Please check, just in case…

Announcements  CITI training and ILL article request due next week.  Questions? Make an appointment.

Research Methodology Teams:  Experimental:  Quasi-experimental:  Single-case:  Survey:  Case study:  Interviews:  Ethnography:

Questions, comments, or quandaries?

APA Tip of the Day: Reference Lists  Your reference list comes at the end of your paper and starts on a new page.  The heading at the top of the page should say References and should be centered and start with a capital letter.  Your references should be double spaced, with no extra spaces in between. There should not be any extra space or lines between the heading and your first reference.

Reference Lists, cont.  Your references should be ordered alphabetically and when there are two citations by the same exact author(s), by year, put the earliest first.  Use “hanging indentation” for references in your reference list.  There should be an exact concordance between your in-text citations and your reference list, except for: In-text references to classical works (e.g. the bible) References to personal communications.

Today’s Topic: The paradigm wars

What is research?

Redefining research as disciplined inquiry

Differences in opinion:  What are the primary purposes of research.  What counts as acceptable evidence.  What are acceptable methodologies.  Whether true objectivity is possible.  Underlying concepts, like validity and reliability.

Small Group Activity: Consider the pairs of articles and commentaries from Learning Disabilities Quarterly. What is this argument all about? Identify specific places in the text that seem to give you clues as to the underlying debates.

Quick Write What do you think are the best kinds of research and why?

epistemology/paradigm theoretical/conceptual framework research question methodology methods

Epistemology Your stance toward “the truth.” Does the truth exist objectively or is it a social construction? Who determines what the truth is and how truth is determined?

What is a Fact? “ that which actually exists; reality; truth... something known to exist or to have happened... a truth known by actual experience or observation; that which is known to be true. ” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, 1989, p. 509)

Three questions to ponder:  How do we really know when something is true?  What do we accept as evidence of “ the truth ” ?  Are some ‘ truths ’ really ‘ assumptions ’ ?

Paradigm: “Paradigms represent a distillation of what we think about the world (but cannot prove). Our actions in the world… cannot occur without reference to those paradigms: ‘As we think, so do we act.’” Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 15

Another definition of “paradigm”: “A paradigm is a world view, a general perspective, a way of breaking down the complexity of the real world. As such, paradigms are deeply embedded in the socialization of… practitioners: paradigms tell them what is important, legitimate, and reasonable.” Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 15

Paradigms in Education: The three most commonly recognized paradigms in education are: 1. Positivism 2. Interpretivism 3. Critical theory

The paradigm wars -- Is it just esoteric ivory tower intellectualism?

Theoretical/conceptual framework: Those theories or large ideas (e.g. a definition of/perspective toward literacy, a particular theory of language development) that drive your work. These guide the type of research question that will be asked or considered relevant or appropriate to ask.

Research Design What kind of a study is it?

Research Designs:

Methods: What kind of data are you collecting? How are you collecting it? How are you analyzing it?

Kinds of data:  observation  interview  intervention  database  documents  recordings  tests  questionnaires  work samples

Looking ahead… The relationship between paradigms and research methods

Please take a minute for the minute paper. And don’t forget to turn your phone back on.