For Tuesday evening's conversation (28/03/06) on your educational enquiries for the research methods in education MA unit.

After we've caught up with each other's experiences and enquiries for the week I'm hoping that we can focus on the draft of James' educational enquiry. If you haven't got one of the copies James circulated on Tuesday, just let me know and I'll send you a copy. I'm meeting Ed before the session and it might be we have some video narrative to share in the session. Vic - many thanks for the additional treat for our celebrations - all the more appreciated because you'd just come out of that meeting with life-changing decisions on the agenda.

There is such a lot to respond to in James' draft - I felt in the presence of a master educator who had selected some very significant understandings to communicate in 4,500 words with references to the ideas of others and video. I've a couple of purposes in mind in asking us to focus on our responses to James' draft. Don't worry if you haven't time to do the following before Tuesday evening. It would be good if you could work on responses to James' draft but Marie and I have enjoyed responding to the draft and could start the conversation in relation to two purposes. The first is to respond to the draft in a way that will help James to submit his educational enquiry. The second is for us to respond to the draft in a way that will help to strengthen our research methods in terms of four criteria of social validity:

i) The comprehensibility of our accounts - Do you have any suggestions on ways of enhancing the comprehensibility of James' account?

ii) Our use of evidence in justifying the claims we make - Could you look for specific claims that James makes in relation to the evidence provided and think of ways in which you might strengthen your use of evidence in your present enquiry for the research methods unit.

iii) Our awareness of assumptions in our enquiries that are influencing our choice of methods for data gathering and for evaluating the validity of our interpretations of our educational influences in our own learning and in the learning of our students. For example, I'll bring along an extract from Geoff Whitty's BERA Presidential Address from September 2005 where he is asking members of the British Educational Research Association to make a clear distinction between education research and educational research. I'll explain the distinction he is making on Tuesday with some of the implications for the research methods we are using as practitioner-researchers.

iv) We can judge our authenticity over time in our interactions as we work at living our values and developing our skills and understandings as fully as we can. I really liked the way James communicated his meanings of the 'special humility' of the educator. On Tuesday could you share your understandings of the values you would like to see being expressed in your next assignment and to which you feel you hold yourself accountable.

Bearing in mind the four criteria that are used to judge all six units of the masters programme, can you offer any suggestions for minor modifications to the draft that would enhance your judgement as you apply the criteria?

1) Made critical use of literature, professional experience and, where appropriate, knowledge from other sources, to inform the focus and methodology of the study or enquiry.

2) Made appropriate critical use of the literature and, where appropriate, knowledge from other sources, in the development of the study or enquiry and its conclusions.

3) Demonstrated an ability to identify and categorise issues, and to undertake an educational study or enquiry in an appropriately critical, original, and balanced fashion.

4) Demonstrated an ability to analyse, interpret and critique findings and arguments and, where appropriate, to apply these in a reflective manner to the improvement of educational practices.

In relation to our values I'd like to check if the way Michael Bassey writes about conviviality in his 1992 BERA Presidential Address resonates with your values. I'll bring this quote along. In relation to our critical use of literature I'll bring along the extract from his address where he talks about the inappropriate use of referencing in terms of genuflecting, sandbagging and kingmaking – I think it will only take a couple of minutes to judge our own use of referencing in these terms and in terms of what we mean by 'critical use' 'appropriately critical' and 'critique'.

Unison are on strike on the 28^th and this is likely to affect the audio-visual support in the University. This may affect our plans to access the on-line learning resources. If you do have five minutes to try this out from your school or home computer, it would be good to know who can/cannot access the on-line resources in the Library:

Do just see if you can access the electronic resources, including the JSTOR archives, that are available to you with your registration from http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/ej/ As an exercise could you go into

JSTOR in the menu under Electronic Journal Services and click on JSTOR, type in your username and password and when the page JSTOR collections available at your institution comes up, click on:

Arts & Sciences IV Collection

The page Currently Available Journals - Arts & Sciences IV Collection should come up.

Click on Education on the top menu bar. Scroll down to Educational Researcher and click.

See if you can search for, access and download the following two papers by Eliot Eisner:

The Promise and Perils of Alternative Forms of Data Representation

Elliot W. Eisner

Educational Researcher, Vol. 26, No. 6 (Aug., 1997), pp. 4-10 

Forms of Understanding and the Future of Educational Research

Elliot W. Eisner

Educational Researcher, Vol. 22, No. 7 (Oct., 1993), pp. 5-11 

Looking forward to next Tuesday evening's conversation.

Love Jack.