Enhancing Our Community of Inquiry: Thoughts on Principles and Best Practices in Research with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals.

Thoughts on Principles and Best Practices in Research With Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals THE BEGINNING of a new editorship for the Annals provides a good opportunity to re-engage contributors and the readership in a conversation about the principles and standards for manuscripts submitted to the Annals. In turn, the hope is that this conversation might help to enhance our research community and therefore the Annals' contributions to knowledge and understanding across an array of research and areas of inquiry focused on d/Deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Given the insights provided by a spouse who has worked in the d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing community for over 20 years and my background in educational research, the chance to work with the Annals provides a great opportunity to dialogue with scholars and other professionals on investigations that focus on individuals who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. However, participating in this dialogue does present a few important challenges. In particular, when asked to serve as a reviewer for manuscripts submitted to the Annals , it did not take long to realize the specific challenges of conducting research within a low incidence population. It was apparent that developing and applying fair and reasonable standards for evaluating the technical merits of manuscripts-given the array of approaches to and perspectives on the conduct, purposes, and standards of research and what constitutes good research-might be nearly impossible. Nevertheless, considering the potential benefits of enhancing the impact of new insights and knowledge generated by contributions to the Annals , it is a task worthy of serious discussion and our collective attention. With respect to designs, methods, and analyses, I often have been puzzled by the lack of attention paid to the assumptions made, certainly diverse and often tacit on different sides of research debates, regarding the purposes and aims of social science research and inquiry as well as the nature of the knowledge development. In general, many differences associated with debates about preferred or most appropriate approaches stem from the lack of consideration within the larger discourse as well as within individual studies on the aims and purposes of the research enterprise. Exploring and reflecting on these issues in preparation for writing this article reminded me of the first required reading that I was assigned many years ago in an introductory research course for my doctoral program. The text was Designing Social Inquiry by Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba (1994). In their treatment of design and methodological issues in social science research, the authors did not presume a preference for quantitative or qualitative methods because the selection of approaches is best made based on the aims and purposes of the research project, as well as the nature of the research question, issue, and topic. However, the authors did attempt to outline several common principles as well as practical strategies for addressing challenges scholars face in the design and execution of research and scholarly inquiry with a focus on enhancing qualitative research design. Having completed several reviews of manuscripts submitted to the Annals , this invited article provides an opportunity to explore these topics in more detail. Although some issues addressed here may not be new and in fact may represent perennial challenges and points of debate, the aim here is to share a few thoughts and ideas regarding two fundamental dimensions of the conduct of high quality social science research, particularly with d/Deaf and hard of hearing individuals, that also will provide some guidance as well as practical utility for potential contributors. These two dimensions are (a) research design and (b) the variety of techniques and strategies associated with collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information to gain deeper understanding as well as to draw inferences from individual and collective research projects about the larger population of interest. …