-- Let me continue to think out loud, this time with the real hope that
something is taken up. A roundtable paper I submitted to Division G of aera
was rejected. One of the reasons was that "data collection and analysis"
needed strengthening.
Below is what I wrote within the word count confines of the abstract. What is
insufficient? Does the coordination of activity theory and data collection
need be addressed in a paper in itself? Of course, I would appreciate any
comments.
The ethnographic work is coordinated with Cultural Historical Activity Theory.
Activity systems theory (Engeström, 1987) describes dialectical unity in the
development of people and technology as a system, and accounts for the social
distribution of cognition in the course of collective object oriented activity.
Culture, and its past developments, feature highly in the analysis of social
interactions in the present (Cole, 1995; 1996). Applied to school change, it
follows that the development of educational professionals is not limited to
changes in the individual mind, but includes the formation and re-formation of
cultural artifacts, practices, ideals, and goals in people's technological and
social spaces. Hence, investigation guided heuristically by activity theory
reveals the rough and fine grain of the physical, social, and cognitive
structures and processes through which the developments of educational
professionals are coupled with systemic changes in schools. The theoretical
analysis of our case study interprets the processes involved in the creation of
more 'technologically advanced' forms of systemic activity, i.e. the use of
computers to address lagging literacy achievement on standardized state tests.
The data sources include state and national demographic databases that provide
economic and population information, school district data, and the results of
state mandated literacy testing. Artifacts such as the TLCF proposal and the
RFP, web sites, lesson plans, letters, etc. also inform the theoretical
analysis. Interviews with participants of the study were conducted at a
distance by email and those conducted personally were audiotaped and digitized.
Digitized copies were recorded on compact disk and given back to interviewees
both as a means of respecting the researcher/subject relationship, and of
providing the opportunity for follow-up through stimulated recall. Timelines
describing individual (ontogenetic) development have been composed. The
economic history of the district has been recorded. Field notes and digitized
photographs complete the sources of data obtained.
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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