1988

Against the Quantitative-Qualitative Incompatibility Thesis (Or Dogmas Die Hard)

epicpolicy — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:53:20 -0600

Publisher     Educational Researcher, 17(8)
Page Numbers     10-16
Summary     Over approximately the last 20 years, the use of qualitative methods in educational research has evolved from being scoffed at to being viewed as useful for provisional exploration, to being accepted as a valuable alternative approach in its own right, to being embraced as capable of thoroughgoing integration with quantitative methods. Progress has been halting, and it is not surprising that certain thinkers are now balking at the latest stage of development. The chief worry is that the capitulation to "what works" ignores the incompatibility of the competing positivistic and interpretivist epistemological paradigms that purportedly undergird quantitative and qualitative methods, respectively. Appealing to a pragmatic philosophical perspective, this paper argues that no incompatibility between quantitative and qualitative methods exists at either the level of practice or that of epistemology and that there are thus no good reasons for educational researchers to fear forging ahead with "what works."

Escalating academic demand in kindergarten: Counterproductive policies

epicpolicy — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:59:09 -0600

Publisher     The Elementary School Journal, 89
Page Numbers     135-145
Summary     Academic demands in kindergarten and first grade are considerably higher today than 20 years ago and continue to escalate. Downward shifts of what were next-grade expectations into the earliest grades are the result of large-scale social trends, for example, the universality of kindergartens, as well as day-to-day pressures felt by teachers, from accountability gates and demands for acceleration from middle-class parents. Narrow emphasis on isolated reading and numeracy skills is detrimental even to the children who succeed and is especially harmful to children labeled as failures. Policies such as raising the entrance age, readiness screening, and kindergarten retention are intended to solve the problem of inappropriate academic demand by removing younger or unready children. Research evidence does not support the efficacy of these policies. Rather, these practices contribute to the continued escalation of curriculum as teachers adjust their teaching to an older and more able group.

Flunking kindergarten: Escalating curriculum leaves many behind

epicpolicy — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:01:09 -0600

Publisher     American Educator, 12
Page Numbers     34-38
Summary     For the past four years, the authors have conducted research on the issues surrounding kindergarten retention: What are current practices? What problems are encountered by children who are youngest in their grade? How accurate are the tests used for screening? What are the effects of extra-year programs? What are the differences in school cultures that account for low incidence of retention in one school and high incidence in the next? This article summarizes three of their major findings: (1) Kindergarten retention does nothing to boost subsequent academic achievement; (2) Regardless of what it is called, the extra year creates a social stigma; and (3) Most ironically, the practice of kindergarten retention actually fosters the problem it was intended to solve--it feeds the escalation of inappropriate academic demand in first grade.

Kindergarten readiness and retention: A qualitative study of teachers' beliefs and practices

epicpolicy — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:03:01 -0600

Publisher     American Educational Research Journal, 25
Page Numbers     307-333
Summary     The issues concerning teachers' beliefs about and use of retention were explored in a qualitative study. Clinical interviews with teachers, participant observation in kindergarten classes, analysis of documents, and interviews with parents revealed that teachers' beliefs about the development of school readiness could be described and ordered along a dimension of nativism, that these beliefs relate to their use of retention as a solution to unreadiness or incompetence, and that elements of the organization of the schools in which they teach may also account for beliefs and practices. Teachers' endorsement of retention diverges both from extant propositional knowledge and from the perceptions of other interested groups.

Should instruction be measurement driven? A debate.

epicpolicy — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:33:42 -0600

Publisher Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans
Summary Measurement-driven instruction occurs when an achievement test has such serious consequences for teachers or students that the test determines what is taught. This paper debates Popham, who specified several attributes of a good measurement-driven instruction program in his 1987 Kappan article.

The Ethnographic Research Tradition and Mathematics Education Research

epicpolicy — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:30:29 -0600

Publisher     Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 19
Page Numbers     99-114
Summary     Although in theory ethnography has been put forward as a powerful naturalistic methodology, in practice it has rarely been used by educational researchers because of differences in assumptions, goals, and primary research questions. The author describes the research tradition of ethnography -- its underlying assumptions, its heritage in holistic cultural anthropology, its goals and research questions, and the organization of its research methods. Throughout, the author compares elements of this ethnographic tradition with more common educational research practices. In the final section, the author discusses the advantages of improved communication for future research in both mathematics education and educational anthropology.