[Fwd: Re: [NLA] Evidence-based practice in Adult Literacy Edu cation]

Fri Apr 5 17:45:03 EST 2002

For examples of tests that raise issues of "consequential validity" we only
need to look at the literacy tests that were given earlier in the century to
exclude different groups (from immigrating to the US; from voting, from
having access to union jobs).  

As for Andrea's stating that we need to define "what is literacy" and "how
do we measure it?", I would add the key assessment question: "what counts as
success?" 

And then, of course, there's the question that keeps being raised (and
answered) on this list:  "Who benefits ?" 

cheers 

Heide 

Heide Spruck Wrigley
Senior Researcher for Language, Literacy, and Learning
Aguirre International
480 E4th Ave
San Mateo, CA 
94401
Phone: 650 373 4923

-----Original Message-----
From: Elsa Auerbach [mailto:elsa.auerbach at umb.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 5:53 AM
To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [NLA] Evidence-based practice in Adult Literacy
Education]

Catherine,

Thank you for bringing Mertens' work to this discussion.  In fact, it was
through a reference to Mertens that I first heard about the concept of
consequential validity.  From Regie's post, I am paraphrasing the idea that
'consequences count' according to this concept:  whether or not studies are
valid depends not just on their internal validity but also on the extent to
which results contribute to "bias, fairness, and distributive justice" .  In
other words, values must be considered in eVALUating validity.  This is such
an
important point to raise with those who are now proposing to fund research
in
adult literacy.  What counts as VALIDITY is a life or death issue for our
field
(maybe that's a little too dramatic, but you get the point).  So I think we
should all mine Mertens for  understandings and arguments to bring to the
policymaker/funder folks.

Elsa

"Catherine B. King" wrote:

> Hello David:
>
> The basic philosophical method underlying the human
> sciences is called "genetic method," which is based on
> a verified (and therefore scientific) cognitional theory
> rooted in what is called "general empirical method."
> (Bernard Lonergan, [Insight, A Study of Human
> Understanding, ].")
>
> A relevant work that implicitly reflects the above methods
> is Donna M. Mertens' "Research Methods in Education
> and Psychology--Integrating Diversity with Quantitative
> and Qualitative Approaches" (1998, Sage Publications,
> Thousand Oaks).
>
> As the title suggests, in Mertens' work she discusses how
> three methods intertwine in human sciences (specifically
> education and psychology).  She starts with (1)  statistics and
> quantitative method and devotes several chapters to this
> approach; then moves to (2) qualitative methods, then (3)
> history and narrative study of lives.  She develops many facets
> of each of these methods.
>
> Most important about Merten's work is that she identifies
> the movements beyond the positivist-quantitative approaches
> (1 above) as major paradigm shifts in methodological work
> in the human sciences.  First, the positivist and post-positivist
> approaches; second the interpretive-constructivist paradigm;
> and third, the emancipatory paradigm (e.g., Friere's and
> Mezirow's work) where the reigns of personal and political
> power--even in the movement of the research questions--are
> handed over and shared with the "data" under review--i.e.,
> the humans under study and/or the adults in our programs.
>
> This third methodological approach (and paradigm shift we
> are struggling with now) is the most inflammatory for those who
> are settled in nicely with research-to-policy-to-political-
> ideology packaged as the status quo, and it is the central
> method that reflects what is burning at the center of the whole
> idea of democracy.  This is where educational method meets
> our own policy-makers' political underpinnings.  And, guess
> what, they don't like it.   And it is what is under direct attack
> from an interpretation of "critical" and "scientific" as
> exclusively owned by the positivist paradigm cum political
> ideology cum "false consciousness."
>
> The crux of the argument is that, on the side of positivism, they
> have it right that we cannot give up critical evidence and truth
> to return to mythical consciousness in science.  But what is
> misguided in their argument is their too-narrow, self-serving,
> and limiting definition of what constitutes critical evidence
> cum truth that emerges from the meaning behind the very
> formation of our questions--questions that must match the
> data by anyone's notion of what science is, including the
> natural sciences.   Openness is the centerpiece and "gold
> standard" of the scientific tradition, and these folks are as
> closed as can be.  Closedness is not scientific.
>
> But when science moves from natural to human data,
> transpositions and distinctions must be made to account for
> the nuances in human data and concerns, and positivists are
> wrong in their unwillingness to consider those transitions and
> therefore they understand label them as uncritical and
> unscientific.
>
> (Lonergan [above] makes these transpositions explicit in his
> philosophical work.  This has been my study for many years.
> Many of my students are teachers and most have assumed
> the positivist stance, though they all also recognize something
> terribly wrong in its application to their real live students.
> Changing the underpinnings once set is a difficult thing to do,
> but it is what must happen, especially for teachers.)
>
> Though Mertens (above) has not read Lonergan, she gives
> an excellent account of the actual development and recovery
> of emerging methods that better match the data--human and
> nuanced, but still truthful and critical, in a way that EFF
> addresses and in a way that gives methodological ground to
> the creative and developmental aspects of human beings,
> and to what the researcher might not already know or even
> yet have questions about.  In education, this aspect is crucial
> and its avoidance constitutes the grandest of oversights.
>
> Also, Mertens gives full credit to the important perspectives
> that positivist methods bring to the data--and they are many.
> The difference is that she makes the important observation
> that the study of human beings requires much more than this
> method will afford our researchers as scientists in the field
> where the data is human and continues to learn as the
> scientist does.  Used alone in human sciences and education
> without the dialogue with other emerging methodologies, the
> positivist paradigm-cum-method as the exclusive owner of
> scientific critical truth is nothing less that deadly and rings
> of Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, and the film "Brazil."   This
> is not an overstatement, but is what inspired all of these, and
> more, artistic works.
>
> With positivist science, we need to keep truth, and critical
> science; but against positivism we must be open to making
> the transpositions of a more nuanced methodology that is
> called for in the different and more nuanced meaning that
> informs the data under review--human beings.
>
> In human science and education, there is a "with" element
> between the researcher and the data, between the teacher
> and the student, between the policy maker and his-her
> constituents, that is remote or even removed in the natural
> sciences.
>
> The emerging paradigms and the methods they employ are
> a recovery of this "with" element at the level of theory and
> method that every teacher I have ever met understands.
> I trust those on this list who work with adults know full well
> what "The With Element" means.   These are the theories
> and methods that support you in your understanding of your
> being "with" your students.
>
> Regards,
> Catherine King
> Adjunct Instructor
> Department of Education
> National University
> San Diego, CA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David J. Rosen <DJRosen at theworld.com>
> To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 6:38 AM
> Subject: [Fwd: Re: [NLA] Evidence-based practice in Adult Literacy
> Education]
>
> >
> > NLA Colleagues,
> >
> >
> > If someone has this methodology list, please post it to the NLA list.
> Thanks,
> >
> > David J. Rosen
> > NLA List Moderator
> >
> >
> >  AWilder106 at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > >David,
> > >
> > >Could you re-post the methodology list of USDOE approved types of
> studies?
> > >As I recall the list went from most acceptable methodological criteria
on
> > >down.  Thanks.
> > >
> > >Andrea
> > >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
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