Re: halo hawthorne

Marie Nelson (mnel who-is-at nlu.nl.edu)
Thu, 28 Sep 1995 06:27:53 -0500 (CDT)

Hi. I"m Marie Nelson and I teach at National-Louis University in a
program in which teacher research is a major component. We take
experienced teachers in intact groups through about two years of
self-study that leads to an M. Ed. I"ve been working with teams of
collaborative teacher-researchers for about fifteen years.

I agree with what Gordon wrote about halo effects.

On Tue, 26 Sep 1995, Gordon Wells wrote:

> I am very much in agreement with Peter's arguments for making use of the
> halo effect that may result from an outsider carrying out research in
> classrooms....[snip]

> We've stopped thinking of the increased engagement of participants as
> the halo or hawthorne effect of carrying out classroom inquiry and,
> instead, think of communities of inquiry as the very essence of education.
> Rather than a short-term intervention, we try to make inquiry the
> continuing "motive" of the activity of education, in which we are all
> engaged.

I think, Gordon, that your work puts the horse bback in front of the cart
where it belongs. If the goal of educational research is to improve the
effectiveness of what transpires in schools, why should we accept the
assumption that any improvement that results must be generatlized and
distant from the research site in space and time. Why not begin assessing
the quality of our research in terms of immediate impact which can
actually be traced directly to the work we've done.

I believe a great deal of the research that becomes influential due to our
penchant for assessing research in formal, decontextualized terms, would
be (rightly) revealed as doing more harm than good, an effect that might
be prevented if we applied different criteria.