Brian asks:
I find it helpful to dip into the learning and conversations of writers who have been considering
questions of quality, validity, and rigour. Does your department have a suggested reading list
available addressing these issues?
Hi Brian - Tutors prepare their own reading lists for their practitioner-researcher programmes.
The references I usually encourage researchers to engage with on issues of quality, validity and
rigour are:
Quality:
Marshall, J. (2004) Living systemic thinking: Exploring quality in first-person action research.
Action Research Vol 2 (3) 2004 pp 309-329.
Guidelines for Quality in Autobiographical Forms of Self Study Research.
Bullough, R. & Pinnegar, S. (2001) Educational Researcher Vol. 30, No.3, pp. 13-21.
Social Validity
On social validity I continue to focus on Habermas:
Habermas, J. (1976) Communication and the evolution of society. London; Heinemann
"I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech
action, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated (or redeemed).
Insofar as he wants to participate in a process of reaching understanding, he cannot avoid raising
the following – and indeed precisely the following – validity claims. He claims to be:
a) Uttering something understandably;
b) Giving (the hearer) something to understand;
c) Making himself thereby understandable. And
d) Coming to an understanding with another person.
The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can
understand one another. The speaker must have the intention of communicating a true
proposition (or a propositional content, the existential presuppositions of which are satisfied) so
that the hearer can share the knowledge of the speaker. The speaker must want to express his
intentions truthfully so that the hearer can believe (p.2) the utterance of the speaker (can trust
him). Finally, the speaker mush choose an utterance that is right so that the hearer can accept the
utterance and speaker and hearer can agree with on another in the utterance with respect to a
recognized normative background. Moreover, communicative action can continue undisturbed
only as long as participants suppose that the validity claims they reciprocally raise are
justified." ((Habermas, 1976, pp.2-3)
Rigour
Richard Winters' six principles of rigour of dialectical critique; reflexive critique, risk, plural
structure, multiple resource and theory practice transformation.
Winter, R . (1989) Learning from Experience. London; Falmer.
I also stress in my supervision/tutoring of practitioner-research the importance of Bob Bullough's
and Stefinnee Pinnegar's insight that:
"The consideration of ontology, of one’s being in and toward the world, should be a central
feature of any discussion of the value of self-study research" (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2004 p. 319)
Bullough, R. & Pinnegar, S. (2004) Thinking about the thinking about self-study: An Analysis of
Eight Chapters, in Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M. L. LaBoskey, V. K, Russell, T. International
Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher-Education Practices. Dordrecht, Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Love Jack.
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