A Participant's Observation

Over the Presidents Week/"Spring" break, I arrived at JFK for a trip to join my family for several days. It had been nearly one year since my last visit to the airport, and I noticed a change almost immediately. For example, at the the curb-side check-in area, the airline no longer accepts cash to give to the baggage handlers; only a credit card or a check for the $2 fee will do. Since there's no charge for indoor counter service, I opted for that because it seemed simpler.
I observed my fellow travelers at the Security section. It's interesting, in a sad way, how everyone knew the drill: shoes off, all items in the plastic bins, and setting the containers onto a conveyer belt--all done as quickly as possible. I was told by my relatives ahead of time that, despite media reports about body checks and scanning, they experienced no changes or problems. Still, I was a bit apprehensive; I was once pulled aside because something innocuous looked suspicious on an x-ray machine. A girl in front of me had to walk through the body scanner machine twice because she beeped. Thankfully, I passed through this portion of my journey uneventfully. I asked a TSA agent if I could put away my ID (it's just too easy to lose) and he said yes without hesitation. I tucked it in my packed handbag.
As I passed through the gate and into the passageway leading to the aircraft, two TSA agents were stationed there. A tall male said nothing as I walked by, but his female colleague asked for my ID. As I searched for my drivers license, I said that another agent assured me I wouldn't need to show it again, so why the request now (after I'd already handed in my boarding pass?) She said, almost gleefully, that it was "random." I found that as unsettling as it was annoying: Was it really random? Does a woman traveling alone seem suspicious somehow? With my handbag stuffed to the gills, I just couldn't locate my ID. I said that I had it earlier (obviously). She said, "Hmm, getting through security without ID, that's pretty serious." I envisioned missing my flight and upsetting my family who were waiting at my destination's airport. Ultimately, though, I found my license and all was resolved. After I landed and opened my suitcase, however, I saw a printed notice from TSA, informing me that my suitcase had been checked, randomly. While I'm glad I arrived safely and enjoyed my visit, based on this experience, I think there's a lot to be said for "staycations." 

Research Focus

Deciding on the focus of research is not so easy. I have experienced the anxiety involved in choosing what I deem to be a great research question. I come up with some and then I think about the access and then I have to toss then. They cannot be done within the time frame or within my current setting(s).



So, I am left where I first began.



This was the story of my week as I was trying to work on two research questions. My mind was plagued with thoughts of access and finally, the questions became real... things I would have access to observe. My mind was at peace for I had a clearer vision of the participants in mind for my research projects.



As I started thinking about the questions, I wanted them to sound right. I felt like this little boy in a school who just wants to spell every word on his page correctly and not make a mistake. I was worried about the what, the when, the why, the where, and the who of it all. So the process took longer as I played around with a couple of scenarios in my head. I needed to know what they would sound and look like and so I sat and thought and thought and said no many times before I found the ones.



So, one morning I set out to start my observation and I felt weird people watching. All I was doing was taking a count of the people who entered the train using electronic devices. My observation did not involve me frantically writing down notes about the behaviors of the participants. My behavior made me think about the other research question. I finally found a question that I think is going to be worth researching and it is all due to my little nephew and his acquisition of language. I have chosen to do a narrative research so that I can write about this phenomena and reflect about changes in parents' knowledge on helping their children to access early literacy through various activities. This research focus will allow me to work within my zone of proximal development.

Observation, love?

On holiday this week in London visiting my daughter and having a go at the sample observation assignment. Reading and taking lots of field notes (I feel a bit like Harriet from the children's book Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitshugh), I now just need to focus and write up one observation. There have been so many interesting situations to choose from being in a different city. Not sure if it is that I have actually had the time to sit and watch the people around me or that maybe this week I am starting to "see" through the lens of a researcher. The culture has also been very interesting as both a participant observer and direct observer.

Last time I was here, I was politely corrected by a well meaning English gentleman who thought I was too direct in my response to his question. After informing him I was from New York, he gave me a few pointers to make sure I understood the proper way to converse while I was visiting. I took his good advice and continued to remember the adage "When in Rome..." This also reminded me of the reading regarding entering a site as researcher, field issues and the interview process.

The I's have it...

In Search of Subjectivity-One’s Own, Peshkin (1988) discusses the value of researchers systematically seeking out their own subjectivity while their research is actively in progress, not retrospectively.

As a beginning qualitative researcher, Peshkin’s message was both enlightening and also the cause of some angst. This week, while I was processing and reflecting on this article, I became acutely aware of (and amazed by) how many times I heard the personal pronoun “I”. Of course, everyone, is speaking through his or her unique lens from the political arena, educational and social media to everyday conversations where people communicate from the lens of their personal life experiences, whether giving an opinion, stating what they believe is a fact, or offering advice.

Thinking about my own “I’s”, the mother “I” and the teacher “I” are difficult to separate. Both roles are nurturing, caring and ultimately wanting to do what is best for children. I always wanted to be a teacher and had some wonderful teachers growing up (both inside and outside the classroom) and unfortunately, other teachers, that even as a young child, knew that when I grew up, I would teach differently. As a teacher and a mother, the “I” wants my own children and the children I work with to have the best education (academic, social and emotional), to become life long learners and to be all that they can be. The optimistic “I” sees things in a hopeful and positive way. I know that being aware of this tendency and mindful of my own subjectivity will be important when listening, observing and collecting data in my own research.

I am not sure if this “I” would be considered a cultural “I” or a creative “I” but yesterday a short phone conversation turned into an “aha moment” for me. A couple of days ago, my daughter asked me for the recipe of her very favorite soup so she could make a home-made dinner for her roommates. Because I have been making this soup (from memory) for years now, I wanted to make sure that I gave her the original recipe (since it tends to taste a little different every time I make it). Since my good friend had borrowed my Williams Sonoma Soup Cookbook some months ago, I called her to get the exact recipe. As she proceeded to read me the list of ingredients, I actually stopped her after each one to say, “but I think it is better with more of this, I use less of that and I always forget to use…” We both started to laugh because she was reading me the original, published, right there on the page recipe but as I was writing down the information, I was imposing my own opinion and prior cooking knowledge to the situation. I know this light-hearted conversation was just about soup, but it caused me to stop, midway through the conversation, to think about the implications in the context of research. If researches are not cognizant of their subjectivity and their personal experiences, data could reflect the researchers subjectivity and bias. While this example is innocuous in cooking, it is serious in research and could cause results to be reported from the researchers point of view instead of the participant’s view. Peshkin (1988) advocates for “the enhanced awareness that should result from a formal, systematic monitoring of self” (p. 20). He explains that this keeps the lines of his subjectivity open and straight to avoid presenting data as autobiographical.

The I's Have Spoken

Separating the "I's" in my life are not so easy. After all, it is the lens with which I view everything around me and it is with these views that the world makes sense. However, it is with these same lenses my thoughts are subjected to only see through a narrowed tunnel.


Recently, I started thinking about tunnel vision and how it inhibits an educator's ability to progress from one school of thought to another. In this light, educators become complacent within their comfort zones and see education through a narrowed view. I never thought about my own tunnel vision as I believed that I was far removed from it all. This was until sitting down and truly self examining my motives and thought processes. My views are subjected to my past experiences.


The experential I is one of the I's I have recently identified. It clouds my judgement and causes me to limitly see my path as I connect to those who have similar experiences. For instance, I make connections to people who have gone through similar education experiences and to those who may have had similar upbringings. I identify with them because I can relate to their lives.


The experential I is not a simple I, for it is broken down into sub-groups. The sub-groups are cultural identity, religion affliation and community. They all live under the umbrella of experential as I am digging deeper into people's lives once I know that there is some kind of bond. My lens gets focused on a group rather than the whole and I miss out on the bigger picture becuase I have narrowed my focus.


It is through the initial identification and its continuance that the veil will be lifted to see not only through the specific lens, but to dig deeper into the lives of people who do not have the same experiences as I do.

What are my I's?

In his article "In Search of Subjectivity--One's Own," Peshkin (1988) describes aspects of himself that collectively account for his subjectivity--"the quality of an investigator that affects the results of observational investigation" (p. 17). Peshkin believes that although researchers aim for neutrality in their studies, bias may sometimes creep in regardless. He suggests that anyone pursuing investigative studies might therefore benefit from contemplating their own subjective areas--what he calls the "I's." The following are mine.  

The Ethnic-Maintenance I tops my list. My religion is very important to me and significantly shapes how I live my life.

I also relate to the Justice-Seeking I. I connect this category to the work I've done as a teacher. I consider myself an advocate for my students, especially when no one else fights for them, not even their parents. I've argued for advancing children to the next grade (one of whom ultimately scored the highest in his class on ELA and Math state exams). I've also helped ensure that certain at-risk students receive extra time for high-stakes testing.

I've experienced the Pedagogical-Meliorist I while working as a Title I teacher at a public school. Instead of hiring substitutes, the principal used me and other support staff to cover classes. While it's often interesting to work with other children and challenging to see if I can carry a class (often pre-K--where no instruction was permitted--and a high-functioning 4th grade class) on the fly, it meant that my struggling students, for whom my salary was targeted, wouldn't receive service. These missed sessions really added up, and although my students improved, they could have progressed even further with more consistent help. I'd learned that this practice is fairly widespread throughout the DOE and  I suspect this is why the Title I program has historically not made the gains it might have. I ultimately resigned my position and reported these misused funds to the State Education Department.

The E-Pluribus-Unum I is evident in Jonathan Kozol's book, The Shame of the Nation, in which he states that schools in the U.S. are as segregated now as they were before 1968. This is true even in Manhattan, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. What's also troubling is an obvious lack of resources in the more northern schools. When it comes to supplies, for example, teachers in Central Harlem will likely have more out-of-pocket expenses than teachers working on the East Side.

If any of these personal views or experiences found their way into my investigative projects, I'm not sure I'd consider it a drawback. For example, I recognize and respect people's differences, given my own. And were I to conduct a study about at-risk children, I'd search for any unjust treatment that may have hindered their achievement. In the event any flagrant subjectivity did enter my report, however, I suppose a peer-review committee would alert me.

Truth is...subjective?

During our class assignment last week about truth, I wrote very little on the subject. My few sentences reflected that, in my opinion, truth is fact based on time-proven research and study.  Kristen later mentioned that "to get truth, we need more than one perspective." That made perfect sense and also seemed consistent with my view.
    Today I looked through a book by Michael Pressley--Reading Instruction That Works: The Case for Balanced Teaching (2006). He's a well-regarded researcher on the subject and this text is a great read--very thorough and very well-written. Judging from his references, Pressley must have consulted every article and study on literacy. I flagged numerous pages as potential wall coverings--they all seemed so important and insightful. Then I came to the topic of Vocabulary. Pressley states early on that there's "considerable doubt" that "increasing a reader's vocabulary will improve his or her comprehension very much." Continuing, he  writes that the connection between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension has more to do with "general intelligence" (p. 220).
    I thought there'd be a "gotcha, only kidding" immediately afterward, but no. I must have read the section three or four times, certain at that point that my eyes had failed me. But there it was, a position from a known expert in the field that contradicted everything I'd read last year for two (research-based) papers. It's astounding, and to say I'm unconvinced is putting it mildly. I know what I think is true, and I'll stay with my belief.

Truth and/or Point of View

Since our first class and discussion on truth, my quick write on this topic revealed that I had a pragmatic worldview-the focus on research outcomes. At first I was surprised since I thought my writing would have fallen under social constructivism or maybe the advocacy/participatory researchers’ view. As I reread this section in Creswell (2007), it occurred to me that I would definitely feel comfortable using multiple methods of data collection in my own research. I also connected with the other beliefs of pragmatism that Creswell (2007) outlined and discussed where he states that this approach offers the freedom of choice for individual researchers to choose the methods, techniques, and procedures to meet their purposes and needs.

As I thought more about the topic of truth, a vivid childhood memory surfaced of my mother explaining the concept of Rashomon after a beautiful vase ended up on the floor broken in pieces as my sister and I played a little too closely to the china cabinet. After two dramatic and Oscar worthy performances from my sister and me on the fate of the vase, we were shocked that we each had different views about how that vase ended up broken. We were both there when the vase crashed to the floor but we were each telling a different “truth” from our own point of view.

(Rashomon, a film by Kurosawa, is the story of four people that witness a crime and proceed to describe what they saw from four different viewpoints.)

FYI-connecting back to qualitative research, I came across this interesting article-

Heider, K. G. (1988). The rashomon effect: When ethnographers disagree. American

Anthropologist, 90(1), 73-81. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/198103757?accountid=10932


Ethnographers rarely disagree with each other's interpretations of a culture, and when disagreements do arise they are usually handled by discreet avoidance or confused partisanship.