Research tonic

Did you spot that an anagram of Action Research is ... A research tonic?

J Nias, Article 9, Reader 1, Primary Teachers Talking

Enough about me, let's talk about you ...

Nias makes teachers of primary school the primary subject of her research, and that was her success in a nutshell. At first, she was interested in evaluating the PGCE teaching they had received; how applicable it was … etc. However, she discovered apathy so changed to a discursive approach, simply taking to teachers about themselves and their lives in and out of school. This naked naturalism resulted in baring the souls of the practitioners in a comfortable natural setting of professionals chatting about work and its pressures, stresses and rewards. For Nias, it meant uncovering of meanings, perspectives and understandings that would otherwise have been unfathomable.

Nias stresses process, which was about as straightforward as it could be: chatting. However, she stresses that she kept questions succinct and tried to ask everyone she interviewed the same open questions but being prepared to go where serendipity took her. She was careful to record as surreptitiously as possible, and admits that ethically her practice was ethically questionable, as she did not always make subjects aware of potential consequences – she pleads naiveté.

Her inductive analysis is grounded in the values of the teachers themselves. She sees understanding herself - her own values, preconceptions, prejudgements and personal agenda - as vital to making sense of her study because she was the leading participant in the discussions that she recorded, on which her findings and analysis were based. Validity is internal.

Chance played a big part, as shown by here happy-go-lucky approach to interviewing. She makes sense of data over a long time looking for key words and common themes that she can make sense of, publishing piece-meal in different media. The fact that the heart of her findings was the result of shared experience proved a problem as an author; in fact, one of the criticisms of qualitative research by outsiders is participants' fear of exploitation.

The strength of her research was that she listened stoically with tenacity and tact and recounts it for us to read. The weakness is that her findings do not necessarily reflect the truth, but a perception of it from the point of view of some teachers at some time from the perspective of one researcher. But that is the complexity of life and the very weakness of qualitative research.

As a practitioner myself, although for much older folk, I sometimes think that one should have an opportunity to chat with a counsellor or share troubles with caring knowledgeable and empathetic person in constructive way. I am not sure that I would do it in my own time though, and I do not think I’d welcome a video or audio recording …

Hightown Grammar Article 8 by C Lacey, reader Vol 1

The Accidental Action Researcher ...

Once one gets over the fact that the research is so old that dust blows off the metaphorical pages, and the phrasing of Lacey, who gets no gold star for fluency, one realises that something interesting happened back in the 70s. Lacey accidentally got immersed in practitioner-led Action Research. He starts off as an outsider researcher, becomes an insider researcher and produces findings that gain respect for thickness of description and authority that comes from straddling both camps at once; a kind of beneficent double agent bereft of ill intent or perfidy. He was a spy from the beginning, an agent of the headmaster, but, by the end (after a change in headmaster), he was a spy for the boys and the staff. The role changes caused local friction for short periods but, by staying three years and by sociological Chinese theft, he stealthily liberated his study participants from their distrust.

He starts off overly ambitious and naive, but like Mister Tom slow tracks to success through industry and love of the poor boys. He overcomes bias with fairness, convincing most that he plays a fair game of Cricket in more senses than one. The detail (and there is a lot of that) is quaint; talk of caning indeed! The 3 years of being inside the abstract sociological "black box" provided insights that enabled sophisticated, if slightly specious, modeling; what Lacey calls "spirals of knowledge".

It seems to me that Lacey preformed a continuous reconnaissance on the school, finding facts out by whatever method he esteemed likely to succeed or fortuitously was allowed to get away with, even allowing boys to visit his home and he theirs. The validity and relevance of his research must have been seminal in his day, and it resonates today ... a bit like the big bang when time began is evidenced by cosmic particles we may consider background radiation.

Did he achieve his goal of evidence that boys from poor backgrounds underachieve and under performing at Grammar school? No, in fact quite soon he lost sight of it, and then let it go. His own values and preoccupations were transformed by his practice of research, and he believes that he found the evidence why newly trained teachers soon forge new personal and individual practices and coping stratagems on becoming a professional practitioner.

Survival.

The strength of Lacey's research was his earnestness and his honesty as a researcher. His methodology had an intrinsic cultural and catalytic validity; he admitted bias and sometimes lack of understanding. For example, he admits to a feeling that he missed much more than he found and identifies his pre-judgements. The weakness of his research methodology was a lack of definitive structure, being forced continuously to refocus and change actions on findings and on knowledge gained. These are strengths and weaknesses of Action Research and, arguably, qualitative research in general.

In Science, many discoveries were made by accident e.g. Pasteurisation. As an unqualified teacher spying on staff and students, it could have all gone so wrong, but Lacey shows that outside researchers or inside researchers can sometimes have happy outcomes from serendipity. Like the lotto argues, to win it, one has first to be in it.

M Hammersley, An Appraisal of "Labouring to Learn", Unpublished, p10, Vol2 Reader

Labour in Vain?

Hammersley critiques an article by Atkinson et al back in 1981 - he is probably writing a decade later, still before the DDA 1995. He uses methodological analysis.

He analyses the article's focus, case studied, descriptive claims, evaluative claims and its conclusions drawn. I wrote about the same article in a previous blog. There is not much daylight between my views and his.

He finds much to fault, including that the article is probably not generalisable; that it lacks sources; that it has parts that are questionable. He thinks the article offers valid and useful information. He finds the conclusions are of general interest but not generalisable.

Critique

I think that Hammersley is too generous in his appraisal.

Right at the start, Hammersley declares the 1981 article

"...retains relevance given the persistence of high levels of unemployment and the continued existence of government-sponsored training initiatives of this kind."

I doubt that was so in 1993. Did either of those conditions pertain then? Perhaps that is why the article was never published as a paper - it lacked generalisability by failing to have transferability or pertinence. Perhaps the paper was written much closer to the 1980s and was simply published in the reader much later.

Hammersley is unsure absence of evidence to support the authors' conclusion learners did not improve machine-competence fatally undermined the article's generalisability. I am certain it did. The authors opined in the way Her Majesties Inspectorate does when evaluating a teaching institution - subjectively, but they lacked such authority. Before-and-After testing of students' abilities and personalities would have made the paper much more useful and generalisable.

Labouring to Learn? Industrial Training for Slow Learners, P Atkinson et al, 1981, Vol 2 Reader, p3

Last century, 14 years before the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and this centuries' amendment (2005) and the Commission was established, and before mental health was incorporated and the Acts were enforced on educational institutions too, there was concern over the disadvantages that slow learners had in the industrial job market.

"Slow learners, along with the mentally and physically handicapped generally, experience special difficulties in competing effectively in the labour market."

Indeed, the authors considered positive discrimination advisable!

The authors set out a chapter in a book to examine an Industrial Training Unit and consider how effective it was in preparing transition for slow learners from education to the workplace and how valid similar studies were, such as those by the then existing government agency, they conclude the mixed sex Unit was a failure and most studies do not internally critique their own aims and objectives.

There sources and authorities included the Manpower Services Commission and the National Advisory Council on Employment of Disabled People, particularly a document called Positive Policies (1977). The Disabled Persons(Employment) Acts of 1944 and 1958 were statutory authorities of their day.

This is a thick description qualitative research paper, and much of what is recounted is merely telling us where they were and what they found without particular judgment. Indeed, much of what they find they consider to be atypical e.g. the Unit was not typical... the lectures were not typical ... the allocation of jobs was unusual (seemed to be as a reward for behavior). Notwithstanding that, I got the impression that accounts were selected to suit the empirical generalisation the authors wished their chapter to have, namely that the Unit failed to prepare slow learners for the world of work, conveying them no positive advantages in mindset or skill sets. This may be incorrect; it may be that its values are prescriptive rather than evaluative. The details read now more like a social history of past generations than useful data for contemporary researchers.

The Unit's failure was put down to not progressing slow learners in competence with industrial machinery or improving performance. And skills taught were inappropriate for the workplace.

Pretty bleak really - seems the authors wasted their time on the face of it.

Critique

1. Did they waste our time? On the whole, yes. They argue that they wish their results to be of "general interest". To be useful to us, surely the article needs to have generalisability. I think it is the former but is not the latter.
2. In 1981 it may have been of general interest due to the clime of high unemployment and a disquiet that disabled people were discriminated against in the workplace, but by 2007, the report is not of general interest. So, in 1981 it may have met its goal of general interest (but not generalisability, as I shall discuss later). But, arguably, it ceased to be of general interest in 1995 when the DDA made its findings redundant, and certainly this century when unemployment is low and even the terms slow-learners and handicapped are unusual because they may harbour pejorative, judgemental, prejudicial inferences, post DDAs.
3. At the time they wrote, the authors were of a mind that young people were often failing to get industrial employment because of bad skills, attitude and personality flaws, and, significantly a poor attitude to work within an industrial environment. This was supported by MSC data, and I see no reason to doubt that. I do challenge the authors using that to support the investigation focus on an Industrial Training Unit in South Wales (why not England where most of the MSC data pertains?) that is exclusively for slow learners and the handicapped. Young people are statistically not slow learners, nor handicapped, so the factual data underpinning the motivation for the research is inappropriate.
4. They deliberately chose an atypical Industrial Unit to study, a fundamental flaw to achieve generalisability and a specious choice for general interest outside of Wales too.
5. They opine failure of improvement of student personality/work-preparedness and machine-competences without use of pre- and post- diagnostic instruments.
   
6. Generalisability for such a mixed descriptive-evaluative case study seems an excellent goal, but it was not the goal of Atkinson et al; they chose atypical foci of study and aimed for general interest. However, had they aimed for generalisability they would have failed because the study has not precise location (we are there with them, but we do not where that is other than in a pat of South Wales); has no precise time line (we do not know when we are there, unless, presumably, 1980, and we do not know how long we stayed with them); it has no addenda of schemes of work, or even an example timetable (so we do not know precisely what we observed along with them, only what they select to suit their agenda of general interest); and I could go on and on about what is missing for one to be able to transfer from their results any fit to any other time or place or institution. A good generalisability test is to check for a study showing what is, what may be and what could be (J W Schofield, 1989). This study is non-generalisable because it only arguably shows what is, does not really attempt to show what may be, and does not begin to question what could be.
   

This paper is an article in a book from the previous century and is more a journalistic piece than a proper study.

However, the authors found that such Units and studies set up to help the disadvantaged learners were need. They may well have contributed to the positive improvements and revolution that culminated in the DDA and Commission by writing a piece of general contemporary interest.

The Politics of Method: From Leftist Ethnography to Educative Research, A Gitlin et al, 1989, Vol 1 Reader, p191

Educative Ethnographic Research Exerts Emancipatory Change

A Gitlin, M Stegal and K Born exhort emancipatory educational researchers using ethnographical (writing about people) methodology to be more critical, to adopt a conceptual framework that is political. They call this alternative framework Educative Research.

Educative Research:

1. Is "in and for education"
2. Conceives of "application and understanding as bound up in a single moment"
3. Puts "the researcher back into research"

This is more than pedantry because the practice 18 years ago was that validity and rigour in ethnographical studies required

1. Research on and about education - descriptive, rather than interpretive
2. Separation of understanding from application - critique by the researcher was absent (i.e. the researcher had a voice as a fieldworker but not as an author)
3. The researcher presented without prejudice.

The argument is simple but effective: if you want change to result from the sociological system that you are researching, say so up front and select an appropriate ethnographical methodology, enter into dialogue with participants and subjects as necessary during the research to affect that change, and write it up with your politics and interactions available for critical scrutiny. Thick description is less important than honesty of purpose.

"While most ethnographic research has looked back to show how it is objective and therefore is as valuable as the dominant positivistic paradigm [quantitative research], educative research looks forward to the fulfillment of purpose. " (p205)

The question begged, of course, is what will provide the validity and rigour for educative research?

"The rightness of educative research is based on the relation between normative frameworks established by a dialogical community and the specific practices of the study." (p207)

The educative researcher will explicitly state embedded pre-judgements, opening them up for critical scrutiny.

"The political moment inherent in all method is made explicit."

How radical is this paper?

This paper appears to be radical, as it sets out to define a new framework, educative research. However, it is focused on emancipatory motivated ethnographic researchers, and it may simply be an extension of work by Phillips, and perhaps, Kemis. It justifies itself by embedded pre-jugements being explictly stated and available for critical scutiny. In the field, anyone carrying out educative research would undoubtledly be bold.

S Kemis (1988) argued that practitioners in Action Research could also participate, and that may have influenced this paper. How far removed is participative practitioner research from politically influenced ethnographic methodology?

D C Philips's (1989) argued that action researchers may achieve consensus with peers about their aims and methodology so that it becomes objective in a practical sense. In the case of educative research, it is an explicit emancipatory purpose that is exposed to scrutiny.

Phillips and Gital et al seem to be of the same mind and Action Research in the 21st Century may have been greatly influenced by these 20th Century papers.

It should be noted that this paper attempts to apply "praxis" as a justification for educative research. It is superfluous, but also flawed. It argues that theory and practice are equal, just as Carr and Kemis did in their papers. Theory is subordinate to practice, as Aristotle who coined the term argued; his rationale was that logic could produce paradox but practice overcomes such circumlocution. In context, research practice must be more important than theory or the tail will wag the dog. Imagine an experiment to weigh water. Theory dictates it weighs 1 Kg for a litre but scales show a different value. If theory and practice (praxis) are co-equal, the water must weigh 1 Kg and the scales are wrong. In fact, the temperature and atmospheric pressure must be taken into account and the theory changed to accommodate. Thus, theory is subservient to practice - they are not and can not be co-equal. Carr, Kemis and these researchers do seem to have been obsessed with redefining praxis.

Increasing the Generalizability of Qualitative Research, J W Schofield, 1989, Vol 1 Reader, p91

What is, may be and could be - solving the riddle of generalisability.

At last a paper that says what it says it will say, says it succinctly and imparts a genuine new and useful understanding of educational qualitative research. The summary says it all really: the paper itself is full of reasoned argument and examples drawn from the author's own experience.

Janet Ward Schofield argues that there are two questions one should ask if one wants ones research to be transferable to others:

1. What do we want to generalise to?
2. How do we design to maximise generalisability?

If Schofield is right, generalisability "is best thought of as as a matter of the 'fit' between the situations studied and others ..." To be able to judge how fit a study is, one needs information about the studies' concepts and conclusion - a thick description.

There are 3 useful targets for generalisation:

1. what is (e.g. accepted best practice)
2. what may be (e.g. unusual, but possibly good practice)
3. what could be (e.g. practice that could take off, but might not)

I would re-write these as more the more mnemonic present, possible and potential practices.

An enjoyable paper with sage advice.

NB p107 has an error, penultimate paragraph where "may be" should be "could be".

Action Research, 1988, S Kemmis, Vol 1 Reader, p177

Participative Practitioner Action Research is good. Okay?

K Lewin used the term Action Research (AR) in a paper in 1946, illustrating it by describing the process of reconnaissance necessary for a WWII bombing run. His emphasis was that knowledge comes from the action taken by participants in research (fact finding) and influences their next action. As will be significant, the methodology is critical, not any technique employed to carry it out e.g. fact finding is a methodology; how facts are found is the technique.

Kemmis dislike the simplicity of AR defined by Lewin. Kemmis and W Carr developed 5 rules to determine legitimate from illegitimate contemporary action research. It reads like commandments, and starts with

“1. It must reject positivistic notions of rationality, objectivity, and truth;" (sic).

They also insist that the motivation must be emancipatory (rule 4). Any failure renders the research inadequate or incoherent they argue. Their paper was 5 years earlier, in 1983, “Becoming Critical, Knowing through Action Research”. Acceptance is presumed, so I must write at this time that the “requirements” in isolation come across as dogmatic laws without justification. However, Rules 2, 3 and 5 are just re-amplifications of Lewin but applied to education.

Action Research peaked in the 1950’s but had a resurgence last century when Kemmis wrote.

The objects of Kemmis’s AR (KAR) are restricted to praxis, an unconvincing term of specious etymology that seems to be a re-minted coin, with the word practice on its face and with a requirement to be "informed by theory" as the legend on its edge. Actually, praxis is an Aristotelian term. Theory is subordinate to praxis because reason can't always prevent contradiction, which is always overcome by praxis (history, in fact). Is this pertinent? Kemmis seems to misapply it and misunderstand the role of theory, which he makes dominant and a pre-requisite to praxis. This undermines the rest of his paper. He actually writes quoting “theorist of practical action” and seems quite unconscious of his superfluous and pedantic language in the eyes of a non-convert. The difference between this and reconnaissance is mystifying. Praxis is vital to Kemmis. And that is the flaw in his paper – he just does not prove it, but writes as if it is dogma. There is no practical difference between practice and praxis, and Kemis seems again to re-define a word idiosyncratically.

He spends time explaining what AR is distinguished by methodology, not techniques. This is self-evident if his laws are used to prescribe KAR. It is also inevitably so because AR, even as defined by Lewin, is a spiral (or cycle) of methodology – techniques are irrelevant. The methodology is practitioners interdependently apply iterative research and reconnaissance to hopefully attain enlightening conclusions.

He makes clear the AR is associated with Policy Research and Control of Education.

The paper is mostly unconvincing and verbose. I wish I could have read more of Lewin’s paper.

Lawrence Stenhouse, The Teacher As Researcher, Offprints Reader, P31 (1975)

DIY - The Teacher As Researcher into the curriculum

32 years ago Stenhouse wrote his book, and this paper was an extract. I added the italics above because he limits research by teachers to the curriculum. He wrote:

"... all well-founded curriculum research and development, whether the work of an individual teacher, if a school, of a framework of a national project, is based on the study of classrooms. It thus rests on the work of teachers."

Stenhouse has no issue with objectivity for the teacher engaged in research in his or her classroom because "the teacher's subjective perception ... is crucial for practice since he is in a position to control the classroom."

He saw the main barriers to teacher research, a.k.a. action research, to be psychological and social. Notwithstanding the tensions created trying to be both a teacher and a researcher, he sees this research as accessible to teachers and feeding teaching. Indeed the self-motivating teacher-researcher is essential "if education is to be significantly improved"

The observation of one teacher by another seems to be a groundbreaking idea; so much so, that Stenhouse cites a study that provided "the careful and sympathetic help when teacher-researchers are exposed to feedback on their own lessons for the first time".

It is common place today for lecturers in colleges to be observed by colleagues on an informal basis. I wonder if Stenhouse had something to do with that.

W Carr, 1987, What is Educational Practice?, Vol 1 Reader, p160

Education: Theory considers and practice delivers.

What is educational practice? It is the delivery of education. What is educational theory? It is any theory associated with educational practice by practitioners. I assert these statements here for the sake of clarity; and there is not much of that in Carr's article. He does not want to look at how educational practice is presently understood. That is the failure of his paper.

Theory considers and practice delivers education. They are related to each other: theory is the academic or philosophical tool of practice, usually to seek to improve it. Carr's worry seems to be that practice is becoming the tool of educational theorists and, in my words, the tail is wagging the dog. The engineering model of education research was in vogue at the time, and that may explain this odd paper.

Why does Carr have a problem with simple but effective answers? It may be that he is worried by educational research being ruled by practitioners (those practising it) and non-practitioners (theorists) being rendered subordinate. If so, he should have realised that things have their day. A balance returns in the long run, as it has. He references the Aristotelian praxis and tries to wrench it into a different meaning to practice, saying that it implies underpinning theory. Actually, theory and praxis were quite different to Aristotle.

Was Educational Practice being misinterpreted and applied beyond its traditional commitments and roles 20 years ago? Did it need to be rescue? Unfortunately, the best Carr does is to "spell out core concepts".

The elephant-in-the-room in this paper is theory of education: Carr finds it threatened and its role and the relationship between it and education practice ambiguous.

Carr is sure that practice "can not be reduced to a form of theorising" and that "it is always the achievement of tradition". He looks into the historical roots of the word, hoping it will help him understand the answer to his eponymous question. Carr wants to rescue "practice" from misuse by "those cultural tendencies which now undermine it and degrade it." (These seem to be its practitioners ...)

He sets 3 tasks, but whether he achieved them or not becomes irrelevant because he fails to create a rationale whereby educational practice is an inherently ambiguous term or widely misunderstood. The mind and the body are one in the healthy human. The body is subordinate to the mind at most times but sometimes the body rules, as in sleep when the autonomous systems keep one alive. Carr is contriving a rational that educational practice has been ambiguously defined to put theory into a subordinate role. He does not come out and say so. He does not mention the engineering model. He does not even show that the practice of education is more esteemed than theorising about it. His arguments are invalid because he does not prove there is any real misunderstanding, or that theory and practice are out of harmony in the first place.

Subjectivity and Objectivity: an Objective Inquiry, D C Philips, 1989, reader Vol 1, p57

The Best We Can Do - By Consensus

Denis C Philips objected to Elliot W Eisner’s rejection of objectivity; that all forms of representation are partial. Indeed the title is suggestive that an inquiry can be objective. Philips sees attacks on objectivity in educational research methods as undermining the value of qualitative research. He repudiates doubts about qualitative research in principle unable to be objective research as unreasonable.

Philips runs an ideographic trace on the origins of the intellectual attack on objectivity, dealing directly with the general acceptance that there is no certain foundation for all knowledge (foundationalism) – all knowledge is tentative – by reminding us that does not mean there is no such thing as objective truth. In my words, just because one does not know how one got to a place, does not mean that one is not in that place.

Philips sees objective inquiry as a label suggesting procedural propriety but not a guarantee that results have particular certainty. The truth is “out there” and neither a subjective nor an objective methodological research procedure is guaranteed to capture it. But it might. Thus qualitative research is a valid basis for pursing the truth by objective inquiry or subjective inquiry.

Philips admits that data is measurement-dependent; one measures what one can, not necessarily what is most significant, and one may only measure what one hopes will support a theory – a choice has to be made what to measure, and that choice may be subjective even to the extent that it is determined by a single researchers desires, fears or competence.

Philips alludes to the notion of others that objectivity on an inquiry may be conveyed by a community of inquirers but consensus is not required (it would be unlikely) but rather critical scrutiny. Even competing arguments could be accepted as objective because “objective does not mean true”.

Philips argues that even judgement within a framework or a paradigm may be construed as objective if it is reviewed by peers. This leads on to a surprising idea that novels (fiction) may be judged objective, and this has been supported by some institutions.

Nonfoundationalist epistemology requires judgement of objectivity to be conveyed only when the procedure is such that it offers peers opportunity to repudiate it or refute it. A continuum exists from subjectivity on the left through to objectivity with practical objective inquiry as close to the right as possible. Opposing arguments may be equally judged objective and neither may necessarily be valid.

Philips is rejecting extreme relativism where anything goes, as he calls that subjective. Eisner judges it worthless too.

Eisner objects to naïve realism, and Philips is not signing up to it here. Both Eisner and Philips are pragmatically recognising the limits of objective inquiry. Where they differ seems to be significant, but about how valid justification of qualitative research really is. In my words, Eisner claims it is polluted by interference and Philips says (my words), “So what if it is, it is the best we can aspire to; so long as we are careful and cautious, there will be no harm done.” Both philosophers agree that caveats have to be applied to so-called objective inquiry. Eisner says objectivity is impossible; by redefining what is meant by the label objective inquiry, Philips says it is possible but results are not guaranteed.

My Reaction To This Paper

Eisner’s and Philips’ arguments in their context are both valid. The difference between quantitative research and qualitative research in terms of objective inquiry has shifted through necessity over the decades. Eisner is right that people are too complex and bring baggage to research so that it is not ontologically objective and they change what they are researching so that research is not repeatable in the strictest sense. Philips argues that Eisner is undervaluing peer review and procedural rigour having worthwhile results that can be tested for repudiation or rejection. Objective does not mean true and is not dependent on an individual researcher. Consensus of peers can make a position objectively defensible. That too is valid.

Is life objective or subjective? You are born, right? You die, right? In between you do the best you can. That is the meaning of life.

If you agree, it is an objective argument; if you don’t agree, it is subjective. One still will not know whether it is true.

Objectivity in Educational Research, E. Eisner, 1992, reader Vol 1, p49

Step into the river, and it is a different river to the one you stepped into

15 years ago Eliot W Eisner objected to the notion that educational research can be done objectively in the fullest sense because procedural objectivity is not untarnished by the research. His argument is based on the fact that people are researched and people have their own frameworks. He considers ontological objectivity is impossible and impractical because the research process would have to be fully certain of its constituent frameworks and be amenable to testing to be verifiable as valid; to know its frameworks and complexities of person interactions in the first place renders the research superfluous. In my words, procedural objectivity is a useful attempt at control, but it is naïve to consider its validity unquestionable.

Eisner’s simple, but bold, argument is well supported with evidence and his argument seems valid. However, the truth is not fully encapsulated because Eisner is not offering a positive construction but, with some usefulness, deconstructing what he sees as invalid i.e. education research should not base itself on procedural objectivity in naïve realism.

My strap line is suggesting that when crossing a shallow river on foot one may entertain a naive realism that one is crossing the river, but because the river by definition is flowing, it is not the same river during the journey, and one steps out from different waters than one stepped into. Moreover, one changes the river itself, especially if unwashed or dressed in polluted clothing. The objection to the river-paradox is that a river is what we want to call it – a nomothetic rather than an ideographic approach. Could naïve realism be more pragmatic than trivialising well meaning procedural objectivity? And, for a bit of fun, place strategic stones and one crosses the river without changing it, although it has been changed by placing the crossing stones in it… Three years earlier D C Phillips suggested that procedural objectivity was okay as the best one could do in the circumstances and repudiated the idea that since one could not know everything one should not test anything or care what one tested – something he called extreme relativism.

Both arguments are valid.

We build bridges across rivers to avoid falling into them and getting wet, but sometimes rivers flood over bridges or bridges collapse. How we build the bridge matters (Philips). We do not trust the bridge absolutely, that would be naïve (Eisner).

Gender and the Sciences: Pupils’ Gender-Based Conceptions of School Subjects, Lynda Measor, 1983, Offprint Reader, p16

Sex Matters - more for Girls than Boys ...

This was a qualitative study 24 years ago and drawn from interviews and observations with pupils in a large comprehensive school about 27 years ago. The researcher believes that children build up gender identities at school and see certain subjects supporting a gender choice and others undermining peer acceptance, which are resisted passively or actively. The focus is on physical science subjects - the boys and girls traditionally seeing it as a masculine area, and domestic science, seen as a feminine area.

Interesting stories are recounted sometimes with pertinent quotations from pupils to support the original supposition. They are convincing. Some fascinating details are provided to show insight into why the pupils believed and acted as they did.

Measor speaks of negotiation of gender identities of adolescent pupils (11-13 years). She suggests:

“the girls actively use d aspects of the school to construct their identity, in this case their feminine identity… Science lessons provided an arena for acting out of feminine susceptibilities in a public setting.”

The girls used passive resistance – being late, packing up early, talking etc. She says the boys’ reaction to domestic science, which was more active and noisy resistance, was similarly constructive to a masculine gender identity. She writes:

“Pupils could use their hostility to one of the science subjects - “natural” or “domestic” – to signal an interest in things masculine or feminine. At the same time pupils used strategies that they felt to be appropriate to their sex.”

What the teachers thought also mattered. Measor thinks that community and teacher- expectations and prejudices make “a very solid wall of resistance to any change.”

Conclusions drawn included

• Original rationale that gender identities are constructed at school
• That pupils are not gender-neutral as learning theory had suggested
• Curriculum change, including
• Girls would benefit from single sexed schooling for science
• Science could be feminised for girls

This study was interesting for its approach, its readability, and its unambiguous discrimination in favour of curriculum change for girls, even to the point of single-sex lessons for natural science and teaching a feminised curriculum.

My reaction to this paper

It demonstrates the importance of not just the question asked, but rational behind the research in the first place, and selecting data to write the story you want to tell. It all makes sense within the report, in a similar way to a novel does. Whether it is truth is arguable. That it is valuable is undeniable. After all, another researcher could emulate the research but find boys need curriculum change to have a fairer chance of constructing their gender identities in a mixed school setting, especially today when the media and governments admit that curricula seem to favour girls over boys, al least in so far as examination results show.

The quantitative versus qualitative debate continues. What I see at the moment is that qualitative studies are probably easier to do, more interesting to write up and to read when published and more likely to be understood by interested parties because the question why is the focus, rather than the questions what and how much or how often. In education people and their hopeful transformation matter. Measor used names a lot, and that made the report about people.

In a dental analogy, the toothbrush may be electric with x thousand revs per minute, but the manual inter-dental brush can reach where it can’t, preventing gum disease that the more powerful tool alone could not. Both are necessary, but one is more frequently needed than the other. The toothbrush is qualitative reseach and the small brush for focus and discrete action is quatitative research.

Equal Opportunities in the Curriculum in Single Sex Schools, Bird and Varlaam, 1985 (offprint reader)

Sex in Schools - does it matter?

This quantitative research took advantage of two adjacent single-sex religious schools, one for boys and the other for girls 22 years ago. They broadened curriculum by mixing the genders and seeing reactions in pupils to studying subject they would normally not have access to. They had limited facilities but got some raw data. The researchers try to make sense of that data. Girls took Craft Design and Technology and boys took Textiles (needlework).

The initial attitudes, the reactions of pupils, the impact on conception of gender roles, interest in taking further courses and teacher views were all considered in the light of the quantitative data.

It turned out that girls were initially keener on the swap than boys but both sexes had less fixed opinion that jobs could only be done by the traditional gender employed in them. Computer programming and chef were exceptions before and after the experiment, as most pupils considered gender was irrelevant.

The conclusions included that girls benefited more than boys from the mixing of genders for courses. The limitation to one school year may have biased results because of the effect and sway of novelty.

Obvious weakness in this method of research lies in the questions asked and the questions not asked. The question asked was would mixing make any difference in opinion about gender roles in employment, and if so in which genders. However significance in result was a matter if statistical computation and the data were skewed by the non-traditional nature of the schools (religious), limitation to one school year, and a possibility that the instruments for capturing the data was biased or misunderstood.

The appendix of data was neat, conveying a probably false authority to the paper. One could check the results and conclusions, if one wanted to.

The question that is the elephant in the room of course is WHY? Why did the girls and boys think the way they did? Why did opinions change (or not change)?

I know with hindsight that mixed school curricula do work, favouring girls – or, put another way, the change for traditional schools has resulted in an overall drop in performance for boys compared with girls, as admitted by governments. This straightforward study may have been influential in giving confidence to those considering mixed schools for economic or other political reasons.

G De Landsheere, History of educational research, 1988 (Vol 1 educational Research, p3)

A Chronological Table Would Be Better

This history surveys 100 years, from about 1880 to 1980.

Landsheere signals it is from pre-1990 to the 1970s, and that sums up his style: obtuse; that of someone who is cramming and not enjoying his writing. He constantly interpolates references, as if to prove he did his homework and he has never heard of an appendix of notes.

Here is an example from pre-1900 “…longitudinal observations of individual children were recorded during the nineteenth century …” Yawn. Case studies of children were made more than 100 years ago, but individuals rather than classes… Disinterested research is good because it reduces bias, but this comes over as uninterested research.

With relief one finds a table of chronology of events – all too brief before the author communicates his ennui again in turgid prose.

We want to know what happened from 1900 to 1930? You got it. Strangely we don’t get 1900 to 1920s – maybe he is mixing his chronological periods to keep us awake. Anyway, quantitative research flourished from 1900 to 1930 underpinned by statistical theory and mental testing and assessment, survey techniques, development of curriculum and evaluation – this is an interesting section relatively free of his reference-dropping. Did you know that “the modern questionnaire technique was developed by Stanley Hall” and “… that what is obvious for an adult is not for a child”? When was that, you ask? I bet you think it was the twentieth century, which we are supposed to be surveying at this point. No; it was in the 1880’s. Oh that Landsheere, he keeps you on your toes, he does. Why make history easy by a chronological retelling of it, when you can mix it all up? I expected a list of events and dates and I get a tangled thread of ideas, published papers by people I have never heard of without clear explanation of what it means.

His period 1930 – 1960 could be summed up with the statement that sociological studies ruled.

Alas, nothing is written simply in this article. Of course, our author covers to the late 1950’s. How late? Well, 1960. So, why say “to the 1950s” when he could say “to 1960”? I am being a pedant because it is poor structure like this that makes his task a a writer harder and our task as a reader so taxing. Anyway, computers enabled researchers to do large scale research from 1960s using new statistical techniques and other tricks.

So, at last, the final decade ends with 1980 (“the 1970s”). Crisis: is traditional educational useful? Is there enough to go round? Are schools effective? Hey, what's changed?

This paper is poorly structured and its information is obscured with scholarly interpolation. What did I learn? Not a lot.

The course E835 has a concise and cogent summary which flatters the paper it’s sourced on.

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My Diversion into the epistemology of nomothetic and ideographic complementation.

Piaget in a paper in 1972 showed that nomothetic and historical approaches are complementary. What a shock that must have been. Now, I did not know that nomothetic was a word. Surely Landsheere will explain? No. So allow me to have shot at it.

There is irony here because the antonym is ideographic meaning particular events or facts as appear in a history. So the article is ideographic. Nomothetic is about the power of naming or listing; a search for principles to explain the Universe. Was it shocking that Piaget thought nomothetic and historical approaches are complementary? Yes, because they are opposites of each other, one being nomothetic and the other ideographic. Yet both ideas are epistemological – they try to understand the limits and validity of knowledge.

I don’t know anything yet about Piaget or what he promulgated but I suspect that Piaget considered nomothetic and ideographic approaches to research were on a continuum and thus complementary. Look at a set of events in history and you may conclude a principle. Did not Darwin do that at Galapagos when he developed his theory of natural selection, and contemporaneously but independently didn’t Wallace do the same thing; from ideography may come nomothetism? Similarly, if you have principles, one can look again at history and see particular incidents and facts in a new context. Maybe that is what Piaget came to see. I am surprised it was considered new, but then re-discovery is indeed what nomothetism is about.

M Hammersley (1993) On the teacher as researcher (p211, Vol. 1 Educational Research)

Integration of roles of Teacher and Education Researcher. No thank you!

Nearly 10 years after Hirst, Hammersley wrote to argue that Teacher Research (what we know as Action Research today) was OK but should be done by researchers or by teachers but as an end in itself, not co-erced or incorporated into the job of being a teacher. That was nearly 14 years ago, and the argument looks academic today. Certainly teachers are being loaded with administrative, assessment duties to add to their teaching commitments, rather than being forced to do research to improve their professionalism. But issues examined are still of interest, even if the political impetus that once threatened as, as far as I know, vanished. Action Research done by teachers as participants surely goes on, but, in my experience as a practitioner, it is voluntary and done with almost a hobbyist approach (by which mean it is accepted as self-developing, self-research and inquiry to helping reflection); "if it does not work out, ah well, it was a useful exercise from which we have all learnt something". TR, as Hammersley calls it, is cool, but should not be forced on teachers. TR may be done well by either insiders or outsiders. His teachers' learners seem to be children (see p221), by the way.

Teachers are well placed to research education because they are in a position to test educational ideas. They are also implementers of the curriculum, so perception of professionalism was tied up with curriculum development. Lawrence Stenhouse was seen as an authority and pushed the notion that professionalism should also be judged by TR. Hammersley carefully and respectfully shows this to be nonsense. (I do not yet know much about Stenhouse's work, but I suspect it has wasted a lot of people's time. For instance, he considered teachers as senior learners and that "no intelligible conclusion should be ruled out by a teacher". Well, OK James, you think that it is alright to stab people if you are called Jim. I understand that conclusion, so I won't ask you to rule it out." And I won't mention suicide bombers ... I digress...).

So, the idea came about that education research was best done by teachers than non-teaching researchers. Seems crazy to me, and maybe the likes of Hammersley saved us from this daft practice.

When is a researcher not a researcher? When she/he is a teacher. When is a researcher not a teacher? Never. Sounds like a joke to me.

Anyway, conventional research (CR) was critiqued by Stenhouse, Carr and Kremis and collaborative and practitioner research gained advocacy. Hammersley's article is in support of the conventional and goes on to show why critiques are unbalanced or flawed.

• CR is not irrelevant because although not always leading to a solution, it does sometimes and although some "solutions" are generalised, others are specific or can be adapted.

• CR is not invalid because it is so objective it is removed from practice because being an outsider can enable research and validate it; there are pros and cons to being an insider or an outsider for most research one can think of.

• CR is undemocratic, if it means anything is specious because research is not itself the practice it studies (my words).

• CR exploits teachers. (And TR forced onto a teacher's job description wouldn't?). Researchers can draw praise on themselves away from the teacher, for wisdom more rightly credited to teachers. (Who cares so long as the kids learn? - that is what I thought as I read that part...). This seems to be a reason for caution, not for prescription.

The conclusion is that TR should be an extra activity added on to teaching in classrooms and schools, not a transformation of that teaching. The proposal to integrate the roles of teacher and educational researcher "is untenable from the point of view both of research and teaching".

Not all educational research should be done by teachers. Outsiders are welcome. Nice.

Research Vehicle

One is used to the notion of a research vehicle but if research was itself a vehicle could one say its fuel is questions, its engine is philosophy, its wheels are methodology and its exhaust is a lot of hot air?

It would explain this blog!

"Test teaching ideas before imposing them on children"

That is the heading today's Times

"A senior scientist has said education should learn from medicine and use rigorous experiments to determine the best teaching techniques."

For instance, class size. "Little good research exists on the optimum size of the groups in which pupils are taught."

Seems Hirst would be well pleased ...

And, in the same issue is the proposal to change the time-table for 11 to 14 year old school children, mixing subjects and introducing frequent 10 minute slots e.g. for language teaching. That must be based on hugely important and rigorously tested research - but I seem to have missed the memo.

P H Hirst (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines, Routledge& Kegan Paul, London (p149, Vol. 1 Educational Research)

Look Before You Leap - Education Theory by Hirst.



















I think the title should have been "Look Before You Leap" because it is all about educational theory being misunderstood by practitioners and educationalists who put presumptuous concepts and principles into practice based on theory from other disciplines such as psychology. They should have looked fully at operational practice of practitioners, he says, and tested ideas arising from that, before forming educational theories that they could put to the test in the field.

So what does Hirst say about educational theory?

It is "concerned with explanation"; with "guiding and improving practice". He sees it as a matter for belief (he is, in his own words, unrepentant) that it is "primarily the domain which seeks to develop rational principles for educational practice". He has issues that when he wrote decades ago, some were using educational theory to develop irrational principles that were imposed on practitioners, untested. He says: " Any attempt to implement such ill-conceived principles can only serve to distort practice into indefensible activities". He asserts that the "essence of any practical theory is its concern to develop principles formulated in operationally effective practical discourse that are subjected to practical test." Yes, for him, theory is a matter of practice and practise.

Hirst considers practical knowledge of disciplines are sometimes incompatible. "Rules and principles can not be applied to situations by the exercise of knowledge of another kind, practical knowledge." Now, the application of knowledge is wisdom and the idea that wisdom is universal in all professions would seem to be self-evidently false to me. If it was, what need would there be to separate the professions? They are separated for the sake of our ignorance, to focus our search for greater wisdom, narrowing our field of study, facilitating realisation of realities with greater speed and rigour. But practical knowledge for Hirst is a necessary idiom because he wants to be specific, not generalist; he is interested in what is tacit and what is operational in education. So, he states what is rather obvious: we must take care to check what we think works in one arena that it works in our arena before we put our trust in it. Look before we leap.

His style of writing is ponderous (he would say careful) and, he equivocates too often. Say what your mean, Hirst. Don't be so afraid.

But maybe he is afraid because he still focuses too much on practical and operational research as the source for theory and he knows that. He has a hidden agenda perhaps of support for what is known now as action research - putting the researcher in to the field as a practitioner, with the aim that the researcher benefits from improved operational practice (practical knowledge), even should no one else.

Theory is academic or practical depending on what it postulates. It is legitimate to focus on practical theorising or academic theorising. He is dismissive of academic theory to emphasise practical theory. He wants "practical testing of practical principles". He thinks that is what psychology, philosophy and sociology are there for. That seems wishful thinking to me. Why can't one test principles - what is this obsession with the word "practical"? A test is a test; it either works or it doesn't; it is practical by being effected and applied. I think he may have meant that tests need to be pertinent to educational principles, and not imports that are designed from and for external disciplines. if one presumes the test correct any deviance in the field may be deemed a flaw and practitioners blamed or practice re-configured to fit the test.

It is not new that people more readily test that which is easily tested than that which is hard to test, but is much more pertinent or pressing. Maybe Hirst is railing against educationalists being to ready to stay in their comfort zone. He may have done a great service in simply doing that.

Chaplin movies are dull and not very funny because we have seen it all before. The fact that his genius enabled the great comedy that followed is not evident on the silver screen.

Doubtless Hirst pioneered and got us where we are today. Looking before we leap.

"It is therefore as mistaken to think of the practical principles of educational theory being justified by appeal to the disciplines as it is to think that a theory in physics is justified by appeal to the validity of the mathematical system it employs." - Hirst, 1983