Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h7HI9l715775; Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:09:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:09:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <20030817.140644.6398.0.sophocles5@juno.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "George E. Demetrion" <sophocles5@juno.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:602] Re: Using Research and Reason in Education--A Review X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Juno 1.49 Status: O Content-Length: 3781 Lines: 80 Eileen writes 1. Grounded theory research is based on the idea that the researcher should build theory from the data, not by trying to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis. I'm not sure this is ever really possible--it seems to me like the myth of objectivity--but the idea is to start with what you observe and see where it leads, not to start with a conclusion that you can only accept or reject at the end of the study. Thanks Eileen, First, as there were some editing issues in my initial post, I will be re sending the original review. On your points, Obviously people bring a lot of baggage to any inquiry project--baggage that is unavoidable, but at least can be checked. At least in an ideal scenario, I think it's more of an iterative process where: a) For some reason certain things are observed (as we can't observe something). That which is observed may be very well influenced by perception in focalizing observation in a certain direction. b) What is observed evokes an inference, that is, the beginning of an idea (keeping in mind that in real-world research one's ideas, including one's ideas about research, are already evoked). c) The inference, in turn, may lead to a new look at the data, which either leads to a confirmation or disconfirmation of the initial inference, or leaves the matter ambiguous. d) The result, at this stage (assuming a viable inquiry process is intact) is additional searching, including continued examination of the data, now influenced by the inference and a sharpening of the inference, perhaps into the formation of a more formal hypothesis e) The sharpened hypothesis, then, becomes the focal point for additional data analysis and so on until a reasonably satisfactory solution emerges at least for the particular problem at hand, noting that some problems may remain ambiguous for a good long time, if not foreever (that woiuld be a real long time). f) The refined idea (a working theory at this stage) becomes a starting point for additional inquiry, which might result in its refinement, modification, or possibility to its abandonment, but then again that depends on the theory. Some theories, those beyond the "middle-range" which some social scientists say are the only ones that can be viably worked on, may not be easily falsifiable, yet remain important for the heuristics in thinking that they stimulate. One thinks of Marxian social theory, Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed, Dewey's concept of growth, Mezirow's theory of perspective transformation, Kegan's theory of fourth order consciousness, etc. Plenty of data can be drawn upon in support of or in rejection of such theories. Thus, the issue of falsifiability becomes problematic indeed. The question here is not whether the theories are true in some straightforward literal sense, but whether they are fruitful in focalizing inquiry in certain directions and raising important issues that would otherwise not be raised. One can take Freiran pedagogy as an example. An argument I've made on the various lists is that Pedagogy of the Oppressed opened up a new way of looking at adult literacy that would have been highly unlikely through an evolutionary refinement of the U.N.-driven modernization thesis, where literacy was viewed as one of the indices of bringing on industrialization in the "third world." Freire's insight, in turn, opened up a powerful stream of research and new practice that likely would have gone undeveloped. In short, his theory helped to reconstruct the world. It's not always clear how theory and data analysis interact in the search for the resolution of complex human problems where consciousness, social interaction, ideology, and power are ineradicable intervening variables. George Demetrion One th
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