RE: [xmca] What new and interesting?

Hello Michael and whoever else is interested,
 
I pose this question not because I have an answer, but because I have been thinking about it within the issue of process. Is mixed methods really that salient an idea. I know mixed methods is vey big these days and I have colleagues who I really respect who talk a lot about it - but it seems in some ways to be addressing out penchant for meeting in the middle somewhere. A starts in California and B starts in New York, and they meet in Columbus (and Columbus is boring as hell and doesn't really give us eitherr the qualities of California or New York - it just gives us...well, Columbus). But really, if you consider the starting points of quantitative and qualitative, do they even exist within what Peppe would call the same worldview.
 
I think of Galton and Pearson and that beginning of quantitative analysis in the social sciences, and I think of Anselm Strauss and some of the early ideas of qualitative analysis (I know there are many others who have worked on qualitative analysis, but to me Strauss has always explained its context better than most). And I think that they worked from such different starting points in their thinking, in their world views. and were looking for something so different. In the end aren't quantitative analysts looking for some reified end point that is sort of anathema to the type of building of dynamic understanding that is critical for somebody like Strauss?
 
Anyway, just a question for a rainy Monday morning.
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Wolff-Michael Roth
Sent: Mon 3/31/2008 8:14 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] What new and interesting?

Hi Martin,
I am a trained statistician and quantitative modeler (physical
systems as a physicist, neural networks) who asks questions that
require a lot of qualitative categorical work, so developed
competencies in a panoply of methods, and now have become a
qualitative methodologist. As such, I happened to be asked a few
years back to write a chapter with a statistician (Kadriye Ercikan),
the co-organizer of the session you are referring to. As we were
writing this chapter, we saw that the opposition of quantitative/
qualitative does not assist researchers a lot and that organizing
research from a method perspective is not a good one, an
understanding I developed through years of experience teaching
statistics and qualitative interpretive methods. (I also co-edit an
online journal on qual methods, its called FQS: Forum Qualitative
Social Research).

Kadriye and I then decided to write an article for Educational
Researcher, which was published in 2006. And now we are almost
finished editing this book entitled "Generalizing from Educational
Research" (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) where people from all sorts of
methods backgrounds contribute, including Bachmann (applied ling),
Allan Luke, Margaret Eisenhart (anthrop), Jim Gee, Ken Tobin, Rich
Shavelson, Pam Moss, Willy Solano, and others. It is an exciting
project, as people seem to agree that we need to move away from the
polarity of research methods to begin asking questions that matter.

I would therefore not ask or contest LSV into one or the other camp.
I would ask questions along the lines LSV suggested we ask and then
pose the subsidiary question, "How do I answer this question?" A well-
formed research question tends to IMPLY the method, or so I show my
graduate students.

You will have noticed that in my Vygotsky talk, I used purely
mathematical methods for the analysis of vocal parameters. . .

Cheers,

Michael

On 30-Mar-08, at 8:59 AM, Martin Packer wrote:

I am curious about a session I was unable to attend, one on mixed
methods
which I know Mike attended, and at which Michael Roth presented. One
of the
other presenters was Pamela Moss from U of Michigan - several years ago
Pamela and I designed and co-taught a 2-semester graduate course on
integrated research methods, which I think was unique at the time, so
I'm
curious to discover what is now state of the art. I'm also curious
because
the AERA session I organized was titled "Vygotsky's Qualitative
Methodology," and some questions were raised there about whether this
is an
appropriate label for CHAT research. Is it qualitative, mixed, or ..?

Can people who attended that session share their impressions?

Martin

On 3/29/08 8:35 AM, "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I thought it might be interesting to all if everyone took a few
> minutes
> either to report on some interesting talk or paper they have
> encountered
> recently, or a new idea that they
> have had that others might have something to contribute to, and
> post it
> here. (This includes, in my case, ideas that came up from people
> whose work
> we have discussed here!).
>
> I'll post a couple of such ideas as examples a lilttle later, but
> want to
> float the suggestion while I have a minute.
>
> mike
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

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