Research Theory Discussion 1 Week 1

Colleagues Responses 2

Colleague #1……..Moses Jackson

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Topic of Interest

My research interest is teacher professional development. I intend to conduct It will be an emancipatory case study research to produce knowledge beneficial to disadvantaged people such as teachers and school leaders in postwar developing countries.

As a consequence, my tentative topic of interest is ‘An Investigation of the Impact of Teachers Professional Development Initiatives on the Educational Systems of Post War Countries: Case Study of Liberia from 2017—2020”

 

Philosophical Orientation that reflects my worldview

The philosophical orientation that reflects my worldview is Relativism and Constructivism which holds there is nothing as a single truth. According to (Burkholder & Burbank, 2020), relativists-constructivists believe truth is not a one-size-fits-all because its authenticity or realities may vary equally from context to context.

As a relativist-constructivist, I believe perceptions or assertions which individuals hold regarding a particular situation as truth could be different from that of others, in the same situation. For instance, if a research finding showed Western education was superior to traditional African education, and another finding showed traditional education viewed without using the lens of Westerners, is highly efficient, that would be a clear indication of truth being relative.

Based on my philosophical orientation, I take cognizance that all of the findings will not be the truth portrayed by the data. As a relativist-constructivist, it would behoove me to apply professional interpretation skills to arrive at conclusions of the multiple truths situation.  

Epistemological and ontological assumptions

Epistemological Assumptions

My epistemological assumption is based on the relativist-constructivist view that knowing something can be generated when individuals interact and construct meaning from their interactions (Burkholder & Burbank, 2020). Burkholder and Burbank hold that knowledge can be co-created in ways such as experience, perceptions, intuitions, and beliefs. 

In the world we find ourselves today, all knowledge we have acquired is based on what social scientists refer to as “agreement reality” or Ideas and beliefs that members of a group such as a society or culture typically accept as true (Babbie, 2017). This implies that most of what we perceive or refer to as knowledge today is basically what other people before us decided to accept as fact and justified as knowledge.

 

Ontological assumptions

My ontological assumption is based on my response to the question, “What is that single truth or knowledge about the world around me that exists, which needs to be determined or discovered?” As a proponent of relativism, I concur that there can be no one truth because truth itself is subjective or subject to situations, interpretations, and understood through individual exchanges. From the ontological perspective, I concur truth or knowledge consists of concepts, information, and ideas meant to be universal within a profession and allowed as a common language to be spoken.

 

How these Assumptions lend themselves to my Research Approach

The two assumptions provide foundation or support to my intent to conduct a qualitative research approach. The epistemological aspect of my qualitative approach is that knowledge creation will be marked by interactions with participants through interviews to collect data. This means there will be intensive interaction with participants whose responses would require analyses to construct meaning as knowledge.

Ontologically, no single response or set of data would be received or recorded as “the truth” I believe truth is based on interpretations of a phenomenon or set of experiences. Under normal situations, interview data are based on perceptions, intuitions, experiences, and beliefs of participants, and hence, require organization and critical analysis because truth is subjective. This approach falls within the scope of the relativist-constructivist assumption.

 

References

Babbie, E. (2017). Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

 

Burkholder, G. J., Cox, K. A., Crawford, L. M., & Hitchcock, J. H.  (Eds.). (2020). Research designs and methods: An applied guide for the scholar-practitioner. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Colleague#2……….Susan Gifford 

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     I am interested in researching parental involvement in education and its effect on achievement.  I believe that no matter what their socioeconomic status, parent involvement in education is one of the biggest factors affecting achievement. I have seen it even more clearly this past year as a digital learning teacher.  In her 2019 study, Otani wrote “The results show that parental involvement is associated with students’ educational outcomes. Students’ attitudes and aspirations mediate the associations between parental involvement and academic achievement.”

            The philosophical orientation that reflects my worldview is pragmatism.  Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998 stated “As a research paradigm, pragmatism is based on the proposition that researchers should use the philosophical and/or methodological approach that works best for the particular research problem that is being investigated.”  The epistemological assumption of pragmatism is that knowledge is based on experience.  People’s social experiences influence their views.  Kauskik & Walsh (2019) wrote:

Each person’s knowledge is unique as it is created by her/his unique experiences. Nevertheless, much of this knowledge is socially shared as it is created from socially shared experiences. Therefore, all knowledge is social knowledge (Morgan 2014a).

While two people can have a shared experience, the knowledge from that experience may be slightly different due to how each individual perceives the experience.

            The ontology of pragmatism is to solve real-world problems. I believe that parental involvement in schools is a real-world problem. 

 

References

Kaushik, V., & Walsh, C. A. (2019). Pragmatism as a research paradigm and its implications for social work research. Social Sciences, 8(9), 255.

Morgan, D. L. (2014). Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(8), 1045–1053.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800413513733

Otani, M. Parental involvement and academic achievement among elementary and middle school students. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 21, 1–25 (2020).  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-019-09614-z

Tashakkori, A., Teddlie, C., & Teddlie, C. B. (1998). Mixed methodology: Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches (Vol. 46). sage.

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