Interpretive Inquiry (EDCI 580)

Summer 2002

Wolff-Michael Roth (Lansdowne Professor)

mailto:mroth@uvic.ca

The course outline is available here. The outline will be modified to meet the [changing] needs of students and instructor. Specific lesson outlines and additional information will be made available in an ongoing manner.

Dates

JUL 26, 2002 to AUG 19, 2002.

I propose that we lengthen each lesson by 15 minutes, which allows us to end this course on August 16 rather than coming back on Monday, August 19. Last due date for the assigments is August 19, for those students who require the weekend to complete their assignments.

Introduction

Interpretive inquiry, as any other human practice cannot be learned by talking or reading about it but requires that we participate in it. Thus, even the slightest description of how to collect data or interpret data inherently underdetermines just what you have to do. It is through your own doing that you find the relevance in and of the description.

Take a cookbook recipe as an example. However explicit the recipe, you will find yourself in situations where you do not know what a particular instruction means. It is only through cooking--and sometimes through your knowledge of what the end product is supposed to look like--that you know what an instruction means.Only when you actually are able to do the real thing does the description of it really become meaningful.

So throughout this course, we engage in two types of activities, doing interpretive inquiry and talking about it. These two activities stand in a dialectical and reflexive relation that together constitute each other, that is, interpretive inquiry as an accountable (rather than tacit) research practice.

My Philosophy

My research has shown that human knnowing is constituted in participation in authentic activity and changing participation is equivalent to learning. Thus, reading and participating in discussions prepares you to read scholarly articles and participate in scholarly discussions. Doing research prepares you to do research. Listening to lectures prepares you to listen to lectures. (Nevertheless, I will use mini-lectures to share some of my experiences in doing research.) Central to your learning will therefore be active participation, so far as to propose activities or make changes to the course as I have prepared it. It is only when your learning is truly in your hands that the course can achieve its objective, helping you learn.

Resources

• Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum Qualitative Social Research is an important bilingual e-journal on qualitative inquiry.
• The Qualitative Report. An online journal dedicated to qualitative research and critical inquiry since 1990.
• A comprehensive listing of internet resources in and on phenomenology can be found here.
• Resources for Social Researchers. These links provide you with avenues to sources of information that may prove very useful to sociologists and others interested in social issues or sociological activities.
• The University of Victoria library allows you to access a number of educational journals via the internet. [Ejournals]

Text and Readings

• Uwe Flick , Introduction to Qualitative Research, Sage Publications Ltd. (Paperback, June, 2002)
  (Students are expected to have read the textbook by the time they come to the first class.)
• Good, J. M., Halpin, G., & Halpin, G. (2001). Capturing problem-solving skills: The integration of electronic journals with case study instruction. Journal of General Education, 50 (2), 140-155.
• Barab, S. A., Hay, K. E., Barnett, M, & Squire, K. (2001). Constructing virtual worlds: Tracing the historical development of learner practices. Cognition and Instruction, 19, 47-94.
• One article from the list available under AUG 15.
• One article using qualitative research methods of your choice
• In order to be able to participate in the conversations during our meetings, students (an professor) are expected to have read the selection for the day.

Assignment

Major Assignment

• A will make available a set of materials from public domain data, which students have to interpret and write a paper on. These materials include the transcript of a public meeting and excerpts from the newspaper about a contentious issue here in the community. (For an example of an A+ paper see the one written by a student in a previous course [sample paper].)
• To achieve an A or A+, students should be prepared to write a paper at near-publishable or publishable quality (see the sample paper), which includes description of research design, literature, etc. To achieve a B grade or less, students will have to show clear deficiencies (faking assignments, evidence of whole or partial plagiarism, etc.), clear evidence of not being prepared for class in terms of readings and assignments.
• For the description of the assignment and materials go to ASSIGNMENT.
• All assignments are submitted electronically as ".doc" (WORD) or ".rtf" files to my email address.

Minor Assignment

Students read one article of their choice and give a 10-minute presentation in which the article is described and critiqued. Unless it is evident that students have not prepared their presentation, an A grade should be expected.

Course Grade

The course grade is made up in the following way: 90% major assignment, 10% minor assignment.

Process

• Each meeting, we will take some time for brief summaries/ presentations by the instructor, whole-class discussions of the readings for the day, and activities related to data analysis and development of project.
• I would like to spend some time periodically, to talk about our experience in and of this course and how we can improve what is going on--if and when this is necessary.
• I would also like to collect evidence of 'my teaching' for purposes of professional development. For example, in the past I shot a videotape of the class and/ or meetings with students in which we talked about the lessons.

Tentative Outline

A tentative outline is available here. The outline will be modified to meet the [changing] needs of students and instructor. Specific lesson outlines and additional information will be made available in an ongoing manner.

Contact

Appointments are made by special arrangement sufficiently in advance. You may find it more convenient to write an email, which in most cases, deals with many issues. Also email me at least a day or two advance for any special appointment. (mailto:mroth@uvic.ca)