[NLA] Are You Being Served?

Fri Dec 27 14:57:48 EST 2002

To add to Catherine's statement about anecdotal reports, Malcolm Knowles told me in a personal interview that his theory of Andragogy was informed by reading teachers' accounts of their practice in ACubeE (AAAE)journals.  Was Knowles research out of line?  I think not.

Sherry Royce
sjroyce at yahoo.com 

"Catherine B. King" <cb.king at verizon.net> wrote:

>Hello Tom:
>
>You ask: "I'd also be interested in knowing if NLA
>list members feel that anecdotal reports by practitioners
>is a suitable way to evaluate the success of our only
>federally funded, national adult education and literacy
>research center in achieving its stated mission of
>helping to "build effective, cost-efficient adult education
>and literacy programs."
>
>In a word, yes.
>
>I know in many research fields the term "anecdote" is still
>a bad word, and  presents a closed door to any further
>questions that are considered critical in any way.   But that's
>an old idea that needs to be rethought--it's only problematic
>in statistics.  It's not problematic but rather is a highly potent
>area, and can be extremely enlightening:
>
>(1) in a dialogue,
>
>(2) as a window on a wealth of relevant intelligence, depending
>on the kinds of questions we bring to it,
>
>(3) in the qualified experience of the person telling it--as
>personal evidence that informs our own developing wisdom.
>Without it, teachers would never develop.
>
>(4)  as providing the data source of changing parameters of
>research range as well as for the potential new questions that
>may emerge for researchers from the dialogue with detail.
>
>(5)  As giving reasons why someone would say "yes" or "no"
>to a specific research question.   You might find a number of yes
>or no answers, but you will also find that each yes or no has one
>or more anecdotes behind it.  But the anecdotes themselves
>provide the general grounds for   <<what an intelligent speaker
>takes>>   as reasonable evidence for their yes or no answers.
>
>Responders are intelligent persons, not inert, "data."  The fact
>that responders give anecdotes for evidence tells you that their
>intelligence is at work in the field of concrete living (and teaching)
>where specifics count, and where their intelligence makes
>connections (applications) between (a) what they have learned
>and (b)  the myriad details that they are charged to work through.
>
>(6)  This area of "anecdotes from the field" is, whether we like
>it or not, political.   If researchers and policy makers don't listen
>to anecdotes from the field, then they are not paying attention
>to the data (bad science); and they are not listening to the voices
>in a democratic milieu that they claim to embrace, then  are
>not listening to a broad band of (a) their constituents and (b)
>the people who are keeping the relationship between
>democracy and education together--teachers and
>administrators of adult education programs (bad politics).
>
>The field of the anecdote (history) is a separate and distinct
>metaphysical field--where we ALWAYS must have one more
>connecting insight between (1) what we have come to know and
>(2) the event that is going forward.  Here, anecdote is king and, I
>would argue, has more effect on people's lives than any
>statistical evidence ever did--because it holds the potential
>of paradigmatic form of personal character.
>
>So, to your question, Are anecdotes suitable for evidence from
>teachers in the field?:  An unqualified YES.   The same applies
>to students.  The field of statistics is a valuable field.  But it's
>up to the field to deal intelligently with the data as it is, rather than
>trying to make a centurial Procrustean bed out of the human
>sciences and research in education because of holdovers from
>the defunct philosophical position of positivism.
>
>Regards,
>
>Catherine King
>Adjunct Instructor
>Department of Education
>
>
>
>---- Original Message -----
>From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
>To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
>Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 7:15 PM
>Subject: [NLA] Are You Being Served?
>
>
>> Are You Being Served? *
>>
>> A new report from the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and
>> Literacy is available (NCSALL Report No. 23). Entitled "The First Five
>> Years," the report summarizes the research projects, major findings, and
>> recommendations for the years 1996 - 2001 (copies of the report are
>> available at http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu). According to the report,
>> total funding for the NCSALL for the first five years was around
>> $13,500,000. Funding for the next five years is anticipated to be about
>> $16,500,000.
>>
>> The report says that "The mission of the National Center for the Study of
>> Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) is to conduct and disseminate
>> research that helps build effective, cost-efficient adult education and
>> literacy programs." (p. 3)  Regarding how the NCSALL determines whether or
>> not it has achieved these goals, the last page and last sentence of the
>> body of the report states that, over the next five years,  "Its
>> measurement of success remains the same as well: Practitioners can cite
>> ways that NCSALL has helped them to improve practice."  (p.100)
>>
>> Unfortunately, as I looked through the report, I could find no evidence
>> presented to suggest that practitioners had thought that the research of
>> the first five years had helped them improve their practice.  I'm
>> wondering if any of the NLA list members can cite ways that they or their
>> program or someone they know has been helped by the first five years of
>> the NCSALL work. And if so, in what specific ways.
>>
>> I'd also be interested in knowing if NLA list members feel that anecdotal
>> reports by practitioners is a suitable way to evaluate the success of our
>> only federally funded, national adult education and literacy research
>> center in achieving its stated mission of helping to "build effective,
>> cost-efficient adult education and literacy programs."
>>
>> And parenthetically, does anyone recall how the previous national research
>> center, the National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL) whose work for five
>> years before the NCSALL took the federal R& D center contract must have
>> cost over $10,000,000, helped improve their practice and/or the operations
>> of the AELS?
>>
>> All this is to say, I wonder just how we might go about deciding how well
>> our national R & D center research funds are serving the needs of the
>> field? What do NLA list members think?
>>
>> Tom Sticht
>> * With a nod of thanks to Brit Night on the Public Broadcasting System
>(PBS)
>>
>>
>>
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>
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