Aug 13 2010

Survey Says….

I got 17 responses to my survey. This is hardly sufficient for a paper but still interesting. My target audience was my Facebook friends, people known to me, usually with school age children.

I surveyed “movement in the classroom” and got three really clear bits of feedback.

1) “Education” is the dominant expectation of schools (versus athletics, socialization, self-actualization or creativity).
2) The respondants had a traditional approach to the expectation that children should be taught to sit down in class. The average answer was “moderately important” on “How important is learning to ‘sit down, sit properly, and sit still’ to academic performance, in your opinion?”
3) BUT they scored just short of “overwhelmingly pleased” (with only 2 voting less than “moderately pleased”) on “If, upon visiting a classroom, you found children sprawled on the floor or kneeling on their chairs attentively doing their assigned tasks, would you be?”

So the people who responded are serious about school and learning, have a somewhat traditional expectation but are mostly results oriented, keying on “attentively doing their assigned tasks” rather than “children sprawled on the floor or kneeling on their chairs.” Put another way, I could expect these people to accept and support relaxed movement rules IF the task focus and learning success stayed solid or improved.

This is not exactly what I expected (more traditional and more willing to accept successful adaptation). This is good information, helpful to me in advocating for more movement in our classrooms (and in how I do so).

Aug 13 2010

Surveys

How do you pilot a test, questionnaire, or survey?

The best way to pilot a test, questionnaire or survey is to have a representative subgroup of the population at which it is aimed take it. It doesn’t have to be a big group, just enough to give it a test run, to expose one’s oversights. As an example, I didn’t test the questionnaire that I just sent it out. I looked at it hard before I sent it out and imagined in my mind the responses. But I couldn’t see what I couldn’t see. The biggest oversight is my final question, the key question, was worded such that when I got results I wasn’t expecting, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the question’s wording or simply my expectations were wrong. The question was: “10. If, upon visiting a classroom, you found children sprawled on the floor or kneeling on their chairs attentively doing their assigned tasks, would you be: 1 Horrified; 2 Concerned, 3 Indifferent, 4 Mildly Pleased or 5 Indifferent?” In spite of the previous questions building a case that the respondents mostly had a traditional expectation of classroom behavior, the weight of answers to this question fell towards the Indifferent end. This could be because respondents missed the conflict between “sprawled,” etc and “attentively,” perhaps picking up on attentive more than sprawled. As the number of responses piled up, I have come to believe that in spite of traditional expectations, these respondents valued the “attentive” and either were indifferent to or happy about the “sprawled.” For this exercise and for my own information, it was useful and interesting. But to be certain or to use this survey in a more authoritative fashion, I would need to recheck that conclusion with one or more explicitly written questions. Not checking the survey before publishing it caused a potential problem with the survey’s reliability to go unnoticed.

A second problem, less likely to plague more experienced researchers is that I constructed my questions to give interlocking value. By this I mean, I asked (for example) the sex of the children and hoped to compare that to the sensitivity to movement issues. Come to find out when I ran the study that the “basic” version of the survey site I used doesn’t to allow this level of analysis.

Aug 13 2010

Red Plank, Again

Truth be told, I was pretty pissed off when I saw Red Plank so many years ago. It seemed like a ridiculous farce and the idea that my art teachers were presenting it as something worthy of admiration and that it was in a prestigious art museum stripped my gears. It seemed like lunacy and I resented what I thought was an affront to my common sense and the perceived implication that if I didn’t see its value, I was an uncultured boob.

I was maybe 14 then and have gotten much more accepting of being and/or being perceived as an uncultured boob. I have learned that standing for my truth, with as little confrontation as possible, is the best way to honor me and the other parties to the conversation. It such a joy to be able to discuss wonderful things and not get tripped up by all the silliness that often surrounds such subjects, I am very grateful to have mostly learned that lesson.

Back to art, the idea that the artists creates art as a conversation with the audience fascinating. It never occurred to me that the viewer is considered by the artist. That makes a difference in my understanding. For example, I better understand Jackson Pollock’s cigarette butts. Not completely, but I have an inkling.

I wonder why the interactivity is sucked out of the art in museums. There, the cold placement and historical context seems to powerfully fix the visitor in the “observer” role, passive and mute. Wouldn’t it be interesting to be an artist who silently asked questions with art and had viewers fill out questionnaires, fine tuning the art to the way it’s perceived? Really, if you want to provoke an conversation or an emotional connection with the viewer, what better way to refine that process than with feedback from a survey?

Aug 13 2010

Bias in Qualitative Research

I wish that were true that “you cannot let your personal opinions or biases get in the way of your research.” What about the “participatory and advocacy practices” wing of qualitative research? There they believe “the qualitative researcher is not an objective, authoritative, politically neutral observer standing outside and above the text.” Further, “Ideas such as these challenge traditional research that holds firm to a neutral and objective stance.”

Chris MatthewsTo be fair, it also says, “It also calls for the inquirers to report actively in their studies their own personal biases, values, and assumptions” and sets laudable goals like creating research “in which the rights of women, gays, lesbians, racial groups, and different classes in our society need to be considered.” However, the casting aside the need for or aspiration toward neutrality and objectivity is a deal breaker for me. If I want somebody’s political views, I’ll watch Chris Matthews.

Jul 8 2010

I need some quick help for my Master’s program…

If you can spare a minute or two, please take my survey on movement in the classroom.  This is an assignment of mine for my Master’s program. It’s only 10 questions long!!!

So far, the results are fascinating. I’d love to have more!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9RBGL9L

Thanks in Advance!

Craig

Jul 6 2010

Quantifying Red Plank

Red Plank

Red Plank

Breaking things down into their component parts and analyzing them comes very naturally to me.  I happen see things in structures and, usually, with some impartiality.  Art, on the other hand, is very challenging for me. 

While I have a certain very broad sense of what might be considered not very good and what might be considered very good, even those assumptions are wrong maybe 20% of the time.  There is also a context to art; the history, the movement of ideas and experiments, what has come before.  I am not unread in this regard, but the subtleties frequently elude me as does the answer to the question, “But why would anybody do that?”  Jackson Pollock and cigarette butts on canvas falls into that category.

Most of modern art leaves me baffled.  I distinctly remember a trip to Chicago’s Art Institute when I was a child.  There was a lacquered red 2 x 6 board on a pedestal called “Red Plank.” http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/33775.  Even my memory gives it more structure than it had; it had no pedestal, it was “leaning.”  Apparently, its worthiness for display in one of the Nation’s best art museums is due to its being “striking in (its) monolithic simplicity and characterized by pure, monochromatic surfaces, McCracken’s handcrafted ‘planks,’ which rest on the floor and lean against the wall, successfully blur the boundary between painting and sculpture.”

What I wonder is this: is the art world rigorous?  If we were to craft a survey, asking recognized art experts to explain the reasons certain pieces of art cross the boundary into “art,” would they agree?  More interesting still, if we had these experts analyze a number of unknown works, would they agree on which were worthy?  However, there is a flaw in that study, by definition “unknown” means either undiscovered or not noteworthy.  The art world is constantly encountering works at its lowest end and making decisions as to which get elevated to higher and higher degrees of regard.  “Red Plank’s” artist somehow made it from garage to art festival to small galleries to large museums through a filtering process.  Other artists who initially displayed with John McCracken may still be showing their art at neighborhood events.

My suspicion (and I mean suspicion in the sense of when you’re having a conversation where you fear that someone is pulling your leg, but you aren’t sure) is that the process is all too human and that much of becoming recognized “art” involves succeeding in an echo chamber of people, all of whom are trying to look good or smart or visionary, trying to get onto the right side of every evaluation.  “Hmmm, it’s interesting.  What do you think?”   “Oh, I like the simplicity of lines.”  “ I like the brilliant monochromatic pallet.”  “Yes, it does blur the line between painting and sculpture.”  It just would not be cool to say, “Uh, guys, it’s just a 2 x 6 somebody lacquered red, for God’s sake!”

To conclude, I have no sense for this (or for music or for wine, for that matter) but I wonder if anybody else does either, really.  I would like to see a rigorous standard applied and I would like to see how the art on the periphery does when held to that standard.  I do believe that everything is quantifiable, even if subjectively (e.g. take a poll of art critic, list their reasons, etc.).  It might even be useful to run a study to discover the list of criteria to poll on (e.g. originality, quality of execution, importance within an artistic movement, place in art history, brilliance of vision, aesthetics, etc.).  It would also be interesting to run a study of how the experts line up versus the public.  Is there a gap between the professional and the amateur?  Where are the fault lines?  I suppose too it would be interesting to track art’s valuation (not price but the rating of its artistic merits) over time to see if art follows a fad-like pattern or a more informed sorting algorithm.

Jul 2 2010

Data Collection

What are some different ways you can document a problem within your setting? How will you collect data?

There are many ways to document problems in a school environment. Really, it is among the better environments for data collection. One way is with the results from summative assessments. Another, perhaps less rigorous, would be using formative assessments. Personally, I would track my disciplinary system, trying to match disciplinary actions to causal factors I could control to reduce the need for disciplinary action. Health and absences can be a subtle but powerful indicator of problems; I would track that by pupil too. One thing that is hard to track is volunteering to answer questions. It would be useful to know who is putting their hands up to be called upon and if that inclination changes by subject. In addition, given a benchmark hand raising score, ebbs and flows of attention could be tracked.

The only way I know to do this is with a SMARTboard and the little student controller thingies that look like remote controls. With that, and the right software, tracking student participation would be easy. Having those devices also allows a much better model for calling on students randomly, making sure each student gets an equal chance to talk, and even for quick formative assessments throughout the day. They really could be cool tools in the classroom; however, I hesitate to introduce that much technology into the process. I worry that the essential humanism of the classroom would be harmed. I look forward to experimenting with the technology to see whether its benefits outweigh the costs.

Jul 2 2010

Are Fathers Necessary?

What are some typical errors that a researcher should look for when reviewing journals?

One error I encountered recently was in a magazine article, “Are Fathers Necessary?” in Atlantic Magazine.  (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/are-fathers-necessary/8136/)

The article appears to be about an idea that is gaining more widespread acceptance: that a having a male present while raising children is statistically linked to better outcomes for those children.  I will not rehash the arguments.  Obviously, there is some inherent appeal to those of us who believe that the average male and the average female learn and, to a surprising extent, think and behave differently.  Not better or worse, but differently.  This idea that fathers are necessary is very important because fewer and fewer homes with children actually have fathers or adult males present.  Of course, it is simply not possible in many cases to have males present, but that is not the discussion.  Like so many difficult questions in science, the “problem statement” is about what happens when fathers are not present, for better or worse.

Anyway, this is very threatening for a lot of people, particularly some single mothers who feel this disrespects the herculean effort they make every day to be the best parent to their child they possibly can be.  Apparently, it also bothers some radical feminists and lesbians who believe in the old Wellesley College motto: “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” and do not like to see themselves contradicted.

Therefore, this brings us back to the Atlantic article.  It purports to question whether the absence of fathers does statistically lead to poorer expected results for children, but what it actually argues is mostly that two lesbians can raise a baby successfully.  That is great info, but largely independent of the question the article claimed to address and claimed to debunk.  Unfortunately, in spite of the logical argument that one cannot be true if the other one is, in real life the two questions are largely independent from each other.  Proving one does not disprove the body of evidence in support of the other.

Therefore, one error to look for is articles that purport to disprove something but which instead simply prove a different point, leaving the inference but not the proof that the initial argument is wrong.

Jun 30 2010

Quo Vadimus?

When you begin to burn out on your research topic, where do you think you will move on to?

My focus is on gender and education. I am specifically focused on advocacy for boys in education because it seems to me that is where the biggest damage is being done now. However, of course, I work on gender-based issues and strategies for both sexes. I don’t think I’ll burn out on this until more attention gets focused on this subject or until it becomes clear that I’ve done all I can do. There are some very committed and capable leaders in this area and I do hope we can effect some change.

My second area of interest is expanding the acceptance of John Ratey’s research (see Spark) on exercise and learning. He has some fascinating things to say about the influence of exercise on brain functioning and some very specific suggestions and practical examples on how it can strongly influence educational outcomes. That might be my next focus.

Another subject that hovers in my peripheral vision is SES and education. This is such a very big topic. SES itself is a huge topic and one where open discussion is not very common or safe. However, it seems probable from the reading I have done that much of educational failure is actually and unavoidably caused by SES-related factors beyond the power of any educational system to fix. There is so much to this topic and it is so important because by not addressing it we are condemning millions of people to an unnecessarily difficult life. This would be a sad, dangerous, and challenging subject to pursue. However, honestly, until we stop think of poverty as something to be “prevented,” I think our society will continue to “create” poverty in the name of preventing it.

A safer subject but closer to the “darkside” is the pursuit of computer-driven learning strategies/tools. In a standards-based, standardized testing-based world, it is probably possible to largely replace teachers with very well programmed computers that drill the “essential” information in a fraction of the time. There are interesting questions about whether computers can even create the open-ended learning promoted by art and research and general inquiry. They probably can. Anyway, I am certain there are dark forces moving out there to automate our classrooms. I would be tempted to follow that fascinating train of inquiry, if only to bring “light” to the process.

To conclude, I am always drawn to areas that have big problems that have relatively simple solutions. These “80/20 Rule” situations are among the very few where, I believe, major improvement can be made in the human condition. Until very recently, I wasn’t too concerned about the human condition. Now, however, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what I can do if I put my full effort into making the world just a little bit better in areas where I have some wherewithal.

Jun 29 2010

Qualitative Research, Part IV

In general, the thing I struggle with most is that qualitative research has no expectation of impartiality. I am beginning to understand that this is because at least some of the proponents of qualitative research explicitly reject the possibility of impartiality. I guess I’m a positivist by nature and my natural Libra inclination is to see and hear both sides of arguments. Anyway, I struggle with the idea of deliberate bias in research, of prejudged advocacy. I don’t know where it leaves us if everything we read takes a side, how do we get to truth? Yes, I know many of the folks who advocate for qualitative research reject the concept of truth, but honestly I don’t see how to move forward if there’s no truth.