A. Susan Jurow
Assistant Professor
Education
University of Colorado Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
susan.jurow@colorado.edu
What is your record of innovation in teaching and/or the assessment of learning? Though I have not formally engaged in research on my teaching of qualitative research methods, I have read research on the pedagogy of qualitative research across different disciplines, systematically reflected on and have had my colleagues observe my teaching in order to improve it, and implemented strategies for engaging doctoral students in the authentic professional practices of educational researchers. For instance, for the past 4 years I have organized an annual School of Education qualitative methods poster session (modeled after poster sessions at professional meetings like those held at the American Educational Research Association meetings) where the doctoral students in my course shared their in-progress work with faculty and students in the school. Based on these sessions, students revised and improved their analyses. I have also developed and implemented, with my teaching partner (Margaret Eisenhart), an innovative approach to teaching and learning qualitative methods that involves the entire class of students collecting and analyzing data over the course of a year from the “same” site (e.g., multiple urban playgrounds in Denver). Using this method allowed for, among other benefits, in-depth conversations about methodology because everyone was focused on the same or similar content. This was a vast improvement, from a teaching perspective, over an approach where students chose their own individual sites (which could be up to 20 different sites).
Are you able to attend the required meetings as specified in Section 2, Benefits and Expectations? Yes.
Mentor: Dan Liston, dan.liston@colorado.edu
Coach: Steven Guberman, steven.guberman@coloardo.edu
If your project is selected, are you willing to serve as a coach in PTLC in a future year? Yes.
What is the central question, issue, or problem you plan to explore in your proposed work? Why is your central question, issue, or problem important, to you and to others who might benefit from or build on your findings?
How do we prepare doctoral students in education to learn the skills and practices as well as the habits of mind associated with doing excellent research? This is a pressing question for doctoral education and until recently the “pedagogy of research” (Walker, Golde, Jones, Bueschel, & Hutchings, 2008) used in preparing students for the doctorate had not garnered systematic attention. As the founders of Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) note, “[m]ost graduate faculty care deeply that their students learn how to ask good questions, build on the work of others, formulate an effective and feasible research design, and communicate results in ways that matter. But these outcomes are often more hoped for and assumed than designed into instruction” (ibid, p. 4). In this project, I[1] focus on how the enactment of the School of Education’s qualitative research sequence (during 2006 and 2007) contributed to developing students’ identities as qualitative researchers who “learned by doing” in an emerging community of practice. In so doing, I aim to address the gap in the field of education’s understanding of the pedagogy of doctoral research.
Five years ago, a new qualitative research sequence was initiated as part of a major revision of the entire School of Education doctoral program that occurred during our participation as a Partner Department in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Initiative on the Doctorate. The qualitative research sequence was not redesigned with only this “identity” goal in mind, but it was one goal that shaped how I and my co-instructor in the sequence (Margaret Eisenhart) approached our teaching of these courses. Using a social practice theory of identity and learning (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998), I will interrogate (a) the efforts of the sequence faculty to design a pedagogy of research in the qualitative sequence that would foster the development of students’ identities as researchers and (b) the efforts of students in 2 cohorts of the sequence (2006, 2007) to develop these identities.
How do you plan to conduct your investigation? What sources of evidence do you plan to examine? What methods might you employ to gather and make sense of this evidence?
I will draw primarily on a social practice theory of identity and learning (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991), which claims that learning involves “becoming” a different kind of person as one gains new knowledge and skills, to discuss the pedagogy of our courses and student learning. This view of identity and learning has not been previously used to examine doctoral preparation, but I think that its use can powerfully illuminate how the talk and activities in the university classroom alongside authentic and extensive research project work can introduce students to qualitative research as a way of viewing and acting in the world. Four major tenets following from social practice theory inform my investigation: (1) Identities are social products that are collectively learned and managed; therefore, if students are to develop identities as qualitative researchers, they must be present and participate in social contexts where qualitative research is actually done; (2) Identities are self-meanings; therefore, if students are to develop identities as qualitative researchers, they must come to identify themselves as such; (3) Identities are reflexive; therefore, students must be able to use an identity as a vantage point for assessing oneself; (4) Identities are a source of motivation for actions that socially confirm the identity; therefore, students must act in ways that encourage others to take their identification seriously (adapted from Holland & Lachicotte, 2007, p. 109). These tenets along with the previous literature on teaching qualitative research (e.g., Heath & Street, 2008; Webb & Glesne, 1992) provide the framework that informs my methodological approach.
My investigation relies on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, which I describe below:
Analysis of Course Pedagogy. To understand how we, the instructors, aimed to foster students’ emerging identities as qualitative researchers, I will focus on Professor Eisenhart’s and my teaching of the courses (2006 and 2007’s Qualitative I and Qualitative II courses) by analyzing our syllabi, lesson plans for each class, and personal recollections on how we organized and taught the courses.
Analysis of Student Identity Development. To examine how class assignments and discussions may have shaped students’ emerging identities as qualitative researchers, I will analyze student-generated course papers (including reflections on field work experiences and final papers) with an eye to whether and/or how they provide evidence of identity development.
Analysis of Student Reports of their Experiences. To appreciate how the students experienced and understand their preparation in qualitative methods, I will collect and analyze interview data from doctoral students in the 2006 and 2007 cohorts on their participation in the courses. Funding from this award will be used to hire an interviewer to conduct these conversations.
Using these multiple sources of data will allow me to engage in triangulation of the data so as to develop valid claims regarding how the qualitative methods sequence contributed to the students’ emerging identities as qualitative researchers.
How might you make your work available to others in ways that facilitate scholarly critique and review, and that contribute to thought and practice beyond the local?
I will submit a research paper based on this investigation (authored with my co-instructor and collaborator), Margaret Eisenhart) to the Harvard Educational Review. In addition, I hope to present the findings of this research at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in 2010 (due date for proposal is August, 2009).
References
Heath, S. B., Street, B.V. with Mills, M. (2008). Ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research (Language and Literacy Series). New York, NY: Teachers College.
Holland, D., & Lachicotte, W. (2007). Vygotsky, Mead and the new sociocultural studies of identity. In H. Daniels, M. Cole & J. Wertsch (Eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky, (pp. 101-135). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University.
Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.
Walker, G.E., Golde, C.M., Jones, L, Bueschel, A.C., & Hutchings, P. (2008). The formation of scholars: Rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Webb, R.B., & Glesne, C. (1992). Teaching qualitative research. In M.D. LeCompte, W.L. Millroy, & J. Preissle (Eds.) The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 771-814), San Diego, CA: Academic.
[1] I am applying for this award as an individual, but I am collaborating with the other professor who taught the qualitative sequence with me (Margaret Eisenhart) in regards to various aspects of data collection and analysis. Dr. Eisenhart is not on the campus this year and so cannot participate in the President’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative.
