Teaching Qualitative Research: Fostering Student Curiosity through an Arts-Informed Pedagogy
| Autor: | Jennifer Lapum, Sarah Hume |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Cultural Studies
Social Psychology Higher education business.industry Reflective practice media_common.quotation_subject Teaching method Experiential learning Education Educational research Transformative learning Pedagogy ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDEDUCATION Curiosity business Psychology Qualitative research media_common |
| Zdroj: | The Qualitative Report. |
| ISSN: | 2160-3715 1052-0147 |
| DOI: | 10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2246 |
| Popis: | Creative pedagogical approaches in higher education can facilitate students' journey in thinking like and becoming a qualitative researcher. Pedagogical approaches tend to focus on procedural steps of qualitative research neglecting students' development of cognitive skills and reflective capacity. Arts-informed teaching methods for qualitative research show promise as an educational development in stimulating student interest and expanding their understanding of qualitative research through an experiential approach to learning. In this article, the use of an arts-informed pedagogy to structure a graduate level qualitative research course is discussed. This pedagogy, grounded in experiential teaching-learning theories, was developed to foster students' curiosity as well as their capacity to think like a qualitative researcher through arts media including poetry, dance, film and story. If space is created in the classroom for curiosity to become a disposition and habit of mind, students may be inspired to be perpetually inquisitive and as such, think like a qualitative researcher.KeywordsQualitative Research, Teaching, Pedagogy, Arts-informed Pedagogy, Higher Education, Experiential LearningStudents entering their first graduate level research course usually have limited knowledge of qualitative research principles and methodologies due to the minimal exposure received in their undergraduate training. As such, qualitative research courses focus on introducing students to the underlying historical and philosophical foundations, familiarizing them with the variety of qualitative methodologies, and developing their capacity to conduct qualitative research (Onwuegbuzie, et al., 2012). Becoming a qualitative researcher involves a transformative process (Barrett, 2007) requiring a shift in thinking (Carawan, Knight, Wittman, Pokorny, & Velde, 2011), and a particular way of seeing and conceptualizing (Morse, 2005). This necessitates teachers' critical examination of pedagogical approaches that will best facilitate students on their journey in thinking like and becoming a qualitative researcher in higher education programs.Problematic is that there is an underdeveloped body of literature related to the pedagogical approaches specific to qualitative research (Onwuegbuzie, et al., 2012; Waite, 2014). Typically, teachers use foundational literature and exemplar studies to familiarize students with qualitative approaches to research (Barrett, 2007). However, there remains a pedagogical focus on content, process, and methods (Rowe & McAllister, 2002; Stark & Watson, 1999) in which teachers emphasize the procedural steps of doing qualitative research so that there is a set of step-by-step methods to adhere to for students (Polkinghorne, 2006). This procedural focus on technical and methodological concepts has been influenced by the dominant discourse rooted in quantitative research in which the close adherence to method ensures objectivity and enhances validity (Polkinghorne, 2006). However, the transfer of this procedural focus to qualitative research overshadows the development of the researcher's skills in terms of mental processes related to perception, judgment and reasoning (Polkinghorne, 2006). It is suggested that graduate students have more difficulty developing the capacity for interpretive thinking than procedural steps related to the research process (Butler-Kisber, et al., 2002-2003). Considering that the researcher is the research instrument in qualitative research, his or her sensitivity to participants' responses and context are vital to the inquiry process and thus, these mental processes are important to develop (Polkinghorne, 2006). Additionally, the procedural focus has muted opportunities to foster passion and inspiration in students during the progression of a qualitative research course (Stark & Watson, 1999).Existing literature in higher education indicates that teaching social science research methods, such as qualitative research, involve didactic approaches as well as pedagogies grounded in experiential learning theories and reflective practice (Kilburn, Nind, & Wiles, 2014). … |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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