Research methodology

We aimed to examine issues of identity, context and action as recorded in written records of experience, and was not specifically focused on assessment issues, even though the latter were, as mentioned earlier, the stimulus. The study was based on work written by twenty six policing students¹, that is, their assignments, over the course of a four week placement in a community service organization, with a particular focus on the experiences of five students. In addition to working from a largely pre-set learning contract with the placement supervisor, students submitted four assignments. The most heavily weighted item involved the completion of twenty critically reflective activities, based on readings about class and social inequality as these issues related to the students' own lives and those of the people in the placement. They also submitted a daily record of activities, which was to comply, in terms of its presentation, with the format of the police notebook. Finally, they provided two reflections on their experiences, one at the end of the first week, and the other at the conclusion of the placement. The items constituted a type of portfolio, and the 'portfolio' was assessed and given a grade.

I worked from the assertion that context can be accessed through individual accounts. It is in such accounts that 'the intersection of individual, context, and activity over time (knowing in the making)' (Barab & Kirshner, 2001) can best be accessed, and this is, from an ecological perspective, the unit of analysis, although few people have examined the subjective and the social simultaneously (McIntyre, 1996). Nowadays, given that educators believe that reflective inquiry into one's own practice can be based on such documents and that journals foster learning (Kerka, 2002; Moon, 1999; Brookfield, 1995), interest is increasing in using diaries for researching adult learning.

It should be noted that the proliferation of qualitative research approaches creates a highly contradictory domain to traverse, with many tensions, ambiguities, hesitations and gaps in a still-developing and fluid field (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Nonetheless, the common focus of qualitative approaches is the exploration and description of lived experience in natural settings, and the complex interrelationships that this involves (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Marshall & Rossman, 1999; , Cresswell, 1998; Stake, 1995).

Marshall and Rossman (1999) and Allport (1978) remind us to view autobiographies and diaries with some skepticism. Their usefulness as a data source may be limited because they are a form of 'mute' evidence (Hodder, 2000), not always articulate about people's reasons for doing things, or understanding things in particular ways, and they therefore have many possible meanings. Thus my research process was inherently one of interpretation, both of students' experiences that altered meanings (Denzin, 1989, p.10), and in identifying patterns of anticipated and unanticipated relationships (Stake, 1995). Reliance on this type of material demanded that I avoided erasing students as narrators of their own lives, addressing their remarks to the lecturer they imagined would be assessing their work (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p.39; Denzin, 1997), by ensuring that I drew as much as possible on their descriptions of their experiences without adding my own descriptive and evaluative overlays.

However, I am not going to focus on the interpretation process here, rather I am going to focus on examples drawn from students' work of those issues which have implications for assessment. Suffice it to say, the work that was intensively studied was selected on the basis of maximum variation and a deliberate hunt for negative instances (Miles & Huberman, 1994), and cases that offered the opportunity to learn the most (Stake, 2000). Within the framework of the case study approach, I was a bricoleur (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p.39), using a variety of interpretive strategies to try and arrive at the meaning of the data, and, as any explorer would, to 'map' the territory, using a range of instruments that suited my purposes. This was by no means a matter of following a set plan. Rather, it involved an iterative and hermeneutic process of tacking between reading, writing and data entry (using N-Vivo) and analysis, and the insights which followed these activities.

¹Students were enrolled in the Diploma of Policing Practice, a course for intending police officers, jointly offered by Charles Sturt University and the New South Wales Police. The placement was undertaken in their second session of study. No details are given as to the cohort or years, to protect the identity of the informants. We also based on marking over 300 assignments, and my marking of these, as well as attending briefing and debriefing sessions.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

جامعة أم البنين (عليها السلام) الإلكترونية تعلن فتح باب التسجيل للدراسات التبليغية والقرآنية

مستشفى الكفيل يعتمد أحدث التقنيات العالمية في عمليات زراعة القوقعة

مركز السيد جعفر الحلي يستقبل مدير صحة كربلاء للاطّلاع على خدماته المقدّمة للزائرين

قسم الشؤون الفكريَّة يقدِّم ندوة ثقافية لوفد شبابي من الموصل

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

حالة صحية شائعة قد تُخفي "إنذارا مبكرا" للإصابة بالسرطان !

"أوميغا 3" صديق القلب.. هل يربك سكر الدم؟

بدائل لليمون.. 8 إضافات للماء تعزز فوائده الصحية

دراسة: محاولة متعمدة لنشر الإنفلونزا تنتهي بـ"مفاجأة"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سلامة الأطفال: سبع قواعد ذهبية للركوب الآمن بالسيارة

توقع خطير لماسك: الروبوتات ستتفوق على البشر من حيث العدد

دراسة تكشف عاملا غير متوقع يرتبط بزيادة خطر الإصابة بالتوحد

"ميتا" توقف وصول المراهقين إلى شخصيات الذكاء الاصطناعي ؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Parents with Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

PROVISION OF SUPPORT

CARING FOR CHILDREN

EUGENICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES

PARENTING

DISCRIMINATION AND DIVERSITY

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Parents with Learning Disabilities

Legislation and Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

LEGAL SAFEGUARDS

MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998