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EdD Module 2: Introduction to theories and methods

EdD Module 2: Introduction to theories and methods. Methodology and methods overview Ayo Mansaray. Methodology.

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EdD Module 2: Introduction to theories and methods

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  1. EdD Module 2: Introduction to theories and methods Methodology and methods overview Ayo Mansaray

  2. Methodology ‘Methodology connotes a set of rules and procedures to guide research and against which its claims can be evaluated. It is therefore fundamental to the construction of all forms of knowledge … Methodology is as concerned with how we conceptualise, theorise and make abstractions as it is with the techniques or methods which we utilise to assemble and analyse information’ (Daly, 2003:192).

  3. Methodology Research methods involve: • Identifying, conceptualising and defining the problem •  Collecting information about it • Analysis of data (e.g. classifying the data to draw out patterns, key themes) • Further applying social science explanatory concepts/theoretical framework(s) • Setting findings/problem in wider theoretical/social framework Social science involves two methodological approaches - quantitative and qualitative - but not mutually exclusive

  4. Quantitative methods Quantitative methods include: Surveys (e.g. postal, telephone, opinion polls) Psychometric tests Experiments Quantitative data yields: numerical/measurable/generisable/comparable (hard) data Emphasis on: macro, valid, reliable, representative, generalisable data

  5. Qualitative research Qualitative research is ‘any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or any means of quantification’ (Strauss and Corbin 1990:17) Criticism – produces partial knowledge

  6. Qualitative methods Qualitative methods include: ·  Interviews (face to face, telephone, email) Focus group discussions Life history ·    Autobiographical accounts Ethnography (e.g. participant/observer, interviews) Case studies (individual, institution) Analysis of documents (e.g. policies, historical records) Visual methods (e.g. photographs, film, video – see Harper 2003) Emphasis on: real life settings, meta narratives, subjective knowledge, individual/group meaning(s), in-depth understanding

  7. Life history The life history approach documents how individuals: ‘interpret, understand and define the world around them …the focus of the life history is paramountly concerned with the subjective meanings of individuals. Most notably it comes to lay bare the world taken for granted of people – their assumptions and what they find problematic about life and their lives in particular’ (Faraday and Plummer, 1979:776). The stories people tell, from such a perspective, are not isolated, individual affairs but reflect and constitute the dialectics of power relations and competing truths within the wider society. (BronandWest, 2000: 159)

  8. Ethnography • Doing Ethnography and Producing an Ethnography • More than a method? • Observation, Culture and Experience Ethnography is the sensitive register of how experience and culture indicate, as well as help bring about, social and structural change, but that change has to be conceptualised in ways not fully contained in ethnographic data themselves. The trick is to bring that “registered experience” into some relation to theory, so maximising the illumination both of wider change and of the ethnographic data. (Willis, 2000, p.114)

  9. Autobiography ‘Autobiographical method shows the author of the piece the way in which he (sic) has construed his experience and reveals the ways in which curriculum has invaded his own perceptual lens. It reveals that this apparent subjectivity is a highly socialised one, and carefully tailored to the assumptions about time and space, community, knowledge and power that are the dominant ideologies of our society’ (Grumet, 1981: 28, cited by Povey 2000:228).

  10. Comparative methods • Comparative methods are usually related to institutional, religious and macro-social factors analysed comparatively across different societies (e.g. Iceland and the UK) • A key concern is whether the areas of comparison and the indicators chosen to compare differences or similarities are genuinely comparable and can be used outside their cultural settings

  11. Triangulation Norman Denzin (1989) identified four methods of triangulation: 1) Methodological - quantitative and qualitative methods 2) Investigator - more than one researcher on a project 3) Data -different types of data taken from different people, locations, times e.g. replicated studies 4) Theoretical – combining different theories in study

  12. Feminist approaches • Non-hierarchical, participatory research • Empowering participants • Acknowledge power dynamics in producing knowledge • Ethical feminist research • Reflexivity

  13. Reflexivity • Involves (re)interpreting • Reflexive about epistemology • Reflexive about method, the study, the researched, self as researcher (Alvesson and Skoldberg 2000) ‘Reflexivity generally means attempting to make explicit the power relations and the exercise of power in the research process. It covers varying attempts to unpack what knowledge is contingent upon, how the researcher is socially situated, and how the research agenda/process has been constituted’ (Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002: 118)

  14. Technology & Data Analysis • CAQDAS-Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software • Quantitative Analysis • Media/Storage of ‘data’. • Collation • Ethics

  15. Choosing a method(s) Questions to consider: i) What work do we want our inquiry to do? ii) To what extent does method privilege findings? iii) What is the place of procedures in the claim to validity? iv) What does it mean to recognise the limits of exactitude and certainty, but still to have respect for the empirical world and its relation to how we formulate knowledge? (Lather, 2007:39)

  16. End comments It is important to try and understand how and why respondents respond in the way that they do, and connect that to what we do as researchers (see Povey 2000) The methods adopted should enable the data to be collected and should not be hindered by an ‘ideological commitment to one methodological paradigm or another’ (Hammersley 1992:163)

  17. References Alvesson, M. and Skoldberg, K. (2000) Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research (London: Sage). Daly, M. (2003) Methodology in, R. Miller and Brewer, J. (eds) The A-Z of Social Research (London:Sage). Denzin, N. K. (1978) Strategies of Multiple Triangulation, in N. Denzin (ed) The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods (3rd edition) (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall) Emerson, R., M, Fretz, R., I, & Shaw, L., L. (1995). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. London: The University of Chicago Press. Faraday, A. and Plummer, K. (1979) ‘Doing life histories’, Sociological Review, 27 (4):773-798 Hammersley, M. (1992) What’s wrong with ethnography? Methodological explorations (London Routledge) Harper, D. (2003) Reimagining Visual Methods: Galileo to Neuromancer, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (eds) Colleting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (London: Sage) pp.176-198 Lather, P. (2007) Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts Towards a Double Science (State University of New York Press: Albany) Povey, H. (2000) Critical epistemologies and gender issues in initial teacher education, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 8 (2): 219-231 (Ramazanoglu, C. and Holland, J. (2002) Feminist Methodologies: Challenges and Choices (London Routledge) Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990) Basis of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques (Newbury Park CA: Sage) Suggested further reading on qualitative research: Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (eds) Colleting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (2nd edition) (London: Sage) Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) (2003) The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues (2nd edition) Thousand Oaks/London: Sage May, T. (1997) Social Research: Issues, Methods and Processes (Buckingham: Open University Press).

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