A Dialectic Exploration of Stability and Change in Education Research

Author(s):

Man Ching Esther Chan(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 11, Context and Content in Education

Time:

2017-08-22

09:00-10:30

Room:

W4.23

Chair:

Janinka Greenwood

Contribution

Study purpose

This study aimed to connect the diverse perspectives and research traditions in education through interviews with senior researchers in multiple countries. It applied the dialectic approach (Overton, 2003; Stace, 1955) in philosophical investigation using the relational concepts of stability and change to stimulate and understand different views of learning and teaching and to explore the potential application of these different understandings of stability and change in classroom practices.

Theoretical perspective

Education appears to be a highly contested research area. Terms such as “polarisation”, “fragmentation”, and “silos” are often found in the literature to describe the current status of the research discourse. This study takes a unique approach to bridge the discourse in education research by examining the tensions between stability and change in education applying the dialectic approach (Overton, 2003; Stace, 1955). According to Overton (2003), the first step to the approach is a relational construction to force an understanding of the dichotomous terms as exclusive of each other (e.g., “stability” is exclusive of “change” and vice versa). This allows a clearer boundary to be set between the concepts that are represented by the terms. The next step involves replacing the assumption about the exclusivity of the terms with the assumption that these terms are inclusive of each other. This may appear to be a paradoxical task which requires simultaneously establishing that two terms are dichotomous but also constitute one another, similar to the idea that “parts” and “wholes” define each other but at the same time are different from each other. A recursive process is then involved to switch back and forth between focusing on the inclusivity and the exclusivity of the concepts at different moments of analysis. When the moment of analysis is on the inclusivity of the concepts, the origin or character of any behaviour of interest is seen as containing both concepts which are intertwined and cannot be torn apart. When the moment of analysis is on the exclusivity, the focus on the individual identity of the concepts allows behaviours to be analysed from the standpoint of each side of the dichotomy.

A dialectic approach can be used to differentiate and integrate the findings from different standpoints, providing a more holistic understanding of human development. The approach is used in this study to explore, stimulate, interrogate, and understand the theoretical perspectives of different researchers from different countries and different research traditions. The relational construction of stability and change was used in this study in two ways: i) as a prompt to stimulate researchers’ reflection of their work; and ii) as a theoretical framework for juxtaposing and linking the different perspectives suggested by the researchers. As a starting point for the study, senior researchers (researchers with 10+ years post-PhD experience) were chosen as the focus of investigation to tap into their experience and knowledge in articulating and reflecting on their own research and perspective.

This paper specifically focuses on the juxtaposition of stability and change in the perspectives reported among the interviewees as a way to explore the connection between the diverse perspectives and research traditions in education. Three cases are selected for examination – one relates to the focus on unexpected student responses in teaching and assessment, one relates to the focus on standardisation in large-scale assessment, and one on focusing in intrapersonal variation for examining micro-level processes. The juxtaposition of the three cases provide an illustrate example of the way in which the dialectic approach can be used to understand the connection and divergence between different perspectives among education researchers.

Method

This study involved interviews with senior academics from different countries and who work in different areas of education research to interrogate the notions of stability and change. The study drew ideas from the "complementary accounts methodology" formalised by Clarke (1997, 2001, 2004), which utilises a research team with diverse areas of expertise to analyse a common body of classroom data. Rather than aiming for consensus among the researchers, the methodology aims to develop accounts that are internally coherent, consistent with the available data, and plausible. Clarke argued that such complementary accounts are important for providing a richer and more complex portrayal and understanding of classroom learning. Extending the methodology, researchers with distinct ideas and theories about learning and teaching were invited to be interviewed individually to explore how they grapple with the tensions between stability and change in education as part of their work and the implications of such tensions for classroom practice. Data source A snowball sampling method with a maximum variation strategy (Patton, 1990) were employed in this study beginning with a few personal contacts of the author and asking them to suggest suitable informants for the study. Altogether, individual interviews were conducted with ten researchers. Each interview was around 30 to 60 minutes and semi-structured, generally beginning with some background questions about the interviewee, how learning is defined and studied in their work, and how the interviewee might interpret the issue of stability and change in his or her work. The age of the interviewees ranges from 41 to 60+ years. All of them had at least 10 years post-PhD experience and were at associate professorial or professorial levels and/or directors of research centres or organisations in Europe, Australia, or the United States. The researchers can be generally grouped as those who study classroom interactions (Participant ID R01, R02, and R06), those who conduct educational assessment and measurement (R03, R04, R08, and R10), and those who study developmental changes (R05, R07, and R09). This paper specifically focuses on a researcher from each of the three areas (R02, R04, and R05) drawing out the connection and divergence in their perspectives in relation to stability and change.

Expected Outcomes

A contrast between the three cases highlights a dependency between the concepts of structure and variability, and how “stability” can be found at various levels of practice though defined or manifested differently. The mathematics education researcher and teacher educator (R02) particularly emphasised the need for teachers to pay attention to the “unexpected” responses of children and not assume that students can be easily categorised into broad categories such as “high” or “low” ability. Research analyst, R04, who works in the area of large-scale assessment highlighted the importance of standardisation in his work and the need to tease out the “core” information that runs through the instability and variations in student test scores. In contrast, educational psychology researcher (R05) believes “variability is not noise. It's just as important as the central tendency is to be able to detect whether it is important fluctuation or whether it's noise in the measurement system” (quote from the interview). R05 compared the conventional research approach with her own research approach which treats fluctuation and variability as important information rather than “noises” that mask an underlying stable process. The emphasis of R02 on the unexpected responses of students appears to depend on the teacher’s anticipation and knowledge of familiar student responses and the students’ familiarity with particular task types. For R05, the belief that a certain response pattern is unique to a person or that there are people with similar response patterns suggests a certain form of “stability” that is worth investigating or can be generalised. Though the foci may be different, the underpinning motivation in the research between R04 and R05 are similar. Accordingly, the notions of stability and change appear to serve as a useful means to draw out different researchers’ education research perspectives as well as to contrast and connect them.

References

Clarke, D. J. (1997). Studying the classroom negotiation of meaning: Complementary accounts methodology. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Monograph No. 9, 98-111. doi:10.2307/749949 Clarke, D. J. (2001). Complementary accounts methodology. In D. J. Clarke (Ed.), Perspectives on practice and meaning in mathematics and science classrooms (pp. 13-32). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Clarke, D. J. (2004). Researching classroom learning and learning classroom research. Mathematics Educator, 14(2), 2-6. Overton, W. F. (2003). Development across the life span. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 13-42). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Stace, W. T. (1955). The philosophy of Hegel: A systematic exposition. New York: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1924)

Author Information

Man Ching Esther Chan (presenting / submitting)

The University of Melbourne

Melbourne

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