It is Tuesday am. After I run the car in for a new windshield and then hike back up Main road, I have a 10:00 am with Professor R. C. We are scheduled to talk about a study I have proposed to observe a science teacher at the school across the street from where I live. A first thought is how efficient it is to conduct research without the encumbrance of IRB. I do think that between the two of us we have covered all the human rights and ethical guidelines. Maybe that is the purpose of the IRB process to make us think of these contingencies. But at USF, the process is so Blakanized that it is a nightmare. One of the main hurdles for doc. students is to learn how to negotiate the IRB submission. Stephanie has been smart in this, doing so with studies prior to her dissertation. Must make this a point. Today, R. and I sort through particulars of the study. After meeting on Monday, I sent a one-page description of the study so that he would have something to show when he negotiated access with the gatekeepers of the school system. He appeared confident that this would not be a problem, as he has “friends” who can help. I am reminded of my relationship with John Hildebrand, the previous research director for Hillsborough County Schools. Not only were my research projects OK’d, but my students’ proposals were given expedited review. So it will be, I hope, with R’s friends.
I expect we will talk about the one pager I submitted. The first time I submitted, he couldn’t open, so I saved with an earlier version of Word and resent, we will see.
Yesterday, R. sent a prospectus for a dissertation study. The proposed study was an authobiographical design of an art education teacher, focusing on her interpretation of selected experiences. I read and commented through track changes. It was a weird experience. I am a big proponent of interpretive work, especially biography, autobiography, and autoethnography. But I am also a fairly stringent methodologist. I don’t fuss about what method, but once chosen it needs to fairly well articulated, have a discernable relationship between the philosophy of inquiry, research questions, types of data, and methods of analysis. Further, I want to be confident that the writer of the study has done wide reading, not only on the impinging literature, but specifically on the methodological literature. So, a chosen method, say, stimulated recall, should be presented in its entirety: genesis, creators, variation, plus/minus of different variations, why the particular version chosen.
It occurs to me that these methodological needs may be at odds with interpretive methods such as biography, and perhaps especially with autobiography. I remember when Susan was writing her final chapter on the parents of kids who were taught at home through suspension services. She had interviewed and come to know the parents of the “school delinquents.” In fact the parents were her topic and focus of study. Her separate chapters of findings were bios on each of the parents. Very well done. When I asked for some analysis in the final chapter, she balked. She claimed that it would be an injustice to tear apart the people she had created in the writing. She also argued, rightly I think, that to create the narrative meant at least some kind of analysis. Susan’s doctoral cohort had been bathed in critical theory throughout their program, and now Susan was exercising what she had learned. While I sided with her position philosophically, I was also positioned as some kind of quality guardian for dissertation research. As an organized act of inquiry, her dissertation, I maintained had to provide some systematic analysis of the narratives it provided. I think at this point, I would have settled for a cross-case pattern analysis. But it was also possible to do a more trenchant analysis of the subtexts operating in each of her narratives, answering questions about the relationships between Susan (the researcher/writer) and the characters in her narrative (as representations of the persons she actually interviewed). How did she construct them as characters. From a Campbell perspective, how did she decide to make them the “heroes” of her narratives about them. This is where the breaks really ground the project to a halt. She refused to do this work. She claimed on ethical grounds, I think because she was leery of self analysis. But that is an unexamined judgment on my part, call it a hunch. Since I was co-chairing this project with a wise colleague, and as it happened, we both agreed on the missing aspects of Susan’s analysis, the two chairs (both named Jim) tag-teamed Susan. When her opposition to my needs for analysis stopped progress, it was the other Jim’s turn. In the end, we were able to secure very limited introspection on her part. The point of all this is that certain interpretive methods resist the shaping of a mentor. If a researcher, particularly one who is passionate about a project, comes to identify with the research, he or she may be resistant to suggestions for its “improvement.”
After speaking with R. about the work with the “autobiography student” the attention to the project becomes even more complex. I can function as a mentor, making suggestions via track changes, even meet with her about the study. But she cannot know that I will also be an evaluator (“critical reader”) for her study when she finishes it. This is a double role, and wonder how it complicates my involvement with her. On the surface, it doesn’t seem much different than what I do with doc. students at home, where we don’t have outside readers. If the student listens to the feedback as the project evolves, then making the recommended changes should result in passing. I will think about this.
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