Transcript Document 7473484

research
observing
developing good eyes
Harry Wolcott tells the story of Nathaniel Shaler who, in the late
1800's at age18, began a tutorial in the lab of Louis Agassiz, the
eminent biologist-naturalist of his time in US.
[Shaler] was directed to sit at a small
table with a rusty tin pan on it. Agassiz
placed before him a small fish, directing
him only to "study it" without damaging
the specimen and to confine his
attention to the specimen itself, rather
than consulting printed sources or
conversing with other individuals in the
laboratory.
After about an hour, Shaler...had
completed his examination and was ready
to proceed to a more challenging task....To
his mounting distress, however, Shaler
realized that Agassiz...had no immediate
intention of returning to question him.
Not that day, not the next, not for a
week. And so Shaler committed himself
anew to the task of observation—and in
due course felt he had learned a hundred
times more than in his cursory initial
inspection….
[O]n the seventh day...Agassiz approached
and inquired, "Well?" His question
unleashed an hour-long explication, while
Agassiz sat on the edge of the table and
puffed a cigar. Suddenly, he interrupted
with the statement, "That is not right,"
and walked abruptly away.
Fortunately, Shaler interpreted Agassiz's
behavior as a test of whether he could do
hard, continuous work without constant
direction. He returned to his observation
task afresh, discarding his original set of
notes and working up detailed new ones
for some ten hours a day for another
week. And at the end of that time...he
had results that astonished himself and
apparently satisfied Agassiz, for although
there were no words of praise, Agassiz
subsequently placed before him a new and
more complicated task and told him to see
what he could make of it. That task took
two months.... (1981, pp. 248-249)
So. . . what did you observe on your 5minute-a-day exercise?
all researchers
must attend to
type I and type II error
• type I: accepting as true what is really
false
• type II: rejecting as false what is
really true
(this is the straightforward plain
English version—see Vogt for the more
complicated statistical version)
Krathwohl: ch 7
causal inference & internal validity
• associations and causation
• cause:
– selecting the salient part of a causal
chain for one’s inquiry
– is always inferred
• Popper’s escaping disconfirmation
(falsification): no proof in empirical
research
• Cronbach’s reducing uncertainty
• clocklike vs cloudlike worlds
internal & external validity & cause
• generalizability: based on this study what
can we say about other cases
– is the relationship established in this
study
– does that relationship exist elsewhere
• internal validity (LP)
– evidence for relationship between
variables in a study
• external validity (GP)
– whether the relationship generalizes
beyond study
• operationalization: what we describe
in search of the unobservable
• to establish internal validity
– conceptual evidence
• explanation credibility
• translation credibility
– empirical evidence
• findings, results
• rival explanations eliminated
– credible, logically inferred claims
validity: capable of being justified
• internal
– does study do what it says it does
• model theoretically sound
• well thought out operationalizations
• accurate descriptions (measurement or
narrative)
• well thought out design
• robust findings
• justifiable claims
• defensible conclusion
• external
– do the claims generalize
• looking only at study, a judgment call
• external validity can really only be
established empirically—in fact, do
the claims generalize
– can study be replicated in
different contexts
– if we do what study claims we
should, do we get the expected
result
– real question not, do claims generalize,
but to what
inferring causation
• agreement
– what is common
• difference
– what is different
• concomitant variation
– do variables vary together
• residuals
– after eliminating explanations, what
is left
ch 8: sampling, etc
• sample and population
• larger sample needed
– the greater the certainty required to
infer from sample to population
– the more accurate we want to be
about target population
– the more the units in the sample vary
– the smaller the effect relative to
normal variation
• sampling frame—the list
• sampling unit—what is selected (unit
of analysis)
probability sampling—random
• stratified
• systematic
• cluster
nonprobability sampling
• judgmental
• purposive
• quota
• snowball
• sequential
• the danger of convenience sampling
external validity
• (if study has no internal validity, little
point in worrying about generalizability)
• conceptual evidence
– explanation generality
– translation generality
• empirical evidence
– “demonstrated generality”
– restrictive explanations eliminated
• replicable results
Sieber: Ch 4
• voluntary informed consent
– importance of gatekeepers
– special populations
– legal elements (see p. 33)
• effective consent statements (see p.
35)
• consent: signed, oral, or behavioral
• consent as ongoing
• debriefing
• community-based research
writing
general style rules
and tips
use active voice
• I interviewed the kids. (good)
• The kids were interviewed. (bad)
use first person to talk about yourself
• I interviewed the kids. (good)
• The researcher interviewed the kids.
(bad)
do not begin sentences with “there is” or
“it is” etc.
• There were three kids who answered…
(bad)
• Three kids answered the questions.
(good)
use who for people, that for things
• I interviewed the kids, who all
agreed….(good)
• I interviewed the teacher that was in….
(bad)
pronouns must refer to nouns
• I entered the room and found the kids
running across the table tops and
throwing erasers at each other. That
made me nervous. (bad—not clear what
made you nervous)
use comma to separate independent
clauses in compound sentence joined by
a conjunction (e.g., and, but) I
interviewed the kids, but they did not
appear comfortable.
introductory adjectival phrases must
modify the subject
• Rushing into the room, the class had
already begun. (bad)
• Rushing into the room, I discovered that
the class had already begun. (good)
use “Harvard comma”
• apples, pears, and bananas (good)
• apples, pears and bananas (bad)
do not separate the subject from the
verb with a comma
• The boys running down the hall in their
gym clothes, shouted loudly. (bad)
• The boys running down the hall in their
gym clothes shouted loudly. (good)
• The boys, who were running down the hall
in their gym clothes, shouted loudly. (ok)
restrictive (no commas) vs. nonrestrictive
(commas) clauses
• The kids who answered the questions went
outside. (restrictive)
– meaning: only the kids who answered
went out
• The kids, who answered the questions,
went outside. (non-restrictive)
– meaning: all the kids, who, by the way,
answered the questions, went out
restrictive clauses (no commas) necessary
to the meaning of the sentence,
nonrestrictive (commas) not necessary
in American English
• periods and commas always go inside
quotation marks
– He said, “Please go down the hall.”
• colons and semicolons always go outside
quotation marks
– He wrote, “Be back soon”; then he left.
• question marks and explanation points—
place depending on the meaning
– She asked, “Where are you going?”
– What did she mean by “antiquated”?
avoid very--get a better word
• I was very mad. (bad)
• I was enraged. (good)
find the right word
• Mark Twain observed that the
difference between the right word and
the almost right word is the difference
between lightning and a lightning bug.
references: APA 215 ff.
papers presented at conferences
Lee, K. (2001, April). Not the united colors
of Benetton: Language, culture, and peers.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of
the American Educational Research
Association, Seattle, WA.
articles in press (make sure still in press)
Vasconcelos, T. (in press). Conversations
around the large table. Early Education
and Development.
unpublished dissertations
Chung, S. (1999). Unpacking childcenteredness: A history of meanings.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
chapter in an authored book Bruner, J.
(1990). Folk psychology as an instrument
of culture. In Acts of meaning (pp. 33-65).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
grad life
best quick getaways
• Krannert Art Museum (2 minutes)
• Carle Park (Urbana: Iowa St. 3 blks
east of Lincoln—15-minute walk)
• Hessel Park (Champaign: Kirby St. 4
blks west of Neil—25-minute walk)
• Meadowbrook Park (Urbana: Windsor
east of Race—short bike ride)
• Lake of the Woods (Mahomet—15minute drive, west on 74)
• Salt Fork River Preserve (Homer
Lake)—25-minute drive (17 miles east
of Urbana)
• Allerton (southeast of Monticello—30
minute drive)
• Turkey Run State Park—hour drive
(east on 74, Indiana exit 15)
bests
best cheap places to eat
• Thai Eatery at the Y, Wright street (lunch
only)
• Courier Café, Race St, downtown U
• L’il Porgy’s Barbecue, Broadway &
University, U
• Noodles, Green St., Campus Town
best video sources
• That’s Rentertainment (6th & John, C) (buy
a “block”)
• Urbana Free Library (downtown U), free
this week
• Th: “analogy as the core of cognition,”
Douglas Hofstadter, 7:30 Lincoln Hall
theatre, free
• Fri: jazz, Iron Post (downtown U), 5pm
free
• Fri & Sat: Volleyball 7pm, Wisconsin &
Minnesota, Huff Hall, free with ID
• Sat: Desafinado (jazz, Brazilian bossa
nova), Prairie Dogs (bluegrass), 5-9,
Allerton, bring blankets or lawn chairs, $
• Sun: UI wind symphony and UI symphonic
band I, 7:30, Krannert, $