In the conclusion to Condliffe Lagemann’s An Elusive Science, she proposes several answers to the question about “what’s to be done” to improve the status and effectiveness of educational research. Comment on her suggestions as someone working in an ed. school 20 years later. Do her ideas resonate with your experiences with ed. research and in schools of education? Feel free to compare this conclusion to the way she talks in the short video interview from 2020 (posted in Module #3).
Thoughts by Dana Rahbar-Daniels
ReplyDeleteIn Condliffe Lagemann’s chapter section on “what’s to be done”, I noted four areas of proposed changes to improve the status and effectiveness of educational research: (i) the behaviors of education school faculty, (ii) university-level institutional structures, policies and practices, (iii) education research models and methods, and (iv) the culture, attitudes and investment in public communications within education schools. Looking at these ideas as a current SOE student 20 years after the book was published, I do see what seem to be some positive signs of progress in several of these areas, although my perspective is very limited since I have only been a graduate student in one school of education, and only for a year-and-a-half.
For example, in terms of cross-discipline collaborations by SOE education faculty with other university faculties, some university-level initiatives seem to involve multiple faculty disciplines, including SOE (e.g., the university’s equity and inclusive initiatives). I have also noticed that some of the published research by SOE faculty does involve co-researchers from non-education disciplines. Whether these cross-faculties engagement behaviors are bringing “transforming cutting-edge disciplinary knowledge into new curricula for schools” or exposing “deprived noneducationalist scholars to the complex fascinations” of educational problems, I would not venture to say. As to the positioning of teaching as a secondary emphasis (with less attractive incentives attached) vs. research efforts and outputs, my impression so far is mixed, with some faculty appearing to give priority to their teaching and others less so.
In the area of institutional structures for cross-profession collaborations, the recently formed university-level committees and other resource commitments on social justice equity and inclusion policies and practices seem to be in this direction. In addition, the cross-school involvement of students in several of my adult education courses (such as Monroe campus and Medicine and Dental School participants), indicate some signs that “educational study is a shared, distributed function across the university.”
The change area that shows the most progress, as I have observed so far, seems to be in the co-mingling of “experiences of both researchers and practitioners”. Almost all of my grad courses and co-curricular experiences have involved significant attention to learning that combines and cross-enhances education scholarship efforts and the development of professional teaching abilities. This is particularly true of frequent attention to what Lagemann referred to as “usable knowledge” in the video clip, often through extensive reflective and critical examination of both domains on a certain subject or issue. Perhaps it this student-level-learning impact which will make the most significant and enduring contribution to improving on the “troubled history of education research” as described by the author.
I have mixed feelings about the writings of Condliffe Lagemann we were assigned this week. In her Preface (and threaded through the conclusion) she presents a conflict between quantitative study and qualitative study that I think is somewhat artificial. Although I recognize the realities of policy-level obsession with quantifiable data, I would argue that the negative consequences she identifies from this do not stem from a fundamental weakness of quantitative research, but with the specific measures typically being employed. I would argue that asking policy to move away from objective measures into decisions based on theory is an invitation for an even heavier hand of politics on education, given that objective measures are not directly manipulated by political action (they can, of course, be indirectly manipulated, which is a serious issue we face), whereas theory is amorphous, and the "pet theory" of the day is subject to the whims of our political apparatus. I would argue that the issue here is not a reliance on objective measures, but a weakness in traditional testing as a data source. I think there is every reason to expect that educators proceed as scientists, but they must be held to a high scientific standard, including the validity of their measures.
ReplyDeleteAs far as how Lagemann's concerns jive with my experiences in educational research, I must say that I am leery of calls for increased governmental regulation of education, given the potential influence of political forces there. With that said, I think she astutely identifies the problems that have arisen from lack of oversight (and the nature of the oversight that has been given), as well as the limited professional network available to educational researchers. I have often observed that disciplines work in silos, when knowledge sharing could address so many of the questions we work to answer - niche expertise areas like Speech Language Pathology and Occupational Therapy rarely get the opportunity to share that knowledge with more broadly focused educators, and vice-versa.
I am not sure why this commented as unknown when it shows me replying as my name, but this is Chris Parthemos's comment.
DeleteComments by Hui Sun
ReplyDeleteWe often say that educators are engineers of the human soul. I have just entered the field of education for only half a year, however, there is some resonance with the author from the perspective of myself as the educated. Education is an interdisciplinary science that combines human behavior with philosophy and ethics to promote the overall development of human personality and make people a real person. This is a free growth process of fresh life. Therefore, education should be based on a kind of respect, acknowledgment, and awe of life so that we can take as many measures as possible to protect and help each life, worthy of awe, to realize its own value.
The author proposes to educate the public about education, which should transcend race, class, and national boundaries to advocate freedom, justice, and inclusion. The College of Education is responding to this initiative: diversity, equity, and inclusion. In terms of motivation, the author proposes to conduct teacher research and provide teachers with timely encouragement and support. In fact, the author has been working hard for this. Transferring knowledge freely requires skills. I know that the School of Education provides young faculty with faculty mentors to offer advice and help them improve teaching skills; at the same time, MERC, comprising the School of Education and local school divisions, is aimed at improving skills and technology of local K-12 teachers and contributing to the body of scholarly knowledge. Knowledge itself does not tell people how to use it, and the methods used are outside the books. Therefore, as the author puts forward, teacher research is necessary to link theory with practice and impart useful knowledge.
As someone who has worked in higher education administration in a School of Education as well as a different academic unit, Condliffe Lademann’s suggestions about collaboration across departments in Universities really struck me. I work for a different PhD program, so I constantly compare what services are offered to me (as a PhD student) versus the students in the program that I work for. By far, the services that come out of SOE are more numerous and just better, in general. It’s my belief that educators are just better at preparing students and understanding their needs better, so it’s odd to me that more academic units wouldn’t call on Schools of Education for guidance. In the video she said “One of the most important things an ed school can do is educate the public about education” and an example that a classmate used was the DEI trainings offered by the School of Education, having these more available and accessible across the entire campus would have been helpful to a lot of units. Taking advantage of this could have possibly ignited more collaboration across units.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I noted about Lagemann's text was how her suggestions were directed towards the university level. Allowing for shared research, immersive experiences, and various styles of inquiry seemed to be key components. I felt the text had a strong focus on the necessity for a common professional community in-order to be able to bridge some of those gaps between research and practice and create usable knowledge. However, when I watched the video it seemed to be somewhat contradictory. In the text she wrote that there is "too great a divide" between teacher/ admin programs and research programs, but in the video she asserts that teachers are not trained to be researchers and in my opinion supports the separation of the two. It seemed to me that she shifted from useable knowledge actually bridging the gap between research and practice, to it serving as the translation function she spoke of education needing; therefore making it more accessible to the public.
ReplyDeleteTheory and practice go hand in hand and should be integral to one another. To think outside the box and to challenge the existing notions of educational research, individuals (educators, practitioners, urban students, teachers, university based researchers, attorneys, community activist, research scholars) should mingle and integrate their joint efforts to develop a new repository of ideas, activities and knowledge to strengthen policy and practice in educational research. In addition, education scholars along with interdisciplinary educators need to collaborate in research. Advocacy of promoting more cross-disciplinary and cross-professional research and involving policy makers and practitioners into the research will provide insight for robust research agendas. In this process both educators and practitioners come together and participate in activities and that leads to the core of practice, discovery of new ideas, discovery of any hidden anomalies and investigation of new relationships. In this process, the practitioners take new identities, in educational research. Such advocacy plays important role for practitioners and educators to opportunities to bridge division between researcher and practitioner and bring changes in urban schools as agents of change.
ReplyDeleteDirect and indirect student-teacher participation also becomes important. Student-teacher learn best when they are engaged in collaborative enquiry, where there is reflection of the past learning/practice and can position themselves as transformative learners. Educational research needs empowering practitioners as agents of reform and intellectuals.
Educational research could help develop more humanizing pedagogy, in collaboration with the practitioners where they are involved in activities that are situated in a lived experience to make improvements in schools. Practitioner needs to be involved in activity, to be learning by doing, need to observe and reflect together on the practice (public pedagogy) and receive constructive criticism to improve upon their own. It also becomes important to avoid didactic teaching practice and focus more on student centered collaborative teaching strategies. The practitioner would develop own philosophies of teaching and learning and move the needle in educational research in a positive direction.
The phrase arm chair science really resonated with me as it captures much of my concerns about the academy in any social science fields. Academics are, in general, content to share their theories and ideas in closed circles of other academics, but it is challenging to get those theories and ideas out to the public. One of my favorite questions to ask in classes is "What do we do with this knowledge?" How do we turn our fancy research and theories into something that is actionable? This also relates to the comments I made last week about how education researchers tend to put themselves in boxes and ignore the intersections of their work. Lagemann points out that policy makers tends to look at narrow (and often quantified) information when crafting policy, when true progress is only made when we take an interdisciplinary approach.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do rankle with the overly limited definition of education Lagemann uses, though she is not alone in this fault. When we hear someone say that they are involved in education research, the first thing we think of is PK-12 education. In that setting, yes, it's important to talk about teachers as researchers, curriculum development, etc. But what about higher education? At a university, instructors ARE expected to be researchers and ARE expected to have the skills necessary for scientific inquiry. Curriculum conversations look different. The issues are different. So why do conversations about education tend to revolve solely on what goes on in our grade schools?
I have spent the past 20 years of my educational career battling the low status of education in general; there is little value placed on education in this country. It seems only natural that the research aspect of education would be no different. The truth is that we need to have quantitative methods alongside qualitative methods in order to truly understand ways to make improvements in education, and I just don’t see how we could do one without the other. I am always comparing our research to my daughters research, which is ALL quantitative scientific research. I understand why there is so much criticism of educational research from the more concrete sciences. There are, however, many similarities between the various types. I agree that more connections within the university research departments would only be beneficial to all, especially to the newer Ed researchers. I know that what we study has less concrete aspects at times, but how else are we to explore various aspects of education without a scientific approach. We must have the research in order to link its outcomes to the practice. Without it, we are just spinning wheels. There is value in using qualitative methods in order to make what we do in the classroom more impactful. The distinction between researchers and teachers is also an important part of these articles, and I think that creating usable knowledge that is accessible and based in scientific methods of research is the most important piece.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate but, in my opinion, educational research has to be politicized and full of government interventions. We live in a racist society that is also classist within that. That's not directly related to the question but Chris' comments on government intervention in research made me think of that.
ReplyDeleteThe authors thoughts on collaboration resonated with me. I think research should seek to be cross-discipline when possible because it can bring in a more well-rounded view of the topic being researched. A big topic in the current climate is intersectionality and how that impacts the way we view the world and the individuals in it. The biology department at VCU has the most undergraduate students and brings in the second most research dollars inside of the college of humanities and sciences but often does research with researchers in other departments due to the lack of specific lab equipment.
This is Gerron.
DeleteMichelle Carter
ReplyDeleteI can’t comment form the perspective of “working” in a school of education because I don’t perceive myself as doing that yet. In fact, I have only just begun the process of viewing myself as a potential researcher. Currently, I view myself as an adult educator with lots of questions, very willing to listen, and very aware that she has much to learn. One answer the author proposes that I agree with is that major university reforms are needed to reward teaching and support the improvement of teaching. Student evaluations are the only measure of my teaching. No one has ever explained to me how these evaluations were developed, how often the evaluation instrument is reviewed, or what research is being done to see if this instrument is valid and reliable.
The author discusses the lack of government regulation that exists in education. Specifically, Condliffe Lagemann is pointing to how textbooks and curricula are adopted by school boards. She notes that it is more about successful sales than thorough vetting through research and evaluation. Her solution is that there should be a stronger professional community that connects research to potential consumers. In this discussion she focuses on k-12, but doesn’t mention how textbooks are selected in higher ed. A process that is just as questionable and rife with the influence of entrepreneurship. I agree with the author that this process needs improved, but I am not sure that more regulation is the answer.
I agree that all future teachers should be exposed to research opportunities while in their undergraduate programs and taught how to critically evaluate research. I agree with the author that field-based research needs to make its way back to the university for “theory-oriented” consideration. Possibly applying the principles of design process would be helpful creating a cycle of research that allows for theory to move into practice and practice to move into theory simultaneously allowing for replication using a variety of methods and frameworks.
So much resonated with me this week, both personally and professionally. Personally, I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue my PhD, as I feared it would be too deeply based on research and theory alone. How would I connect it to what I do and what educators do in their daily practice? As a school principal and someone who wants to be involved (in some way) in policy down the road, research is still not as connected as it should be. Has it gotten better? Yes, but there is still this disconnect between what happen in the classrooms and what is studied and deemed best practice. Educators often use "research based" practices, but that is about as close as most teachers get to connecting with the studies that brought these programs, structures and methodologies to their classroom doorstep.
ReplyDelete100% yes I agree with her and this idea of "usable knowledge." I do think we still have some strides to make in regards to how we translate the educational research to something that can be put into practice. Part of this seems to be the mentality that education is not important. Deemed as "women's work," and not prioritized decades ago, I wonder if that has really changed in 2021. I saw this quote on social media, "What if the question wasn't "should schools reopen? What if instead the question was, why have schools and educators become the answer for every problem in our society. (child care, nutrition, healthcare, mental health, educating etc. And if we are that answer, how come we haven't been funded that way?" IO recognize this isn't about funding, but it is about mindset. A mindset that continues to hold back breakthroughs in education, the importance of educational research and the need to make connections to theory and practice.
Above Comment by Melissa Reams
DeleteThe way that Condliffe Legemann discusses research, makes me feel like it has changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. At times, it seemed like Condliffe Lagemann would describe qualitative and quantitative research as if they existed extremely separate spheres. Quantitative research seemed to be described as individualistic, cold, and not values-oriented. Qualitative researched seemed to be described as more vague but collaborative, and values driven. I’m not sure if I believe them to be so starkly different anymore. I see those who want to do quantitative research, being deliberate about contextualizing their research. I see those who do qualitative search, being specific enough in defining their research so that it can hopefully be generalized to the populations it aims to serve.
ReplyDeleteI do agree, however, that we do need to be mindful of historical context when doing research. I think Condliffe Legemann discusses a lot of the sexist context, however, there is also racist, classist, and homophobic historical pieces that have existed in all education to consider as well.
Condliffe Lagemann discusses how cross collaboration with other faculty can help educators to stay informed and less isolated during their research process. The author notes that has historically been “more individualistic than social.” I think that departments should create this culture for their incoming students from the beginning of their journey. The idea of collaborating on research across universities, or even across departments, can be a tool to help widen a researcher’s lens.
The author also talks about how teaching should be incentivized and rewarded. Honestly, I think the pandemic has really shown just how much we’ve fallen short with that charge. For example, many professors at universities were expected to teach as usual without much support about how to transition their courses online and provide resources for students. Don’t even get me started on how K-12 teachers have been treated as well!
Above comment is Mia Liadis.
DeleteWhile reading the preface and conclusion of Condliffe Lagemann’s book, I was intrigued by some of the history that she unveiled and somewhat surprised at the history that she did not include. Unfortunately, I was somewhat turned off by her work because of the pretentious wordiness of her text. However, moving through her overly worded paragraphs, I found some views that I do agree with. One of the more shocking (albeit naive on my part) points that I discovered in the reading was the sexist nature of the beginnings of educational research in America. The idea that teaching was “woman’s work” which immediately delegitimized it in the eyes of the cisgendered heterosexual white men that founded this country is appalling. Continuing on to the ideas of antieducationism, as perpetuated by minds such as George Bernard Shaw, educators have never been deemed as valuable in the eyes of Americans. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the pandemic where I thought this might be changing. People all over the country began posting to social media about the importance of teachers, how hard their jobs are and the need for more compensation. Fast forward to the start of the 2020-2021 school year and the same people were bashing teachers for not wanting to be in a classroom with 30 kids during a pandemic. The idea that teaching should be incentivized is interesting but I think teaching really needs to be valued rather than incentivized. States attempted an incentive-based plan by rewarding teachers who met state benchmarks but it turned out that many teachers cheated in order to gain benefits (or keep what they had). If the United States had a vested interest in the education of our youth, they would provide teachers with a compensation comparable to our doctors, lawyers, and other prominent positions in the country. As a high school counselor, it saddens me to hear from students that the running joke about education is that you don’t go into it for the money. I certainly agree that changes need to occur at the university-level in order to begin to change the tide. However, she wrote this book 20 years ago and nothing seems to have changed much. Additionally, I feel as though her book lacked additional multicultural considerations as I believe much of education has been shaped by the prejudices of those in power.
ReplyDeleteWhen considering educational research in schools of education, I think about my masters degree program in educational leadership & policy studies. While going through the program it was essential that I was an active participant in a professional learning community. In this space we were able to connect the information and research that we studied in class to our daily practice in the K-12 setting. I found it interesting that some of the material that was covered in research didn’t necessarily result well with all of us in the PLC depending on the division or school in which we worked.
ReplyDeleteThis reflection is where I think Lagemann’s idea of strengthened professional communities is powerful. When there are people in the field that are having authentic experiences daily, there is a greater chance that the research will remain current because theories are consistently being tested.