Responses and reflections

Charles Anderson,School of Education,

University of Edinburgh

Role of the literature on evaluation

“… unlike most other social scientists, who assume an audience of peers/scholars, evaluators must negotiate whose questions will be addressed and whose interests will be served by their work”(Greene, 1994, p.531)

Researcher stance

too detached / too close?

one possible stance:‘impartial sympathetic

observer’(Dewey,1932: Hansen, 1993)

What is a policy?

process view of policy offering scope for qualitative approaches

Qualitative research, policy and practicequalitative research directly for policy and practice

qualitative research on policy and practice

Qualitative research on policy

qualitative research on policy: contextualisation, analysis of the discourses deployed in policies,

how are practitioners and service users positioned within policies.

Qualitative research on practice

the value of fine-grained analyses of skilled practice

Communication and interaction with

practitionerscritique of ‘designed’ dialogues

(Robertson and Dale, 2003)

fostering collaborative dialogues

reporting in a dialogic form

Validation of qualitative inquiryMishler reformulating ‘validation as the social construction of knowledge. With this reformulation the key issue becomes whether the relevant community of scientists evaluates reported findings as sufficiently trustworthy to rely on them for their own work.’ (Mishler, 1992, p.417)

‘trustworthiness’The view of validation that I have advanced suggests that the questions to be asked about my study, and of any study within any research tradition, are: What are the warrants for my claims? Could other investigators make a reasonable judgment of their adequacy? Would they be able to determine how my findings and interpretations were “produced” and, on that basis, decide whether they were trustworthy enough to be relied upon for their own work?

‘trustworthiness’I believe these questions have affirmative answers. The primary reason is the visibility of the work: of the data in the form of the texts used in the analysis, with full transcripts and tapes that can be made available to other researchers; of the methods that transformed the texts into findings; and of the direct linkages shown between data, findings, and interpretation.(Mishler, 1990, p.429)

ReferencesDewey, J. (1932). Theory of the moral life. In J. Dewey and J. H. Tufts Ethics. (rev. edn.) New York: Henry Holt. Greene, J.G. (1994). Qualitative program evaluation: practice and promise. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Hansen, D. T. (1993). The moral importance of the teacher’s style. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 25, 5, 397-421.

ReferencesMishler, E. G. (1990). Validation in Inquiry-Guided Research: The Role of Exemplars in Narrative Studies. Harvard Educational Review, 60, 4, 415-442.Robertson, S. L. and Dale, R. (2003). “Designed” Dialogues: The Real Politics of Evidence-Based Practice and Education Policy Research in England. In M.B.Ginsburg and J.M. Gorostiaga (eds.) Limitations and possibilities of dialogue among researchers, policy makers and practitioners: international perspectives on the field of education. New York/London: Routledge.