[NLA] Practitioner-based research

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Anyone who is on this thread:

The key to any research is generalizability--to whom do the results 
generalize?  This is why professional researchers go through the whole 
rigamarole of defense-against-criticism re validity and reliability.  The 
criticism is of the academic sort, a formal inquiry about the study design, 
not a shouting match.  To insure their best work, scholars of this sort often 
seek out the most knowledgeable and demanding critics.

Case studies often generalize to the literature on the topic, and the 
literature has been carefully combed and studied itself for its 
generalizability and its ability to pass "defense."  

Often academic studies are descriptive, and they also have to pass the 
defense test.

Hypothesis testing studies (eg, phonemic awareness programs helps students 
read better than programs without phonemic awareness) may grow from 
descriptive studies. 

This, very briefly, is what I think George means when he talks about teacher 
research as requiring "another level of analysis" before it gains "legitimacy 
as a practicioner-based academic discipline."  I could also have 
misunderstood the text of his message.  For example, in "another level of 
analysis" in an ethnographic study, journals, interviews, observations are 
all raw data from fieldwork and are usually sifted carefully for emerging 
themes.  Who is to be interviewed and why they are selected, the types of 
questions asked, whether the interviews are structured, open-ended, 
ethnographic or even in a checklist will have been established ahead of time, 
as will be the type of analysis.

Studies often grow from other studies, in a lineage, usually a check of a 
bibliography will tell the reader about these related studies.

Practicioner-based research is incredibly valuable and useful as it reflects 
so immediately on teacher/administer practice and sets up a network of mutual 
inquiry among practitioners.

Andrea

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