Education 622: Proseminar in Higher Education (Fall 2015)

Education 622: Proseminar in Higher Education (Fall 2015)

Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education

University of Michigan School of Education

Professor:Janet H. Lawrence

Office:2117 SEB

Email:

Class:Friday, 1:00-4:00

Course Description

The goal of ED 622 is to orient entering doctoral students in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) to the habits of mind and skills they need to develop and to careers and scholarship in the field of higher education. Higher education is assumed to be a field of study that draws on multiple disciplines and bridges practice, theory, and empirical research.

The specific purpose of this seminar is to acquaint you with:

• The study of higher education as it is approached in our graduate program and by academic researchers across the country. The intention is to help you navigate the doctoral program and organize your knowledge about higher education.
• The expectations for the level of critical thought and quality of work needed to be successful in the CSHPE doctoral program. The goal is to enhance your understanding of the standards for critical reading, thinking, analysis, writing, and inquiry that are required to meet program requirements such as the research practicum, the Qualifying Papers and the dissertation as well as the demands of your subsequent professional practice.

Course Requirements

The course is organized as a seminar with students actively participating in all class meetings.

Class Participation. As in any doctoral course, students and faculty need to be co-owners and collectively responsible for its quality and outcomes. I take responsibility for the overall design and direction of the course and for the academic requirements, but the course will be facilitated as a seminar in which all participants hold themselves and each other accountable for a strong and rich intellectual enterprise and dialogue.

Your attendance is essential to a successful collective experience. The format of the class requires that each person come prepared to take an active role in guiding and sustaining conversations. This means not only having read the assigned materials, but also being prepared to discuss the salient issues, questions, and problems emerging from the readings, to utilize your knowledge and professional experiences in addressing the readings and any class activities. Class participation also involves opening oneself to challenge and to be challenged by the ideas and topics of the session. The quality of your class participation is worth 60% of your final grade.

Written Assignments. There are two short papers to be completed (October 9th and November 13th) – a journal article critique and a journal article review – and a final integrative literature review due on December 11th. Your papers together are worth 50% of your final grade.

Policies on Late Papers and Missed Classes

Please inform me in advance if you must miss class or if you need an extension of time to complete a paper. Missed classes will hurt the class participation grade.

Readings

The course readings are available electronically through CTools, provided in advance each week. Please download and print out these articles at your own convenience.

Academic Integrity

Operating under the highest standards of academic integrity is implied and assumed. Academic integrity includes issues of content and process. Treating the course and class participants with respect, honoring class expectations and assignments, and seeking to derive maximum learning from the experience reflect some of the process aspects of academic integrity. Claiming ownership only of your own unique work and ideas, providing appropriate attribution of others’ material and quotes, clearly indicating all paraphrasing, and providing the trail to the original source of any idea are key components to the content of academic integrity. Aspire to the spirit and highest representation of academic integrity. I would also encourage you to read the University’s General Catalogue, especially the sections that detail your rights as a student and the section that discusses the University’s expectations of you as a student. (See

Accommodation for Students with Disabilities

If you think you need an accommodation for a disability, please let me know at your earliest convenience. Some aspects of this course, the assignments, the in-class activities, and the way I teach may be modified to facilitate your participation and progress. As soon as you make me aware of your needs, we can work with the office of Services for Students with Disabilities to help us determine appropriate accommodations. I will treat any information you provide as private and confidential. See for more information about services for students with disabilities.

Religious Observation

This class observes University defined holidays (such as Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Fall break). Because other days may be of more significance than a University-designated holiday, please inform me as soon as possible if a class day or due date for a class assignment conflicts with your observance of a holiday important to you. I will work with you to accommodate your needs.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

September 11Introduction to Course

September 18Persistent Issues in (Higher) Education Research

Readings:

Labaree, D. (1998). Educational researchers: Living with a lesser form of knowledge. Educational Researcher, 27(8), 4-12.

Ball, D. L. & Forzani, F. (2007). What makes educational research “educational”? Educational Researcher, 36(9), 529-540.

Johnsrud, L. (2008). Faculty work: Making our research matter – more. The Review of Higher Education, 31(4), 489-504.

Guest Speakers: Deborah Ball and Francesca Forzani

Assignment: Education has been labeled an applied multidisciplinary field and a discipline. What do you understand to be the differences? What are the implications for you as an aspiring researcher? What do you think are key questions that researchers in your chosen field/discipline pursue and that hold higher education together as a community of scholars? What do you think is an appropriate balance between research that informs policy and practice and scholarship that advances ourtheoretical understanding of phenomena of concern to higher educators?What area(s) of inquiry are of primary interest to you– what do you want to be an “expert” in when you graduate; What are you reading, what courses do you plan to take, what professional activities will you engage in to develop this expertise? What is the audience with whom are you primarily interested in communicating?

September 25Doctoral Study and Higher Education Careers: Plotting a Path

Readings:

Labaree, D. F. (2003). The peculiar problems of preparing educational researchers.Educational researcher,32(4), 13-22.

Hall, L. A., & Burns, L. D. (2009). Identity development and mentoring in doctoral education.Harvard Educational Review,79(1), 49-70.

Lovitts, B. (2005). Being a good course-taker is not enough: a theoretical perspective on the transition to independent research. Studies in Higher Education, 30(2), 137-154.

University of Michigan, School of Education. Spencer Foundation Research Training Grant Document. Crucial Elements of Scholarly Inquiry and Students Learning.

Guest Speakers: based on student career interests

Assignment: When you applied to the doctoral program, what did you envision were the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that you would develop while in graduate school? The figure posted on CTools,Crucial Elements of Scholarly Inquiry and Students Learning, summarizes School of Education faculty expectations of graduate students. How do these fit with what you envisioned as the outcomes of your doctoral education? What do you want to be doing in 7 years; how you will get there (what will you do while here at UM), and what will you do to develop the habits of mind and skills expected of doctoral graduates?

October 2Constructing Conceptual Frameworks and Theory

Readings:

Jaccard, J. & Jacoby, J. (2010). The nature of understanding. In Theory Construction and Model Building Skills: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists. NY: Guilford Press.

Rocco, T.S. & Plakhotnik, M. (2009). Literature reviews, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical frameworks: Terms, functions, and distinctions. Human Resource Development Review, 8(1), 120-130.

Lynham, S. A. (2002). The general method of theory-building research in applied disciplines.Advances in Developing Human Resources,4(3), 221-241.

Sutton, R. & Staw, B. (1995). What theory is not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371- 384.

Assignment: Groups of students will create a conceptual framework that explains a phenomenon – the hovering of helicopter parents, the allure of college football, preference for highly ranked universities… Details of the assignment will be posted on CTools.

DUE: Identify the topic you will explore in your final paper and the 8 articles that you will include in the critique.

October 9Quality of Argument: The Big Picture

Readings:

Van Maanen, J., Sorenson, J. B., & Mitchell, T. R. (2007). The interplay between theory and

method. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1145-1155.

Kilbourn, B. (April, 2006). The qualitative doctoral dissertation proposal (529-535). Teachers College Record, 4, 529-576.

Select either Babbie or DeVaus

Babbie, E. (2011). The basics of social research (44-61). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

DeVaus, D. (2001).Research design in social research (Chapters 1 and 3). London, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Articles to critique (selected on basis of students’ interests)

Assignment: (Paper Due)Critique one of the articles. In 10 pages, please answer the following questions:

-Does the author pose significant questions that can be investigated empirically?

-What are the author(s)’ theoretical assumptions and overall argument?

-Are the assumptions grounded on previous scholarship, i.e., theoretically justified?

-What are the key study results? Do they answer the research questions and support the author(s)’ conclusions?

-How might the method(s) of inquiry have shaped the results?

-What are the strengths and limitations of the inquiry method(s), e.g., are they appropriate to the questions posed?

-Overall, how do you think this piece advances knowledge about the phenomenon of interest?

-What key questions for further research emerge as a consequence of the study strengths and limitations?

Think about, but don’t write about, what you discovered you know and don’t now about the substantive areas and methods and why you need to develop a deep understanding of both.

October 16Attending to Modes of Inquiry: Qualitative Research

Readings:

Gibson, W.J. & Brown, A. (2009). Working with qualitative data. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.Chapter 1.

Tracy, S.J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(10), 837-851.

Additional readings to be posted (from presenters and based on student interests)

Guest Speakers:

Assignment: Two faculty members will come to class to discuss an inquiry that resulted in a published

article. Be sure to read their articles carefully. Using Tracy’s eight criteria, how do you rate

strengths and limitations of the researchers’ inquiries and those of the other posted readings? For example,

do the authors’ acknowledge theirassumptions and clearly explain their inquiry process? Do you

understand how they analyzed their data and do you accept their interpretations? What aspects of the study

design are problematic to you and what questions for future research do these concerns prompt?

October 23Attending to Modes of Inquiry: Quantitative Research

Readings:

DeVaus, D. (2001).Research design in social research (Chapter 2). London, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Babbie, E. (2011). The basics of social research (94-116). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Cetin, S. & Hackman, D. (2006). An approach to the writing of a scientific manuscript. Journal of Surgical Research, 7(2), 1-3.

Additional readings to be posted (from presenters and based on student interests)

Guest Speakers:Michael Bastedo and Steve Desjardins

Assignment: Two faculty members will come to class to discuss an inquiry that resulted in a published article. Be sure to read their articles carefully. Usingthequestions that guided your critique on October 9, look closely at the other articles and the researchers’ theoretical framing, designs and conclusions. Consider the theoretical grounding, overall argument, and the research design in relation to the question(s) posed (e.g., issues related to sample selection, phrasing of survey/interview questions, scales used to proxy constructs, statistical method). Decide ifthe conclusions are warranted and identifyquestions for future research due to the methodological limitations (i.e., what gaps in understanding result from these methodological issues?) and/or theoretical framing.

October 30Different Approaches - Different Understanding

Readings:

Guba, E. & Lincoln, Y. (1994). Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. In Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Moss, P., Philips, D.C., Erickson, F., Floden, R., Lather, P. & Schneider, B. (2009). Learning from our differences: A dialogue across perspectives on quality in education research. Educational Researcher, 38(7), 501-517.

“Paradigm Wars”

Feuer, M., Towne, L., & Shavelson, R. (2002). Scientific culture and educational research. Educational Researcher, 31(8), 4-14.

Phillips, D. C. (2006). A guide for the perplexed: Scientific educational research, methodolatry, and the gold versus platinum standards. Educational Research Review, 1, 15-26.

Additional readings to be posted: Topics to be identified; each topic will have a pair of articles - one qualitative and one quantitative study – linked to it.

Guest Speaker: Pamela Moss

Assignment: Teams will be created for pairs of articles. Each team will be responsible for summarizing their answers to the following questions and leading class discussion about their two articles. What did the authors set out to do; what different types of understanding did you take away from the two studies; what are the strengths and limitations of each study? How would you improve upon these studies in follow-up inquiries?How might you integrate the findings from the two studies in a literature review? Everyone should closely examine readings on two topics - the one they lead discussion about and one other.

Paradigm Wars What are the key points in the Phillips and Feuer et al articles? What are the implications of the readings and discussions with respect to how graduate programs ought to go about preparing higher education researchers? What do you find particularly compelling about qualitative and quantitative approaches to constructing knowledge about higher education?Do you think there is a “gold standard” for research in higher education?

November 6Making Scholarship Public: Writing for Journals (ASHE CONFERENCE)

Readings:

Smart, J. (2005). Attributes of exemplary research manuscripts employing quantitative analyses. Research in Higher Education, 46(4), 461-477.

Elliott, R., Fischer, C., Rennie, D. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38, 215-222.

Donmoyer, R. (March, 1996). Educational research in an era of paradigm proliferation: What’s a journal editor to do? Educational researcher, 25(2) 19-25.

Examples of articles under review to be circulated along with review guidelines from journals.

Assignment: (Paper Due) Review draft articles using editorial review guidelines of select journals and make recommendations regarding acceptance for publication. Think about how you would tackle the editorial dilemma Donmoyer poses?

November 13Making Scholarship Public: Conference Paper Proposals & Responsible Conduct of Research

Readings:

Titus, S. L., Wells, J. A., & Rhoades, L. J. (2008). Repairing research integrity. Nature, 453(7198), 980-982.

Fox, M. F. (1994). Scientific misconduct and editorial and peer review processes. The Journal of higher education, 298-309.

Anderson, M., Ronning, E., De Vries, R., & Martinson, B. (2007). The perverse effect of competition on scientists’ work and relationships. Science and Engineering Ethics, 13, 437-461.

Martinson, B. C., Crain, A. L., De Vries, R., & Anderson, M. S. (2010). The importance of organizational justice in ensuring research integrity. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 5(3), 67-83.

Steneck, N. (2006). Fostering integrity in research: Definitions, current knowledge, and future directions. Science and Engineering Ethics, 12(1), 53-74.

Examples of conference paper proposals to be circulated along with review guidelines.

Assignment: Evaluate paper proposals submitted to higher education research conferences according to guidelines provided to proposal reviewers and be prepared to discuss your recommendations regarding acceptance.

November 20Communicating One’s Work: Writing Reports for Decision-

Makers

Readings:

To be posted

Guest Speaker: Steve Desjardins

December 4Critical Literature Reviews: Prelude to the Qualifying Paper(s)

Readings:

Torraco, R. (2005). Writing integrative literature reviews: Guidelines and examples. Human Resource Development Review, 4(3), 356-367.

QP Guidelines, Evaluation Rubric, and additional readings to be posted based on student interests

Assignment: Abstract from Torraco what he identifies as the distinguishing features of an integrative literature review. Compare and contrast Torraco’s guidelines with the QP Evaluative Rubric. Evaluate two of the readings using the QP Rubric.

December 11Critical Integrative Literature Reviews: Practice with the Process

Assignment: Critically review and synthesize the results of 8 articles on your topic and offer preliminary ideas for reconceptualizing research in a mature area or conceptualizing research in an emerging area. In both instances, the goal is to advance higher educators’ understanding of the topic/phenomenon you choose.

As you read and organize your thoughts, consider: What are the predominant ideas you are discovering about your topic – how has research on your topic evolved over time, how well does it represent the topic (e.g., comprehensiveness of coverage), what are the main concepts that recur in discussions and what are the key relationships that are assumed to exist among these concepts? What different ways of theoretically grounding inquiries can you identify? What methodological differences do you find? What gaps or inconsistencies in study results do you discover? What preliminary explanations for the inconsistent findings are you beginning to formulate, e.g., what might be due to differences in theoretical framing and/or inquiry methods? What ways of conceptualizing or reconceptualizing your topic are starting to take shape in your mind? What are the implications of these insights for how you might organize your integration of the literature?

Supplemental Readings

September 18Persistent Issues in (Higher) Education Research?

Fincher, C. (1991). The possibilities and actualities of disciplined inquiry. Research in Higher Education, 32(6), 625-649.

Conrad, C. (1989). Meditations on the ideology of inquiry in higher education: Exposition, critique, and conjecture. The Review of Higher Education, 12(3), 199-220.

Keller, G., Townsend, B. & Moore, K. (1989). Review Essay: Reflections on higher education research. The Review of Higher education, 13(1), 119-136.