-point summary of:

• What it offers• What issues are associated with it

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Data collection possibilities...

3. Focus groups with peers, students or others in higher education

Please develop a bullet-point summary of:

• What they offer• What issues are associated with them