tipple tutor only

o Interview: Conduct an audio-taped or emailed, in-depth semi-structured interview with a scholar/researcher working in an area of interest to you. We will discuss how to do this in class and construct an outline that can guide your interview with possible questions.

o Document Analysis: Analyze a piece of scholarly writing produced by the scholar/researcher in light of what s/he shared during the interview process. You will focus on how s/he mobilizes understandings of knowledge, theory, and research as well as how s/he positions her or himself in relation the research.

o Course Readings: Make connections between the scholar/researcher’s interview and scholarly writing to the course readings. You will not receive full credit unless you consider how this scholar supports or contradicts the various theoretical frameworks considered as a part of this course.

· The Course reading:

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2005). Building a research agenda for indigenous epistemologies and education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 93-95.

Murillo, E. (2003). Indigenous inscriptions: Reflective notes on educational ethnographic writing from a multicentric postchicano positionality. Educational Studies 34(2), 169-182.

Feuer, M., Towne, L, & Shavelson, R. (2002). Scientific culture and educational research. Educational Researcher, 31(8), 4-14.

Berliner, D. (2002). Educational research: The hardest science of all. Educational Researcher, 31(8), 18-20.

Interview dr Miller:

· Can you describe to me what the word “knowledge” means to you?

That’s a hard one, I would say it involves kind of like the actual knowledge that you have but then I think your experience influence is that so you might know something at one point but then your whole knowing of that changes maybe like you have a different culture, you know and you like, I always thought that what it was but culture and people in your experience can change that in kind of more of doing. “ a lot of other things and other point may affect your way of knowledge sometimes?” Right, I mean I think you know In my early days of even teaching if I have been asked that but I have been exposed to the cultural studies folks up there, I would’ve just said will it’s what you know about the world its just like geography or math or reading and I do believe that’s a part of it but I also think that you knowledge changed a little bet as you experience different things.

“ so you experienced teaching and you experience now college life and interacting with graduate student and undergrad, so….

· How do you describe your level of knowledge? 

Umm, in some areas I feel like I have an expertise uh, probably special ed is a good example of that if people asked me all the way, I have a student from over in Seattle she just emailed me this morning and she said” I thought you might know this if any buddy would…” she has a student who is pretty aggressive, he would through pencils at the teacher eye and then he run away and runs out to the street, and those kind of things that I’m happy to respond to and you know I can pull knowledge and my experience out or if some buddy said right now get up and give a lecture on IDEAA I wouldn’t have any problems with that. Umm, so I think in that respect its good. My graduate students are great because they push my knowledge, because we don’t in our department make you “ graduate student” do your research on our things, which when I went to the university of Wisconsin you have to research what your professor was researching, and so. And because ours is so broad like heather who’s about to defend in 10 days she did a research study on reading to dogs. “ wow “ I have no knowledge about reading to dog program. I have learned a quite a bit. Like last semester Yousef did his dissertation on video modeling but not with kids with autism, with kids with behavior disorders. And so I learned more about that.

· So you thing you gaining more knowledge through your students and through yourself with them? And you enjoying doing that with them

Absolutely yah, I think I give them some of my knowledge about the technical things, you know when you are writing the abstract you should do it this way or something like that, but by the time they have got to do their dissertation stage, sometimes they know more than me about their content area which I think is kind of fun.

·  What is the first thing that makes you want to discover, understand and know more? 

I might not sure if this is what you mean but usually for me when it comes to epistemology or theoretical background I usually think of myself as a pragmatist, kind of like Doey, he was a pragmatist you know he said pragmatist they see a problem and they want to solve it. They really don’t care if its in their theoretical background or not. They just want to solve it and being in special ed of course we have a lot of challenges that we have to solve. And so that’s usually for me what driven my research is there is a problem lets figure out what we could do to solve it.

Year ago we published a paper and it was about culturally responsive IEPs and the thing was crazy about that is that came out of our globalization presentation so Michael Dunn, me and Branda pareea we all get together and we are going to talk about culturally responsive special ed which there is not that much, I was in charge in the IEP and I said what the heck there was not much out there, there was three articles about that and all of it are from the physical fitness field. And I am like why are they talking about this and so I went back to the group and said I think we should write an article about culturally responsive IEP because there is nothing out there on that. Its sort of research and practical journal. We got a huge response, people said they want copy of that, and we were asked to present at the learning disability conference for that. I mean people are really want to know more about that. So it was fun, not because we wanted to be the first but we really felt we are meeting a need in the field.

· Can knowledge be taught able or natural? I mean for young children.  

I think both, if I was going to walk over the park and you know look at leaf’s of different trees, I am kind of teaching myself about that and I’m exploring but I also think and really believe that a good teacher can help kids get knowledge too. Even that happen with the adult, we never stop learning. I’m exploring other field. I don’t believe or agree with the theory of our heads is an open book and you just put knowledge into it, I’m not like that, they have knowledge and they carry it out with them but for some reasons she was reaching him “ talking about a story for a teacher won’t change her way of teacher to give the knowledge to her student. I think that is us when we starts studying special ed it was kind of drummed in, and its wild field so there is no one recipe that can fit all of them. This morning when I get up I was reading an article about school teacher in new Hampshire she taught reading for 25 years and she keeps getting these from the teacher preparation program who don’t rely on theoretical approach and its mostly constructivism and in back in 80s and early 90s …….whole story”

· Do you believe there is an exclusive way of knowing?

Through the previous answers, you find this when you experience different culture. I remember when I was in the base core I became influent in their language, and that language had to deal with a lot with their knowledge, they have different number system of counting people or things.

To me that reflected on kind of view of nature and the world, and I remember that kind open up my eyes to,, why this is a different way of looking at things. “ she is experience the different backgrounds of her students even when they are from the same country”

We talked about the different educational system and the differences between each system, as we all faculty members from different education system.

· Have you experienced another way of knowing, or obtaining your knowledge from? How does that affect the way that you think now?

Different way of knowledge, sometime skills, hands on and learning from older people or people with skills can help, not everything comes from reading and books.

· What seem to be the reason that you chose your field? 

She didn’t decide to be in special ed even when she volunteered in different event that help special needs in her high school, and she was thinking of being in anthropology major until she saw a friend who is majoring in special ed, she went up to the department but they were full, but the destiny said the word, one professors toke her in under his supervision, that ends up with her to be with this advisor for undergraduate, masters and PhD. She wasn’t thinking of starting her PhD, and all happen suddenly.” No plans”

· How did you gain your epistemological point of view? 

We get our experience through life. I think from a lot of it from education. All behaviorism I didn’t know a lot of terminology but through my PhD. A lot of constrictive. And also, I had to learn, read and explore the qualitative research I had to start know more about the theories and the epistemological point of view. I remember one professor he wasn’t exposed to other type of research and I’m glad that I get some knowledge from working with my students and other faculty in different department. There is no end point of learning, we learn each year something new.

·  How do you get knowledge in your field?

A lot of reading, working with schools, working with teachers all that a long with daily experience through the daily conversations, every time I start a new project with someone that not in my area but I developed a lot of new information.

·  If there is a chance to change a previous theory or a method in your field, what it would be and why? 

I never done a world breaking research. I don’t really think so that there is any changes that I think needs to be in different way.

·  Is there any experience you have had that reflects your way of knowing?

We talked about it through the previous questions.

·  What a personal goal that you set for yourself in the past? Did you achieve it or did you find another goal?

By writing the text book I think I changed something, or achieved something. I mean all the degrees were an achievement goals that I accomplished. Probably tun of goals that I’ve achieved through my life. “ she is exploring her goals through her daily life. There is no timeline or a must to achieve or make

·  How you can explain epistemology in special education?

Like I think epistemology kind of pragmatism, we know something and we look for a different thing to solve it. Our ideas come from there is a problem and not under any theoretic lenses, its very practical way. There is a lot of epistemology  in special education and a lot of us came from different theoretical background. Different culture interbit things around us, and our way of knowing. We use different terminology in different way of looking, depends on where we are from or the word choices that we think it doesn’t matter, actually it matters in different places.

Document Analysis: is attached in different file

Sample for the whole project:

Introduction

On November 10, 2015, I met Dr. Joy Egbert in her office from 1-2. The interview was in a form of oral discussion about her epistemology and inquiry journey. The interview was not audio-taped and the interviewee preferred to email her responses. There are three main reasons behind the selection of Dr. Egbert as interviewee for this case study. The first reason was that she is my adviser and I have always been curious how she became a well-known researcher in her field. My curiosity became more when I took epistemology course because I started to wonder about her conceptual framework, her epistemological position, her paradigms, and her theoretical framework. Another reason was because she is the author of “Foundations of Education Research”, in which she addressed the issues and terms of epistemology. The last reason is that we share the same start. She started as a language high school teacher, and so do I. Therefore, knowing about her research journey will inspire me as a novice researcher.

Overview analysis of Dr. Egbert’s book

Egbert, J. & Sanden, S. (2014). Foundations of education research: Understanding theoretical components. Florence, KY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. European

Dr. Joy Egbert and her colleague sherry Sanden have written such valuable book that addresses many issues in Education research. The book is intended to define and present the seven terms (Conceptual framework, epistemology, paradigms, theory, theoretical framework, methodology, and method). The author’s definition of the conceptual framework is “an overall world-view……….the sum of one’s experiences, beliefs, and knowledge from every facet of life, including, for example, gender, religious, family, political, social, academic, and environmental. This view does not change often or easily.” (Egbert & Sanden, 2014). According to her responses, we conclude that her conceptual framework was an accumulation of her life experiences and educational experiences. In her definition, there was a statement that attracted my attention, so I asked her what you mean by saying “This view does not change often or easily. “In addition, I asked her if she had a personal experience. Her reply was that most people might experience small evolutions throughout their lives which have great impact on their views of the world, but not huge ones. She said that she carried specific ideas about education. However, these ideas have been changed because of the revolution of having children. This new experience made her to view many things differently including what she wants to accomplish with her research.

In their book, Epistemology stance was addressed as “the individual lens, created through our worldview that we use to understand knowledge in the world” (Egbert & Sanden, 2014). Dr. Egbert had her own unique lens to understand the knowledge in her field.

The authors drew a connection between theory and paradigms “We defined a paradigm as the way that a researcher feels that knowledge can be revealed, based on his or her epistemology, or the belief in the existence of Truth or truths. Researchers’ paradigms impact their use of theory based on whether or not they feel the theory can contribute to the understanding of their area of inquiry” (Egbert & Sanden, 2014). Nowadays, Dr. Egbert works from principles of engagement “not a specific theory, but piecing together parts of them with other research that seems logical and cohesive”. She is interested in finding answers to what engage the students, why they are engaged, and when they are engaged through engagement theoretical framework. She said that one question of task student engagement can have different answers (many truths) because one answer (or one Truth) is not enough to address student engagement.

Methodology was explained “as a reasonable plan for gathering and analyzing information that responds to a line of research inquiry”. Even though Dr. Egbert’s dissertation was an experiment and she had conducted many numeric studies, experiment and numeric methods didn’t satisfy her eagerness for understanding and curiosity. She found that Qualitative methodology is a reasonable plan for her because it could answer “why” questions since she seeks answers for” Why it happened.”

From my discussion with Dr. Egbert and her responses to the Epistemology interview protocol. I came up with the following themes:

Egbert’s Conceptual framework:

Her conceptual framework has been built through her life experiences and language learning experience. She was very enthusiastic and motivated to learn other languages, so she can travel and communicate with people from other cultures living in the United States. Moreover, she wanted to teach languages in lots of different contexts and seeing the ways students reacted to various tasks. However, she was bored in language classes. That made her think how to make language classes more entertaining and interesting. In addition, when she became a language teacher, she has always been curious about language learning. Her curiosity started when she was a high school teacher because she felt bored in the classroom. Her feeling of being bored continued with her at the MA level because she figured out that the courses she is taking such as “History of English language” and “Diagramming sentences” are not related to the actual learning process in the classroom. Her students were still not engaged in the curriculum that she had to teach. There have been ups and downs in her teaching experience to find the effective and efficient tools to make learning process more engaging. Because she was highly enthusiastic to find more engaging activities and strategies, she decided to pursue her PhD. Dr. Egbert’s journey through reading many articles around a variety of topics in order to determine her interests is explained in Labaree article “I argue that the shift from k-12 teaching to educational research often ask students to transforms their cultural orientation from normative to analytical, from personal to intellectual, from the particular to the universal, and from the experimental to the theoretical” (Labaree , 2003). Her journey with PhD was not only to determine her interests, but also to discover that she is talented in writing skill. Having great curiosity in education; in addition, to be a skillful writer enabled her to continue as a scholar and to write scholarly work.

Egbert’s Epistemology:

Since” Epistemologies are central to the production and consumption of educational research.” (Pallas, 2001), I was curious to know what Dr. Egbert’s Epistemological stance is and how it is different from other people. Dr.Egbert believes in multiple truths for one question. Her view is that one Truth can be influenced by additional knowledges. That’s why the “Researcher ought to be familiar with different ways of knowing and diverse epistemology” (Siegel, 2006). However, for certain people who believe in the Truth, their view will remain the same regardless of knowing other knowledges.

Egbert’s inquiry of Research: evolve, change, and focus

At the beginning, Dr. Egbert’s inquiry was broad and she had investigated language learning environments. The emerge of technology as a supplement for teaching and engaging students helped her to determine her interests. Therefore, she narrowed down to “task engagement’. Her journey was from “engagement” to “engagement tasks”.

Egbert’s theoretical paradigms:

The expansion of her knowledge guided her epistemology to different stances from which her paradigms emerge. “Depends on the exact research study. Post structuralist sometimes, constructivist sometimes, etc., but I don’t like to give things names like these because they don’t sufficiently cover views/understandings.” This is Dr. Egbert’s verbatim answer when I asked her about her paradigms. Dr. Egbert supports constructionism epistemology stance because she believes that each individual constructs his or her knowledge based on their life experiences. These knowledges differ from one person to another depending on their different experiences. Dr. Egbert, believes that one question could be tackled from different ways and can have various answers. To seek the truth, she said in her book “multiple truths exist, based on the experiences that have prompted knowledge constructionism for each individual’ (Egbert &Sanden, 2014). Dr. Egbert’s paradigms are determined based on her epistemology beliefs and research inquiries and through those paradigms she seeks answers to her inquiry.

Egbert’s theoretical framework:

The most theoretical framework she employs is “Engagement” which consists in the main choice, connection, and interest. In terms of the Truth with capital “T”, I liked her answer when she replied “I believe that there are probably some fundamental Truths, but I have no idea what they may be or how to find them out given the restrictions I have as a human.” She made me wonder what could be done to have those fundamental truths to be figured out.

Egbert’s Methodologies:

Dr. Egbert employed numeric method for her dissertation and for a number of articles. However, she felt that experiment and numeric are limited and can only tell “what happened.” rather than “why it happened”. That drove her to choose qualitative research since she believes in its rich contribution to education as demonstrated by Paul & Marfo (2001), “Qualitative researchers have contributed a rich literature to various areas of education. Interested in authentic accounts of culture and of individual and group social life that provide rich textures and “webs of meaning”. She uses methods such as surveys, interviews, documents analysis, observation, and other descriptive techniques. Her belief that mixed or complementary methods is the best way to come close to the complete picture of truth. However, this kind of research require a lot of organization and students.

Egbert’s work “fit” in the research landscape, its impact on teaching

There is no much research on task engagement in general and in the CALL literature compared with the research done on motivation in general and engagement overall. Her research is focused on how technology is used for students’ engagement in language learning. The impact of her research is both local and international. Locally, school teachers use her publications to adopt some ideas and apply them in their classrooms as well as in their own research. Egbert’s websites and publications are well-known and used in many countries. When she looks back at some of her publications, she realizes how much her research skills and writing was expanded because her ideas were limited in the box. However, she said she will not take them back because they were appropriate for that time.

Conclusion

Dr. Egbert’s construction of her reality as a researcher, educator, mentor, presenter, editor makes her different and unique person. She is currently a full Professor of ESL and Technology at Washington State University in Pullman. Her expertise are in computer-assisted language learning (CALL), teacher education, and ESL methods. Her interests are both student engagement and differentiation of instruction as topics of investigation.

Dr. Egbert applies her researches to solve the problems of education, particularly ELL education, in the hope to improvement opportunities and environments for language learners. Her contribution is represented in her collaboration with her colleagues and students from different stances. She believes in the active collaboration in research community members in terms of complementary work rather than working alone because working with people from different stances will add various lines and directions to come close to the complete view as well as pushing the research vehicle miles further to enrich research in education and at Washington State University as research –based university.

References

Egbert, J. & Sanden, S. (2014). Foundations of education research: Understanding theoretical components. Florence, KY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. European

Labaree, D. (2003). The peculiar problems of preparing educational researchers, Educational Researcher, 32(4), 13-22.

Pallas, A. (2001). Preparing education doctoral students for epistemological diversity. Educational Researcher, 30(5), 6-11.

Paul, J. & Marfo, K. (2001). Preparation of educational researchers in philosophical foundations of inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 71(4), 525-547.

Siegel, H. (2006). Epistemological diversity and education research: Much ado about nothing much? Educational Researcher, 35(2), 3 - 12.