Lunch with Fred

Before I forget, I want to record some of the things that Fred and I talked about today related to my pre-proposal. He has provided textual comments, and I will add another response after I look at these, but for now I want to write about our discussion.

We started talking some about my use of the TTU situation as an example of the "problem" surrounding reflection. He felt like the rationale for removing these reflective assignments were not so much on pedagogical or theoretical grounds as on other ones. He was fairly eloquent on this subject. I don't dismiss his take on why they were removed, but from my own interviews with teachers and students in the program, I believe their was enough lack of understanding, dislike, and ambiguity about these reflection assignments that my contention that it is an illustration of the "open question" (as Flower says) about reflections pedagogical place and value is valid. I could cut this example and simply bring up Flower's discussion.

Fred also believes I need to define what I mean by grounded theory better. He thinks a short definition of three sentences or so should do. I agree (since grounded theory has various definitions or we might say approaches). He felt like what will be very important for my study will be the process of analysis that I come up with. I pressed for some clarification, and he agreed that what may end up being as valuable or more valuable than any results that I arrive at is the methods I develop for this kind of analysis. He said that increasingly writing will be archived inside similar type databases, whether in something like Blackboard or in TOPIC, and others may look to my tools of analysis as a model. He used as an example Hugh Burn's dissertation that compared different types of invention to see which was more effective. No one remembers his results (Tagametric Metrics wins!), but many people were interested in his sequenced delivery of questions for heuristics via the computer.

I'll label this feedback as the PROCESS OF ANALYSIS (METHODS) issue. Right now, I pretty much have the idea that I will follow grounded theory methods, but I will be doing it on electronic texts. Not novel, I know. I don't think I will be able to problem-solve and develop my methods until I get into my pilot. Hence the importance of the pilot.

I brought up my concern that my pilot would be tainted by my heavy emphasis on reading theory in preparation for my qualification exam. He didn't seem to see that as a problem. Rich thinks the same thing. I need to start charting out the details of my pilot.

I also brought up my concern about using just TOPIC. Fred affirmed that it could be seen as a limitation, but it doesn't concern him. It offers more opportunities.

We had an interesting discussion about the SO WHAT? of my proposal. Fred openly admits for him there is no question about reflections value and effectiveness. In reference to my research question, focusing on questions of "how does it influence" or "seek to understand what happens" are not interesting to him. He brought up the analogy of studying brakes on a car--we aren't so interested how the brakes work or what happens when we hit the brakes. Instead, we are really interested in if they work and how well they work. What matters to him is determining reflection's effectiveness in improving writing? This effectiveness question, he said, is the most important one (or else why should I be interested)? He felt like I needed to present some hypothesis within my research question.

I then brought up how I had shifted this draft to fall in line with grounded theory's goals of discovering rather than validating theory. To follow what he is expressing as interesting would lead me to probably change my methodology.

I brought up what appears to be emerging as the so what if my study and that is that it is HOW I come up with my theories that may be most important. We have a slew of theories about what reflection is and how it works, but these theories were generated in logical-deductive ways or empirical ways that could be considered as tainted from theory. What might be important and different about my study is that I will use grounded theory--that I will use a more systematic analysis of the data to arrive at my theoretical understanding about reflection. Yancey did it one way. Bereiter and Scarmadelia did it another. Flower in yet another way. No one has done it as a grounded theory analysis. We will see. He seemed to acknowledge this rationale (though a bit tepidly).

He also brought up what he said was an old adage about what makes a good study or even story. The study needs to have a dynamic tension between shared knowledge and disturbed knowledge. This tension needs to be in good balance. The implication is that I could strengthen my proposal by finding those two poles in my proposal and exposing that tension.

Lots to chew on and I haven't even read his comments...

Thanks Fred!