Prospectus Defense

2

Revision, Methodology, Justification

LaMarcus Streeter

Grand Canyon University

RES-831

Dr. Johnson

July 17, 2024

Refined Statement and Reflection on Potential Dissertation Topic

Instructor criticism and the issue space have changed my dissertation topic. The initial theme was wide, exploring Black male educators' impact on Black students' academic and social-emotional achievement and ways to recruit and retain them. However, criticism suggested simplification and a targeted study design. Thus, I focused on how Black male instructors view their impact on Black pupils' academic and social-emotional growth. This revision uses a qualitative descriptive design to examine Black male educators' opinions and experiences. A crucial vacuum in the literature on race and gender in educational outcomes can be filled by limiting the focus to better understand and apply Black male educators' distinctive contributions.

To ensure topic relevance and feasibility, feedback and literature were extensively evaluated during refinement. I chose a single qualitative study question: "How do Black male educators describe their influence on Black students' academic performance and social-emotional development?" The literature emphasizes the relevance of role models and culturally relevant pedagogy in boosting Black student education. By focusing on Black male educators' narratives, the study hopes to illuminate their distinctive techniques, challenges, and accomplishments, helping us comprehend their impact on education.

Problem Statement

It is not known how Black male educators describe their influence on Black students' academic performance and social-emotional development.

Potential Methodology

The potential methodology for this dissertation is a qualitative descriptive design. This approach is chosen to explore and describe the experiences and perceptions of Black male educators regarding their influence on Black students' academic and social-emotional outcomes.

Justification of the Potential Methodology Choice

The research issue explores Black male educators' perceptions and experiences; hence a qualitative approach was chosen. Exploratory research describes participant experiences in detail for complicated social issues. A qualitative descriptive strategy permits interviews and focus groups to gather rich data and examine Black male educators' perceptions on Black pupils' benefits. This technique addresses the issue statement by providing insights into educators' daily experiences that quantitative methods may not capture.

Theory supports the qualitative approach, emphasizing the contextual and relational character of educational influence. Tobias (2023) emphasizes the value of research that disclose Black male educators' personal and professional journeys to show how they work and what they encounter. Thematic analysis reveals regular patterns and themes in participants' narratives, which can inform education policies and practices. Research using qualitative descriptive design can yield descriptive, feasible, and workable results. It also gives academics detailed descriptions of educators' emotions and educational space politics, yielding useful insights. All of this demands careful investigation to build effective prevention and assistance programs for Black male instructors and their kids.

Furthermore, qualitative research is used to highlight a rarely studied population in education studies. Black men K-12 instructors often have their voices and value erased. Therefore, qualitative research in this study can capture their voices in their truest forms better than other methods. This approach is useful for analyzing their impact on Black pupils and identifying support systems that could encourage more Black students and professionals to teach. Qualitative data is rich and allows knowledge of these educators' varied professional operations. It allows emerging themes and participant explanations of their narratives and subjectivities. In particular, such a depth of insight can be quite useful when examining race, gender, and education, as it often reveals tendencies that quantitative approaches cannot predict or even detect. Finally, this method reduces the perception of educational research as confined to White heterosexual cisgender men.

Justification for Not Selecting the Alternative Methodology

The alternative methodology, which is quantitative, is not selected because it does not align as well with the research problem's exploratory nature. Quantitative research is typically suited for studies that aim to test hypotheses or measure variables across larger populations. However, the goal of this dissertation is to understand the nuanced experiences and perceptions of Black male educators, which require a depth of insight that quantitative methods might not provide. Quantitative approaches, such as surveys or experiments, could offer breadth but would likely miss the rich, detailed accounts that qualitative methods can capture.

Quantitative methods, which employ numerical data and statistics, may not portray teachers' complicated interactions with students. Understanding multifaceted Black male teacher-Black student interactions highlights this issue. Tenny et al. (2022) state that qualitative research is best for studying social and individual events. The research topics should focus on Black male teachers' effects on relational processes, interpersonal ties, and personal-stakeholder narratives, which only qualitative research can capture. These are finer psychological elements and processes that may be difficult to assess or lost in quantitative analysis. Ebm indicates that qualitative methods are superior than quantitative ones for describing the depth and richness of such relationships and eliciting educators' and students' daily experiences. It can also reveal cultural interactions, emulation, and apprenticeship that simple arithmetic metrics cannot.

Furthermore, Qualitative methods allow researchers to interview and focus group participants for highly individualized data. This level of connection is crucial to understanding educators' views on their impact and noticing underutilized yet effective ways for nurturing black kids. Questionnaires and surveys can predict reaction categories, but qualitative methods can reveal more about participants' ideas and experiences. The changing dynamics of educational relationships and the diverse consequences of representation in education require quantitative methodologies that may explore individual learning experiences and cultural backgrounds.

References

Tenny, S., Brannan, G. D., & Brannan, J. M. (2022, September 18). Qualitative Study. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29262162/

Tobias, H. (2023). Addressing the Disparity of Black Male Educators: Building Capacity to Mentor Black Male Youth - ProQuest. Www.proquest.com. https://search.proquest.com/openview/091d9187fbeb1dc0b962e0049a8e0546/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y