1
ED 861 Qualitative Methods Applied to Educational Research
FIELDWORK PROJECT: WRITING IT UP
prepared by Jane M. Gangi, Ph.D
April 20, 2011
To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long….
-John Moffitt
FALL, 2010 to present. This year I have supervised 4 dissertation proposals. This guide is what I wished I
and my advisees had had:
Emily Ramos, Exito: Factors Contributing to Working Class Second Grade Puerto Rican and Dominican
American Students’ Successful Acquisition of the Discourse of School [successfully defended Nov.
2010; passed IRB]
Margaret Feinstein, Summer Reading and the Development of Literacy: Children’s and Parents’
Responses to Multicultural Children’s Literature [successfully defended March 29, 2011; IRB
pending]
Merle Rumble, I Too Have a Voice: The Literacy Experiences of Black Boys Engaging with and
Responding to African American Literature Depicting Black Males [successfully defended April 20,
2011; IRB to be submitted]
JoAnne Galdo, Literature Response Blogs and Summer Reading: Exploring Summer Reading Setback and
Reading Motivation of 3rd Grade Struggling Readers Through Web 2.0 [defends April 27, 2011; IRB to
be submitted]
RECAP
During 10 hours (which, remember, is not all that long) of observation/participant observation, you have
learned how to:










Write richly descriptive fieldnotes, including what you saw, heard, and felt; and, how to capture
conversations
Record reflections, hunches, speculations, and questions in wide margins, and begin initial
coding, looking for patterns and themes
“Play with metaphors, analogies and concepts” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 169)
To express yourself tentatively, using such words as “seemed” and “appeared” rather than
certainty of “was”
Write Observer’s Comments (O.C. directly in the fieldnotes)
Use pseudonyms for ALL students, educators, schools, and districts. ALL. ALL. ALL. ALL. ALL
As qualitative researchers (not supervisors or evaluators), gained and maintained trust during a
semester-long, 10 hour field experience
Having started as a “funnel,” you have narrowed your focus to: the environment or one child or
focal children or a teacher or a student-teacher/teacher relationship….
Let research questions emerge
Conduct, record, and transcribe an interview
2


Focused on participant perspectives (Erickson as cited in Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 7)
Not take things personally (Michael Gilles’s wife says, “Learning to not take things personally is
a gift we give ourselves as adults”)
From Smith (2002), an assigned reading, you have also, hopefully, learned:
1. Hold in abeyance preconceived notions as to what what’s happening, or not
happening, means to the participants.
2. Let the important questions to be addressed as well as the answers emerge from the
context.
3. Do not view the participants as subjects but as colearners with the investigator, each
using the other to reach shared and ever-deepening understandings.
4. Take seriously the uniqueness of each setting and set of events.
5. Take as of primary importance relationships …experiencing.
7. Assume that patterned behavior reflects the presence of underlying power relations.
8. Recognize that genuine understanding can only come through genuine participant
observation.
9. Understand that ultimately the power to solve their problems, or even to determine
what they are, rests with participants in an activity.
10. Change takes place when we hear another’s ‘story’; it resonates with our own
experience and we feel free to take from it for our particular uses. (p. 174)
WHAT’S NEXT: ANALYSIS AND WRITE-UP
What “data” do you have to analyze?
Bogdan and Biklen (2007): “Methodology is a more generic term that refers to the general logic and
theoretical perspective for a research project. Methods is a term that refers to the specific techniques you
use, such as surveys, interviews, observation--…” (p. 35).
















Fieldnotes
Recorded in your wide margins: reflections, speculations, questions, emerging themes and
patterns
Methodological and analytic memos
Interview transcripts and notes (focus group transcripts and notes, if you conducted one)
“Internal” documents: (department minutes)
“External” communication: newsletter to parents, etc.
Maps and sketches
Photographs
Personal documents
Personal letters
Diaries
Memos
Official records
Videotapes
First person accounts
Popular culture documents
3

Newspapers
Data Analysis and Coding. On April 28, and May 5, we will look more closely at coding and will spend
some time in the computer lab, using Hyper Research. Melissa Jenkins will share with us at 7pm her use
of HyperResearch; she will be defending her dissertation this summer. Frank LaBanca will tell us how he
used Ethnograph in his qualitative study.
From Chapter 5, Bogdan and Biklen (2007)



Interpretation—developing ideas about findings (p. 159)
Analysis—working with data: organizing, “searching for patterns,” “making sense out of the
collected materials” (p. 159)
Coding. More on coding April 28
For now, here is Saldaña on coding (2009):
A code in qualitative inquiry is most often a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a
summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based
or visual data. Just as a title represents and captures a book or film or poem’s primary content
and essence, so does a code represent and capture a datum’s primary content and essence (p. 3)
See also Bogdan and Biklen (2007), pp. 173-186.
Writing It Up
Bogdan and Biklen (2007) Chapter 6, Writing It Up:



“what you are presenting is only a piece of the puzzle, a close-up of aspect of one segment of
a larger world” (p. 209)
“include alternate explanations” (p. 214)
Note use of “I” in qualitative research is not only accept but preferable (p. 201)
Trustworthiness in qualitative research comes from:
A ten-hour study is much too short to be trustworthy. You can, however, in your write-up reflect on how
you think your study is (or is not) becoming credible, transferable, dependable, and confirmable (Lincoln
and Guba (1985). On April 28th, we will discuss Toma’s (2006) article, “Approaching rigor in applied
qualitative research.” Let your reading of this article be reflected in your write-up.

Credibility is characterized by:
√ Rich, thick description (Toma, summarizing Cresswell, p. 414)
√ Inclusion of biases (Toma, summarizing Cresswell, p. 414)
√ The reality you describe resonates with the participants (member checking)
√ Your account is “context-rich” (Toma, summarizing Miles & Huberman, p. 414)
√ Your reporting reflects “depth” and “complexity” (Toma, 2006, p. 413)
√ Colleagues in your Field Work Support Groups who share interpretations, which may
be different than yours
√ Converging conclusions emerge from multiple data sources (Toma, 2006, p. 414)
4



√ Identifying “areas of uncertainty….rival explanation” (Toma, 2006, p. 414); present
negative or discrepant information (Toma, summarizing Cresswell, p. 414)
√ Prolonged time in the field
Transferability
√ Does it illuminate other contexts? (Toma, 2006, p. 414)
√ In qualitative research, generalizability is like interpreting legal precedents (Toma,
2006, citing Lancy, p. 414)
√ In qualitative research, the reader decides transferability; thick description of the
context helps the reader decide transferability (Toma, summarizing Lincoln and Guba, p.
415)
√ Marshall and Rossman (1999): “Designing a study in which multiple cases, multiple
informants, or than one data-gathering method are used can greatly strengthen the
study’s usefulness for other settings” (as cited in Toma, 2006, p.
415)
√ Stake: “It is helpful to use multiple researchers (*investigator triangulation),
particularly if they represent different theoretical perspectives" (Toma, 2006, p. 415)
Dependability
√ Marshall and Rossman (1999): “The description should include discussion of….research
self-reflection toward articulating biases; (b) concrete strategies for confronting bias in
collecting and analyzing data; (c) steps for addressing ethical concerns in qualitative
research; and (d) commitment to challenging one’s own interpretations, including a
search for alternative explanations and negative instances” (Toma, 2006, summarizing
Marshall and Rossman, p. 416)
Confirmability
√ Toma (2006), summarizing Miles and Huberman: Confirmability “depends on the
researcher’s (a) being clear in demonstrating through an audit trail how he or she framed
the study and collected and analyzed data; (b) being aware of his or her own
assumptions, values, and biases as they influenced the study; and (c) considering rival
conclusions full” (p. 417.)
In your fieldnotes, challenge your perceptions. Whatever it is you think you are seeing,
go back and try to prove yourself wrong. Write what you thought and how that may
changed or expanded your views when you went back trying to prove yourself wrong.
*A NOTE ON “TRIANGULATION”:
See Bogdan and Biklen ‘s (2007) discussion of triangulation, including:
The term originally comes from the application of trigonometry to navigation and surveying. You
cannot locate your precise position on a map by taking your bearing on only one object in the
distance. That only locates you on a line. You need bearing a second object as well. Then you can
locate yourself at the intersection of the two bearings. Your location plus the other two points can
be treated as the points of a triangle by which, if you have the distance of one side, you can
calculate the length of the other sides….We advise against using the term. It confuses more than
it clarifies, intimidates more than enlightens. If you use different data-collecting techniques—
interviewing, observation and official documents, for example--say that. If you collected data
from many subjects about the same topic, say that…. (pp. 115-116)
5
Crystallization an alternative to triangulation
Richardson questions:
“the assumption that there is a ‘fixed point’ or ‘object’ that can be triangulated…Research might
be better understood as a “crystal”—the facets of which “’reflect externalities and refract within
themselves, creating different colors, patterns, arrays, casting off in different directions. What we
see depends on the angle of our repose’” (Richardson, as cited in Greene & Hill, 2005, p. 16).
References
Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2007). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods
(5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Greene, S., & Hill, M. (2005). Conceptual, methodological and ethical issues in researching children’s
experience. In S. Greene & D. Hogan (Eds.), Researching children’s experiences: Approaches and methods (pp.
1-21). London, U.K.: Sage.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications
Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Smith, D. M. (2002). The challenge of urban ethnography. In Y. Zou, & E. T. Trueba (Eds.), Ethnography
and schools: Qualitative approaches to the study of education (pp. 171-184). Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Toma, J. D. (2006). Approaching rigor in applied qualitative research. In C. Conrad & R. C. Serlin (Eds.),
The SAGE handbook for research in education: Engaging ideas and enriching inquiry (pp. 405-423). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
6
ED 861 Qualitative Methods Applied to Educational Research
Fieldwork Project: Rubric and Guidelines
1= Needs Improvement: Information not included or inadequate,
2= Acceptable: Meets Expectations: adequate information,
3= Target: Above expectations, insightful
Line from Fieldwork Project Rubric (the one we have been using all semester).
Final Write-Up: Entry 5 (3 points possible)
A separate rubric for the write-up will be provided. It will be based on our Writing It Up and
CAQDAS sessions. (It will be your decision whether you use CAQDAS or not.)
THIS IS IT:
You have not
provided an
adequate
rationale, and
you have not
identified the
methodology
You have not
addressed how
your write-up is
approaching
trustworthiness,
including
credibility,
transferability,
dependability,
confirmability
Final Write-Up: Entry 5 (3 points possible)
1 pt.
You have
√ You have provided a convincing rationale for your
provided an
data analysis and identified the approach you rely on
adequate
most. CHOOSE ONE (and use it to inform your
rationale, and
write-up):
identified the
-Bogdan & Biklen, ch. 5
methodology
-beginning grounded theory
-beginning interpretive phenomenological analysis
[IPA]
-beginning critical ethnography
-beginning ethnography
-beginning critical race theory
-beginning narrative inquiry
-beginning Discourse Analysis
-beginning case study analysis
-beginning feminist analysis
-beginning symbolic interaction (Bogdan & Biklen,
2007, pp. 27-28)
-or some combination of the above.
1 pt.
You have
√ You have effectively addressed how your write-up is
somewhat
approaching trustworthiness: credibility,
effectively
transferability, dependability, and confirmability
addressed how
-To address credibility, the field notes for your ten
our write-up is
hours study is approaching 40 pages (a stab at “rich
approaching
trustworthiness, description” in a short study)
-To address dependability and confirmability, you
including
include in your fieldnotes where and when you
credibility,
actively searched for negative instances and rival
transferability,
conclusions, revisiting the site to try to prove yourself
dependability,
wrong
confirmability
1 pt.
√Writing It Up
-Your write-up reflects a careful reading of Bogdan &
7
Biklen’s Chapter 6, Writing It Up
-Your fieldnotes are about 40 pp.; and your write-up
is 3-4 pp.
-Your analysis makes sense, provides a piece of the
puzzle (you may use CAQDAS –your choice)