Shifting Priorities: Reflections on Teaching Qualitative Research Methods

Introduction I am a young, African American, female professor of educational research at a large research university in the southeastern United States. As a product of a middle-class upbringing, completing college and post-graduate education were both non-negotiable expectations. In particular, being the daughter of two educators, the influence was particularly strong to "do well" academically, professionally, and personally. My professional interests led me to complete a doctorate in educational psychology and evaluation with a focus on the academic experiences of African American high school and college students. The basis of my doctoral research training was quantitative in nature. I am well versed in t- and f-statistics, confidence intervals, variable loadings, and effect sizes. When I began to develop my own research studies, I was conflicted in the adoption of my methodological approach. On the one hand, I was taught the importance of generalizability and replication which, to this day, I believe are valuable research goals. However, the population that I study, along with the issues they face, better matched a qualitative paradigm. Specifically, for many years, minority students have been compared statistically to majority students with little attention to measurement equivalence or content validity (McLoyd & Steinberg, 1998). I wanted to incorporate a method to study these teens in a way that highlights the complexity and unique experiences they encounter. Although at my doctoral institution the push was strong to adopt a primarily quantitative methodological approach to research, the pull to qualitative research, with its emphasis on individual meaning and participant voice, was too strong for this researcher to ignore. The Course Currently, I teach a course in introductory qualitative research methodology. The course is designed into two major sections. The first part of the course centers on theoretical underpinnings of qualitative research. In short, I introduce what it is and "why" we do it. The second part of the course allows students to explore the "how" of qualitative research (e.g., specific methodological tools such as observation and interviewing). Because this is the first in a series of qualitative research courses, the information is presented in a survey method, with the expectation that those who are planning to complete qualitative dissertations or theses will continue in the sequence. As envisioned, the learning objectives of the class are simple. I want my students to leave the course being superior consumers and producers of qualitative research and, by extension, all research. The majority of my students are White, middle-class, masters and doctoral students in a top-tier school of education. Their fields of interest vary from teacher education, to higher education student affairs, to instructional technology, and to social foundations. Many students are practitioners having recently returned to graduate school from long stints in the field. Others are full time graduate students who have not yet entered the workforce or are at the beginning of their varied careers. All of my students are participants in a discipline in which high stakes testing and accountability are progressively more focused on deductive, quantified, and measurable results. Considering this quandary, the need for qualitative research in this socio-political context can be viewed as an un-priority in light of a decidedly positivist educational research climate. At the beginning of each semester, I probe and ask students why they are taking my course. Many report that the class is "strongly recommended" by their advisors [read: required]. I know that very few students take my course for the sake of pure research knowledge, but rather to fulfill program requirements. Therefore, it is critically important that I present qualitative theory and design in a way that will give them insight into the evolution of the field and, hopefully, sustain their interest in its promise for the work of educators. …