EDUC 792

G&L (1989) pp. 240-241

In 4GE C&L “have avoided a discussion of triangulation as a credibility check. In part, … because triangulation itself carries too positivist an implication”.

For readers who find the idea of triangulation a useful one: member-checking ought to be dedicated to verifying that the constructions collected are those that have been offered by respondents, while triangulation should be thought of as referring to cross-checking specific data items of a factual nature.(my emphasis)

G&L pp. 237-238

The process of revising working hypotheses in the light of hindsight, with an eye toward developing and refining a given hypotheses (or set of them) until it accounts for all known cases.

When a reasonable number of cases fit an appropriate category (or categories), NCA provides confidence that the evaluator has tried and rejected all hypotheses save the appropriate one.

G&L pp. 201-204

Define stakeholders as persons or groups that are put at some risk by the evaluation – persons or groups that hold a stake.

1. AGENTS: those involved in producing, using or implementing the evaluand
2. BENEFICIARIES: those who profit in some way from the evaluand
3. VICTIMS: those who are negatively affected by the evaluand

Some means must be found to sort out the audiences into included and excluded categories based on relative stake.

Guba & Lincoln’s (1989) tome was referenced as an Action Research methodology.

I am still unclear on the meaning of ‘evalaution’ as used by G&L. Obviously, the roots of the term could relate to a research activity examining a phenomena (post priori). However, it may be that their approach is equally applicable generically.

It is clear that 4GE is CONSTRUCTIVIST-based.

Responsibilities

1. Identifying the full array of stakeholders who are at risk in the projected evaluation
2. Eliciting from each stakeholder their constructions about the evaluand and the range of claims, concerns, and issues they wish to raise in relation to it
3. Providing a context and a methodology (the hermeneutic/dialectic) through which different constructions, and different claims, concerns and issues can be understood, critiqued, and taken into account
4. Generating consensus with respect to as many constructions, and their related claims, concerns and issues as possible
5. Preparing an agenda for negotiation on items about which there is no, or incomplete, consensus
6. Collecting and providing the information called for in the agenda for negotiation
7. Establishing and mediating a forum of stakeholder Representatives in which negotiation can take place
8. Developing a report, probably several reports, that communicate to eac h stakeholder group consensus on construction and any resolutions regarding the claims, concerns and issues that they have raised (as well as regarding those raised by other groups that appear relevant to that group).
9. Recycling the evaluation once agian to take up still unresolved constructions and their attendant claims, concerns, and issues.

Source: pp. 72 -74

 Methodology of Conventional Inquiry

Source: G&L p. 165

Methodology for Constructivist Inquiry

Source: G & L p. 174

I skipped readings 7.2 and 7.5 on the basis that they are unlikely to be pertinent methodologies for the problem of my study.

Grounded Theory

Dey (1999) provides a succinct and understandable treatise on the background of Grounded Theory.

Ethnography

I found the Brewer (2000) paper of limit use.

Somerville & Ninnes’ (S&N) Topic Notes canvass:

Interpretive (understanding) paradigm

• Interpetivist – finding the ‘meanings’ associated with an action
• Hermeneutics – understanding is interpretation by engagement of one’s biases
• Social constructionism – shared understandings, practices, languages

Methodologies supporting the interpretive paradigm include:

• biography or life histories (exploring the life of an individual)
• phenomenology (the shared meaning of the lived experiences of a concept or phenomenon)
• grounded theory (systematic method typically by coding information to produce high order theory)
• ethnography (interpretation of a cultural group)
• case study (in-depth study of a particular case or cases)

Note: Cresswell (1998) is particularly illuminating. In particular the Table comparing the five traditions using the headings of:

• Focus
• Discipline origin
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Narrative form
• Structure of report

S&N also include ‘Arts-based’ research as a methodology supporting the interpretative paradigm.

Note: Need to complete required reading and activities from 7.2 (p.60)

Critical (emancipative) paradigm

Concerned with the political nature of research with a predominant focus on social change. Includes:

• Action research
• Feminist research
• Participatory research

Postmodern (deconstruction) paradigm

• Feminist
• Subjectivity
• Reflexivity
• Deconstructing binaries
• Critical Discourse Analysis

Note: Need to complete required reading and activities from 7.6

H&R (1997) cite:

political participation in collaborative action inquiry

• transactions rooted in democratic dialog as co-researchers and co-subjects (AR) 
• collaboration to define the questions to be explored
• collaboration reagrding methods of exploration (propositional knowing)
• collaborative application of the methodology (practical knowing)
• new forms of encounter with the cosmos (experiential knowing)
• collaborative development of ways to represent the patterns of experience (presenational knowing)

Co-operative inquriy rests on two participatory principles:

• epistemic participation: propositional knowledge outcomes ground by the researcher’s experiential knowledge
• political participation: reserach subjects have the basic right to participate fully in designing the research

primacy of the practical

Emphasis on applying the inqiry methodology in the cosmos of the researcher’s practice 

use of language grouded in shared experiential context

Participative reality

Reality is defined by the participants.

 Subjective-objective reality

Subjective in the sense that the nature of reality is as defined by the participants. objective due to the multiplicity of perspectives engendered by active participation of multiple subjective minds assure rigour. Objectivity is relative to how it is shaped by the knower and to how intersubjectivity is shaped via transactions. Implied is agreement regarding the rules of language (a shared lexicon) and shared cultural and experiential meanings.

Co-created by mind and given cosmos

REFER to comments regarding epistemology

Commentary

AR being participatory in nature naturally tends to complement a participatory ontology.

Currently I am predisposed to a Participatory/Collaborative research inquiry paradigm as generally outlined, initially by Herron & Reason (1997) (H&R) and as further advanced by Guba and Lincoln (2005).

Epistemology

Critical subjectivity in participatory transaction with cosmos

According to H&R critical subjectivity involves an awareness of the four ways of knowing, of how they are currently interacting, and of ways of changing the relations between them so that they articulate a reality that is unclouded by a restrictive and ill-disciplined subjectivity. The four ways of knowing H&R articulate are:

1. Experiential knowing
2. Presentational knowing
3. Propositional knowing
4. Practical knowing

H&R approach is grounded in the idea of a participatory world-view, the idea of subjective-objective reality.

The given cosmos is the primordial reality in which the mind actively participates (by transactions). Mind and the given cosmos are engaged in a co-creative dance, so that what emerges is the fruit of an interaction of the given cosmos and the way the mind engages with it. Mind actively participates in the cosmos, and it is through this active participation that we meet what is Other: the meeting of worlds and people is shaped by our own terms of reference.

Extended epistemology

In the sense that it covers the four ways of knowing.

Co-created findings

Findings (meanings) co-created by the interaction between the mind and the cosmos (everything).