Naturalistic inquiry is human inquiry-- humans trying to understand other humans in
natural settings. How inquirers interact with the people they study and how they
use their own human traits (such as feelings) is very important in coming to understand
the perspectives of others. This chapter is designed to guide you through some of the
issues to be considered in fieldwork relations. The chapter begins with an article
about teacher research and an elementary school teacher who conducted naturalistic
inquiry in her third grade. Please also refer to her own more detailed account in Appendix C: A Sample Study, an elementary school teacher using NI to study one student. Her experiences with field relations will be discussed after they have been illustrated.
As you read this article and the teacher's story, think about parallels with your own inquiry/education setting.
An Article-Based Story
The point has been made repeatedly that educational research and evaluation findings
are seldom used by practicing educators (Bell, 1975; Borg and Gall, 1983; Goodlad,
1984; Gsguthorpe and Johnson, 1981). Gne of the common reasons given is that practitioners are not involved in identifying research and evaluation issues, gathering data
or interpreting results; so they see little value in the information provided by
others. Anthropologists, responsive evaluators, and others who advocate the use
of naturalistic or qualitative forms of inquiry (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982; Spindler, 1963; Yoder,
1981) have suggested that teachers are ideally situated to study their own settings
naturalistically; therefore, they should be encouraged to participate directly in
the research and/or evaluation processes.
For example, in a brief article to composition teachers, Hoagland (1984) made the
following claim: "How do you feel about research in the field of composition? Does
the research you read make you feel passive? Disinterested? Are you ever the unwilling receiver of another's findings? I invite you to join a growing number of teachers
who are becoming active researchers. Every writing class, including yours, offers
research opportunities - why waste them? The methodology that taps these chafces
is qualitative research, . . . . Researchers in composition now recognize that much of the
needed research can be done best by the person most familiar with the context of
school-sponsored writing -- the classroom teacher. These case studies serve two
purposes: first, they are learning experiences for the teacher-researchers, and second, as
they are published, they become a storehouse of knowledge about the teaching of writing
from the perspective of the classroom teacher." (pg. 55)
If teachers could gather information themselves, they might value that data and be
motivated to use the results to improve their practices. Also, the results they
obtain would be extremely valuable to other researchers who want to discover how
educational variables interact in natural settings. Many research objectives could be met if
teachers were to conduct naturalistic studies while they teach.
Yet, even the advocates of qualitative or naturalistic approaches caution that it
could be extremely difficult for a teacher to simultaneously teach and gather feedback
as a participant observer. As Bogdan and Biklen (1982) suggest, most teachers usually conduct many of the inquiry activities naturalistic evaluators and researchers employ
but less rigorously and for different reasons:
"Many intelligent laypeople are astute observers of their world, do systematic inquiries,
and come to conclusions. Good teachers do this consistently. What they do is like
qualitative [naturalistic] research, but it is different in a number of ways. First, the observer's primary duty is to the research; he or she does not have to devote
time to developing curriculum, teaching lessons, and disciplining students. The researcher can thus devote full time and energy to taking it all in. Also, researchers
are rigorous about keeping detailed records of what they find. They keep data. Teachers
keep records too, but these are much less extensive and of a different sort. Further,
researchers do not have as much of a personal stake in having the observations come out one way or the other. The teacher's life, career, and self-concept are always
intimately tied to seeing what he or she is doing in a particular way. This is not
to say that teachers cannot transcend this to do research or that researchers do
not also have a stake in their studies. But for the researchers, success is defined
by doing what certain others define as good research, not seeing what the teacher
does in any particular way. Another way that the researcher and the teacher differ
is that the researcher has been trained in the use of a set of procedures and techniques developed
over the years to collect and analyze data. Last, the researcher is well-grounded
in theory and research findings. These provide a framework and clues to direct the study and place what is generated in a context." (pg. 40)
This list of differences could be discouraging to those who believe that teachers
must participate in the inquiry process if research and evaluation efforts are to
be truly fruitful and if the lessons learned from such investigations are to be put
into educational practice. A useful first test of this belief would be to see if teachers
could be taught to use naturalistic assumptions, procedures and techniques while
teaching and to assess the usefulness of the results to them and to the research
community in light of t`e difficulty and costs involved in doing the study.
To explore these assumptions empirically, a class in naturalistic inquiry methods
was offered to practicing teachers. During the first 2-3 weeks of a 15 week semester,
participants read extensively about qualitative methods and identified a site in
which they could conduct a study. The rest of the course was spent doing the studies,
discussing the experience in weekly class meetings and writing a final report. This
summary describes the inquiry experiences of one teacher, "KL", who used her third
grade class for this experience (see Appendix C: A New Teacher's Story for a detailed report by the teacher of
what she learned during this experience). The Process
The research methods KL used were essentially naturalistic. She observed one student's
(Jimmy) study habits and interactions with her and with his peers daily for over
three months. She maintained a detailed set of field notes, logging her observations, interview results, feelings as the teacher and her evolving analyses of the data.
Beginning purposes.
KL's major purpose was to explore the possibilities of using naturalistic methods
to obtain rich feedback on her performance as a teacher and the needs of all her
students. Related objectives of the study evolved during the study:
1. to better understand a student's attitudes and behavior, and
2. to discover ways to help a student improve his work, study, and social skills.
Selecting a student.
The school was an open school using a team teaching philosophy in which the students
were grouped according to abilities and needs in reading and math. Jimmy was assigned
to KL's classroom throughout the day. She chose him as a focus for her study because he had demonstrated signs of having difficulties in school and because of easy
accessibility to him in her class.
Through her casual "pre-study" observations, KL judged Jimmy to be "bright." But,
she also found he had poor study skills (e.g., he rarely finished his daily assignments
and spent inordinate amounts of time keeping to himself, staring at nothing in particular and playing with little bits of paper, erasers, etc.). More seriously, Jimmy
was becoming more and more disruptive to the other children. She often noticed him
bouncing in his chair, humming or making strange slurping and beeping noises with
his mouth. In an interview with Jimmy, KL asked what he least liked about school. His
response showed how distractable he was, "When people disturb me when I'm busy.
When people just start talking out and I just can't work."
He also had poor social skidls. He had few friends and even those he played with
were usually unkind to him. In response to KL's questions about who he liked to play
with, he gave two boys' names but then said, "I sometimes play with them cause I
don't have anyone to play with. . . .I don't like playing with them too much . . . cause
they're bothering me. They're just teasing me . . . . Sometimes when I come by,
they just run. I just don't want them to run away from me if they are playing with
me. . . ."
His problem had been diagnosed the previous year by the school guidafce counselor
as a slight attention deficit. But he had not been tested any further and no action
had been taken to solve his problem. Given these preliminary observations, KL hoped
to discover ways to help Jimmy improve his study and social skills by observing him closely,
analyzing the descriptions obtained and then designing and implementing plans for
improving his skills.
Data collection.
The first attempts at gathering data proved to be ineffective. KL tried to take
fieldnotes on Jimmy's activities while the students were doing seat work. However,
the students demanded her time and attention even then and she could not concentrate
on taking fieldnotes. She then discovered the school had a video camera that was rarely
in use. So videotape became a major resource for gathering observations on which
she could take fieldnotes after school hours. The video equipment disrupted the
class at first, but within a few days the students seemed to forget it was there. Even though
she had to spend several hours before and after school viewing the tapes, KL found
this was an excellent method of observation. She could replay the tapes several
times for more detailed and accurate fieldnote expansion.
In addition to depending heavily on about ten hours of videotape to capture dialogue,
facial expressions, student interactions, and so on, KL capitalized on the fact that
she had been in the room too, while the tape was shot, by including her perceptions, feelings and thoughts in her fieldnotes while she reviewed the videotapes. Likewise,
she used the more traditional fieldnote taking processes on the playground, in the
cafeteria and in the music room, where the video equipment could not be used as unobtrusively.
In spite of the many advantages associated with the videotape process, KL began to
suspect that her fieldnotes were developing a detached quality because she was removed
from the observed situations while viewing the tapes. She worried that her objective to discover and understand Jimmy's attitudes and behavior could not be accomplished
completely by observing him on a screen. So, she decided to triangulate with interviews.
On several different occasions, KL interviewed Jimmy regarding his feelings about
school, school work, his own abilities in school, peers, parents, siblings, and his
likes and dislikes outside of school. Some of his peers were interviewed, too, so
Jimmy would not feel singled out. These interviews were conducted informally on the playground
and in private in class as well as formally (students were invited to KL's desk for
brief conferences). She took notes during most of these interviews (or shortly after the interview ended) and tape-recorded some of them, as well.
In one instance, KL wanted to obtain the student's description of what happens to
him on a typical day at school. However, because he spent his entire day in her
classroom, she worried that she would guide or otherwise influence his responses.
So the principal, who had taken a keen interest in this study being conducted by
one of his junior faculty, willingly conducted the interview with Jimmy.
As the study progressed, KL began to wonder what additional insights the parents could
provide from their perspective. She also worried that they might be upset that she
was focusing so much attention on their son. After much deliberation regarding
the best way to proceed, she decided to turn a scheduled parent/teacher conference into
an interview. She invited the parents to interview her about their child, which
made it natural for her to interview them about Jimmy at home and historically.
The interview was taped with the parents' permission for later reference. The parents responded
so positively to this approach (they found it very professional and creative) that
all the other parent/teacher conferences were conducted the same way -- as interviews.
The school guidance counselor was interviewed, also. Though KL was not given direct
access to Jimmy's files, the guidance counselor did review the testing done by herself
the previous year and by another counselor three years earlier. This interview was also tape recorded for further reference.
Other teachers were informally interviewed and their experiences with and opinions
of Jimmy were solicited. Several of these teachers later reported that through
their exposure to the study done by KL, their understanding of Jimmy increased.
In addition to these qualitative procedures, KL further triangulated the data sources
and findings by developing and administering two questionnaires which she administered
to the entire class. The first was used to construct two sociograms. The questions were designed to reveal who would choose whom as friends. She wanted to see if
any of the students would choose Jimmy as a friend. The results of the sociograms
amplified KL's concerns about his lack of friends and social skills. She found that
many students thought Jimmy was nice, but still didn't choose him as a friend or someone
they woudd play with.
The second questionnaire elicited background information from the children about their
family and home life, feelings and attitudes. This questionnaire was also administered
to the whole class to minimize noticeable special attention on Jimmy.
Data analysis and reporting.
Analysis began almost as soon as data collection. As she viewed the video-tapes
and reflected on her experiences with Jimmy, KL discovered patterns in his behavior.
These initial insights were written into her fieldnotes and became part of her data
base. Likewise, as she wrote down Jimmy's responses to her interview questions, the
parents' and counselor's ideas and her thoughts on observed interactions between
Jimmy and his classmates, she began to develop a clearer understanding of this student's
world, his feelings, his fears, and so on.
After watching each video taped session and taking fieldnotes on them, KL then expanded
her notes and wrote comments in the margins regarding additional insights and connections
between parts of the growing data record. These ngtes helped her begin the analysas of the data while she was still collecting it and aided her in making decisions
about how and when to access other data sources.
KL tried some of themore formal qualitative data analysis procedures discussed by
Miles and Huberman (1984) such as pattern coding, memoing and context charting (these
will be discussed in Chapter Eight of this book). Through a series of such analyses,
extending throughout the three month study of Jimmy, KL reached several conclusions
about his challenges and what she could do to help him. She included a summary of
these insights along with extensive descriptions of Jimmy's school experience in
a final report for the course (See Appendix C). She also provided an "audit trail" (See Chapter
Five and the end of her report in Appendix C) documenting the methodological decisions
she made throughout the study. Results and Conclusions
A major finding of this experimental class was that KL was able to accomplish her
objectives in spite of several difficulties she encountered. As a result, she not
only learned valuable information about herself and the student (and tangentially
about other students); she also learned to value research and evaluative feedback more highly.
There were several difficulties as well as benefits associated with this experience.
Difficulties.
KL encountered some problems in conducting her study. Taking fieldnotes during
class, even while the children were busy with seat work did not work. The video
camera helped tremendously; however, each time Jimmy left his desk, he also left
the camera's view. Having to stay after school many nights to review and analyze those tapes
and to create and expand her fieldnotes was often a grueling ordeal. It was also
difficult to have to write all the results and conclusions from the study into a
final report, though she eliminated this part of the process as she conducted other inquiries
on other students for her own evaluative and diagnostic feedback.
When she first contemplated interviewing Jimmy's parents, she worried they would be
upset that she was focusing too much attention on him and that she may find problems
during her study that they
wouldn't want to deal with. When she finally decided to interview all the parents
(which was also more work than she anticipated), she was surprised to discover that
nearly all the parents appreciated the attention she gave to their views and to their
child in this way.
Although KL had been fairly observant of her students before the study, she had to
admit she probably neglected some children in order to focus extra attention on Jimmy
during the three month study. However, the experience was so positive she has continued focusang attention on other individual students in a series of mini-studies. The
information obtained through this study helped her realize how much more there might
be to learn.
Benefits.
In spite of these difficulties, the results of the study were essentially positive.
The most obviously positive outcome for KL was a change in her attitude and feelings
toward Jimmy. Through the several hours of observation and interviews, she better
understood the reasons for his inappropriate behaviors and her concern and genuine
interest in `im as an individual increased. Other teachers and students had difficulty
accepting Jimmy. They often expressed their annoyance with by his disruptive and
sometimes strange behaviors. KL found herself defending him against cruel comments from
others who did not understand him and his needs as she felt she did. Even though
she focused more attention on Jimmy than on the other students, KL was surprised
to discover that the other students did not seem to suffer, while the effect of her focused
attention on Jimmy was very positive&
With this change in attitude, KL identified several ways to help Jimmy improve. She
began by giving him extra praise when he stayed on task and by finding opportunities
for him to discuss topics he was interested in during class. Through the interviews
with Jimmy, his parents, and the guidance counselor, she found other needs she and
other school personnel could address. His disruptive and inappropriate behaviors
could be curtailed through guidance counseling as well as positive feedback from
other teachers for appropriate behaviors. Also the guidance counseling would help him improve his social skills through positive contact with his peers in a "friendship group"
under the direction of the guidance counselor. In the classroom, KL could draw on
his knowledge and experiences in front of his peers, to help them gain an appreciation for
his strengths.
Another positive outcome of the study was an improved relationship between KL and
Jimmy's parents. Although she had worried that the parents would not understand
her intent in studying their son in depth, by referring to the parent/teacher conference
as an interview, KL found the parents opened up and gave her valuable information which
helped her identify other ways to help Jimmy. Also because of the hours of observation
she had done, she was prepared to share useful information with them.
Not only did she gather useful data about the student she was observing, but also
about herself and her own teaching techniques. This experience helped her realize
how few one-on-one interactions she was having with children in a typical day in
the classroom. Her fieldnotes also helped her tally the positive and negative reinforcements
she was giving to students. She discovered that she gave more positive reinforcers
than negative ones to the group as a whole, but the negative outnumbered the positive
for individuals. These findings led to a renewed effort to practice the principles
of reinforcement she had always intended with each individual student.
There were several other benefits from the study aside from the insights KL gained
regarding Jimmy. For example, the principal took an active interest in her project
and interviewed Jimmy for her to see what additional information he would reveal
to a different adult. As a result, the teacher-principal relationship was improved (as was
the principal's opinion of the teacher). Also, as she reviewed the videotapes for
data on the student, she saw herself as the teacher and was able to note strategies
she was using that worked well and areas in which she could improve. Although the focus
was not on self evaluation, such information flowed naturally and usefully to her
as she learned to be a better observer.
Since the study.
As a result of this study, KL has made some permanent changes. She learned by experience
that a teacher is one of the most natural people to be an observer in a classroom.
Teachers have constant access to the classroom and students. Unlike outside researcher, who must take time and care to develop rapport with new informants every
time they enter a new classroom, teachers are not strangers to the school setting.
Teachers have ongoing opportunities to develop strong and fruitful informant relationships with students, parents, and other participants in school life.
Though her first experience with naturalistic inquiry methods in the classroom took
three months and many hours of work and only directly benefitted one student, KL
discovered how these techniques could also be used realistically to benefit all of
her students. Although she has not found it feasible to conduct formal, detailed studies
on each
of her students like she did with Jimmy, KL has begun to conduct periodic mini-studies,
focusing on one child at a time. She continues to use the video taping equipment,
to keep a fieldnote journal, to interview students and parents, and to administer
questaonnaires. Taping all the students in the classroom enables her to view the tape
several times, each time focusing on a different student. Even though each student
is not necessarily observed, all are benefitting from her efforts. KL has continued
discovering needs of the students with the most severe problems through analysis of
the information she gathers through all these procedures. She hopes all the students
will benefit from her associated efforts to improve the learning environment.
So far, the fieldnotes from these mifi-studies have not been analyzed to be written
up as formal reports. Rather, KL reviews and analyzes them to obtain formative evaluation
feedback and then maintains them as reference files on the students observed for herself and others who may want to collaborate with her to conduct related research. References
Bell, T. H. (1975). Educational Research and the Public Interest. Educational Researcher
, 4(6), 10-12.
Bogdan, R. C. and Biklen, S. K. (1982). Qualitative Research for Education- An Introductign to Theory and Methods.
Boston, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon.
Borg, W. R. and Gall, M. D. (1983). Educational Research -- An Introduction.
New York: Longman.
Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A Place Called School -- Prospects for the Future.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hoagland, N. L. (1984). Becoming a Teacher-Researcher. The Writing Instructor.
Winter, 55-59.
Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M.(1984). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods.
Beverly Halls, CA.: Sage.
Osguthorpe, R. T. and Johnson, M. (1981). The Integration and Implementation of Educational
Research. A paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Society for Performance
and Instruction, Montreal, Canada.
Spindler, G. D. (1963). Education and Culture. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Yoder, N. (1981). Curriculum Study Through Teachers as Participant-Observers. Education,
101(3), 217-222.
An Analysis of KL's Experience
Please refer back to Figure 1-- a Qualitative Inquiry Process, in Chapter 1: Preface which illustrates
a process commonly used by naturalistic inquirers. As discussed there, conducting
inquiry necessarily involves getting to know people and developing rapport and relationships of trust with them so they will share their perspectives on their experience with
you. The stories shared in this book also illustrate the importance of relationships
to the entire inquiry process. Looking closely at the relationships KL developed
with Jimmy, the other students, the counselor, the parents, the principal, and other teachers,
it is clear that all the other inquiry activities shown in Figure One were involved
in her relationship development activities. While she was asking questions, gathering information, keeping a record, interpreting information and experience, and
even sharing her interpretations, she was developing relationships and that interpersonal
interaction facilitated all the other activities. It should also be clear that all these activities of inquiry are also essential teaching
activities. Let's explore these claims further.
Traditionally, naturalistic inquiry, as developed through anthropology and sociology,
has been performed by outsiders to a social situation. For example, anthropologists
visited cultures to which they were strangers in an effort to make the strange familiar to members of their own culture back home. In such a situation, one of the inquirer's
major challenges is to develop productive working relationships with people in the
culture under study as quickly as possible so they will be allowed to conduct the
study, participate in various cultural events, and talk freely with informants. Developing
a role in the setting that is mutually acceptable to all involved is a critical part
of that challenge.
Bogdan and Biklen (1982), Georges and Jones (1980), Williams (1981), and many others
suggest ways naturalistic inquirers who are strangers to a setting can develop such
working relationships. Some of these seem relevant to a teacher or principal who
wants to conduct inquiry in his or her own school setting; but others seem unnecessary
because educators who are inquirers are not strangers to the cultures they are inquirying
into. They are usually already deeply involved in working relationships before they even think of themselves as inquirers, per se. A review of the points these and
other authors make in light of the stories told in this book may help you plan to
develop fulfilling inquiry relationships in your
setting. Suggestions from the literature include the following activities:
a. Gradually change from formal to more informal relations over time by interacting
with people in a variety of settings. T`is may involve stages of gaining access
to an inquiry site, getting oriented to the site and people in it, getting more and
more familiar with these people as they inform you about their culture, and finally taking
leave of the people and exiting the site.
b. Build trust with each other by listening and using the information people give
you in ways they perceive as positive. You may have to identify and work through
"gatekeepers" to gain access to certain people.
c. Do not disturb the people you are studying. Be unobtrusive and fill natural rgles
that are acceptable to you and
to the people you are working to understand. This may involve some negotiation as
relationships deepen, are broken, are renewed, etc.
d. Join your hosts in what they do in a jointly defined role that allows you to remain
detached enough that you can reflect on what they do and say without becoming so
involved with them that you become one of them ("going native"). You want to be
able to use your
perspective to think about theirs.
e. Learn from them-- they are your teachers, not your students or your subjects.
f. Learn how they think without necessarily thinking like they do. Learn what it
is like to be them; but you don't want to actually be
like them. Use your subjectivity, feelings, and humanity while participating in
their culture to gain insights into their experiences from their subjective point
of view. This may involve the following:
Use the feelings you have to guide the questions you ask (maybe the informants have
had similar feelings and will talk about them in ways that will help you understand)
When informants see that you have feelings, they will be more willing to share theirs
and to accept you in their relations
Use these feelings to generate research hunches-- then follow up on them by gathering
more data-- not just accepting your initial reactions (that would be bias!)
Experiencing some of the same feelings the participants have will help you develop
empathy which will give you greater insight into their experiences and meanings.
Rather than pretend you don't have feelings or try to ignore or restrict those feelings,
describe them in your fieldnotes and reflect on them to decide if they are helping
you understand the people you are studying or if they are distorting the experience and biasing your study.
Teachers and other educators who also see themselves as researchers have to be concerned
about these same issues but in rather different ways. Unlike the typical anthropologist,
they are already "insiders" with reputations and responsibilities in the settings in which they want to conduct inquiry. They already have teachang or adminstrating
roles which shape the inquiry roles and associated relationships they can develop.
Because they aren't there just to do research but to improve their practice through inquiry in that setting, the notion of developing inquiry relationships is different
for educators. But they still have to focus on developing relationships that will
encourage others to give them feedback and help them see the world through more than
just their own eyes.
Let's look at KL and the roles and relationships she was developing in her school
study in light of the suggestions to "researchers" summarized above.
a. Move through relationship stages from formal to informal.
KL had already established a teacher-student relationship with Jimmy before she
began thinking about studying him as part of this project. Their relationship was
fairly formal and studded with expectations from both of them and from his parents,
the principal, and other staff and students in the school. They all had expectations of
her as a teacher and of him as a student. But their relationship and expectations
began to change when KL paid more attention to Jimmy. She talked to him more frequently
outside of class and in than she would have normally. She already had entree to visit
with him but she hadn't taken advantage of that access until she focused her inquiry
on him. Unlike an outsider anthropologist, she did not have to exit the setting
because she was truly a natural part of it. She did not have to introduce herself at the
beginning and obtain access to Jimmy or the others in order to conduct a study.
All these arrangements were already part of the educational settifg. But she did
have the challenge of deepening relationships beyond the expected levels common between teachers
and students and their parents and peers.
b. Build trust in an ethical relationship.
This recommendation for naturalistic inquirers is such a fundamental characteristic
of good teaching that it matches perfectly with the teacher as researcher stance.
KL did obtain information about Jimmy that could have devastated him if she had
presented it to the others students or to his parents inappropriately. Likewise, she had
to buald a trusting rapport with Jimmy, his parents, the counselor, and with other
students in the class before they would talk to her. She maintained that trust throughout the study and beyond by disguising the identities of participants and the school
in which she was working in her report.
c. Be unobtrusive and fill natural negotiated roles.
KL was a relatively new teacher at this school. So it was not too unnatural for
her to be trying some different kinds of activities. Asking the principal to interview one of her students, using a video camera in her classroom, administering sociograms, conducting interviews with parents during parent-teacher conferences, and asking
former teachers and the counselor about Jimmy might have been considered unusual
by these other participants; but they were not outlandish or inappropriate given
her status as a new teacher. These were legitimate activities for a teacher. She also did not
simply impose these roles on others. With some anxiety, she asked the parents if
they would interview her
about Jimmy and let her interview them
. They were thrilled with these new roles for themselves and for the teacher. She
brought the video camera into the classroom and by implication invited the students
to let it be there and not disturb their normal activities. She invited the students
to fill out sociograms and to talk to her in short informal interviews. These were
not entirely new roles for them or for her; but they were variations from the norm
which students could have refused to explore.
d. Be involved, yet detached enough to use your
perspective to think about theirs.
This recommendation seems a bit more challenging for the educator who is
involved already as an educator in a setting in which they want to conduct inquiry.
KL was able to maintain a certain degree of detachment from Jimmy and his problems
by using triangulation (obtaining information from several different sources using
several different methods), by keeping a detailed record of what she was hearing and seeing,
as well as her thinking and feelings about what she was learning, and by maintaining
her teacher role throughout the project and not just becoming another one of the
students or taking the parent role upon herself. The standards discussed in Chapter Five are intended to help you share experiences with the people you are trying to
understand without giving up your role as an inquirer.
e. Learn from them.
This recommendation can also be very challenging for educators because they often
see their role as being the teacher, and it becomes easy for those in authority to
forget that they don't know everything and that they can learn from their own students
or subordinates. In her case, KL was frustrated as a teacher with Jimmy because he
didn't seem to be learning and he was disturbing the rest of the class. Instead
of assuming that she understood what his problems were and simply applying some preset
"discipline action" on him, she asked what she could learn from Jimmy about this problem.
She also asked what she could learn from his peers, his parents, his former teachers,
the school counselor, and from a careful review of her interactions with him during
classroom events. She was open to being taught by Jimmy and these others; and as a
result, she learned a lot. She was willing to ask questions as a teacher. This
seems like one of the most critical elements of a good inquirer (See Robbins, 1991,
Chapter 8 for ideas about question asking).
f. Use your subjectivity to gain insights into others' experiences from their
point of view.
Related to the previous point, good inquirers do not pretend they are objective
with all subjectivity controlled out of their inquiries through the use of partacular
methods. Instead, they use their subjectivity to develop empathy with the persons
they are trying to understand. This is another powerful characteristic of good teachers
that can be used to help them be better inquirers as well. KL began to feel the
frustrations Jimmy was feeling as she took a closer look at his experiences, heard
him telling her how much he needed friends, saw other sides to him through the eyes of his
parents and the school counselor, and saw how unfairly she herself was treating him
when she watched herself on video. She began to see the world through Jimmy's eyes
and her compassion for him grew. She could relate his feelings to similar feelings she
had experienced during her life. She could only do this because she was willing
to use
her feelings to gain insight rather than deny them or get lost in the experience
of them. Both Peshkin (1985) and Smith (1980) provide helpful insight into the value
of subjectivity. The notion of neuro linguistic programming, set forth by Nagel,
Siudzinski, Reese, and Reese (1985) and elaborated by Robbins (1991) provides technical
guidance on t`e development of rapport between teachers and students, interviewers
and interviewees, counselors and counselees, and other human situations that involve
using one's subjectivity to understand, learn from, and influence others. These authors
claim that by mirroring or imitating the behavior of another as unobtrusively as
possible, one can begin to establish a rapport that will facilitate understanding
and increase the influence the teacher or inquirer might have on those they are mirroring.
Although KL was not explicitly using all these sources and their guidelines, she
was certainly developing rapport with Jimmy and using that rapport to understand
him better.
In the field of educational evaluation, several authors have been reaching a common
conclusion-- unless the inquirers become part of the community of action, their research
and evaluation results have very little meaning, and therefore, very little impact, on practice. Guba and Lincoln (1989) present evaluation as negotiation, with the
evaluator facilitating the presentation and negotiation of various views, values
and concerns among people who have competing stakes in the outcome of the evaluation.
Cronbach and Associates (1980) present a similar notion of the policy shaping community
and the need for the evaluator to be an active member of that community before other
participants will listen to any evaluation study results.
Educators are already part of the community that can make a difference in the practice
of education. They are insiders, whereas professional researchers from private institutes,
universities, and government funded research projects are outsiders. Educators already have relationships develgped with the people in their settings who can
share their experiences in ways that may lead to change such as KL and Jimmy achieved.
If educators can simply expand their roles to include naturalistic inquiry, they
will not only be better informed with a strong basis for making better educational decisions;
but they will be in position to invite their associates to do the same. KL's story
shows that naturalistic inquiry and the associated development of inquiry relationships is a natural extension of what teachers and other educators are doing in their
communities already.
Additional Readings
Cronbach, L. J. and Associates (1980). Toward reform of program evaluation
. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Georges, R. A. and Jones, M. O. (1980). People studying people -- the human element in fieldwork.
Berkley, CA: University of California Press.
Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation
. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Nagel, C. V., Siudzinski, R., Reese, E. J., and Reese, M. (1985). Megateaching and learning: neuro linguistic programming applied to education, Volume
I.
Indian Rock Beach, FL: Southern Institute Press.
Peshkin, A. (1985). Virtuous subjectivity: in the participant-observer's eyes. In
D.Berg & K.Smith (Eds.), Exploring clinical methods for social research
. Beverly Hills: Sage. pp.267-281.
Robbins, Anthony (1991). Awaken the giant within
. New York: Summit.
Seith, M. L. (1980). Solving for some unknowns in the personal equation. Unpublished
manuscript available from Williams at BYU.
Williams, D. D. (1981). Understanding the work of naturalistic researchers, Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Questions for Consideration
1. What is rapport and how can you develop it?
2. Why do you have to be concerned about field relations throughout the study and
not just at the beginning? So what? Why make such a big deal about relationships
at all?
3. How do you decide how much to participate and how much to observe?
4. What do you think about using your subjectivity and feelings rather than pretending
you can stamp it out or simply feeling victimized by it. How are you dealing with
your subjectivity as a teacher? As an inquirer?
5. What do you think about the idea of researcher as instrument- your eyes, ears,
thoughts, interests, etc. as the filters through which all data are gathered and
processed. What are the implications for the qualaty of data you collect? What
filters do you think you have?
6. What differences
do you see between yourself as an insider inquirer in your educational setting and
how you would perform as an inquirer in a setting in which you were an outsider (such
as an unusual culture in another part of the world)?
7. What similarities
do you see between yourself as an insider inquirer in your educational setting and
how you would perform as an inquirer in a setting in which you were an outsider (such
as an unusual culture in another part of the world)?
8. What relationships do you see between the field-relation-building activities discussed
in this chapter and the other activities described in the naturalistic inquiry process?
9. Why is development of the inquirer role better described as a negotiation than
as an inquirer decision? Suggested Activities
1. Write in your fieldnotes (audit trail section might be a good place) a description
at this point in your study of your existing relationships with specific people in
your inquiry setting. Address the following:
*How conducive or limiting are each of these relationships to your learning and inquiry?
*How protective are people around you of what they are about?
*How isolated are you and the others there?
*What are you doing to create a community of trust and sharing?
*What roles have you already negotiated or assumed?
*What other roles are possible and what would be the implications for your inquiry
and for your educating responsibilities of taking on those roles?
*What will you need to do in terms of developing relationships and roles to really
get at the inquiry issues that are developing for you in this project?