The Beauty of Research

In this discussion post, I would like to share my opinion about the importance and relevance of different research approaches and designs. There are two general approaches to data collection process – quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research explores the issue in breadth while qualitative research seeks depth in personal perceptions and experiences. As for the question which approach serves the researcher best, I believe that both approaches are significant and the value of each is dependent on the research question and purpose. The choice is primarily defined by the interest that those who are affected take in it. Though, practitioners may take greater interest in exploring the depth of a particular case whereas administrators  gain more benefit from numerical data in order to set forward recommendations.

As for the educational context in Kazakhstan, I think that the best way to appeal to the policy makers and administrators is to use solid numerical data in order to set positive changes in motion. People tend to believe numbers because, as many believe, they do not lie. However, as Mark Twain, a well-known American writer once wisely noted “Figures do not lie, but liars do figure”. There is no doubt that any form of research is embedded into highly ethical intentions and rigorous procedures to reveal the true state of things.

The choice of my research methodology has been defined by the research aim to explore teachers’ perceptions and experiences of differentiated instruction in a secondary school in Kazakhstan. In order to reveal teachers’ attitudes towards diversity of learning needs in their classrooms and the practices that they employ to meet those needs, the case study research design was selected. I will triangulate the research data by interviewing teachers, observing their lessons, and analyzing the subject documents. The triangulation approach will help me to understand the reasons of their professional choices and show how their understandings shape their teaching practices overall.

I believe that the selected research design will be beneficial for my school community as differentiated instruction has become one of the prioritized directions of teachers’ professional development at school. Teachers talk a lot about differentiated instruction and their practices are usually restricted by mere retrofitting practices. However, according to the vast body of knowledge and research, differentiated instruction is not about having a set of strategies up in one’s sleeve which come handy whenever an unexpected classroom situation occurs, but it is a teaching philosophy deeply grounded into personal and professional values.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the beauty of research lies in the truth that it seeks. It helps to formally articulate the truth so that things eventually change for good. Another fascination about research for me is that it allows to reconsider the mundane issues from quite different perspectives, thus gaining deeper understanding. As Albert Szent Gyorgyi, a Hungarian Nobel Prize winner once said “Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought”.

Why Methodology?

Photo credit: https://ideas.darden.virginia.edu/2015/11/whats-new-in-project-management-a-hybrid-methodology/

Methodology section of any research paper is arguably the most important part of it. Mainly because the ways of data collection determine whether the research question will be answered or not. Besides, research methods influence the interpretation of the findings. The qualitative study focuses on understanding thoughts, reasons, and opinions of participants; whereas the quantitative study deals with numerical data, statistics, and facts.

Choosing the right methodology is a challenging process which should be viewed through the lens of the practical application of the research findings. In the local context, statistical data is of particular interest among the administrators and policy-makers due to giving a clear overview on any topic. Qualitative studies are often seen as subjective, their findings are difficult to generalize, and therefore cannot be used as widely.

Personally, I prefer qualitative methods because they allow deeper and more meaningful investigations. This is exactly what I what from my research experience: engaging with participants, collecting data in direct interactions to fully capture and share their stories. Therefore, planning to study the aspirations for higher education across vulnerable student groups in Kazakhstan, from the beginning I decided to follow the qualitative methodology, namely, the critical ethnographic research design.

Methodology section, if consistent with the introduction and literature review, can inform the readers about the nature of the research just as well. Critical ethnography, for instance, focuses on advocating for marginalized groups in certain cultural or social scenarios often constructed by the society in limiting ways. Thus, by following the critical ethnographic design, it is clear that my purpose is to potentially empower vulnerable students to receive higher education reflecting on the first-hand experience of others in the context of Kazakhstan.

I believe there is no right answer about the most effective or productive type of research. Afterall, the intention of researching is to draw attention and start a discussion on problematic topics.  Any research design if applied properly manages to do that. Right choice of methods just makes the process easier by providing necessary tools.

Qualitative or Quantitative?

There are a number of reasons for conducting research. Doing research contributes to revealing lies or truths, building knowledge and efficient learning, as well as testing the validity and reliability of certain claims. Research becomes a must to uncover the issues unnoticed or hidden by society. And thereby it brings positive alterations into the life of the community.

There exist qualitative and quantitative research methods that aid to achieve the aforementioned goals. Each of them has its own benefits and drawbacks. Hence, it is difficult or even impossible to claim that one method is more valuable than the other. But more importantly, they need to be used in a balanced way so that they can provide a fuller context for the current situation.

Kazakhstan acknowledges the importance of research and, therefore, has devoted increasing attention to its development in all realms of life. As a student who reads a lot of research papers on different topics, I have become convinced that the country concentrates more on carrying out a quantitative research study. Most of the articles I have found contain statistical data. For instance, if we talk specifically about Inclusive education, there are numerous papers which tell about the overall number of children excluded from going to school, or about the amount of finance allocated to train teachers or to improve the conditions of facilities at schools. Consequently, the quantitative research instruments usually provide numerical descriptions that can be generalized to some larger population but are limited in details. Thus, there is a need to apply qualitative research method which would give more detailed and deeper explanations of certain issues happening in the country.

Qualitative research aims to analyze the deeper meaning of people’s behavior, experiences, beliefs, perceptions, feelings, and emotions. This method gives people a certain degree of freedom and confidence and creates the right atmosphere to enable people to express their voice through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and focus groups. That’s why I have chosen to apply the qualitative type of research for my thesis which touches an issue of training pre-service teachers. In my work, I am intending to include teacher educators as participants whose views and beliefs are not taken into consideration in designing policy reforms. By using qualitative research, I can give them more freedom and allow spontaneity rather than make them select from a set of “pre-determined responses”. I believe this investigation will help policymakers, researchers, teachers and me, as a future leader in education, realize the actual reasons of arising problems around the preparation of pre-service teachers.

Qualitative & Quantitative research types

Conducting educational research is explained and followed by choosing one of the two existing tracks of writing any research: quantitative research, qualitative research or mixed methods. The qualitative research is largely based on collecting numeric data from a large number of people with research questions and hypothesis that are precise, narrow, measurable and observable (Creswell, 2014). As for the quantitative research, it is commonly characterized by detailed understanding of the central phenomena, collecting data from a small number of people to get their opinions and points of view and analyzing the data using text analysis (Creswell, 2014).

One cannot confidently say that one of this existing types of research is the most valuable and significant. It is necessary to say that researchers choose the type of research depending on the issue they want to explore and research questions they intend to answer. I remember one of the professors who taught Research Methods last year saying “once the instrument for qualitative type of research is ready, it is really easy to conduct this type of research”. However, as I have mentioned above, it all depends on the nature of a research.

Taking into account the nature of my research topic, which mostly demands people’s attitudes, opinins and experiences the current research will use qualitative research type. As the research deals with a particular school setting and requires participant perceptions and experiences, the case study research design is found relevant to get in-depth analysis of phenomena (Zaynal, 2007). I was interested to know if teachers in my school setting know about Universal Design for Learning. Moreover, I wanted to explore if they use multiple means of representation, expression and engagement in their teaching practice. Hence, I choose the qualitative type of research in this study. As my supervisor says “your research is your story”, so I want my story to be beneficial for the community where I work and make learning and teaching processes successful for both learners and teachers.

 

References

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Zainal, Z. (2017). Case study as a research method. Jurnal Kemanusiaan, 5(1), 1-6.

Quant/Qual Debate

Although choosing the methodology should depend on the nature of the research question itself, certain preferences still exist among policy-makers and practitioners. For example, most of our professors at NUGSE constantly highlight how revealing and valuable the qualitative research is. However, when I had conversations with people in the Ministry of Education, Analytical Center, or with the administration of NU, they strongly suggested focusing on quantitative methodology. When choosing methods for my own thesis, I, therefore, took into consideration a potential audience, but let us discuss these different approaches further before moving on to my thesis.

It is justified that decision-makers such as the ministry or administration often trust quantitative research more, favoring the generalizability. When it comes to policy formation in such a unitary and centralized state as Kazakhstan, its outcomes influence all regions. For example, the state curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education is taught not only in Astana but also in villages in the South, in lyceums or gymnasiums for gifted children and in ungraded schools in remote areas.Therefore, there is a need for generalizability and accountability for the majority expected from the research influencing this decision-making process. It is possible to argue whether such nature of a political system in a country as large and as disperse as Kazakhstan is effective, but the current state of affairs dictates the priorities. A priority now is quantitative research.

Moving away from large-scale activities such as policy-making in the Ministry to small-scale matters such as improving the situation in a particular classroom, the type of investigations needed change significantly. Many practitioners may worry much more about qualitative inquiries that can shed the light on individual cases, perceptions, and in-depth explanations. For example, if a child is not accepted by peers, a school staff member would want to interview these children, asking “why”, “how exactly”, “for what reasons”, or “so what”. These questions would be very hard to be answered via quantitative instruments because they call for a story, not a numerical value. There are multiple cases when a qualitative approach is much more beneficial for the purpose of the research.

In general, this debate between two types of methodological approaches could be well balanced out by the mix method, only if it serves the research objective in general. For my topic on how activists in inclusive education movement contribute to the reform, I am specifically looking for the stories. Therefore, I favored qualitative methodology. This choice informs my audience on what information I find more valuable. It is not the number of people advocating for inclusive education that I try to find, neither it is the correlation between variables, it is about the stories people have to share, even if there would only be two study participants killing the hope for generalizability, I would still want to document their contribution and use it to empower those who can join the movement as well.

Order with consequences

 

Photo credit: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/career-education-article/charity-voices-concern-over-governments-get-tough-approach-school-disciplin

In the podcast Is This Working? different teachers, educators, parents talk about discipline at school and ask very simple but important questions: what is the reasonable level of discipline? Why do we need kids to unpack their bookbags silently? Is all this discipline for a child or for a teacher? And the most important one: What are the consequences of the punishment for discipline violation?

The podcast starts with the question what teachers would do if a boy does not want to take his hat off during the class. And different approaches to discipline are discussed in its three acts with different storylines. Some stories argue that keeping discipline does not prepare children for a real life because staying quiet and obedient is not always a good way to achieve something in life. Other persuade that not punishment but conversations about the offenses work better as children learn to think about their emotions, emotions of others and collaborate in the society and this is exactly what they need in future. These are all wonderful questions, suggestions, ideas to check and prove by research. What I want to share is another phenomenon that I have found in this podcast which answers the question What are the consequences of the punishment for discipline violation?

Photo credit: SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE [INFOGRAPHIC]

I learned about the “discipline policies that push students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system at alarming rates—a phenomenon known as the “school-to-prison pipeline“. Moreover, starting from early age black and Latino students are punished more harshly than their white peers and this excessive punishment makes it more likely for them to get in prison once they become adults.   There was a data from College Station at Texas A&M which documented all the suspensions in 2000-2002:

 “And they determined that African American and Hispanic students were twice as likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their white peers for their first offense. When they looked at African American boys in Texas, 83% were suspended at least once. And usually, they were suspended a lot more than once. That includes anything a school calls suspension.

And what kind of infractions were they getting suspended for? Most of the time, these were not for big things, like hitting a teacher or bringing a weapon to school. They were for things like disrespect, insubordination, willful defiance, the kind of incident that often begins when an angry kid won’t take his hat off”

What do you think about this data? This is the result of the attitude they get at school. They are punished seriously even for minor mistakes. I immediately recalled the blog written by chsherbakov that I read recently about the intrinsic bias against Black schoolers which is seen even in the language of documents framing desegregation.

What I want to say is the issue of keeping discipline in the classroom can be controversial but there is another dimension of the problem which we should take into consideration. There is an attitude which starting from the very early age creates a special mindset, special environment and changes the future of many little kids. This attitude makes them feel bad and unwelcome in the society. This attitude puts them into the conflict with the school, with their parents, with the law. This makes them look for people who would value them no matter what and, unfortunately, very often these people are not the best examples to follow.

 

 

My thesis topic “Teachers’ competencies in inclusive education at International School of Astana: concerns, challenges and recommendations”

Image source: https://elearningnvironment.wordpress.com/tag/work-family-balance

Choosing the topic of the thesis is not an easy task. I remember when our Vice Dean, Jason Sparks, said a joke about our theses that they would be as our second husbands, since we would fall asleep and wake up in the morning thinking about it. This is what I am feeling now and especially felt when I was choosing the thesis topic.  Being confused, I decided to consult with my colleague who had graduated master degree at NU. So, with the help of hers I decided to investigate teachers’ competencies in the sphere of inclusive education at the school I work now.

The research site has several students with special educational needs. One of them is my student who has an infantile cerebral palsy that does not allow him to write as quickly as other regular students and it usually inhibits the educational process. While collaborative planning with the teachers of his other subjects or with my co-teachers, I have realized that there is a limited knowledge about differentiating the instructions and using multiple means of representation, and more than that, some teachers feel pity towards students with the impairments and try to raise them the marks or, due to lack of knowledge, the student is remained without attention. However, one of the core values of teachers’ competence regarding inclusive education is “supporting all learners, promoting the academic and social learning of all learners” (Forlin, 2012, p.205). Concerning about the fact that teachers are probably not well prepared for inclusive education, the current paper is going to be very timely, especially for International School in Astana, as there is no particular research conducted. This study is significant for all teachers who teach students with special educational needs, as identifying problematic side, the ways of solving the problem can be identified and suggested. So, this study is going to evaluate and identify the concerns of teachers and provide possible recommendations to overtake them.

It is crucial to identify teachers’ personal assessment of their ability and practical challenges faced by them because it can affect the teachers’ performance and the progress of students with SEN in the classroom (Hammond & Ingalls, 2003; Sideridis & Chandler, 1996; Van Reusen, Shoho, & Barker, 2001). So, the raise of teachers’ awareness and preparedness in terms of inclusive pedagogy is essential in order to meet the needs of community and develop inclusive atmosphere in society, as teachers educate a new generation that build the future of Kazakhstan.

References

Forlin, C. (2012). Future directions for inclusive teacher education. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis group.

Hammond, H., & Ingalls, L. (2003). Teachers Attitudes toward Inclusion: Survey Results from Elementary School Teachers in Three Southwestern Rural School Districts. Rural Special Education Quarterley, 22(2), 24-30.

Sideridis, G. D., & Chandler, J. P. (1996). Comparison of attitudes of teachers of physical and musical education toward inclusion of children with disabilities. Psychological Reports, 78(3), 768-771.

Van Reusen, A. K., Shoho, A. R., & Barker, K. S. (2001). High School Teacher Attitudes toward Inclusion. The High School Journal, 84(2), 7-17.

Age and foreign language learning

The importance of optimal age in acquiring foreign languages at school is discussed widely among researchers (Lambelet & Berthele, 2015).  Children are considered to be more capable in learning languages than adults, particularly, when they learn the languages on its natural settings and it has a long-term effect. There is a period when the human brain is most sensitive to acquire input and accept a certain language which is called “critical period” (Yule, 2010) and this term is often connected with the age factor. One of the most popular examples to demonstrate critical age is the case of a 13 year old girl, Genie, who was isolated from social communication by her father ” (Yule, 2010). This case has long been interpreted that after a certain period, human being is not able to develop the language (Lambelet &  Berthele  , 2015). As a result, the theory has been criticized due its insufficient findings on emotional, physical, and cognitive factors that affect the language development. According to Lambelet and  Berthele  (2015) the critical period is only a possible factor which affects the age, but other factors related to age discrepancy in language learning should be analyzed as well. In addition, according to Singleton (2003) and other scholars, various investigations on children’s linguistic development do not provide evidence that language competence is impossible after a particular age. However, it was stated that language learning takes place comparably slower in older age, equal to that of children who acquire their mother tongue under convenient conditions (p.7).  All these findings do not seem to provide enough evidence that human linguistic capacity is impossible after a certain period.

“Critical age” is discussed as the plausible impact in children’s acquiring languages, but due to the deficiency of research findings on other factors (emotional, physical, and cognitive factors) it cannot be considered as a good argument. Moreover, data above is less likely to provide reasons why human linguistic capacity cannot function appropriately after a particular age. So these findings suggest that human linguistic capacity is not limited to earlier ages, but can be developed throughout school time.

References:

Lambelet, A. Berthele, R. (2015). Age and foreign language learning in school. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Singleton, D. (2003). Critical period or general age. In Garcia Mayo, M. & Lecumberri, M. (eds.), Age and the Aquisition of English as a Foreign language. Clevedon; Buffalo; Toronto; Sydney; Multilingual Matters, 3-22.

Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

The world has changed. The way we educate our children should too.

 

photo credits to https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/saying-motto-change-difficult-not-changing-111462035?src=liJpSuVV6vqDlMzG-jOKKQ-1-41

 

Just ask yourself: should the education be reshaped? Even though the answer will vary from person to person, it is impossible to respond unless we ask ourselves what kind of world we are going in.

Imagine how the factory looked like in the XIX century and how it looks now. The same for the transport system or the bank. We will see massive changes. The only domain that looks the same as in the XIX century is a school. A class where the children sit in front of the teacher in rows and study the subjects according to the curriculum, which, in its essence, was also created in the XIX century. Obviously, this model is obsolete. But how should it change?

Now we observe and expect that the total number of changes in the world of the near future – technological, political, social – will be so great that we simply cannot understand what we are preparing the current first-graders. Thus, the first thing we have to say to ourselves: guys, we need to prepare a person so that he can react as much as possible to the challenges in a changing world. We are moving towards a period when people will constantly be “scared”. For instance, how should one cope with the news that his/her domain no longer exists, that it was replaced by robots? Or that there have been such political changes that his/her country does not exist anymore. In theory, considering unstable political issues in the global arena, this may happen to many of us when we will suddenly find ourselves nowhere and have to adapt to the changed conditions swiftly.

The problem of the current school is that it was created under the prevailing industrial model of the society of the XIX century. At that time, it was necessary to have a lot of workers who obey the boss, do what they are told, do not go beyond job descriptions and according to the template can perform the prescribed tasks. Preferably highly specialised. And in a world of uncertainty – this is the riskiest thing that you can think of. The school educates discipline, submission, lack of creativity, application of templates. That is directly contradictory to what we are moving to.

So, by being a part of something revolutionary in our country, how do you think how the education and schools, in particular, should be reshaped?

P.S. this blog post is dedicated to my grandfather who used to say that the more schools we have, the brighter future of the country will be. I love you, I remember you, grandpa. Hoping that one day your “dream schools” come true…

Is it possible not to overload yourself, but CREATE? Calling for MOTIVATION!

Photo credit to @uaxi

  Wake up, warm up.

  Take a mirror, ‘show up’.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  You will have a great start!

The poems credit in this blog post to Ayana Mukuzhanova

Have you ever thought that you are overwhelmed with all your assignments and writing thesis? Do you wake up and go to sleep with the only thought: “I must do it!” ? You would better say “I want to do it!”. Now I would like to tell you one important sentence. You are not the only one, YOU CAN DO IT! Is it easy to say? Yes, it is. Is it easy to do? (Silence). By writing this post, which is far from academic writing, I would like to support all education professionals who are struggling to write their thesis and papers. I know, this time will probably hit you one day. I am not an expert to give recommendations, but I am a Master student, who could share some pieces of advice and speak from my own experience.

  Great start, heads up!

  Simply have a try out.

  You are making it up,

  And get rid of that doubt.

Firstly, try to see positive moments in your study, follow your OWN progress, and look back. Do you see the changes? This should MOTIVATE you and bring a positive wave into your studying. Do not try to compare your progress with the progress of another person. You are unique, you are different, and you are great!

  You have done, well done!

  Now let’s visit the town.

  Take some time to relax,

  You deserve to break ice.

Secondly, find your hobby. Do not tell that you do not have time for it. You have. Instead of procrastinating by doing nothing, with your hobby you will not procrastinate anymore, you will get a CREATIVE and relaxing product. For me, it is writing various poems. In this way, you will not be overloaded by studying.

  I love my thesis,

  My thesis loves me.

  Let’s create a big deal

  To support the ideal.

Thirdly, you should remember that a substantial amount of people all around the world write thesis papers, and they did this! Think of it as “It is just another paper” (Montgomery, 2017). You should understand how much you are interested in the topic of your thesis. The principle: The more…, the better. The more you are interested in it, the more you will get a joy. After you add your voice on a particular topic, you will get into this field, and become the part of it.

  Time passes by,

  Sometimes I don’t mind.

  If I had another chance,

  I would think of this twice.

Next point to share with you is time value. Do not think of the result and end of the process. Otherwise, you will miss the precious time and all the positive moments which you will never face the second time. In the case of academic writing, write everything step by step. Do not write for the sake of writing, do your best, and you will be okay.

  Never think of some feedback,

  Like it is a huge mistake.

  It is just a third hand

  That will help you till the end.

The last, but not the least piece of advice is to look at feedback that you get from your Professors as a great help, and not a punishment. At first, it was difficult for me to accept some feedback, and I got upset. Now I understand that I am in the process of getting knowledge, and I will learn my whole life. There will always be feedback, both positive and negative. The only think is to LEARN from them.

To conclude, I would like to thank my MA NUGSE id2016 group mates. You are fantastic! All of you will do their best to overcome some difficulties and take out of it only POSITIVE outcomes. I hope that this post would support you and all education professionals.