Examples of CSed Research Ville Isomöttönen Ville.isomottonen@jyu.fi Department of Mathematical Information Technology University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Research Approaches in IT Field We warmed up by looking research approach taxonomy by P. Järvinen You can find it in many papers, one is here: http://desrist.org/desrist/content/Jarvinen/Uddevalla.pdf
The Range of Methods… ● See Table 2 in Holz et al. (2006). Research methods in computing: What are they, and how should we teach them? ITiCSE working group paper: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1189180 (At the end of this paper, you find short descriptions for the methods) ● Many can be and have been applied to computing education research
Our Lenses ● Research target? ● Method? ● Research question? ● How the research got started? ● Motivation? ● Inductive vs. Deductive Refs for those doing qualitative studies: ● Hsiu-Fang Hsieh and Sarah E. Shannon. 2005. "Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis," Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 15 No. 9. ● Attride-Stirling, Jennifer. 2001. "Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research." Qualitative Research 1(3): 385–405.
Our Lenses… continues ● Role of literature and theory ● Role of researchers ● Data collection ● “Nature” of results ● Any of your questions; please interrupt anytime
I picked three examples A. Kaihlavirta, V. Isomöttönen & T. Kärkkäinen. 2015. A Self-Ethnographic Investigation of Continuing Education Program in Engineering Arising from Economic Structural Change. Studies in Continuing Education, 37 (1): 99-114. (But finally I noticed we should focus on only one (the above) during 90 minutes)
Investigation of Continuing Education Program (Self- Ethnography) Research target (or context): a continuing education program offered to higher educated engineers currently laid-off or under a risk of being laid-off
Target ...continues: Program Background & Motivation ● Economic structural change and large lay-offs; political incentive to devise a continuing education program (cf. “stay current”) ● Help engineers to recover and re-educate themselves, taking into account the structural change ● Two universities involved; four thematic programs (2010-2012)
Method? ● What is self-ethnography? ● A method articulated by Alvesson (2003,2009) ( http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024716513774 ) ● Studies lived realities ● Researcher is active and authentic participant of the research context, who observes the surrounding cultural context ● Differs from ethnography in terms of researcher role (explained in short) ● May include data collection… ● In fact, in my view, would need further methodological work (cf. Marco Polo, assertions) ● You may search for recent examples of its use...
Researcher Role? ● Compared to ethnography, the researcher is not an participating observer but an observing participant ● Participation comes first (explain...) ● Compared to auto-ethnography, less emphasis is placed on inward-looking story-telling ● We stated that “we are a group of insiders integrated as the lens through which we try to gain new knowledge” (See references from the paper)
Method continues... ● What is autoethnography? ● Emphasizes inward-looking story telling ● Reports epiphanies on remembered crises (lived experiences) ● Often times this position seems to be combined with self-ethnoraphy; we did so as well. ● I'll show you an example of autoethnography: Forrest, K. A., Judd, K. R., & Davison, J. R. (2012). Coming to know within ‘healthy uncertainty’: an autoethnography of engagement and transformation in undergraduate education. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(6), 710-721.
How Research Got Started? ● We noticed that we, while taking different roles in the program, are sharing same and similar worries about the program. ● I had started to draft a study (memoing) my experiences, while other two had started to draft a program report ● We started to systematically discuss and review our experiences and observations...
Research Question? ● What conceptualizations explain the challenges encountered during the program? ● It is not really a research question; emergence ● Self-ethnography studies lived realities; ● Auto-ethnography (which is also involved) reports epiphanies on remembered crises. ● Spontaneous nature of research; emergence
Motivation ● Little previous work on self- and auto- ethnography available, in particular studies that holistically review education programs ● Specific research context (structural change and lay-offs); we could inform others by our research
Inductive vs Deductive? ● Inductive (data- or observation-or experience- driven:)) ● Spontaneous; trying to understand lived realities and remembered crises
Role of Literature/Theory ● We included quite a lot of adult education literature ● Our stance was: “Our aim is not to prove nor falsify any learning theory. Rather, as we link our observations and experiences with learning theory, we are providing context for our observations and developing discussion on their potential causes” Let us look at the tables in the paper...
Relational Ethics ● With these methods, you reveal your self and then quite easily who the others are, the ones you are “observing” and “remembering” ● Focus on the style of writing; education improvement over “student did...” ● Protect by anonymizing… as usual ● In some sense, risky business ● In my view, is nicely suited to critical research
Data Collection? ● We principally used our own textual practice; “journal writing” ● We reviewed each other's viewpoints and combined them into a single document ● We also included points from the phone interviews addressing reasons to drop out and study motivations
Results ● Students were trapped by their previous (working life) experiences, which, as is known in the literature, can be a “trap”; they demonstrated sever motivational difficulties to adjust to academic studying ● We could not cause a perspective transformation (help them see academic studying potentially useful for their future); Based on our observations, such transformations would have benefited many ● Thus… We draw main conclusions over three narratives included in the results and reflect against adult education literature to develop understandings about our observations
Promising for CSEd Research? ● In my view, yes indeed: a way to go from Marco Polo to a more analytic textual practice that builds on lived experiences ● We certainly should have proper meas to account for lived experiences as research data ● Lindeman (1926): “experience is the adult learner's living textbook” --- Why not use it in research? ● Could it be theory-driven (deductive)? ● I would like to see such master's theses and dissertations => Can you think of example studies?
Challenges? ● How to arrange the text into an article format? For instance, do you adopt a narrative style or follow a traditional layout of an research article... ● You need to learn “textual practice” suitable for self-ethnography ● You raised excellent questions: – Are my observations and feelings relevant to others? ...and relatedly: – Do you need to be experienced in the area your self-ethnographic work is concerned with? ...in one sense, these self-studies are also spontaneous as for their starting point – If these methods are not much used in our area, how they will be assessed (e.g., master's theses, dissertations)
Action Research Project on Functional Programming Course Voluntary functional programming course, initially provided with a traditional academic teaching format: typical two lectures per week combined with exercises. A story of education improvement (We ran out of time to really go into this one)
I showed you the following list of questions that may help you to “think about” action research method: Anyone doing action research? Why do you call it action research? Is it critical, practical, or technical? What is validity in action research? What if you “fail” – no improvement When are you done with your project (saturation)? When during your project can you publish? => Attempt to “be intellectual about” your work and use of methods!
Thanks, Questions? ville.isomottonen@jyu.fi
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