CASE STUDIES

When venturing into new territory, it's comforting to know that others have been there before you and that you can benefit from their experiences. Five Research Network members who have conducted their own research projects have shared their reflections about their projects with us. Excerpts from their stories are re-printed here with notes to assist beginning researchers.

The various stages of research are noted in the left margin as they are discussed in the narrative. These stages relate directly to the steps discussed in the previous section. Comments, cautions, and words of encouragement are noted in the right margin.

Some background for each project will help you understand their stories:

Marty is a graduate student who is interested in the use of calculators, especially how they can be used during GED testing. She conducted an ERIC search to find the current trends in research regarding this topic. Her project is still in progress; she is just beginning to write up her findings. Her story reads like an exciting detective novel, a high-speed chase through the literature, uncovering interesting reports, calling up well-known researchers, tracking down obscure books...and you thought library work was boring!

Diane and Susan worked collaboratively on a single research project. They were "guinea pigs" for the Network, exploring how a university trained researcher (Diane) and an Adult Basic Education (ABE) teacher (Susan) could collaborate and draw on each other's strengths. Their story is a good example of how research is born of classroom experience, particularly students' concerns about their learning.

Antigone, an ABE teacher, worked closely with a counselor at an adult education learning center. This collaboration between two ABE educators illustrates the use of student writing samples, interviews (they talked to the school secretary and security guard as well as students and teachers), and team work.

Joan is an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher in Northern Virginia where the classes are full to overflowing. She conducted her research basically on her own, although she stayed in contact with another ESL teacher who was also conducting similar research and both of them belonged to a six-member team of researchers. The larger group of six were spread throughout the state and all were investigating possible factors in the retention of students. Her story is a good example of focusing the research question. She ended up looking closely at bonding in the classroom, mainly because it interested her. She used her own class as a case study.

Marty

IDENTIFY THE RESEARCH QUESTION	I was doing just the math portion of the TABE test - I was administering it to a potential workplace environment class and somebody asked the question, "Can I use a calculator?" Now in this particular workplace environment, the reason the company was implementing this basic skills math class was to prepare the workers to take the SPC (Statistical Process Control) course. All of the methodology dealing with SPC is calculator based, so they're going to be using their calculators in the end. In a sudden flash I just said, "Yes, go ahead and use them." and one of the people raised the question, "Won't that mask the ability...Won't that give you a false reading of the results?" I said, "Well, just wait and see how it comes out." What was running through my mind was, "Will the calculator skew the results of the test?" and in my own mind, given the number of word problems on the test, I answered that as "No." Even though there are some straight computation problems, I thought there were enough of the other kind. Even so, they did not indicate that the calculator helped them because they were scoring at pretty low levels. I think what I did - in that flash - was the beginning of my research project. That was just a totally on-the-spot, amateurish kind of thing. From then I wondered what would happen if I tried some real experimentation, if I set up a control group and an experimental group, what would really happen, and what would the difference be?	The Research comes from an "I wonder..." moment in the classroom.
COLLECT DATA	The Network suggested that I do a literature search on the use of computers during standardized testing first, before I tried any experiment. When I ran the first ERIC search on calculators, the literature divided itself into two discreet areas. One deals with calculators in instruction and the other deals with calculators in standardized testing. When I do the actual writing, I will have to develop a bridge between the two. The instructor needs to prepare the student for the tests and then, following the circle around, the test needs to test what is being taught in the instruction. You see what I mean, it just goes around and around. That's why they are very interrelated. There were copious references for the research related to instruction. There has been a lot of stuff written all the way from pre-school to the first couple of years of college. There has been a lot done with using calculators for special education populations, things like that. The ERIC data base, when I put in "Calculators" and "Standardized Test" and "Adults," turned up zero articles. The next thing was just using the descriptors "Calculators" and "Standardized Testing" - that only turned up 9, one of which I threw out because it wasn't applicable. So what I found was that on the instruction end, there were lots of references...and at the standardized testing end, it was very sparse.
ANALYZE DATA	I compiled a bibliography just out of the education index. I worked backwards, reading the current articles first. Several prominent names came to the fore, and that's what I began to focus on. Early on I developed a list of about 10 of what I called "recurring themes," common threads running through all the articles. I've had to develop a system to collect all this information and organize it. I xerox all the articles then just catalog them in different classifications. The ERIC search of calculators and standardized tests, that's in my core. Then I have the instructions file and other testing files. I do a lot of underlining and color coding. If there is an article that deals half with instruction and half with testing, I'll go through and underline the parts I think are important in different colors, based on the different themes.
COLLECT INFORMATION	Then I read about something called the "Calculator Information Center." I couldn't find out anything more about it, so I called one of those prominent researchers and asked her. It was like doing detective work! She still maintains the last vestiges of the Calculator Information research in her office and she was going to have one of her research assistants pull me something and send it to me - everyone has been super nice about it. I've enjoyed making these phone calls to these practically famous people! It's really great to say, "I read your article and let's talk about this part of it and what did you do about this and this?" There was another real important piece of research, a big booklet dealing specifically with calculators and standardized testing, and I couldn't find it anywhere so finally I turned to the College Board. I had even sent for their catalog and couldn't find it there. The fellow I talked to there said they had pulled it out of publication (it was published in 1989) because a lot of the assumptions were no longer accepted. The book was originally valued at $6-$7 but he said he'd just send me one. Next, I'd like to go to the teachers. A lot of these articles I'm reading reflect opinions of K-12 teachers out in the field. A lot of teachers are not being represented. A lot of them are just out of the loop.	Notice that she goes back for more information after she began to analyze. Research ends with more research plans!
WRITING	You can take this thing as far as you want to go with it, but I'm very conscious that there is a deadline and I've got to bring this research phase to an end and start thinking about how to put everything together. For me, the writing is very fast because I like to do it and once I get started it doesn't take much time and that's why I'm not so worried about that. What I'm worried about is saying, "I'm going to stop now and build this paper off of what I have and not try to enlarge anymore." I'm at the point now, once I get a couple more pieces, I am going to stop, but what I'm really just aching to do is extend to the international and see what they're doing. But that would entail learning all about their standardized testing system, and that's just too much.	Sometimes it'shard to stop gathering data. Stop when everything you hear (or read,in Marty's case) is basically the same.

Diane and Susan

	The participants in this collaborative inquiry project were Diane, a university trained researcher with experience in quantitative, qualitative, historical, and evaluative studies, and Susan, an adult educator with four years experience. Susan began as a volunteer tutor, became a tutor trainer, and is now teaching adult education classes in a variety of settings. Susan begins telling their story: We met to discuss our involvement in the project and to get to know each other better. Diane had some specific questions to ask me about my interests. We thought that it was important for Diane to come to my classroom to see and become familiar with the setting, since the project would be grounded in the environment and experiences of this particular classroom.
IDENTIFY A RESEARCH QUESTION	I shared aspects of my work which were interesting or intriguing to me. We sifted through a variety of topics to find one that interested both of us. In the end, we focused on interviews I had conducted with my students in October, in which I found that they felt guilty and frustrated over the amount of school work they were doing outside of class. Many were concerned that they didn't have enough time to do enough "homework" to learn quickly. I introduced a calendar activity, where I made copies of monthly calendars and the students filled in each day the learning-related activities they performed outside of class, along with the amount of time spent each day. Each student decided for himself what he would consider a "learning-related" activity. I collected these at the end of the month, and we continued with them throughout the year.
	Together we generated eight research questions. Some of the questions were as simple as "What is the average amount of time spent on outside class activities?" Other questions were more complicated, involving relationships which were not easy to measure, such as "How do outside activities effect rate of skills improvement?" or "What is the relationship between outside activities and evolution of student goals?" At that point I thought we would be able to make some statements about all of these questions. But when I began looking at the data, and writing, I was less confident that I could say anything conclusive about some of the questions. There were just too many variables. We did a lot of thinking out loud to craft questions that our data sources could answer. We questioned each other's assumptions. For example, at the onset, I told Diane I didn't think watching TV could be a relevant outside activity. She disagreed, noting that some programs could encourage students to think and students may be reading off the television (e.g. Jeopardy). When I checked this out with my students, I found that they too considered some TV shows relevant - news programs, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and educational shows were mentioned. Diane, as an outside observer, could see things that I might overlook. Her background and experience in research were very helpful in designing the questions and measurements used. Diane continues:	Focus your questions based on the information you can gather.
COLLECT INFORMATION	I'm glad Susan found my background helpful, but it presented some problems, too! I had to guard against creating meaningless, technical questions. Susan was helpful in keeping the discussion focused on finding information that would actually help her in the classroom.
	As we formulated the questions, we discussed ways to gather data. We tried to keep our sources to a minimum. We did not want to create an inordinate amount of additional paperwork and record keeping for Susan or her learners. In the end, we did not address all of our original questions. I don't think it was a matter of not collecting the detailed information to confidently answer the relationship questions, it was more that we did not have a large enough group, nor did we want to conduct the complex statistical procedures needed to state our conclusions confidently. We identified who would be responsible for what aspects of the project and the project's time frame. Susan would conduct student interviews in January and May, monitor all classroom activity and keep records, including a journal. I would conduct the literature review and help in data compilation and analysis in May and June. I also kept a journal. I conducted an ERIC search during this time. The search turned up very little. Either we were marching into uncharted territory or we were not naming our work properly. I duplicated the search abstracts and shared them with Susan. At each meeting we swapped materials and resources. We met in March, when we discussed the project and shared our thinking on the experience to date. Susan had prepared a list of questions to review and discuss. Results of this discussion and the rest of the meeting assured us that we were on the right track. Our next meeting was in April at my home. Here we reviewed data gathered to date and pertinent literature on critical reflection, program development, and Vermont's Institute for Self Reliance. We talked about our personal philosophies of adult education, sharing our current interests and concerns.	Be realistic about what you can do. Experiment with your own balance of teaching/data gathering.
ANALYZE DATA	Our purpose here was to reacquaint ourselves with the questions and to organize the data. We decided to look at the data in two ways. First of all, a case analysis was needed to see if each student changed over time. Secondly, we would compile data on all students to look at patterns. This helped us determine whether or not we needed to collect more data, or to look at the data in different ways. At this meeting we ran out of time before we ran out of work. We spent the final forty-five minutes organizing the data and deciding how to proceed. Susan felt that she should continue to compile and organize the activity charts because of her familiarity with the learners. She would then write up her preliminary thoughts and send them to me for review. We met again briefly in July to review the draft and exchange books. Further examination of the data and reading in the field lead us to the "learning how to learn" literature. Here we found more information to support our thinking. I took Susan's draft and edited it to conform to a more standard reporting format. Susan concludes: I would like to be able to say that as a result of completing the calendars, students improved academically. I would like to go further and add that the amount of time spent outside class correlated to the rate of students' progress. In truth, I can't make either of those statements. What I can say is that through this calendar activity, the students' perceptions of outside activities changed. By looking at outside activities, some students began to realize the variety of learning they were routinely doing. The results of this study were not intended to be universally applied. The students involved in this study are unique. What may be meaningful to other teachers is the process of finding out information about your own students. As more teachers conduct this type of research, we may see trends throughout many classes.	They began to analyze data that was gathered, and then decided to get more information. It's OK to go back and forth like this. Co-researchers can be on the look-out for pertinent books and articles for each other.
	My research gave me useable information about how to improve my teaching. But the research process increased my curiosity about how learning happens. I became a keen observer in the classroom. I tried out new ideas, always asking "why?" When I stepped back, I saw my class differently. Instead of saying "Class went well today" I found myself asking "What made today's class go so well?"	Simply doing research improves your ability to observe and"read" your class.
	Antigone The question was something I had thought about for a long time because I had seen students come and go so fast during my first adult ed job. I thought if we could come up with any answers that were supported, it would be rewarding.
COLLECT INFORMATION	I didn't have much of an idea of what I wanted to research before I came to the first group meeting. I knew it was going to be qualitative research and I've always gotten informative results from students from their writing. It's always helped me in my teaching. So I guess I did kind of assume I would be using student writing for data collecting. During the course of the project, I asked my students to write several pieces on their school experience and expectations. We also video-taped interviews with individual students, a group of teachers at our learning center, and several support personnel. During these interviews we asked people to talk about why so many students leave ABE before they reach their goals, and what was necessary for students to stay. I began to notice that some of the things people were saying were so universal that I would note them less frequently [in the journal] because they were just a given. And then on the other hand, some of the things I was hearing - and I started seeing them in the student papers as well - I began to realize were more serious than I had thought, like when people would say "no motivation"; that always seemed like sort of a sanctimonious cliché. I was dismissing people who were saying it until I realized everyone was saying it, so it actually had some meaning. I didn't start out to look for the idea of motivation affecting retention. That's what was such a pleasant surprise, because it really rang all the more true as an answer. I think we felt that things in the atmosphere, things in the environment of the adult ed program were going to be mentioned as causes, things that we could attribute to aspects of the program. These responses about student motivation being the key to retention show how important it is that students feel that they have come up with the reason for being there. That's sort of reassuring in a backwards kind of way, when you're convinced it's one thing and your research actually shows up something else. But that wasn't what we were expecting. How did I keep my pre-conceived ideas about the causes of retention problems from coloring my willingness to accept another solution? I think I had no choice. I just kept hearing other things. I think it's important to be organized, to have some kind of plan of action and not scramble. But I guess being flexible, not having pre-arranged what you're going to do and how you're going to do it - to the extent that you can't change when things are adding up differently - is probably the most important. I found it very useful to keep a journal for this project. It was interesting to see the differences in what I was bothering to write down over time. Some things were sort of taken-for-granted responses or observations. I wrote a few times a week. When I was teaching 4 days at one point, I was writing every day, and then of course kind of fell out of the habit with writing maybe two times, mid-way through and then at the end of the week. This semester, when I've been teaching just one class, I've begun to write in it just once a week. I wrote when I was home at the end of the day. I've observed myself listening more. I began to listen even more carefully to what the students were saying. The research project went easier because we [she and her research partner] got to decide what we were going to do so much. I was exceptionally lucky to work with someone I get along so well with. We see eye to eye and have similar perceptions to begin with, so that certainly helped. I think that, because there were two of us working together, we probably went further, did better, had more ideas. But everything about the nature of doing qualitative research was congenial to our expectations.	Note how she used several sources to learn about why students leave before meeting their goals. Her assumptions are brought to light. She adjusted her thoughts after so many people were saying the same thing about motivation. A true researcher, she is "delighted"to discover something surprising.
ANALYZE DATA	The larger group meetings were very helpful, too�the brainstorming and all the shared experiences. We had a lot in common and then a lot that was unique to each of our situations. Discussing those things was pretty thought provoking.	Antigone had analyzed the data on her own and then with a research support group.
WRITING	I did enjoy writing the paper, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I done it sooner! I feel things are missing; I would have liked to be more complete, more thorough. If I had given myself time I would have been happier.	Writing takes time - both for those who love it and those who struggle to get it done.
SHARING	We presented our findings at the VAACE conference. The whole set-up, the opportunity to go around to other peoples' presentations, was awfully nice. And the opportunity to talk about our work with whoever wanted to listen was also fun. One gentleman in particular seemed so fascinated with the topic and the results. The project results were informative and it was really inspiring in terms of what it made me feel was possible to be done. I think, "What if people continued to examine questions, to look at what students had to say?" How much adult education could be improved, slowly but surely! It was just delightful to allow myself the opportunity to ask students their opinions about retention. I feel someone has to go into a research project with interest. I'd hate to talk someone into it, but I would highly recommend it to any teacher. I think it's also a nice thing between a teacher and burnout - a buffer. It adds another dimension to the work, it's very important.
	I would tell a new researcher to listen to your students and take what they say very seriously. Match that against other things you're hearing. Of course, it depends what the research question is, or what you are trying to determine. But I think in adult ed you have to hear it from the student first. So I guess that is what I would say, to look to the students for answers or at least for hypotheses. I guess qualitative research really has some things in common with quantitative research - you can't believe what you're not seeing in front of you.	The motivation to do a research project comes from within.
	Joan I signed up for the project because it sounded intriguing. What was intriguing was the idea of doing something I hadn't done before, learning about what research was and how it was conducted. And I think the idea of research done within the class was very interesting. I don't think people look often enough into what goes on in the class.
IDENTIFY A RESEARCH QUESTION	Narrowing down our question was one of the most difficult parts. I don't think that we really understood how to do it. I'm not sure that we succeeded. At first, our question was pretty general - just "What influences students to drop out or to stay in class?" We finally focused it by just talking and talking about it - with each other and with other teachers. We began to hear a lot about class bonding. We realized that we really didn't know what class bonding was - whether there was even a relationship between bonding and retention. So we asked other teachers if they felt there was a relationship. We mainly talked to these teachers just to see if they thought we were on the right track. Everybody knew right away what we meant by class bonding, their eyes lit up when we said that because, at least in ESL class, that's something that you know happens.	Focusing can be difficult. Joan and her partner began gathering data and then focused their question. Sometimes you have to make a few false starts before you fine-tune your question.
COLLECT INFORMATION	Another time when we talked to teachers, we asked them how they knew their classes were bonding. We did a telephone survey asking teachers about bonding activities in classrooms. And to be truthful that was a great question to ask, because it brought people back to the experience. I think sometimes questions are so general and so open-ended that people's minds can't focus on them. That particular question - if you've had classes that bonded well and classes that didn't bond well - immediately brought people into the situation. Everybody could remember that happening and then they could relate to the experience and pull things out of that - "Well gee, I think a factor was this or that..."	They used telephone interviews.
	I think that the teacher interviews were very helpful, and again I don't think we ask teachers enough about what they think. All the teachers were very happy to talk to me, they were so intelligent it took my breath away. They had obviously observed phenomena in their classrooms over the years. They had drawn conclusions. They knew things, but nobody had ever asked. When I asked one teacher I was on the phone for hours. It was like she was just waiting for someone to ask her what she thought about this particular subject. We've got a wealth of experience there to tap!	These were individual interviews with a list of questions (scripted).
	I also observed my own class in terms of bonding. I started to look just at the social process. It was extremely interesting! To see when the group seemed to work well together, what told me they were working well together - to pinpoint that. And to see how the whole process worked. There were all sorts of interesting things happening. At the same time, I observed myself to see what I did to make the group function together.	A case study in self-observation.
WRITING	I tried problem-solving exercises [suggested by other teachers] and took notes on what happened. I kept track of my observations of myself and the activities in my journal. I wrote in my journal every Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed writing in the journal. It was a real pain in the neck to do, but I took notes through the week. I kept notes in my lesson plans or I would write down conversations or things that happened in the classroom and I'd pull it all together on Sunday. One thing I discovered; this was a very big class and a lot was happening on a social level all the time. It was amazing to me just how complicated human interaction is. I noticed more of what was going on in the class while I was trying to write things down. I don't know that I would have ever paid such close attention without the journal. It was like human theater, like a drama. It was like writing about a drama for nine weeks. I think that goes on in everybody's classroom. I think all these scenes are constantly being enacted.	Notice use of journal to pull an experience together.
	Writing the paper was painful! It's very hard to write and be accurate and say what you mean. I love to write but it's time consuming, especially if you are trying to be very accurate in your writing. It's like any other kind of writing; you write and then go back and read it and change this and that. There's no doubt about it, it's very hard work.	Joan kept a voluminous journal, yet she struggled with the paper.
ANALYZE DATA	There's another thing that's very hard about the writing. I don't know if other people have this problem, but for me I don't always know what I see. Or I can see something but I don't always recognize its significance. It helped to re-read what I wrote and ask, "What have I missed here? There's some piece, something interesting, something important happened here that changed the group or the cohesion process." Sometimes I would talk to my husband or my daughter. They asked questions and made comments, and I'd say, "Oh yeah! That's what I saw but I didn't recognize that it was important enough to put in the journal." One problem with writing the paper was defining terms. For example, I wrote my whole summary and then didn't define the term "class bonding." In the end, the term was defined using criteria that the teachers suggested. I read what the other teacher-researchers had pulled out of their research projects and I thought that was extremely interesting. I want to go back and look at my research project again now.	Again, she goes back to analysis in the midst of writing - quite OK to do. She asked family to help her "see" her data. Definitions of terms can be an unexpected problem. She asked teachers to define bonding.
	The other thing I got out of reading the summary was this business about the teacher playing such a critical role in retention. That's what I didn't want to put in my summary. My students all wrote about me. And they answered the questions I asked in terms of me - that it was because of me, because I set the tone, because I was friendly, and I did this, and I did that. I found that so embarrassing, and I had no idea whether they meant it or were just trying to flatter me. I think it would be useful to others doing research to keep a journal. I think it's a wonderful habit to get into, though maybe not in the detail that I did. I found that writing in my journal and observing my class gave me practical information for teaching. Now I'm teaching a program funded by the federal government. We're teaching communication skills to bank employees. The first thing I introduced was keeping a log. Not a lesson plan, which is quite different. What you plan to do is often quite different from what you really do. I made up a log sheet and introduced it to the other teachers. I got that idea directly from my research project.	You need to know exactly what you'retalking about -writing a definition helps. Remember, the researcher is part of the context for research.