EDUC 5322
I E – Summary
Without a doubt, my lows
would involve trying to wrap my brain around your wandering session notes. I guess my learning style does not fit your
writing style…. but….
Wow! I just found myself
rereading an article in Language Arts 79:1 about the National Reading
Panel report that I had skimmed at the beginning of the semester for another
course. The article focuses on the fact
that qualitative research was eliminated from consideration in the study, and
the impact of this decision on the study’s conclusions. When I first came across this article in
September, I did not read it in detail because it contained lots of “boring
research words” which involved hair splitting I didn’t quite appreciate. It just seemed like professional nitpicking
without much real communication. I
didn’t want to take the time to wade through it. Now the whole article is fascinating to me … I read with greater
understanding. I can understand much
more nuance in the rebuttal dialog. I
can see that I really have gained a lot of understanding about what it means to
do research and to think like a researcher.
Now the hairsplitting is not just semantic games, but trying to be
precise about what you can and cannot say based on the kind(s) of information
one has collected. And it is more clear
to me where bias may be clouding the details.
With what I’ve learned from this course I’m much better equipped to
critically read research based articles and to consider their appropriate
application.
BTW – from reading this article,
I’m getting some appreciation of the debate that surrounds the use of
qualitative research. This aspect of
the topic was not really considered in our course … at least it was not obvious
to me. My perception is that, our
course has presented both types of research (quantitative and qualitative) as
equally acceptable … with different applications and purposes. Perhaps they are equally acceptable under
appropriate conditions, but it is important to note the resistance to
qualitative research reporting and the sources for that resistance. It is part of the story.
My long term plans include
adding certification as an Educational Diagnostician to my repertoire. No doubt, that will largely take me further
into quantitative data collection and evaluation … but I know the value of
qualitative data as well. Both will aid
me with consulting with families in the meantime.
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