Striving against invalidity in qualitative research: Discussing a reflective framework

The aim of this paper is to discuss a reflective validation framework related with the study of teaching approaches, teaching styles or teaching orientations of university academics. In the recent years, and particularly since the eighties, there have been a growing number of investigations linking teaching conceptions with teaching practices. The majority of investigations dealing with university teachers’ conceptions and practices draw their conclusions based on indirect observation, since data gathering involves mainly semi-structured interviews or the application of questionnaires and inventories. Therefore ‘only-half-the-story’ has been reported. The presented validation framework has a five-part three-stage structure and was built upon earlier work (Selvaruby, O’Sullivan, & Watts, 2007). In this model validity is conceptualized as an ‘iterative-interactive-process’, therefore integrating a set of specific strategies envisaging the maximization of scientific quality. The application of the model is illustrated by using it for the discussion of a longitudinal study involving the investigation of the relationship between questioning practices and Trigwell and co-workers’ concept of preferential teaching approaches (Trigwell, Prosser & Taylor, 1994). Field work of this naturalistic-interpretative research was conducted during two academic years (2009/2010 and 2010/2011) and implied close collaboration with a group of four university teachers lecturing biology to undergraduates.This work was financed by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/44611/2008) and by Fundos FEDER através do Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade – COMPETE e por Fundos Nacionais através da FCT (PTDC/CPE-CED/117516/2010)

Contexts for questioning: Two zones of teaching and learning in undergraduate science

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012.Higher education institutions are currently undertaking a challenging process in moving from teacher-orientated to student-focused approaches. Students’ ability to asking questions is fundamental to developing critical reasoning, and to the process of scientific enquiry itself. Our premise is that questioning competences should become a central focus of current reforms in higher education. This study, part of a broader naturalistic research project, aims at developing a theoretical framework for conceptualizing different contexts for questioning, illustrating the application of the proposed framework (contextual questioning zones) and reflecting about some of the dimensions of teaching and learning, for overcoming some of the challenges that higher education institutions are facing presently. The discussion of two ‘opposite’ contexts of enquiry is based on qualitative data, gathered through close collaboration with four teachers of undergraduate biology at a Portuguese university. These teachers were observed during their ‘daily activity’ during an academic year. Data was also gathered by interviewing these teachers and 8 selected students, at the end of the year, and used to sustain the argumentation. The paper concludes with some reflections and suggestions to promote authentic enquiry-based learning experiences.Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools

This is the accepted version of the following article: Barker, J., Alldred, P., Watts, M. and Dodman, H. (2010), Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools. Area, 42: 378–386, which has been published in final form at the link below. Copyright © 2010 The Authors.A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed-term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of these new secluded spaces. We highlight that the configuration of physical space in Seclusion Units and the regulation of spatial practices create highly controlled and segregated spaces of punishment. We explore the powerful transformative effects of these spaces to change students' behaviour, social interaction and attitudes to learning. However, rather than simply creating docile subjects, we recognise that domination is never complete and we explore the extent and the limit of student resistance to the discipline and control of the Seclusion Unit

The old questions are the best: striving against invalidity in qualitative research

This chapter enters an old debate on the shape of validation processes in qualitative research. We discuss a reflective research validation framework related to teaching approaches and practices. The majority of investigations in this area draw mainly on indirect observation, semistructured interviews or the application of questionnaires and inventories. To this extent, only “half-the-story” has been reported. The validation framework here develops a five-part three stage structure, conceptualized as an “iterative-interactive-process,” integrating a set of strategies aimed at the “minimization of invalidity.” The application of the framework is illustrated through a longitudinal study investigating the relationship between classroom questioning practices and teachers’ preferential teaching approaches. Fieldwork in this naturalistic-interpretative research was conducted during four academic years and entailed close collaboration with a group of four university teachers lecturing biology to undergraduates.The authors acknowledge the financial support of Portuguese Fundac¸a˜o para a Cieˆncia e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/44611/2008; PTDC/CPE-CED/ 117516/2010).Portuguese Fundac ̧ a ̃ o para a Cieˆ ncia e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/44611/2008; PTDC/CPE-CED/ 117516/2010)

Outbreak of West Nile virus causing severe neurological involvement in children, Nuba Mountains, Sudan, 2002.

An atypical outbreak of West Nile virus (WNV) occurred in Ngorban County, South Kordophan, Sudan, from May to August 2002. We investigated the epidemic and conducted a case-control study in the village of Limon. Blood samples were obtained for cases and controls. Patients with obvious sequelae underwent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling as well. We used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and neutralization tests for laboratory diagnosis and identified 31 cases with encephalitis, four of whom died. Median age was 36 months. Bivariate analysis did not reveal any significant association with the risk factors investigated. Laboratory analysis confirmed presence of IgM antibodies caused by WNV in eight of 13 cases, indicative of recent viral infection. The unique aspects of the WNW outbreak in Sudan, i.e. disease occurrence solely among children and the clinical domination of encephalitis, involving severe neurological sequelae, demonstrate the continuing evolution of WNV virulence. The spread of such a virus to other countries or continents cannot be excluded

A Universal Model of Global Civil Unrest

Civil unrest is a powerful form of collective human dynamics, which has led to major transitions of societies in modern history. The study of collective human dynamics, including collective aggression, has been the focus of much discussion in the context of modeling and identification of universal patterns of behavior. In contrast, the possibility that civil unrest activities, across countries and over long time periods, are governed by universal mechanisms has not been explored. Here, we analyze records of civil unrest of 170 countries during the period 1919-2008. We demonstrate that the distributions of the number of unrest events per year are robustly reproduced by a nonlinear, spatially extended dynamical model, which reflects the spread of civil disorder between geographic regions connected through social and communication networks. The results also expose the similarity between global social instability and the dynamics of natural hazards and epidemics.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Assessing Code Authorship: The Case of the Linux Kernel

Code authorship is a key information in large-scale open source systems. Among others, it allows maintainers to assess division of work and identify key collaborators. Interestingly, open-source communities lack guidelines on how to manage authorship. This could be mitigated by setting to build an empirical body of knowledge on how authorship-related measures evolve in successful open-source communities. Towards that direction, we perform a case study on the Linux kernel. Our results show that: (a) only a small portion of developers (26 %) makes significant contributions to the code base; (b) the distribution of the number of files per author is highly skewed --- a small group of top authors (3 %) is responsible for hundreds of files, while most authors (75 %) are responsible for at most 11 files; (c) most authors (62 %) have a specialist profile; (d) authors with a high number of co-authorship connections tend to collaborate with others with less connections.Comment: Accepted at 13th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS). 12 page

Turning psychology into policy: a case of square pegs and round holes?

This paper problematizes the ways in which the policy process is conceived in published psychological research. It argues that these conceptions of the policy process fail to ade- quately reflect the real-world dynamism and complexity of the processes and practices of social policy-making and implementation. In this context, psychological evidence needs to be seen as one type of evidence (amongst many others). In turn this requires researchers to take account of broader political processes that favour certain types of knowledge and disparage others. Rather than be regarded as objective and scientific, policy in this characterisation is regarded as a motivated form of politics. This multi-layered, multi-level hybrid structure is not immediately amenable to the well-intentioned interventions of psychologists. While the tendency of many psychologists is to overestimate the impact that we can have upon policy formation and implementation, there are examples where psychological theory and research has fed directly into UK policy developments in recent years. This paper draws on the recent Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative and the work of personality researcher Adam Perkins on the UK’s social security system to ask whether psychology has a sufficiently elaborated sense of its own evidence base to legitimately seek to influence key national areas of public policy. The article cautions against dramatic changes to policy pre- dicated upon any one reading of the variegated and, at times, contradictory psychological evidence base. It concludes that, in order to meaningfully contribute to the policy develop- ment process in a way which increases equality and social justice, psychologists need to be more strategic in thinking about how their research is likely to be represented and mis- represented in any particular context. Finally some possible directions for psychologists to take for a more meaningful relationship with policy are suggested