EDUC 500: Introduction to Educational Research

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EDUC 500 Introduction to Educational Research
Dr. Stephen Petrina Dr. Franc Feng Department of
Curriculum Studies University of British Columbia
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EDUC 500

• Is it better to tell the truth or a good story?

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EDUC 500 What is Research?What Counts as
Research?

• The Social Sciences and Humanities Research
  Council of Canada (the primary federal research
  policy and funding agency for educators), defines
  research as "a systematic investigation to
  establish facts, principles or generalizable
  knowledge (p. 17)
• UBCs Office of Research Services defines
  research as any systemic investigation
  (including pilot studies, exploratory studies,
  and course based assignments) to establish facts,
  principles or generalizable knowledge (UBC ORS,
  2006, http//www.ors.ubc.ca/ethics/humansub/index.
  htm)
• UBCs Associate VP of Government Relations, Allan
  Tupper (2003), defines research as reflective
  inquiry deep, disciplined thinking about your
  subject and about how your subject relates to
  other subjects and about the major questions in
  those fields, what we know and dont know (p.
  7). Quoted in Calboreanu, C. (2003). University
  teaching, university research Conflict and
  co-operation. UBC Reports 49(9), 1, 7-8.

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EDUC 500 What is Research?What Counts as
Research?

• Clough Nutbrown (2002)
• Research is persuasive
• Why would you want to carry out a piece of
  research if you didnt in some way want to
  persuade somebody of the value of what you are
  doing (p. 4)?
• Research is purposive
• There is little aim in carrying out a research
  project (whatever the scale) if there is no
  ultimate aim to achieve something as a result
  (p. 6).
• Research is positional
• Research that did not express a more or less
  distinct perspective on the world would not be
  research at all it would have the status of a
  telephone directory where data are listed without
  analysis (p. 10).
• Research is political
• Research which changes nothing not even the
  researcheris not research at all. Since all
  social research takes place in contexts of one
  form or another research itself must therefore be
  seen as inevitably political (p. 12).

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Why is Research (now) so Easy?

• Access to information
• Automation of processes (e.g., data-analysis)
• Automated data collection, recording and
  transcription devices
• Mass distribution and publishing (e.g.,
  file-sharing, open access)
• Acceptance of alternative ways of knowing (i.e.,
  genres, methods and theories)

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Why is Research (now) so Difficult?

• Interdisciplinarity, etc.
• Hybridity, etc. (Modern Extra-somatic,
  psycho-social, sociocultural, superorganic, etc.
  Postmodern Centriphery, cosmopolitical, glocal,
  factish, faction, etc.)
• Proliferation of methods
• Proliferation of theories
• Proliferation of genres
• Proliferation of information
• Proliferation of interpretations
• Proliferation of contending and dissenting voices
  

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Thought Experiment 1Theory, Method, Data, Site,
Self

• Think of a clinic, outdoor centre or school. What
  do you observe feel, see or hear when you walk
  inside? Think of a corporation. What does it
  do? Think of a relationship. What does it
  involve?
• As you imagine walking into this clinic, outdoor
  centre, school, corporation or relationship,
  however open-minded or how you manage
  expectations, what you (eventually) find (i.e.,
  what is "there") is dependent on who you are
  (i.e., identity and positionality) and what you
  theorize(d).