April 16...Behaviorism

After reading Mutonen, Gruber and Lehtinen (2017), consider your own program or discipline. How are cognitive capacities evaluated behaviorally (e.g., in counseling we expect certain skills that demonstrate openness to feedback and empathy)? How accurate does it feel? Anything missing? How might you change the current evaluation system, given the emphasis on metrics?

April 2...Constructivism

After reading the Sage Constructivism Chapter in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods article, identify constructivism in your area of study/discipline/interest area.  Discuss the implications of constructivism as a framework in education/education research.

March 26...PAR

1. After reading the Raygoze article, and perhaps the optional reading, what are your thoughts and feelings on using PAR in your work as an educational researcher? What are its limits and strengths?

2. What is an issue (or issues) in your discipline that could be explored or addressed through PAR?

February 12...Constructing Conceptual Frameworks (R&R Chapter 5)

On pp. 95-97 Rallis and Rossman make the case (they argue) that developing an argument is a key component of social science research. As one who works in Philosophy of Education, this language has always been reasonably comfortable for me, but I have noticed that some doc students seem to find it foreign or strange in the context of empirical research. Please reflect on how you think about "argument" and how this does or does not fit easily with your conceptions of educational research. 

January 29...Rallis and Rossman on Systematic Inquiry

All of Chapter 1 (and particularly from p. 13's "Your Journey into Systematics Inquiry" to the chapter's end) made me think about the recent controversy involving the "MAGA teen" at the Lincoln Memorial. In particular I have been thinking about how hard it is to see things "as they are" as opposed to seeing them as they look when viewed from our particular point of view. I guess my question for this week is what do you think about the possibility for "systematic inquiry" (i.e., social science) to help us to overcome or at least mitigate this problem of perception.

There have been a number of good commentaries on the issue of perception, worldview, etc in relation to to this controversy. A reasonably brief and thoughtful version appeared in The Atlantic
(https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/julie-irwin-zimmerman-i-failed-covington-catholic-test/580897/). 

January 22...

Vick and Furlong's piece in the Chronicle takes up a number of topics that we discussed at varying levels of depth last semester in 702 (and that you have certainly bumped into throughout your doc work. Pick an issue or two that you would like to get into and share it with the group. Why is whatever you picked of interest? What do you think about and what questions do you have about it?