Statistically Speaking in a Pluralistic Way...

So maybe it's just me, but did Lauer and Asher ask Captain Obvious to write "Samplings and Surveys"? I couldn't help but pause throughout and think to myself how blatantly obvious the contents of this chapter were. Of course the sample must represent the population. Of course the confidence interval must be as low as possible within economic constraints. You mean my questions need to be clear? Not that it didn't help to get a quick statistics refresher--and from a different perspective--but so much of it seemed to be common sense. The last part of the chapter, however, did serve to remind us that we need not reinvent the wheel. Oh, and I'm glad I'm not a statistician.

Although still leaning towards some obviousness, Kirsch's article nicely examined and explained some of the tensions in the world of academia, not just in composition research. There has always been conflict between the disciplines, and she confirms that composition research just added more drama. I did find Kirsch's article to be a bit contrary at times. She begins with a discussion of the work of Bereiter and Scardamalia, explaining their levels of inquiry--which bring back memories of Lauer and Asher's chapter on case studies and our discussions of Vygotsky in the last class--and points out that "they state that the term level is misleading, and they do not wish to imply that work at any one level is more intellectually worthwhile than work at another level" (249). Later on page 250, she asks, "Are studying and modeling cognitive processes involved in writing the most important kinds of composition research (represented as the highest level in Bereiter and Scardamalia's framework)?" Did she actually read what she wrote? Also, she initially leads her readers to believe that Bereiter and Scardamalia support methodological pluralism (at least that's how I took it), but then states that their "assumption that we can arrive at a 'right process model' (4) reflects a belief in a single, verifiable truth ..." (250). Is she confused or are they?

Later she reiterates why we as educators even feel the need to conduct research in the first place, which in my mind solidifies the need for methodological pluralism. We cannot be satisfied with a one-size-fits-all mentality. I agree with Irmscher in that he sees the need for a more humanistic approach, just as we have seen in the writings of Moss and Brodkey. And then there's North who seems to be playing Devil's advocate here with his talk of an academic Armageddon. A "methodological war"? Ethnographers going to the dark side, the department of anthropology? The saga continues....

One particular section that really captured my attention was her discussion of Hull and Rose and the researcher-subject relationship. Being a tutor in the writing lab at HACC provided great insight to the social and cultural contexts from which students write. She mentions H and R's student's misguided intentions when he plagiarizes--depending upon a student's culture, plagiarism is not only accepted, but is viewed as a way to honor the author. At HACC, I did not merely help those who struggled to write, showing them the accepted writing conventions; it was more than that. So many factors entered into students' writing, their cultural and social experiences and culturally accepted norms, many that run counter to what we find acceptable in our "American culture." I discovered I needed to develop a sort of relationship with each student to fully help them achieve their writing goals. Just as there are many facets of human existence, more than one methodology is necessary to research and sort out human behavior. We cannot ignore the fact that composition is socially constructed, and therefore, the research itself must be socially constructed, thus employing several methodologies in the process.