5.15 Ð 7.00 1WN 3.8. Tuesday 21 March 2006.
As we move into our second unit on the masters programme on research methods in education I'd like to congratulate
Meg, Nina, Juliet, Clair, Steve, Marie, Richard, Vic and Ros on the acceptance of their first educational enquiry as they passed through the MA Examination Board on the 16th March. I'm also hoping to work with James' and Ed's drafts of their first educational enquiry so that they can submit a.s.a.p.
After we've caught up with each others' news tonight and shared our thoughts on each others' enquiries I'd like to bring five issues into our conversation.
1) I'd like to research my own practice with Marie's help, including video, to see if I can understand better the nature of my educational influences in my own learning and in your learning and understand between how to construct a valid account of these educational influences in learning. Because I'm hoping to include your responses to what I'm doing as well as my own receptive responses to what you are doing, I'm seeking your ethical approval for this enquiry (see BERA ethical guidelines below).
2) There is a given curriculum for the research methods in education Ð the curriculum 'given' by the University. This is it:
In my tutoring, I work with the assumption that you are creating your own 'living curriculum' as you engage with the 'given curriculum'. In what I do with you through my tutoring I mediate the 'given curriculum' through my own values, skills and understandings. I also work with the idea that as you construct your accounts, of your educational influences in your learning and the learning of your students, you are creating your own living educational theories. I imagine that we are experiencing similar tensions as educators in that we experience as constraining some of the cultural pressures that influence what we do. I'm thinking here of particular kinds of accountability that impose standards of judgement in the given curriculum and in the testing and inspection regimes that run counter to some of the values, skills and understandings that we are seeking to develop, as educators, with learners.
3) I know from your educational enquiries how important your ethical commitments are in motivating what you do in education. The British Educational Research Association has produced Ethical Guidelines for educational research. These guidelines explicitly support the ethical principle of academic freedom. You can download a copy of the BERA Ethical Guidelines from: http://bera.ac.uk/publications/pdfs/ETHICA1.PDF?PHPSESSID=4cf373021b45b2f7bef00d040c926720
I'm wondering how we distinguish between values, ethics and morals in our communications and want to check if we share a common understanding of how we are using these words.
4) I'd like everyone to develop the skill of using the electronic resources, including the JSTOR archives that are available to you with your registration from http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/ej/ As an exercise could you go into
JSTOR in the menu under Electronic Journal Services and click on JSTOR, type in your username and password and when the page JSTOR collections available at your institution comes up, click on:
Arts & Sciences IV Collection
The
page Currently Available Journals - Arts & Sciences IV Collection should
come up. Click on
Education
on the top menu bar. Scroll down to Educational Researcher and click.
See
if you can search, access and download the following two papers by Eliot
Eisner:
The Promise and Perils of Alternative
Forms of Data Representation
Elliot
W. Eisner
Educational Researcher, Vol.
26, No. 6 (Aug., 1997), pp. 4-10
Forms of Understanding and the Future
of Educational Research
Elliot
W. Eisner
Educational Researcher, Vol. 22,
No. 7 (Oct., 1993), pp. 5-11
5)
Through their use of video, I think James and Ed are on the
edge of making a very significant breakthrough in developing a research method
in education that we enable us to understand better how to bring empathy (see
|
Title: |
Empathetic validity in practitioner research |
|
Abstract: Please do not
enter authors or affiliations on this form as the abstracts are being
reviewed blind. This information
will be entered during the submission process. |
Introduction
This project is exploratory, designed to study the extent to which
the concept of empathetic validity that I have formulated (Dadds, 2004) holds water.
In the paper, I will examine the concept within the context of practitioner
research. By empathetic validity, I mean the potential of the research in its
processes and outcomes to transform the emotional dispositions of people towards
each other, such that greater empathy and regard are created. Related to the
growth of empathy is the enhancement of interpersonal understanding and
compassion. Research that is high in empathetic validity contributes to
positive human relationships. I will distinguish between internal empathetic
validity (that which changes the practitioner researcher) and external
empathetic validity (that which influences audiences with whom the
practitioner research is shared). Relevance
The concept is crucial for understanding that practitioner
research can make a welcome difference to the way people feel and act towards
one another. In an age of increasing national and global violence, as well as
stress and tension in the workplace, practitioner research can contribute to
developing kindness, respect and compassion. As such it can, in its small
way, counteract human negativity on a localised or wider scale. I will also claim that certain methodological approaches
such as narrative, anecdote, drama
and video recording (as developed by Jack Whitehead (2005)), are more
likely to touch and transform emotions and, therefore, enhance empathetic
validity than more detached approaches such as quantitative methods, clinical
interview or questionnaire. Literature The concept will be framed
within the literature that explores validity criteria in practitioner
research. It will also be set
against the recent framework developed by Furlong and Onacea (2004). This
literature, whilst seeking to be comprehensive in offering a framework for
applied, practice-based and practitioner research, does not account for the
growth of affect that research is capable of generating. As such, there is
little within the literature that enables us to understand the potentially
high level of human relevance that practitioner research offers. There is, thus, little that enables us to be explicit about
this aspect of its validity within the research community. Methodology
I will draw upon three kinds of data that have steered my gaze
towards this phenomenon. First,
I will examine a range of emotional transformations I have experienced as a
practitioner researcher myself in several projects. Second, I will draw upon data from colleagues who have
reported emotional transformation as a result of their practitioner research.
This data set will also include evidence from the work that Jack Whitehead
has developed at Bath University using video recording in practitioner
research. Third, I will draw from published literature. I will interrogate these sources of
evidence of growth of empathy. I
will also seek negative instances, though my own experience over twenty five
years suggests these are few and far between. I will, therefore, ask critical
questions about the potential influence of my own biases and subjectivity
within the data gathering and analysis. Conclusions
Analysis will show different ways in which practitioner
researchers' emotions are transformed through their research and the effect
of this on human interaction. In addition, the analysis will show that the
beneficiaries of practitioner research can also be affected positively by the
researcher's transformations and that audiences, too, can be influenced
through specific methods. The
paper will conclude that there is enough evidence for the validity of the
concept of 'empathetic validity' for it to warrant serious consideration and further
exploration, not only by practitioner researchers but by the broader research
community. References Dadds, M., 2004, Perspectives on practitioner
research, National College for School
Leadership, Cranfield Oancea, A. and Furlong, J., 2004, Developing quality
criteria for the assessment of applied and practice-based research, paper presented to the British Education Research
Association annual conference - see http://www.bera.ac.uk/pdfs/Qualitycriteria.pdf Whitehead, J., 2005, Living inclusional values in
educational standards of practice and judgement, Keynote at 'Act, Reflect, Revise 3 conference', Ontario, http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/monday/arrkey05dr1.htm SIG This paper will fit within the Practitioner Research SIG. |
Looking forward to this evening's session.
Love Jack.